Genreslop EditionPrevious: >>25118057/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQRESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvCPlease limit excerpts to one post.Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.Discuss the written works below for practice; contribute, and you shall receive.If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.Shitposters should be ignored and reported.Beginner guides on writing:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRM [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9s [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFk [Embed]Intermediate guides on writing:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48654.Storyhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3097766-borges-on-writinghttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23056.Image_Music_TextAdvanced guide on writing:Just do it.Theme: https://youtu.be/udrMCxDwXwY [Embed]
>Have cool character ideas>Don't know how to develop them>Get stuck for weeks on the same paragraphI hate this vocation
>>25129433I'm in a very similar boat>Throw curveballs into my own story>Wake up the next day and realize it completely fucks the continuity>Rinse and repeat daily for weeks on end
>>25129386I've read people say it shows when someone writes more than reads. Do you think it's true? Well, who does that anyway?
>>25129433>Not of seethe Mi Lord
>>25129386What does genreslop even mean?
>>251296181. Technically: tropey science fiction, fantasy, crime, young adult novels 2. Actually: anything you don’t like
>>25129621Things AI loves and will rate very highly
>>25129618Any fiction that’s actually fun and doesn’t have a le serious stick up it’s arse
>>25129618Anything vaguely not part of the extremely vaguely defined category called literary fiction. I know that's vague but it's vague.
>>25129611I probably read more than I write, even though I do them both with the same frequency, simply because reading takes less time (I can read a whole lot more words than I can write in 1 hour). But writers who don't read in general are a strange bunch. Imagine a beast who refuses to watch and learn from the other beasts on how to survive as a beast. I think it's born of liking the idea of being a writer more than liking writing.
>>25129433>have cool ideas >either know how to develop them or can figure it out along the way>not stuck just procrastinating on /wg/back into the mines with me
>study for career>work>take care of wife and children>work out>go to church>read>study writing tutorials>sleepWhen do I actually get to write?
>>25129948Next life
>>25129948He who claims to have no time to write does not write even when he does have time.
>>25129948Sounds like you have a pretty good life, so why put effort into making writing fit in your schedule right now?
>>25129976I'm compelled. It's what I want to do.
>>25129979Then why are you doing so many other things instead of it? Sacrifice one of them and write
I used to write almost every day. That was three years ago. It feels so hard to write now, even just one day, I'm starting to think my stories might not be worth putting into words. Maybe I should just stop being so dramatic and just start writing, knowing it'll all be trash but necesary to get better. It just feels awful and life's already miserable enough. Just wanted to get it out. I'm sure I'll come back to writing soon, I'm trying again tonight.
I do nothing in my free time right now other than make Claude AI overanalyze my writing. I really should put something out for review instead. But 4chan will tear everything I write down out of principle and Ribbit is Ribbit.
>>25130122Optimistic of you to think 4chan will acknowledge you at all
Ahh, nothing like another hard day of planning out my novel.
I wasted my youth writing when I could have been riding bikes. Look how much fun this lookshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uFFYKnkNfg
My prose fucking sucks. How can I get better? No, I will not read more.
>>25130695Write more
>>25130695Read more of my prose specifically
>>25129386What's a good way to make a woman who hypnotizes a man into desiring her understandable and sympathetic?And what might be some reasons the hypnotized guy forgives her and allows her to stay by his side even after the hypnosis is broken?
Gonna write a dystopian novel where humanity has grown nearly illiterate. The few readers represent an elite minority with the reader/writers at the tip top. Wondering where writers who don't read should fit into this hierarchy. Maybe some kind of pariahs, shunned by both the illiterate masses and by the reader elite.
>>25130766Make her enemy counter-hypnotize him into raping her.
>>25130768I'll bite. How are they able to write if they can't read?
>>25130779*Nearly, almost, quasi-illiterate masses. They don't and/or can't read anything more complex than let's say a menu placard.
All the best writers don't read.
>>25129948>>study for career>>workOnly 5 of 7 days of the week>>take care of wife and childrenYou divide your tasks with your wife. Marriage is a team sport, it shouldn't paralyze your sense of self.>>work outChange your routine. You don't have to do it every day, and even if you do you could keep it under 1 hour>>go to churchFake ass excuse. That's only for 1 hour on 1 day of the week>readSimilar answer to working out applies>study writing tutorialsYou can sneak it into other schedules, such as listening while working out, etc>sleepNothing clashes with sleep.You can make the time for it if you're actually smart about how you schedule your life. You don't have to do everything everyday. Divide and conquer.But mostly this >>25129957
>>25130122The most positive feedback I've received was from 4chan. It was honest, constructive, and encouraging. And it was true because anons gain nothing from dishonesty in this sort of context
>>25131026depends on the personalityanonymity effects some people by allowing them to be free of ego and engage directly with the subject matteranonymity effects others by allowing them to directly address their ego free of judgement or social consequenceslots of people give /crit/ to stroke their own ego and/or act like a cunt
>>25129948I feel you.>work as a goddamn forensic pathologist >have experienced shit that would provide near infinite material to write about >work + study + next day's prep takes up 12+ hours on an average day >live alone so I have to take care of my household and pets by myself It's tough out there bros
Haven't tried writing in over a decade. I have Steering the Craft, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, and A Swim in a Pond in the Rain on the way. Which should I read first?
>>25131247If your goal is writing, none of them.
>>25131258I realize the only way to improve at something is by doing it, however I'm also retarded and want some handholding.
Did some wrooting today. Back in the saddle lads.
>>25130766Step 1: She hypnotizes himStep 2: She feels guilty and removes the hypnosis, the man doesn't remember anything done while under hypnosisStep 3: The woman actually puts some effort in a genuine relationship with the guy (this is hard to make realistic as women generally don't put effort in anything, let alone a fucking relationship), she discovers herself, she learns to be better and consider other people's emotions etc.Step 4: The two fall in love and everyone is happy ever afterExtra step: extremely hot and passionate sex scene somewhere near the end, so that the female readers are happy.You can thank me later when Hallmark will make a movie about your novel.
Anybody tried a first person semi autobiography like Celine's Journey?Feel tempted to try
Thoughts on present tense?
>>25131446It feels personal. The past is where great stories occurred.
>>25131446Trend chasing and over used.
>>25131471Is it? I hardly ever see it.
>>25131446I use present when outlining and past when writing. When outlining it helps me focus on immediate action, which makes it easy to plot out. But when actually writing the novel prose, I prefer past, as it feels more proper storytelling, and not a sequence of actions.
>>25129995You're right. Something will have to go away. What sacrifices do you do for you writing, anons?
>>25131619>you make*Great start.
I'm that guy from the other thread who was writing a piece about the Second Year Without Summer taking place. My entire work is all dialogue since it's a therapeutic session between one of the survivors and a doctor reminiscent about the old world and stuff that happened following onwards but I can't help but feel when I re-read my work people are going to think that I'm ripping off McCarthy's The Passenger/Stella Maris How do I get rid of these doubts plaguing my mind
I'm writing two coworker characters who are ambiguously plausibly gay and plausibly not. Any tips on constructing scenes that could be used to argue for either position without becoming undeniable proof?
>>25130768I think it's interesting how for most of history reading was much more respected than writing. Many nobles knew how to read but some couldn't write anything besides a signature. Writing was for scribes and monks, it was a technical task, not a creative one. For a brief period in time, the Enlightenment, writing was held in equal or even more esteem than reading, with men of letters writing to each other from all over Europe and America. With the establishment of postal services, letters became the most important means of communication and writing was en vogue for anyone who was literate. This seemed to die out in the 20th century, as secretaries and clerks once again became the only people for whom writing was necessary and leaders/businessmen would dictate instructions. The ballpoint pen and typewriters killed the romanticism of writing and it became relegated to a purely functional task once again.
>>25131830Google "yaoi bait"
How do I know whether my comedic writing is actually funny or just cringe? Especially if it's dark humor that wouldn't bother the 4chan crowd but might not fly with the average reader.
>>25131835We text now.
>>25131830Just write them as normal friends and everybody will read gayness into it
>>25131830Have the MC walk on them sucking each other's cocks.
ESL here, so please trust that I don't write as shitty in my native language as in English.I was asked to write a series of six episodes for an online literary magazine, based on a short story I had written elsewhere. Unpaid and not necessarily super prestigious, but at least cool to do. I finished the six episodes, and sent them to the editor of the magazine.He gave feedback on the first version I wrote, which I started working on, but the feedback was incredibly harsh and disruptive.Or at least to the extent that I feel I have to change practically my entire writing style. Not neceseraly in a bad way, but in a way that I really don't care for.Now, I do respect that editor, but the task I'm now faced with is so big that, to be honest, I've lost every ounce of motivation. I wrote to him that I needed some time for the rewrite, but a month has now passed and I have absolutely no incentive to start rewritingit. I was actually ready to just drop it completely, but I recognize that this is an overreaction.I had planned to start again this week (today), but I am literally doing everything I can to postpone it, and I don't see the situation improving anytime soon.
>>25132256Can you be more specific? What was the feedback? What language do you write in?
Why do people read Dostoiévski and Tolstói as study material for prose if their books are translated?
> Please limit excerpts to one post.Hello, /wg/. I'm more than halfway done with what I think is the final draft of my novel set in contemporary Iran, the one I've posted occasionally about on this thread for the last several years... considering the current events in Iran and the fact that I included the Supreme Leader as a character at the end of the book, I figured I'd post an excerpt for you.Context: > A rogue, neurotic US intelligence analyst chud (named Gházy in the book) smuggles himself without approval into Iran to sabotage a color revolution-style regime change in the making (how he did it is a long story). A member of the civil paramilitary shoots him, but he survives and is rescued, becoming a Mahsa Amini-like martyr in the eyes of the world and indirectly causing a period of massive civil unrest and separatist insurgency in Iran.> In this part of the story, a massive protest breaks out in Tehran, and he rides from his hiding-place in the Alborz Mountains into Tehran to join in. He declares himself shah to the protestors overjoyed at his return from hiding, and with their overwhelming support, he demands an audience with the Supreme Leader, who finally agrees to meet him in a heavily-guarded religious shrine located next to the protests. There, they engage in a lengthy colloquy about Gházy's right to rule Iran. When the Supreme Leader accuses him of being a foreign imposter who risks Iranian lives by indulging them in his vain fantasy of royal splendor, Gházy responds by asking if the Supreme Leader did the same thing to the hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers who died during the Iran-Iraq War (irl, Khomeini pledged that Iran would liberate Karbala and Jerusalem in the name of religion, but after a long bloody war, he brokered a ceasefire with the United Nations instead, an act which Khomeini said felt like drinking from a "poisoned chalice"). In this excerpt, the Supreme Leader is reflecting over the bitterness of his own rule over Iran.
(1/2)It was the Supreme Leader’s turn to seek reprieve in the shrine’s dome; not from his own reflection in its mirrors like his naive novice—with which he had already confronted and found peace—but from the photos of fallen soldiers from that conflict, which had been hung up around its drum for an upcoming memorial. The old man withered under their unblinking stares; these freedom-fighters had once hung on to his every word, but their children, who were suffering steadily more hardships as the years went by, had decades to make of his flaws what they could not from the flawless, timeless imams, or the mass-printed portraits of their new, untested shah.“So the fine wine of godly ecstasy you write about in your poetry—what prevented you from serving it to this earthly realm, dear teacher? A poisoned chalice, prepared by the international institutions in the form of a ceasefire resolution?”The Supreme Leader tried to rub the weariness from his sleep-deprived eyes. Day and night, concealed inside his chambers whose domes stood in for sky, under the concavity of his very eyelids whenever he closed them, he sustained his vigil against the outside world. A pure wine indeed he had deemed himself in his ghazals, and a deadly poison as well. A recurring dream was overtaking his senescent mind…“You took a chelleh before drinking that chalice, teacher,” the shah answered for him. “You locked yourself away from the entire country, and then your people clambered over each other’s corpses to pay the price until you reemerged to end the war. So, with your faithful soldiers gone to Paradise, what did you suffer in your retreat back on Earth?”
>>25132414That is interesting if you're Iranian. If you live there you'll probably be killed for it, but it is interesting.
(2/2)How could this boy not see that this chamber did not shelter him from the consequences of his rule—nay, it was a brewing-vat of wine, in which he was slowly drowning! He had plunged into its water of life headfirst, along with the million-souled yeast of his people, and sealed its lid behind him a long time ago; the flesh of his fruit had been fermenting inside it ever since, all its sweetness consumed by his thankless subjects as nourishment, all its subtlety leached away until only the bitterness remained. The multiplying masses expended whatever air remained, into a high-pressure gas which could be confined no longer; from every corner of the shrine, the spirits of the feasting multitude simmered into an overflowing froth, lifting the dome higher and higher off its rim, its every bubble a living eye beholding its own aberrated likeness of him, all of which he knew held some truth. The dome and all the countless seething squinches supporting it coalesced and stared down on him, with the gaze of what he felt was the eye of God Himself. Round and round the old survivor sloshed about his quarters, dizzily drunk with self-absorption like an idiot dervish, flinging himself to the floor in remorse for entertaining a greater multiplicity of deliria than could be rectified in a single lifetime… he had been trapped inside this vessel of mud and brick for far too long; he was the prisoner of a panopticon in reverse, constructed from the inside out. What kind of custodian could he be for the Imam to Come? Would his efforts brew a fine wine out of this heady brew, or sour it into vinegar?----I forgot to add that the Supreme Leader Khamanei actually did write his own poetry, that's where I got the idea of wine and poison:https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1325736/khamenei%E2%80%99s-new-poem-pure-wine-and-deadly-poison
>>25132414This is actually really cool. Keep it up.
>>25132271>>25132271It's done in my native language, Dutch. The feedback boils down to that I have to be more ‘show' instead of 'tell’. So when I write ‘She looked at him angrily’, he wants me to describe this more with body language, etc. I alsp need to write more descriptions of the surroundings etc. In short: a more sensory writing style, more 'feel-like' than just the thoughts of my characters..But to be honest, I don't really care what f.e. a tram stop looks like, unless it's relevant to the story. Just as physically describing how someone looks when their pissed feels more like ‘clutter’ then just 'She looked pissed'. I feel like it's the the literary version of the Leonardo di Caprio meme I'M ACTING.I'm being rather blunt here, and ignoring the finer nuances etc. I absolutely understand that the feedback is valuable and that if I want to see the work published, I will at least have to give the feedback a fair chance. It's just very tempting to say ‘fuck it’ and leave it at that. The fact that I don't get around to writing is also somewhat worrysome.
>>25132486I'll be blunt too. He's right and you're wrong. I understand your lethargy regarding doing more, harder work, but that's what writing is about. You might think it's irrelevant to the story, but I should tell you that it is extremely relevant to the enjoyment of the reader. It might not feel like it but when you say ‘She looked at him angrily’ you're not helping the reader paint a picture in his head of your scene, you're actually doing the opposite. The reader will jump to the other sentence without really picturing what you want, because in his head the thought process will be something like this: "she looked at him angrily, but how? did she furrow? did she incline her head in a certain way? did she cross her arms over her bust too? you know what, this is too hard, fuck it." And then before long you'll end up with a bored reader because he's not seeing any fucking thing in his head and he's just "not feeling" your story. It's not clutter at all. And it's not about just giving a good description, you can convey these things with words and actions without having to say 'she furrowed her brow.'
>>25132071Texting is an inferior form of email, and email is an inferior form of letters. There's no beauty in texting, especially with autocorrect, at least there's some nostalgia to old flip phone abbreviations and emojis. Nowadays kids don't even text, they just use discord and post gifs. On a side note, one aspect of the Epstein files that doesn't get talked about is how silly it looks to discuss "intellectual" subjects via email. I'm not sure if Epstein was stupid or the emails just made him look that way. It just shows how inferior a format email was and still is. Nobody will be remembered for writing the best outlook email, it's such an ugly medium compared to the classic pen and paper letters of the 18th and 19th century.
>>25132486two different schools of thought. they're neither objectively correct nor wrong and likely nor are youyou have to learn to be critical of critique. why is the feedbacker saying what they're saying? is it a personal hang up (i.e having strong writing opinions, trying to appear smart, a tendency to parrot popular opinions, etc), are they a biased reader (genre reader or otherwise reads only one niche), are they just personally inarticulate?people who are poor at critique will often express a solution to a reader experience without conveying what that reader experience is. this is annoying because people don't like being asked to elaborate or explain where they're coming from on critique and will often get defensivetypically you should discount or outright ignore feedback that tries to course correct your work without both communicating their reasoning and perspective, and without trying to understand the form/function of your writing with the intent of it
>>25132848it's dumbass advice peddled by people who like the satisfaction of telling people what to do for the ego tripit's a meaningless truthism that applies as often as it doesn't. there are great works by great authors written in brisk, minimalist styles. not only at the top literary level either, good authors of all genres and stylistic conventions can be seen writing well with a direct voice. conversely, there are as many terrible amateur stories written in overwrought, purple prosethere is no point in saying it without knowing the context and why it's being said
>>25131835That's not really true. For thousands of years before the Late Bronze Age Collapse, and so for most of history, there was no distinction between reader and writer. These were high class members of any palace complex. This phase of human literacy was longer than the rest combined. In Greece and Rome, education become important to the aristocracy and reading began separated from writing. In the middle ages, scribes and copyists weren't the only profession of writers, and these were the least among them. It's not that creativity wasn't valued in Greece, Rome and medieval Europe, it was more originality that wasn't, and increasingly less so with time. A measure of a scribe was recording things faithfully because the authority of a text was everything Translators became increasingly important as vernacular languages did, and so did commentators. These were creative tasks. So was the creation of illustrations and illuminated manuscripts. These people become increasingly important and recognized with time.The Enlightenment doesn't kick off until the printing press becomes wide spread and commercially viable, the cost of books collapses, and the role of the hand copyist disappears. Education spreads as a result to the artisans and the middle class and even to some peasants and begins to be formalized and mandatory. Writing but particularly logic become an important part of an emerging gentlemanly code because these are the ways that newly valued original ideas are communicated and defended. Public postal services precede the Enlightenment. Writing becomes the most important means of communication the moment that pamphlets become commercially viable, again, before the Enlightenment really gets going. Writing letters doesn't die as a result of secretaries and clerks in the 20th century, secretaries and clerks had existed for hundreds of years prior. It dies because writing becomes transmittable by wire, as typewriters become viable, and as education is formalized, mandatory and nearing ubiquity. These people no longer need to spend hours dictating or writing correspondence every day. Writing isn't suddenly unnecessary or strictly functional because it can be delegated. The typewriter like the printing press before it and the computer after it are all steps in liberating creativity from the labor of writing. With each step, writing, reading and education are all decentralized, spread, and more room is created for writing to be more than strictly functional. The creative output of humanity has increased exponentially as labor decreases and access increases. Romanticism is dead and it's time for writers to catch up or just find something else to do. Clinging to this antiquated idea about the value of labor is a cope for people whose only value would be said labor.
>get critique >everyone's fine>critique my critique >everyone loses their minds
>>25132999wait, so you critiqued the critique you got? That's childish.
>>25133004Why this double standard about not being able to handle critique?
>>25133008??the critique is presumably solicited, the critique of the critique is notjust note that the person in question is not worth listening to and don't solicit them in the future
>>25133012Sounds like a bitch move. You give my stuff lazy notes and you're catching heat for it, no way I'm letting it slide.
I'm in the process of writing a pulp-style adventure/horror series of novellas. What do you think of my cover design for the first volume? My idea is to have a different minimalist symbol on each cover representing something from that particular story.
>>25133046I suggest you group the BLACK and DOG closer together by moving DOG up a little bit, and I suggest you place some sort of minimalist-style line divider between BLACK DOG and “Episode I:” like pic related. That will match well with the symbol, and better separate the uppercase and title case texthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWJhIhyz8LM
>>25133055Thanks for the feedback. I think I agree with you about moving DOG up a little bit. I'm not sure about adding in that line divider but I'm willing to give it a shot and see how it looks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm3cacHr2Wo
