"What are you working on?" editionPrevious: >>25373491/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=pHdzv1NfZRMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFk >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_Text>Advanced guide on writing:Just do it.
I think I'll finish beta reading anon's novel tonight. You're all missing out on a very interesting WIP because I just know I'm the only one of you motherfucks who actually responded to anon's call. But I won't tell any of you anything about it.
>>25391562you do know books can only be successful by word of mouth right? You're now only hurting the author
>>25391546you linked the wrong previous!!>>25383537
>>25391562Yeah you’re a beta reader, I’m an alpha reader.
>>25391606>>25391606what's the prompt
>>25391652Just:>I was sent this excerpt and asked to review the writing quality. Please give me a head start by commenting on the readability, the writer's voice, and overall impressions.
>>25391562What is the second initial of the author?
>>25391654I used the same prompt you used in ChatGPT. It gave me a writeup, so I asked to summarize it in one sentence.>A vividly talented writer with a distinctive, often hilarious voice that elevates the prose—but is so omnipresent that it sometimes overshadows the story it's trying to tell.
>I was sent this excerpt and asked to review the writing quality. Please give me a head start by commenting on the readability, the writer's voice, and overall impressions.A distinctive, live narrative voice and a genuinely accurate portrait of mania carry the piece, but overused similes, monotonous dialogue tags, and an under-signaled ending keep the payoff from landing as hard as it should.
oh great another AI thread
>>25391637That's a dead link, anon. You imagined the last thread.
>>25391623I know, I'm a sadistic freak
I am currently too shit to write the kind of stuff I actually like.What should I write for practice to get better?Should I order a textbook and do the exercises? If so which one?I won't get better without practice but I don't know what to do for practice. Currently my writing ain't even good enough to get feedback besides it being shit.I don't want to have to go back to college just for a hobby, so that isn't a option. Besides, spending 5 figures on a writing degree is far beyond my means anyway.
>>25391780???
>>25391800>“In Khert-Neter,” said Menenhetet, “there is a river of feces deep as a pit. Across it, the dead must swim. The Ka of all but the wisest, most prepared, or most courageous, will expire in that river, weeping for their mother. They have forgotten how they came out of her. Between piss and shit are we born, and in water do we die the first time, slipping off to death on the release of our waters. But the second death is in the full pits of the Duad. Do I sit before you and fart? Do you smell every odor of the constipated, the gluttonous, the sulphurous, the caustic, the fermentative, the infectious, the rotten, the corrupt, the putrescent? It is because I had to swim the river of feces, and succeeded in crossing only at a great price. I feel this excerpt from Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer should serve to answer your query.
>>25391825It has served to prove I shouldn't ask advice here.I will just get shitposted at.
>>25391546>tfw have a screenplay that's actually kicked around Hollywood some>never gotten it over the finish lineIf I could just get some fucking studio to buy/option the darn thing I'd make enough money to live on for the next two to three years. There's clearly some merit to it since it HAS traveled up the chain a little but I've never hit paydirt. I've gotta figure something out.
>>25391834I work in production and I think you should give up if the words of an anonymous shitposter vaguely (but truthfully) claiming to work in production are enough to make you give up
>>25391830Your advice is the shitpost you fuck>oh no help me I'm shit at writing what do I dooooYou already know the answer shitposter it's write more and read more books
>>25391847Fuck you and fuck off you disgusting clown.
Did my writing skill fucking plummet and deteriorate if my main reader effectively can't bother to read my stuff anymore?Or did I never have any skill to begin with?
https://www.literotica.com/authors/Dale%20Jane%20HenpartyThis is the greatest literotica author bio in the history of literotica author bios. It's a story in itself. In a way.
>>25391888both
>>25391888how should I know? maybe your reader changed
>>25391852>only taking people's insults but not their adviceyou gotta be fucking kidding me
>>25391888You probably should've gotten more readers
>>25391912Yeah, easy.
>>25391907Go fuck yourself.
>>25391845Hey, man, if you can get a studio to buy the screenplay we'll split the money 50/50, how's that sound?
What do you think of this very short chapter, right at the end of Act 2 (85-90% through the novel)? Since it's so far in it's impossible to provide context, just the fact that the Titan is the POV in question (Sarlesh)
Apparently even fanfic writers are using AI to write. https://youtu.be/U7BJiaH-MtQ?si=iq5rFpqbluHZklt5What the fuck is the point of using ai to write fanfics?It doesn't even pay so they are just scamming to make the space worse.
>>25392030Next step is using AI to summarize fiction.I think we all can agree that this is the optimal solution to AI-assisted writers.
>>25392044>Claude, summarize the book you generated
>>25392030>What the fuck is the point of using ai to write fanfics?kudos and comments
>>25392068
>>25392096
>>25392012
Gentlemen, I am at 60k words. Approximately 80 to 90% done.
>>25392124
>>25391914
>>25392028
>>25391800
>>25392157Fuck you too.
>>25392162
>>25391546A few years ago, I wrote maybe 5 pages of a screenplay about two men in black investigating a bank run. I stopped writing it because I wasn't sure where the plot was going, but it would have had something to do with the MCs being overworked while desperately trying to expose corruption. I might tinker with that idea a little bit in the near future.
>>25391637You had one job...
>>25391800Write it anyway. Keep it around. When its time comes, you'll come up with ways to improve it. Until then, your dislike of it will keep you motivated to get better at writing. No need to obsess over the finish line. Creation is very nonlinear.
>>25391888How much do you pay your reader?
>>25392096>>25392113>uses AI to generate a reply to nothing>can't even be assed to stitch the images togethertrue low effort postcrap like this is what will motivate ai to achieve the terminator scenario
Is it feasible to trim down a 130k word manuscript to a 100k one after one round of editing, without sacrificing major plot points?
>>25392356If your writing is abysmal dogshit I could trim 150k into a 20k without losing anything of value.Retarded question.
>>25392356Depends.It's not like I have seen what you are working with so there simply isn't enough information to say anything informed about your particular situation. In the abstract it's possible. But how realistic such a edit down is depends entirely on what's being edited.
An American novelist living here hired me to translate one of his novels to our language. He liked the job and now wants me to adapt the novel into a screenplay - just the pilot tho. I've never written a screenplay before. Any tips?
>>25392372Seems like it's his job to write the screenplay and your job to translate it.
>>25392372>>25392398This. What the fuck is he thinking? You better be getting 30-40% cut for the screenplay if he's going to pull that on you.
>>25392372>Any tips?Get a proper contract and have a lawyer look over it or you will get fucked. The entertainment industry is brutally cutthroat. Even if he means well some industry suit will see screwing you over to increase their cut as just normal business.
>>25391562I commend you for being so supportive.
>>25392028I think the beginning should go:Sarlesh had never witnessed anything like it. The Suran Plaza swelled like (insert some descriptor). All had gathered to hear Leonard speak. (People or The citizens or The citizens of ____) were perched on roofs, leaning on etc. The memory of his duel with Leonard (scratch Last. Have they had more than one duel?) came unbidden. It felt etc.
>>25392028Second paragraph cut out They found no trace of the Bravoes. Go straight to next sentence.
>>25392028Third paragraph cut out the "but". Make it 3 sentences.
>>25392578Also maybe just keep the 2nd sentence just The Suran Plaza swelled.
>>253920286th Paragraph You've got "The hour has finally struck" and then a few sentences later "The time has finally come.."I'd either start that like "Valient people of Kedesh it has been a.." or change the other to "Take up arms to defend YOUR homeland..."
Thoughts? on this McCarthy prose: When he crashed into the glade among the cottonwoods he fell headlong and lay there with his cheek to the earth. And as he lay there a far crack of lightning went bluely down the sky and bequeathed him in an embryonic bird’s first fissured vision of the world and transpiring instant and outrageous from dark to dark a final view of the grotto and the shapeless white plasm struggling upon the rich and incunabular moss like a lank swamp hare. He would have taken it for a boneless cognate of his heart’s dread had the child not cried. It howled execration upon the dim camarine world of its nativity wail on wail while he lay there gibbering with palsied jawhasps, his hands putting back the night like some witless paraclete beleaguered with all limbo’s clamor.
>>253920288th paragraphTake out 'seemed to'. "The earth shook beneath.."Change ';even' to 'and,' in the second to last sentence. Why is it so much more surprising that the city watch are surprised if accedemia and merchants are as well?
>>253920289th paragraph Change it to "father, mother's, sons, and daughters" forget the "orphans". Even orphans are sons and daughters right? They just don't know who their parents are.
>>25392028The rest is fine.
Sketch of a worker upon pressing a key on the keyboard and finding it sticky Sadly does it. Come on, c’mon, sadly does it: fleeting impressions, depressions, on the black cubes. Cubes ish. Cubelikes, rune-inscribed, fleeting depressions on the runescribed cubelikes, sadly does it, do it now: bang flash crash wallop, brilliant streaming light, rune on the rectangle, rune on the rectangle! Mayday, MAYDAY, sadly does it, rune on the rectangle. Depress again the runescribed cubelike. Depress again the runescribed–sticky, unbudging, firm. Think irritated thoughts. Feel the stodge, the unwillingness to move. Mayday, MAYDAY, happily does the rectangle bear no rune, no new rune, feel the stodge and indeed the friction, think irritated thoughts. Think–you are encased. A white box, a little mouse inside, a little encasing cubicle of white walls and black cubelikes and rectangles and some personal paraphernalia. Irritated thoughts, escalate the issue–first, no, first look. Look, personal paraphernalia. That is your daughter, encased in a rectangle, frozen in time. Look, standing next to her, in another rectangle, oh lovely, it’s your wife. Two nonmovers accompany you in your irritated thoughts. Oh goodness aren’t they pretty and still. Sadly does it, try again. Depress the cubelike–resistance. It resists you. Must escalate the issue but–look, you left your book out. You read a page while eating a sandwich. You parsed none of it. Look, the brightwhite screen is dimming, dimming, quick MAYDAY, you were lost in thought, lost for too long, far far too long, get back, MAYDAY, sadly does it, mash the cubelikes, yes sadly does it. Similar resistance. Your thoughts be dammed, none flow through, thoughts be damned who needs ‘em. Thoughts are stodgy too. They stick and do not budge nor yield when met with stimuli. It’s okay, it’s all okay. You know someone who can fix it. You know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows how to unbudge the cubelikes–quick, quick, escalate it, the issue, sadly does it, ESCALATE IT NOW. You exert yourself and straighten your legs and stand up–well done. The chair skirts slightly on wheels. A whine–needs oiling or something. You know someone who knows someone who can do that sort of thing–escalate soon. Always escalate, never bottle up. Always. No problem is a silly problem, we all know this. You, stood up, cannot see over the walls of your white box, you little mouse, you can’t climb these walls. You know it, stop thinking it. Think irritated thoughts–MAYDAY, too-firm runescribed cubelike, must escalate. One last look at daughter then wife–pleasant–no, one more at wife then daughter–pleasant–stop stealing time–MAYDAY, ESCALATE–you are not special–ESCALATE THE ISSUE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT–because it does—sit back down idiot—remember?—there’s a channel for this now—use your phone if you must.
>>25392617Also maybe just keep that one to only "sons and daughters". Everyone is a son or a daughter. And since you're talking about them being the children of the city it makes sense that the citizens are all sons and daughters of the city itself.
>>25392627ESCALATE THE ISSUE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON ITKekThe rest is bullshit.
>>25392604Sounds painful
>>25392578>>25392579>>25392582>>25392586>>25392601>>25392612>>25392617>>25392622>>25392639replying to your own critique request to generate interest is bad enough, but splitting your replies into multiple posts where one would’ve sufficed is next level
>>25392658Don't care. Fuck off.
>>25392658Also I genuinely did not write that. I'm helping out a fellow writer instead of being a faggot like yourself.
>>25392658Kill yourself
>>25392658faggot
>>25392650You don't like it or it sounds painful because it is painful in the story?
I'm the anon who previously did a lot of technical writing for work, and I'm trying to develop literally any kind of creative voice at all... I know you'll probably say this is a bad idea, but I'm taking a few scenes from something I wrote, submitting them to chatgpt for feedback, rewriting them, re-submitting, etc... to see if I can get better.I managed to improve from:>The prose is serviceable but rarely memorable, the dialogue often serves exposition more than character.to>The prose is functional but fairly anonymous. The dialogue is probably average. Not bad. Not especially distinctive.Please clap
What is your opinion on writing outside the vernacular when it comes to fantasy or historical fiction? I'm not just talking about made up terms that just sound alien in English, but idioms, expressions etc translated to English, in a way to "spice up" the language and not make it seem like typical anglo-saxon fantasyI know it is often discouraged (anything that requires thinking outside the box and straying from the norm is, apparently)
>>25393159Provide examples.Especially if it's historically accurate it could make the work better, I think.>anything that requires thinking outside the box and straying from the norm is, apparentlyDoing outside the box things is a good way to ensure you don't get published or get a following. Or, if you do it well, you'll be praised for being unique. If you care what readers think you shouldn't be a writer though.
>>25393159Read other myths and folklore from other culture. Chinese and Persian are probably good places to look.
>>25393086What he’s describing sounds painful
>>25393164>examplesThe best example I can think of is Clockwork Orange, and the use of the Nadsat slang, that does heavy work in building the setting and establishing that this alt history world is indeed alien and different than ours, way more effectively than paragraphs of exposition would.Obviously, using made up words or idioms or borrowing from other languages is heavily discouraged upon due to it oft being confusing for readersOne thing I am doing, given that French is my third language, is injecting French epiphons or idioms during dialogue spoken by the folk that come from this fictional place inspired by French regions, as to give flavour to their voice. Another example is using made-up argot for the young orphans of a gang that wouldn't speak as you would expect someone from a typical English-language fantasy story to do.
>>25391845I also work in production and I think this anon is incorrect
>>25393321I also work in production and I disagree
>>25393132Congratsit's not difficult to develop your own voice, but you have to practice, just like technical writing reallyand just like technical writing, bear in mind that fiction follows its own style manuals>>25393288you do you booif those idiots are right about publishing, Kipling and Orwell would never have been published
>>25393384I also work in production and my butt itches
>>25392604I am convinced peosefags only care about word obscurity and sentence complexity. Shit like this makes me hate literature. I care about story telling, not wanking over who has the most extensive vocabulary or who can use a reference books the most while writing. That shit doesn't impress me. It just makes the story worse and makes me think whoever wrote it has a ego related to trying to seem smarter than they actually are. It's very midwit coded.
>>25393479I was kind of joking that I hadn't really made any improvement. It's so hard to not write completely flat.
>>25393571i would tend to agree with you but mccarthy's descriptors always paint a very cartoonish and comedic scene for me but always underscored by dread and reverence for the brutality of existence.
>>25393631the past 3 decades of my life I myself went from writing fanfiction to writing formal corporate reports back to fanfiction and then on to a doctoral thesis (in very classical 90s style), so yeah, I understand the challenge of yo-yoing between styles(my thesis supervisor's most frequent complaint was that I wrote like a novelist)but it's just something you have to train yourself to doand the only way to do that is by practice and by reading style manuals
What's a good way of figuring out what your target demographic actually likes and doesn't like when it comes to overall writing style choices?I keep tripping over little stuff like if profanity should or shouldn't be in a story, or how violence and sexual content is depicted, and especially on how much or how little things should be explained.Most of this could be cleared up if I knew exactly where the line was for my ideal audience demographic, but instead all I can find is general stuff that insists on extreme aversion to anything even slightly edgy, romance and fanfic women who insist on billions of tags and hiring on of them as sensitivity readers, and the other extreme who insists that anything less than intentionally being offensive and provocative is wrong and kills the legitimacy of the artistic expression. Or useless platitudes like "[whatever potentially offensive thing] is fine if it's written well, but if it's not then it's offensive and shouldn't be written.""No I can't define what I mean be written well. You should just know."Mostly it's just annoying dealing with people who have zero interest in the kind of stuff I am writing for a totally different demographic telling me my work is shit because it doesn't match their expectations. Like complaining about the lack of romantic tension...in a short detective thriller that was never meant to have any romance.
>>25393705>What's a good way of figuring out what your target demographic actually likes and doesn't likeread the books published within that segment is the most basic requirement
>>25393705>I keep tripping over little stuff like if profanity should or shouldn't be in a story, or how violence and sexual content is depicted, and especially on how much or how little things should be explained.Well let me ask you questions that you should have answers for:>Are you writing for actual kids?>Are you writing edgeshit for teenies?>Are you writing a mature story for adults?>Are you writing for retards, for smart people?
>>25393717I would prefer to write edgyshit for teen and young adult males but the current crop of people in their teens and twenties are hypersensitive and have zero tolerance for almost anything even slightly edgy. To them shit like hasbin hotel is the very border line of edgy to exist and anything beyond that is a war crime. I remember one story I wrote that was inspired by a children's show (detective Conan) involving suicide was deemed offensive because the very plot line of someone intentionally staging a suicide to frame someone was deemed totally unacceptable. Not how I wrote it, the very concept, which came from a children's show, was too "problematic" to even discuss because it was too offensive. Meanwhile people who are around my age see edgyshit as far too childish to bother with. So ether way I can't really get away with writing anything that is actually edgy. That said when I try to write totally PC stuff it's extremely boring and intolerablely bad according to my own taste, mostly because my heart isn't in it.If I knew where exactly the line was I could probably work within that, but there is no clear line of what is and isn't acceptable so I am forced to play it extremely safe if I write towards that demographic. Mature adults general mostly read old stuff or if they are a woman then some flavor of romance, which I can't write. So it's pointless to go after that demographic since they don't read new stories. At least I haven't seen or heard of any dudes my age that read anything that isn't at least a decade old.I have no clue what legitimately old people read besides the Bible. So probably isn't a great idea to try and write for that demographic.
>>25392372Schizo question but is this novelist in Warsaw?
>>25393809>I have no clue what legitimately old people readpeople in their 70s today were born in the 50sthey read all the classic 20th century novels you can think of, Tolkien, Kerouac, Hemingway, Christie, Asimov, Grisham, Archer, Forsyth, Robbins, etc
>>25393809Ignore everyone bitching about how offensive something is. If anything, if you write something genuinely offensive without trying to, it might give you exposure.Keep in mind that more that you narrow your audience, the less readership you'll get. On the contrary, the more you broaden your audience, the more dipshit retards will read your stuff.I like to think that I write for the intellectual elite, so I barely explain anything, frequently assume that the reader will not get anything, and if they do, they're really fucking sharp. That being said, I barely have readers, so make what you will of it.If you write typical YA shit, I would say do not care AT ALL for whether something will be perceived as "offensive" or "extreme" as long as you are trying to tell a story, rather than just offend people for epik libtard owned points. Would you really want someone who tries to stomp out creative thought as your main audience?With all that in mind, I don't know your style, so I can't tell you a one-size-fits-all, but generally I would broadly consider profanity of any degree to be fine, as long as it's not racial or religious -isms. Violence, gore, rape, pedophilia, suicide, drug abuse, all of those can make their way inside YA literature, as long as you know how to present it.For example, I have a girl who was almost prostituted in a child porn production ring. She doesn't go into any details, just flatly explains (in a way the reader can easily guess) why she didn't actually fall victim to it, and the MC walks the rest of the thought process in his head. Not once explicit wording or explicit explanation of what would be done to her is stated - I assume the reader is an adult, like the MC, and can guess her adoptive sister murdered their adoptive parents to stop it.All this while I assume my audience will be 16-21, so one year older than the girl in question.Write what you want, anon. I really mean that. Just know that writing something doesn't guarantee readership, but that doesn't mean you should bend over backwards to please vile or stupid people.Not that there is something wrong with pleasing stupid people - simple books have their place, too.
>>25393809ESL spotted>I would prefer to write edgyshit for teen and young adult males but the current crop of people in their teens and twenties are hypersensitive and have zero tolerance for almost anything even slightly edgygo to your local bookstore, go to the bestseller / YA list, pick out the top selling Sarah J Maas horseshit, and READyou'll change your mind somewhat>hasbin hotel>wiki>critically acclaimedwut>Detective Conanstill a mega long-running series with zero calls for cancellation despite that epic beheading in the very first fucking issuegranted the pantsu shots and swimsuit episodes probably will draw comment these days, but it won't kill your sales. have you read the sex scenes in YA novels?(clearly not)>was deemed offensiveBY WHOM>people who are around my age and how old are you?
>>25393830> Sarah J Maas The woman who writes romance novels for adult women and is almost entirely read by adult women in their mid to late 20s?
>>25393843you said>>25393809>teen and young adult>>25393809>the current crop of people in their teens and twentiesher main protags are 18 and 19, i.e. "barely-legal teens"once again, it's clear you're making a lot of assumptions without having the slighest clue about what's in your targeted segment, so do some fucking research
>>25393848My target demographic isn't romance readers.I don't write in that genre at all.Most of what you said is stupid and in part wrong, with the wrong conclusions. As such I don't respect your opinion as you are clearly talking out your ass and don't know a damn thing.
>>25393717>>25393809No one is ever going to read my work anyway, so I may as well embrace offensive content. Any uproar that results is just free publicity.>>25393820This.
>>25393705if you're writing for mass market audiences you should ignore their opinions because they're slop slurping cattleif you're writing for core readers then you shouldn't try to expect their opinions because the work can speak for itselfjust write something good (either an entertaining consumer product or a literary work) and don't get wrapped up in that shit
Does this read like a parody of a 70s show?
>The writing is clean but rarely surprising or memorable. There's little sense that the narrator has a personality.Well ChatGPT now agrees with everyone who's ever met me
>>25394401Bologna wouldn’t kerplunk
>this is who you're asking for advice on your work
>>25394916>ask AI to translate a post>can't because it's filled with violence>ask why it's withholding information from me>says that it's not and translates the violent part of the post, completely ignoring the rest>"So you just translated the violent part, but refuse to translate the rest?">"Yes"I can't believe AI would GigaChadpost me but here we are.
i will not engage in the discussion of this shill topic, negative or positive.someone post something for me to critique.
>>25395065shamelessly bumping my piece >>25392028
>>25395096the writing was ok i guess, not really my type of content. the only thing that stuck out to me was 'hand cannon' feeling a bit awkward compared to the rest of the prose. some stories feel like they follow the same themes but yours feels like names were simply swapped out of something else, this is of course without knowing any context. your boltshot slaughter from the last post you made felt like it mirrored the red wedding from GoT in some ways, roles moved around but the result the same. obviously i can't give any advice on plot/story and you didn't ask for it, but that's my two cents. mostly unoffensive writing. ok maybe if anything i'd just encourage you to break out of those dialogue tropes - i mean this in the way that everyone has heard these before and you're hardly going to arouse any empathy of spirit from the reader by using them. 'liberty or death' 'swear an oath' 'bear witness' 'shall not' 'bloodshed' blah blah. none of it makes me care, real life examples of this type of rallying call are all shallow and made to put meat on the field.
>>25394887What onomatopoeia would you recommend?
>>25395065>>25395123>"give me something to critique">"it was meh"not that anything is expected or demanded of you but you come off as nothing but unenthusiastic
>>25394862how many yrs since your parents put u on "meds"
>>25395230mediocrity is the hardest thing to give feedback on
>>25395219nta but splat
>>25395258I'm almost 40. I've never been on psych meds, but I was on some pretty serious allergy/asthma meds as a kid. It came out years later that the prescription strength ones were fucking with peoples brains, so who knows.I'm actually going to note that down as a zombie story idea.
>>25395262what exactly did you expect on a mongolian basket-weaving forum?
Why no thread where we shill our writing? Is that too much?
>>25395311Something to make fun of or laugh at to make myself feel better about myself. Something that isn't deeply flawed has nothing to make fun of so it's boring to me.
>>25395419Wng is where the shilling of stuff happens. The rest of lit doesn't read indie or new stuff so it's pointless to shill to them.
>>25395426at least you're honest about it
>>25395269Glad to hear you've never been on psychiatric meds. But it was my first idea for why you and your writing come across as "bland".
>>25395419Advertising/begging is against /lit/ rules. In the past, I've noticed shilling is only tolerated (grudgingly) if you're giving your product away for free.
>>25395575Sounds like you are just slinging insults indiscriminately.
>>25395584Sounds like you're not reading. "Bland" comes from >>25394862
>>25395311We occasionally get good writers. I remember Rabbit Killer (or was it rabbit catcher? such dim memories). I also wish Hell-Anon had finished his novel.
>>25396140It's rare for anyone to finish
Esl anon here, wrote this initially in romanian and translated it myseld.Is it bad?
>>25396215Bad? No. Clunky as fuck? Yes."Methane gas" doesn't need clarification. Just like "water liquid" doesn't. I don't know if anyone would call it "third world war" rather than World War Three, unless you're on 8th or something, and the shock value kind of faded by then.I'd say focus less on translating and more on transcribing the meaning.Also>All except one, the Bunker>...This was no ordinary BunkerYeah, I would guess, given the "the".tl;dr stop overexplaining things. That's the most helpful thing I can tell you.
>>25396215why would they willingly worship "evil"?most unironic evil-worshipers do not call it "evil", they call it "quds" and "adl"it's bad in English, but the structure is essentially alright. IF you clean it up in Romanian it might be decent. you do not have the skills to do a good translation in English.>>25396231>stop overexplaining thingsI take the opposite view. he needs to explain more, but in an engaging way.
>>25396238>but in an engaging way."Just write gooder" isn't really advice.I subscribe to the>get to the fucking pointideology. If you're writing something, tell me what it is, and if you have some evocative funky words to use - use them. Stop trying to hide the plot behind a thesaurus. I frankly have no patience for pretentious fart sniffers who want to wrap everything in obtuse paragraphs of randomly stringed words that technically make grammatical sense, like McCarthy.Write poems or some shit if you want to string pretty words together. If you have a story to tell - don't. Be like Orwell.
thoughts?
>>25396159Not true. >>25380611
>>25396268Your missing the time of day in your slug line
>>25396273you’re*
>>25396268"Brokeback Mountain" by Larry McMurtry beat you to it.
>>25396277Now you just hold your horses for one sec, partner.*holds his horse and begins stroking it furiously*So what was that, that you was sayin' about beatin'?
>>25396243>"Just write gooder" isn't really adviceyeah, I only have time to throw in a 1-liner1/2-liner, really.>Be like Orwell.I know what you're referring to.Orwell's advice is very good for technical writers, academics, and journalists. In fact it should be the essence of the professional writing style manual.>obtuse paragraphs of randomly stringed wordsis not what I am asking anon to write, however.
>>25396277larry mcmurtry doesn’t have a monopoly on the gay cowboy genre
>>25396271Half of these needed serious editing. And many more aren't even worth reading
>>25396285Post yours.
>>25396290I never finished one, hence why it's rare
>>25396283All new entries in the gay cowboy genre will be compared to Brokeback Mountain. You don't want your entry to feel limp.>>25396285You're moving the goalposts. The claim >>25396159 was "it's rare for anyone to finish".
>>25396303we must take things on their own merits
>>25396303Out of all the authors that have attempted something, we have at most 20 books. That's rare. There was a wizard in a tower story Hamburger story Gay twink serial killer Endless fantasy stuffFat bastard ntr Hell anonVictoria That's the top of my head. None of these will ever be finished
>>25396314>Gay twink serial killerDark Triad?
>>25396281Nell from "Dudley Do-Right" beat you to that. How about, instead of going for perverted outrage, you write something that has meaning to you, so that your work has a chance of touching someone else's heart?
>>25396314You literally didn't read the list. >>25380611
>>25396306That's not how literature fans/critics work. Your work will be compared to others in what appears to be its genre. One of the key questions an agent asks an author about the work they want to sell is how it compares with other contemporary works in the same genre. Our work is definitely competing for attention from readers.
>>25396328I think the easiest way to get readership is to simply find and assassinate other writers.
>>25396314huhno SF, detective, military, nohomo cowboy stuff?classic men's literature
>>25396319No there was a really strange cyberpunk story about some gay pirate and he goes around killing priests
>>25396336>cyberpunk story about some gay pirate and he goes around killing priestsI should write my cyberpunk story about a guy and his "cleaning service" maids in notVenetia already.In fact, does anyone want a sample?
>>25396333That didn't work out so well for Jack Unterweger, Nancy Crampton Brophy, Kouri Richins, or Krystian Bala.
>>25396328of course if you have no literary judgment, no ability to see a work as it really is, you spend your time groping for guidelines like what reviewers have said or might say about it, what class it seems to fall into, where it seems to be aiming, whether its style strikes you as normal or not - which is far easier to decide than whether the thing is any good or not.
>have to write interesting women>don't know any interesting womenAny of you guys found ways around this problem without writing her as a doormat or manic pixie dream girl?
>>25396314what the FUCK is Victoria?
>>25396381You write them like you would a dude and just say they have a vagina.
>>25396386I've done that, but I feel like you can tell when that's being done.
>>25396381steal one from someone else’s novel.
>>25396389evidence?
>>25396363People with no "literary judgment" make up a far, far larger proportion of potential readers than the alternative.
>>25396392
>>25396393in any case they make up 50% of the people in this conversation.
>>25396382Chinese cultivation worm.
>>25396397>DEI hires in a shitty hollywood revival is a perfect example of how it's impossible to write women like men in a novel!really?>>25396402I'm sure this was an epic pwn in your head.
>>25396382Queen Victoria of the Jeets
>>25396427?
>>25396454oh i thought you were calling me a Chinese cultivation worm because I didn't know what Victoria was. that's my bad>>25396446I'm guessing nobody likes Victoria
>>25396381My two female characters so far:>literally just my sister with the name changed>composite personality of my sister, a historical figure, an anime character, and my own mental issues projected onto a genderswapped version of myself
>>25396486Everyone loves Victoria
>>25396508Why?
>>25396159I've finished. I'm just never gonna get published cuz the industry hates outsiders
>>25396159i finished on her tummy
>>25396520Real men finish inside.
>>25396522real dummies
>>25396513It's about a cute and funny girl
>>25396534that explains it
>>25396381get to know womenordon't write women>>25396397>>25396389>I've done that, but I feel like you can tell when that's being doneyour problem is that you wrote an obnoxious cunt of a man and then called him a "woman"if you're going to play the genderswap game (which only creates a shallow version of a woman the same way that a woman writer trying to write a man invariably writes a woman with a penis), then you have to at least start by writing a man who would be likable even if she was a man
>>25396381women are not interesting. if you wrote an interesting woman, you wrote a male character. men should not want to read about realistic women.
>>25396576it’s the one subject of all true poetry. water to water, ark again to ark,from woman back to woman
>>25396611no, the romanticized ideal of a woman is the subject of poetry. women as they are, are not.
>>25396680that’s a cliche.
>>25396576If you want to sell books or films you need to write with women in mind they consume far more than men
>>25396576Women are very interesting. If they weren't then I wouldn't want to have sex with them and spend time with them
>>25396780This nigga wants to spend time with women. I want them to be quiet and do chores. we are not the same
>>25396773if you want to sell books or films you make romance slop which 1 dimensional characters, both male and female. this is what women read.if you have aspirations of writing something good but still want to sell, you make compromises to women that won't read your work anyway.if you want to write something for the purpose of writing something good, you don't care what women think, or most readers for that matter.
>"I don't yet feel like someone is telling this story."I thought I was improving
>>25396943you will never improve as long as you give any credence to the idea that an llm should be anywhere near your creative works.
>>25396786Yeah, that other guy has a gf
>>25396381Do you have to write women?Like is there any way to get around it in the story you are writing?I can't give advice on how to make anything interesting. All my writing is too boring to read by default.
>>25396381If your first concern about your character is any aspect of their external identity, be it their gender, race, height, weight, etc, your story is probably already dead on arrival. Decisions made under pressure determine the content of a character.
>>25397057That's stupid. Fuck all the way off.
>>25397061>t. wonders why his characters are one-dimensional
I still have some of my old writing books from college... maybe they have some useful advice in them.
>>25397066I ain't that guy, I just calling out your bad advice.
>>25397083still have mine from secondary school>How great it was to be alive, I thought, while a nearby salamander devoured a fruit fly
>>25397096Congrats on that grade, but I meant textbooks.
>>25397104writing textbooks? in the UK they don’t exist beyond key stage 2 (7-11) but yeah share the wealth. what the hell is an adverb?
>>25397115Well, they aren't really text books. Of the two I still have, one is "Ron Carlson Writes a Story" which... I'm not even really sure how to describe it. The other I have is a huge book of short stories and a few essays on writing.
>>25397029>that other guy has a gfsucks for him. Hookers and porn all the way. Way less of a head ache. Better than getting bitched at and oushed around all day
>>25397124probably anthology is the word you’re looking for.
>>25396786great line from oliver reed (notorious womaniser): ‘maybe i have a fetish or something but i also like talking to women’.
Does one have to have had romantic experiences to write romance?Like can a autistic incel potentially write a romance novel of average quality?
>>25397232Yes. Copy those that have
>>25391546Something I wrote a while back:There's this drain made of gravel that's falling in on itself, filled with a viscous black slug, an amalgamation of algae, that stares back at you, at the corner of an alley I pass every day; I can't remember when I began to notice this drain; I can't remember when I began to feel loose gravel under my feet, but I can't remember a time when I didn't know that feeling or sight. I know every house inside and outside of that alley; the chipping of their paint, the rusting of their gutters, the rotting of their wooden fixtures. Sometimes the algae in the drain is removed; sometimes the drain is filled, but it's never repaired. Living costs cut into maintenance costs, and the sun rises.But I do remember the first day when I realized the sun was shining on my face. My shirt stuck to my skin, and streams of water ran down it and my hair as I reached the gates of my job; my boss looked at me like I was a wounded animal and told me I could go home and change if I liked. I walked back home through that same alley, soaking wet and being beaten by the sun, and at that moment, I realized I'd never appreciated the gentleness of the sun rays on my cheek. I couldn't help but think of St. Francis of Assisi's refrain "Brother Sun, Sister Moon."
>>25397232No. Definitely not. Romance stories have nothing to do with realism. Dating is actually the least romantic thing in the world. It's just foids carefully balancing her harem of desperate losers, and justifying why some drug dealer with one foot in jail will provide her with the most stability for her children.
>>25396860Romance is out of vogue in film.
I am starting to think I ain't cut out for creative writing. I have spent my life of writing trained to be as understandable and clear as reasonably possible. I can't do the flowery bullshit that is expected of fiction writing. I mean I sorta can but it disagrees with my writings sensibilities. I also am tired of subtext. When I try to include it the reader draws totally different conclusions. If I am direct then the reader expecting subtext will start just making shit up I didn't write or mean at all.I think maybe it's best if I think of ideas for a non-fiction book as my next writing project. There are objective standards in nonfiction so I don't have to beg and plead for scraps of feedback. Instead I can just check for myself if it's good or not.I also can just focus on being clear and direct. So subtext. No trying to find the most convoluted way possible to phrase a sentence. No trying to make each sentence as original as possible even if it makes reading the paragraph a slog. No constantly hunting for obscure and out of use words.I can just communicate clearly, concisely even.The most frustrating thing is there are plenty of great books that use clear and simple language and focus on storytelling but for whatever reason now everything has to read like it came out of a post grad nfa program to be considered proper writing.
>>25396399The other 50% are edgelords who have a tween's standard for what passes as cleverness.
>>25396495Seems to me like a perfectly sound way to create characters. The fact that you can write them based on your experiences will give them depth and bring them to life.
>>25396516Just self-publish. It's not like tradpubbing works anymore anyway.
>>25397191I'm not surprised to learn you suffer from an extreme case of arrested development. You're on the road to going extinct & nothing of value will be lost.
>>25397089You're an idiot with nothing to contribute
>>25397570You are a egotistical retard who is actively detrimental to the thread with you bad advice.
>>25397550Your writing, at least in what this post shows, is perfectly acceptable for fiction.It may be that you are trying to write a subject matter that is too complicated for your current writing capabilities, so you need to practice more at this level before trying to play with subtext.I've been there too, and I spent years trying to figure out how to guided readers to reach the conclusions I want. (Especially the retards of today.) It's a training process we all have to go through. Don't be impatient.As for nonfiction, as a doctoral graduate let me tell you that it is less difficult than fiction in some ways but way way more difficult in others. Especially in today's environment where you can be fact-checked by readers so very hard, so very easily.>everything has to read like it came out of a post grad nfa program to be considered proper writing.That's because "postgrad", or to give it its proper name, research methodology - the real stuff, not the third-world copycats, rubbish published for "optics", and politically-motivated nonsense that makes up 99.999% of academia today - is designed to eliminate uncertainty and prevarication, prove that you KNOW YOUR STUFF, and believe it or not, be easy to read.But you don't have to go that far. Start from Strunk & White, it's still the foundation of effective modern English writing. Most else is simply rephrased S&W, or DEI nonsense.As for structure, follow the classical ILMRD format in as simple English as you can, you will go far.
>>25397600No u. You have no counterpoint to my advice; it just hurts your feelings so you're lashing out
>>25397644My count point is that your advice is malice and malignant and you are intentionally trying to give bad advice founded on spite.You are projecting your own hurt feelings that your trolling and demoraliazion aren't working.
>>25397232Why not just write what you know?
>>25397550It's actually good if the reader draws totally different conclusions than you intended—it means they're truly engaging with your work, not just passively absorbing it.
>>25397671The people who are interested in the stuff I know the best don't read much.I would prefer to have readers even if I have to get out of my comfort zone to get them.
>>25391800just write the stuff you like to read. even if it's shit at first, at least it's practice. if you try to write something you don't like just because you think it's easier you'll probably get burned out and give up. when you're a beginner it's critical to finish stories, because then you get a sense for pacing and how to develop a plot. every amateur writer has a million drafts that never get past the first paragraph. if you want to improve you'll have to keep going, which means you've gotta like what you're writing about
>>25397551did you really come back after a full nights sleep to reply with this powerhouse?
>>25397096>How great it was to be alive, I thought, while a nearby salamander devoured a fruit flyThat line is pretty kino, especially for a high schooler
>>25397738I was out humaning all day yesterday. Then I spent a few hours writing down notes on an unexpected, highly inspirational, and disturbing experience from that day that had serious literary potential.>thinks everyone else is in my time zone>thinks everyone else's life revolves around 4chan>tries to change the subjectThree strikes—you're out.
>>25397096>I don't usually give full marksWhat a arrogant prick tho
>>25397950>I was out humaning all dayargh god.and then i kissed the wife and kids goodnight and checked the /wg/ and restarted a conversation from yesterday so i could call someone an edgelord in the year of our lord MMXXVI.>tries to change the subjectyou’re right. back to the matter at hand - my gay cowboy screenplay.
>>25398017Still desperately trying to change the subject, which wasn't your gay cowboy "script" (which only consists of a few lines...not remotely worth describing as a "script"). The subject was your solipsistic concept of "literary judgment" >>25396363 which, no matter how much it fluffs your ego to discuss it, has little or no relevance in the real world. Novels about blank-slate girls that masturbate minotaurs for their sperm sell, their authors make a living from their work, and their fans enjoy their work.
>>25398031there’s no way you haven’t clocked that it was a joke. should probably mention that >>25396363 is a direct quote from kingsley amis.
>>25398052And now we see your final deflection, i.e. that you were joking all along. Why don't you just admit your total failure and drop your stupid excuse for an argument? Your attempt to invoke Kingsley Amis is a negotiation tactic known as "referent authority", and I reject your tactic over its inherent weakness. With the relentlessly sloppy thinking you display, you shouldn't wonder why your life is a total failure.
>>25398095now you’re joking. (reminder this is what sparked this >>25396268)your attempt to declare victory after i attributed a quote is itself a ‘fallacy fallacy’.
>>25398120It's hilarious you're trying to use "big words" you only recently discovered. You're a child.
>>25398142i was mirroring your diction, so if it sounds stiff and embarrassing to you …
>>25391546There's this writing contest for erotic fiction I'm thinking of participating in... I'm a virgin, of course.
>>25398153Yours is a moron's attempt to mirror my diction. You're too dumb to realize how badly it comes across.
im writing the zoomer novel. no i wont give you any details. yes it will define an era.
>>25398043You definitely have the LA marketing gusto. If only you didn't come off as a pretentious douche doing it
>>25397560I attribute this solely to bad titles. If any anons here need help coming up with a good title please post your work, a summary of the plot, the themes, and I will provide a title worth more than its weight in gold.
>>25398164That's too bad...I'm interested in the themes behind "the" zoomer novel. I hope it's not just whining and navel gazing.
>>25398162>>25398153Your devotion to this faggoty debate is pathetic on both sides. Holy shit nobody cares and neither should you. It exudes more loneliness than anything else I could possibly imagine. Get a damn room
>>25398181You must be new here.
>>25398162it’s just your cringe & over-written sentence structure ‘your attempt to…’ played back to you, that’s all. tongue-in-cheek. for someone in the /wg/ you’re not reading very closely.
>>25398181tf are you?
>>25398184>>25398192more seethe inflating the reply count, yay. At least you aren't rimming each other anymore teaming up to fight a greater villain!
>>25398172it’s not, i promise.
>>25398172ok ill give a little bit, it explores the lamentations and problems with zoomer status and culture in relation to the rest of society but placed in a highly abstracted situation. think post-society, post-boomer power structures. it also draws on the desire for preservation and learning of classical culture without actual knowledge of it. ultimately the events in the book are meaningless, just a canvas for reflections of the ‘zoomed’. i will be working closely with slop experts while also making sure the content is timeless but expositive.
>>25398241Still sounds pretty navel-gazing to me, but hey, maybe you'll do something unexpected with it. Good luck on completing it.
>>25398241>i’m writing something not telling what!>a single (You)>alright alright i’ll tell you guys a little >then he drops the most long-winded and boring unoriginal vox pop ever
>>25398262Cut him some slack. The rest of the thread right now is retards fighting on the internetAt least he's actually talking about writing
>>25398264arguing for arguing’s sake is more writerly if we’re being honest.
>>25398269100% true, but arguing on the internet just makes it into the special olympicsRelevantly enough, that's why my book is about -how none of our lives occur in actual reality anymore
>>25398271wow, fresh take.
>>25398274There are no fresh takes anymore
>>25398277maybe gen A will think of something.
>>25398269Maybe for existentialists, and Proust-era "sitting room dramas", but I don't read either of those genres.>>25398271That's a philosophical/literary concept known as "hyperreality", where media, symbols, and simulations completely replace and distort actual reality until the two cannot be separated.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperrealityhttps://literariness.org/2016/04/03/baudrillards-concept-of-hyperreality/Sounds like a zoomer topic, that's for sure. Hope you're going to do something different with it.
>>25398281gen A quite literally unironically cannot thinkI don't mean that in a hating on kids these days kind of wayDoomscrolling since they popped out of the womb has fried their brains. They've literally never had to use them because something was always in front of them giving them thoughts instead
>>25398282>Hope you're going to do something different with it.What I'm doing is apparently F5ing on 4chan and playing video games instead of fucking writingSo no, nothing different
>>25398282read any writers personal letters.
>>25398283to be fair you yourself can’t put emphasis into a sentence without immediately resorting to overdone boilerplate 4chan talk>literally unironically
>>25398287If that's a representative sample...no thanks. I can get that for free on literally any social media site.
>>25398296that was my point. shitposts are lit.
>>25398287I think whoever wrote this was repressing a fetish>>25398293Yep. The hyperreality decides my language, tooI don't sit like a god above it passing judgment. I am a part of it. It is inescapableThis does not change the biopsychological holocaust that has been carried out on gen A's brains
>>25398302not for nothing but i don’t think it’s actually impossible to speak without saying ‘literally’ every other sentence.
>>25398283Indeed. This is a concept known as "model collapse". Re-popularized with the advent of AI, model collapse is a degenerate neural-net pattern cause by being trained on the output of neural networks. This happens to AI as well as humans. In this case, Gen A experiences synthetic reality far more than natural reality, and taken cumulatively, it literally warps their minds. Picrel shows the effect of television; I strongly suspect the effect of Internet-connected screens is far, far worse. Young minds need to, at a minimum, get off their screens, go outside, and touch grass. Otherwise, their mental growth will be stunted, perhaps permanently.
>>25398301Maybe, but they're not my preferred kind of lit.>>25398302Boomers and GenX had the same challenge with television. Gen Z's and Gen A's challenge isn't new.
>>25398282>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality> confusion between signs and symbols invented to stand in for reality, and direct perceptions of consensus reality.which pseud retard wrote this?>Examples>Live virtual concerts using animated holographic projections, such as Miku Expo are a simulacrum of a music concert with an audience that treats fictional characters as real performers, such as Vocaloid idols or virtual bands like Gorillaz.[34][35][36]they ARE real, real people had to make that music and that art>A high end sex doll used as a simulacrum of an unattainable partnerdildos are real, have been for millenniaalso, "unattainable" is a subjective judgement, and an irrelevancymost importantly, the consumers of these examples KNOW that they are fake and to what degreenobody's unironically pretending their waifu pillow is a humanI could fucking eli5 this shit without 99% of the goo and dribble in this bucket of bullshit:TL;DR,butthurt Frenchman whines about how people prefer living in (what he regards as) the imaginary world rather than in (what he regards as) the real world, because he can't understand why some people really enjoy stuff he doesn't fucking understand, but has to pretend to understand, and he can't pretend to understand it without putting it downsimple asnow there's your fucking ontological view for youfucking retardsit's like reading a Neanderthal's pseudo-intellectual snobbery about why people read scifi>Ugg not know why Homosapiens like live in hyperreality of Lugg in sky fight Vugg who actually Lugg evil father, it not real>Homosapiens retarded, Ugg think Homosapiens NGMI no cap
>>25398309I don't disagree with anything you said, but it wasn't quite what I was referring toI'm more concerned with young people who have never once had to be alone with their own thoughts. There is always something interrupting potential thoughts to take their attention outside of themselves, so they never learn to thinkI suspect if you did the experiment in pic related with gen A, the "drawings" would just be a single squiggly line before they ran off to do something elseI don't think they have the attention span to create a drawing>>25398311>Boomers and GenX had the same challenge with television. Gen Z's and Gen A's challenge isn't new.I think about this a lot. It baffles me how we all just kind of forgot about that as technology moved on.That being said, I think you're wrong. Particularly for the Boomers, who likely grew up with a single television in the house. It had to be shared. They had to step away sometimes.My fear isn't the screens in of themselves. It's that it's 24/7 with them. Earbuds fucking terrify me, because I know there are young people who never don't have music playing in their ears. They never spend a single second not being entertained.
>>25397668You don't even remember what my advice was at this point, you're just objecting out of habit now
>>25398316How wonderful that you know everything. This undoubtedly leads to you enjoying great success in your life.>>25398326You're right, Boomer/Gen-X TV/movies were at least somewhat of a shared social experience. Gen Z and Gen A can now block out the outside world and have a purely self-absorbed experience for hours on end. Qualitatively worse for their development. Assuming you're >>25398164, if you can find a way to express this in a way it hasn't been before, that reflects well on you. Hopefully you're familiar with one of the earliest works in the hyperrealism genre, i.e. "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster. It was released in 1909 and predicted modern Internet culture with unsettling accuracy.
>>25398293>overdone boilerplate 4chan talkoften conveys more meaning in shorter wordsfor example, it's faster to say>I wonder if that stupid fucking Frenchman unironically believes this hyperreality horseshitthan>I wonder if that stupid fucking Frenchman truly believes this hyperreality horseshit, or if he knows that he's publishing a nonsensical theory simply to enhance his reputation as a philosopher or for moneyin my opinion, given the way "unironically" is usually used on the chans, the second clause is implicit, thus saving a lot of typing>>25398302>This does not change the biopsychological holocaust that has been carried out on gen A's brains>>25398283>gen A quite literally unironically cannot think>>25398309>This is a concept known as "model collapse"NoIt's ultimately the result of shit education and shit parentingMore directly, people being "unable to think" is the result of not learning reasoning skills, which are ultimately mathematicalThings like "if A causes B, not-A doesn't automatically cause not-B"I posit also that even the "lack of creativity and detail" shown in >25398309's post is ultimately due to this. Kids watch too much TV, especially of a limited animation style, and aren't exposed enough to the real world, which has a wider range of physical features and expressions. Hence when asked to draw, they draw stock stick figures that resemble the TV they've been exposed to, that's all.How was this fixed in the past? Parents and teachers taught maths and art, or tried to at any rate.>>25398326in short, entertainment is too easily accessibleI feel this is a problem for all of us too, however, not just kidsit's just disguised for us because we already have decades of experience and knowledge
>>25398340>Parents and teachers taught maths and art, or tried to at any rate.While I don't think you're wrong to put blame on parents, I think you jumped a large step -teaching them math and art and anything else meant removing them from the stimulus. Gen X didn't take MTV to school with them. Now there is no escape.What parents and teachers teach them is icing on the cake. Just putting them in a physical position to allow non-technological input would fix 98% of the problem. They'd be better off staring at flies on the wall for hours on end.>I feel this is a problem for all of us too, however, not just kidsIt absolutely is, and the way Boomers just ignore this triggers me so fucking hardYou don't get to scream about kids and their phones if you spend all day sharing AI slop on Facebook, Grandpa
>>25398340>conveys more meaning in shorter wordsthe question was never whether it saves keystrokes.
>>25398354>They'd be better off staring at flies on the wall for hours on end.I think that if they do that, they'll end up drawing flies on a wallbefore TV, people who didn't read used to do exactly that, just sit and watch the scenery (usually cows on a farm), and the people they produced were quite dull>the way Boomers just ignore this triggers me so fucking hard>You don't get to scream about kids and their phones if you spend all day sharing AI slop on Facebook, Grandpaabsolutely
>>25398262extremely homo. yeah this is the vaguest description im not giving you faggots my full plot and themes.
>>25398258>social and cultural commentary>navel-gazingyou’re just using this term you heard from some influencer aren’t you? what else do you expect from a work of literature?
>>25398377no one asked lol
>>25398381go read royal road dork lmao
>>25398369They would absolutely be dull, yesBut they wouldn't be screaming "6 7!" at everything that moved, and I think that's infinitely preferable
>>25398394good one
Have these threads always been this hostile? Feels like thing have gone of the rails past couple of weeks.
>>25398417Not as many people sharing their writing, more people arguing semantics, further suffocating the people who just want to share their writing. It probably also scared off people who want to genuinely critique, replacing them with people like this >>25395262/lwg/ - larping about writing general
the end
>>25398417Some crabs snib harder.>>25398421I asked if people wanted a segment, but nobody replied, so I won't shill.
I have figured out the struggle I'm having that giving me so much writer's block, and it's this: I have no idea who my protagonist actually isThis is because he exists largely just to expose the reader to the setting, which is what's doing the real thematic heavy lifting hereBut even if the protagonist isn't the point, you can't have a character who's just nothing, or you've got a shit storySo that's where I'm stuck. And why I have a shit story.
>>25398340>the result of shit education and shit parentingI had shit education and shit parenting, but I was self-motivated to learn and grow on my own. Ultimately, no one is responsible for your fate but you.
>>25398681You can have stories where the setting is the main character. The one that comes to mind is the movie "Annie Hall", where the main character is really the city of New York.
>>25398716Of course you can. But Annie Hall doesn't work without Woody Allen's character. He's not the point, but his unique point of view and experiences are essential to making the story function. And that's where I'm at a loss.
Okay seriously what the fuck do you call a black-haired person? Google says "brunette" but I've never seen it used for that...Does anybody know? Sometimes I wish I didn't have to dance as much around this shit.
>>25398721>Google says "brunette" but I've never seen it used for that...ESL?
>>25398725No but maybe I'm just retarded (in addition to being an amateur), if you say brunette works I'll start using it
>>25398734Brunette does mean dark (not blonde) hair, but it makes me think of brown hair. What is wrong with just saying the person’s hair is black?
Rate my opening guys
>>25398721If you mean literally black, not brown, I would say no, brunette doesn't work.You really just have to use black, or any synonym for it. I don't believe there's a unique word for black-colored hair the way blonde and brunette work for their hair colors.This is likely due to the fact that truly black hair only shows up in ethnicities that only have black hair. There's no need for a hair-specific word if hair never varies in color.
>>25398725i’ve never seen a person with black hair called a brunette before either. brunette means brown hair.
>>25398737Nothing really, but after writing it a couple times I always start wondering how I could vary things a bit, besides substituting colors for other things. Thank you anon.>>25398739That makes a lot of sense! I learned something today!
>>25398721just make her a brunette, does it really matter
>>25398654>there's a difference between sharing and shilling. and sometimes it takes a while for an interested person to give a response. don't take the haters here seriously
>>25398719Then write cool scenes involving the character, and work out his personality after the fact. You're thinking linearly.
Brunette works for most dark colors and "raven-haired" or whatever the fuck works for actual pitch-black.Just call her a nappy-haired nubian SNAP queen if that's what you're after.
>>25398721raven-haired
Idea for a short story. Picture this:You carry a little notebook everywhere, filling it with everything, your mundane daily schedule to your deepest thoughts. Loves, hates, secrets, obsessions. Embarrassing attempts at poetry. No holds barred. One day, it’s not in your pocket. You can’t find it. Did you leave it on the train? Has someone read it?
>>25398801Someone taking one's diary is an extremely common trope in fiction. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SecretDiary
>>25398811Yeah yeah I know it comes up in kids shows. This is a little different though.And so you’re retracing your steps. And it seems like people are making subtle references to you about deep secrets. Are people talking about you? Is this person looking at me strange? Why does this girl seem to not like me today. They know. Not just the normal things - they know the weird thing you like in bed.
>>25398801Sounds like a horror story. Get writing.
How the fuck do you name characters, /wg/?
>>25398858I name villains after people I hate.
>>25398858steal them from other books.
>>25398801I would kill myself
>>25398882My thing for 2026 is I’m trying to get very comfortable with the idea of everyone knowing all your secrets.
>>25397678Lets look at a example shall we.>in a scene the protag enters the local sheriff office to report the crime of a land baron who is the primary antagonist>the land baron is sitting at the sheriff's desk casually smoking a cigar and fully comfortableIntended subtext>The land baron smoking a cigar and sitting at the sheriff's desk shows he owns the place figuratively speaking, and implies the cops are on the baron's sideThe wrong conclusion of the dumbass reader>The cigar obviously symbolizes a dick>the land baron and the sheriff are probably fucking>I can expect a spicy gay sex scene later and will be disappointed if I don't get a gay sex scene>in fact I will accuse the writer of being a bigot for gay bating me if the sheriff and baron don't fuck
>>25398154Believe me, you don't have to have sex to write decent erotica. You just have to be horny and be able to convey your horny fantasies well with words. Also actually use spell check and grammer check. Typing with two hands is also useful.
>>25398332I do and every time I remember I gag. Awful, despicable, evil even.
>>25399014writers don’t typically write things for no reason. once you choose blue over green you’ve made a decision, and that’s the sort of thing criticism exists to notice. the point of that english lesson wasn’t that the writer was making a conscious metaphor, but to teach you ways to analyse a work, starting with a very simple and basic example. and the truth is if the curtains are blue it’s because the writer did need the room to feel a certain way (if he’s gone to the trouble of describing the curtains).
>>25398721>Okay seriously what the fuck do you call a black-haired person?I would say they have black hair and move on. Then again I ain't a woman so tend not to spend paragraphs talking about how everyone looks.
>>25398738Where is the hook?Nothing really grabs me. It just seems so inane.
Depends on the setting. I mostly write fantasy slop so my advice wouldn't be useful to you on naming things.
>>25399037>I will intentionally ignore and avoid the point>I will instead double down on being wrongWeird hill to die on.
>>25399057 what was i wrong about?
>>25399068Its not good if the reader draws totally different conclusions from the text actually says or the author intends, especially when it comes to subtext that is part of the story. There is infact wrong interpretations and reading the story wrong. Reading stuff that isn't there, nether in the text and subtext is infact reading the story wrong and is very much a bad thing.
anyone read this?
>>25399072But even English teachers do it. It's a long-standing cliché. See >>25399014It's even one of my favorite minor plot points in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield "Back To School". He has to write a paper about Kurt Vonnegut, and since he's a rich asshole, hires Kurt Vonnegut to write it for him (making for one of my favorite movie cameos ever). But the teacher gives him a D, and says "Whoever wrote that paper doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut." Oh, my sides.>waah waah it's a bad thingGrow up.
>>25399072i never disputed any of that did i? i replied directly to the image you attached. books do require you meet them halfway. art is a conversation with the artist.
>>25399087You talked around the issue to avoid the direct point being made and instead implied it's valid literary critique to read into things that aren't there. Which is wrong.
>>25399092NTA but why do you keep insisting it's "wrong"? A piece of fiction that allows for the reader's imagination to contribute to it only deepens immersion and enjoyment. In fact, the "gothic" genre deliberately leaves descriptions incomplete, for the express purpose of allowing the reader to fill in their own interpretations. It's literally a necessary component of the genre. You come across like a petulant child who doesn't realize that other people might have valid opinions that differ from your own.
>>25398721Choose a term that foreshadows some of the character's qualities. For instance, if they're strongly religious but that hasn't been revealed yet, describe their hair as "Bible black". Fer crissakes, anon, use your imagination.
>>25399072 >>25399057>>25399092Karl Marx tried to write a book about how everybody should share with the class and it became a literal textbook example of what happens when you try to trust the government with everything. Does nobody understand Death of the Author anymore?
>>25399100>NTA but why do you keep insisting it's "wrong"?Reading things that literally aren't there in any way shape or form is inherently doing it wrong. It be like doing a math problem by bringing in your own favorite numbers, then wondering why the bridge collapsed. There is a big difference between leaving details for the reader to fill in, and the reader reading the text that is there, and drawing a absurd unrelated conclusion, like in the example written above of instantly associating a cigar with gay sex and missing the actual subtext of the scene. Reading comprehension is a thing. It is possible to fail to comprehend a text and thus draw the incorrect conclusion from what you read. No, that incorrect conclusion isn't just as valid as what the author intended. The incorrect conclusion isn't supported by the text. A valid conclusion must be supported by the text. It's like those people who claim nosferatu is antisemitic, then just make shit up to support their argument despite nothing within the movie, the text or subtext, nor the intent on the film makers said, nor what any of the contemporary viewers concluded when they watched it. It's a fundamentally wrong conclusion unsupported by actually interpreting the work. It's pretending fanfiction is cannon, then getting offended by your own fanfiction.
What do you think of this excerpt, where Jesus has come back to Earth as a hard-boiled detective?I went into a neutral corner, while his obnoxious friend climbed into the ring and counted to ten. When Clarence was counted out, I rushed over to help him up just the gym exploded in cheering.“Hey man,” complained Clarence. “I had dropped my guard.”“It all happens so fast,” said Healy. “You know how it is.”“Well, I still like what you said, Kenny Loggins,” said Clarence patting my back with his massive hands still encased in his boxing gloves.“Get back to work!” yelled Mazilli as cheerful as ever. “You don’t pay me so you can stand around gawking.”“He’s right,” said Healy. “We’ll let you all get back to work, but we’re investigating a homicide and there was a towel that may have been from this gym found at the crime scene. In the odd chance that somebody here knows something please contact us. I’ll leave you a business card.”“I’ll put it up in the locker room,” said the smart ass who had a whole new respect for me now.“If you see anybody in the gym who doesn’t belong here or anything suspicious just drop us a line.”“Anybody who doesn’t belong here? Like you two?” asked a boxer in the back.“Exactly like us,” I said. “We’ll take any help we can get.”“We got your back,” said Clarence with his deep baritone. “That wasn’t a request, it was a promise.”“Thanks,” said Healy. “Have a good workout.”“Hey man,” said the old guy cheering. “You’re not really Kenny Loggins, are you?”“I am who you say I am,” I replied trying to keep things ambiguous.“I know you’re not Kenny Loggins,” said the old guy. “Nobody famous comes in here anymore, but you’re alright.”“No need to worry about me,” I replied smiling as I shook his hand.“Holy sh--.”
>>25399125Fiction can't be held to the same standards as math; your argument is inherently ridiculous. Besides, what's your proposed solution? Are you going to hunt down ever reader in the world, interrogate them about what they got out of a work, then petulantly insist they're wrong? Do you want to pass a law that forbids people from drawing "incorrect" conclusions about what they've read, together with a newly-minted "Department Of Correct Conclusions" to separate truth from falsehood? I've encountered some smug people on the Internet, but you're on a whole other level. Also, your spelling and grammar are atrocious; you're the last person in the world to opine credulously about writing.
>>25399144Now you are just being retarded to continue the argument.
>>25399145NTA but you are just being retarded to continue the argument
>>25399145Wow. Epic lack of self-awareness on your part.
Can I get some feedback on this section. I’ve been writing this for a while and this was one of the earlier sections I established. I’m generally curious about how the prose reads and the overall vibe of the scene. This is the first waking encounter between these two characters after the girl is kidnapped by the Jester and the conversation continues to a vague conversation where he attempts to convince her to come with him willingly instead of as a prisoner.
>>25399139You don't have much of an active imagination, do you? Why are you in a writing thread?
>>25399158Your prose is very strongHowever, I'm left with a general feeling of not giving a shitPerhaps that would change with more context, but the only thing that actually happens in any meaningful sense here is a one-sided dialogue in which I get the impression the speaker is the most pretentious prick to ever live. Who randomly says shit like that?Also if she, as you have said, has been kidnapped, she sure doesn't seem worried about itI don't know. This critique might be overly harsh care of currently slogging my way through a novel that commits all these same sins in spades, and you may have just been caught in the crossfire.But you spend 3 paragraphs on lighting a cigarette, and don't actually make even the vaguest reference to the kidnapping.Which of those two things do you think is more interesting and deserves more space on the page?Sorry for being a dick.
>>25399166Kek, you’re right it’s just hard to get anything across in a single screenshot. I can’t really take the character criticism to heart since there is a reason he’s like that. And there is a good reason she’s not so worried about the situation, he ‘kidnapped’ her from an otherwise terrible situation. So maybe kidnapping is the wrong word to use here, but he is a stranger and murdered her abuser. I have struggled with figuring that out myself since I need the story to simply move forward at this point. I can’t really waste time on convincing the reader why she decides to go along with him beyond just a ‘feeling’ that she should.
>>25399188>>25399188>>25399188because our time here is short...
>>25398708ultimately, after you become an adult, yesI am fully behind the idea that somewhere in your 20s you're no longer allowed to make the "it was my shitty upbringing" excusebut we were talking about children here, mate>>25398721up until recently, police ID classification for hair colour indeed stopped at "brunette"if you mean total black, the classical literary term is "jet-black"
>>25399230I was talking about children, too. I had to raise myself starting around the age of 3 because my parents were such total basket cases. And who cares about how police classify black hair? We're talking about creative writing here.
>>25399075Having read it, its not super helpful if you believe story is purely for the purpose of entertainment. There is an overwhelming amount of advice throughout the book which is easily lost without a clear lens to view it from. Invisible Ink is a more condensed and practical guide if you are just starting out. Best of luck friend!
>>25399092>implied it's valid literary critiquei said it’s a way to teach analysis. an easy introduction into ‘close reading’ for young students. every work of art requires collaboration. creativity is a meeting. there is a spirit of conversation. there’s so much that’s intuitive and not spoken, and the reader must be co-author. you leave with the feeling that you wrote the book.
>>25399582It's the wrong way to teach analysis.
>>25399668You certainly have firm opinions about what's wrong, despite being a literal nobody with no success to speak of. My guess is that you're severely autistic, which I can forgive (especially since this is 4chan), but at some point, you need to remove that stick you have shoved up your ass & understand that there's very little black & white right & wrong; most subjects exist on a spectrum.
>>25399675Petty insults don't make your reasoning any less shit.
>>25399668it’s a skill first taught through small deliberate examples. you keep asserting things and skipping the argument. that other anon was right in pointing out your misstep when you compared it to a maths problem. robert graves said ‘literature cannot be called a science; science works on a cool, intellectual level with proper safeguards against imaginative freedom.’
>>25399675>on a spectrumno pun intended eh
>>25399681Get a life dude. Your samefagging is lame and your trolling is gay.
>>25399690this looks like a white flag. why would i samefag, i’ve just been talking to you normally. anything in my actual reply you object to?
>>25399680Deflection doesn't make your "reasoning" any less unintentionally hilarious. You seem to think language should follow the rules of engineering or something. Outside of niche languages like Lojban, that's simply not going to work. (And I'll wager you've never made any attempt to learn Lojban, despite it sounding right up your alley.) I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt by suggesting you were autistic, but maybe you're just a crank.
>>25399388Thanks, it's probably not what I'm looking for then.
>>25399715If you're looking for something more entertainment-focused, try picrel. The bottom line is, people have a lot of choices for their entertainment, and if you don't keep them engaged, they'll simply drop your work. Swain's book is all about maintaining reader engagement, and how to avoid common pitfalls. He had a decent career in the industry before moving to academia.
>>25399735Thanks, but I'm the anon who's trying to transition from technical writing to creative, so I'm looking for help on sentence-level topics. Like creating vivid imagery, and having an opinion/perspective/voice.I also have a $20 B&N gift card I've been meaning to use
>>25399747Oh. Well, if you find something like that, let us know. I could always use help with that, too. The only ideas I've had along the way are to study poetry (since it's all about that), to describe scenes as if the observer is moving in slow motion, and and to attempt synesthesia, i.e. write about things from the perspective of senses that aren't directly appropriate.
>>25399759Sure. I might just drive over later today and look around. Maybe something will jump out. And I haven't really left my apartment in weeks.
