"Side quest" editionPrevious: >>25391546/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.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19173266.Write.Publish.Repeat
peak edition
>>25399174I think all we have proven -and perhaps this realization is for your betterment and for mine -is that post excerpts in these threads for critique is a pointless endeavor>since I need the story to simply move forward at this pointWhy?It feels like you are jumping over something your reader will very much need you to validate for them
>>25399207I agree and now I’m doubling back to fix that motivation. Thanks for reading.
anyone ever read this?
>>25399217I read this years ago. Still have my copy. From what I remember it's a good read for when you're getting deeper into it to get you thinking creatively but at the end of the day like just about every book on writing you might be abusing it if you use it as a formulaic writing manual.
>>25399335ThanksIs it more focused on story structure or sentence level writing?
>>25399352Like I said it's been years but I'm pretty sure it's more about structure. If I recall correctly it's primarily for playwrights.
>>25399356Ok, thanks. Probably not what I'm looking for then.
Every book about writing is useless unless the author is published and well-regarded.So, Orwell, instead of these random nobodies.
I have 18,000 words of a NON-genre fiction manuscript lying around but I didn't plot it out from the beginning so I feel like it's just an episodic mess and when I write I either breeze through my scenes without adding much detail or I barely get out any words. I particularly struggle to write dialogue.Part of me wants to abandon the manuscript and write fantasy sloppa but OTOH the themes I feel like writing about stem from my experience living in the 21st century and it would feel anachronistic to superimpose that on a medieval fantasy world. I also feel like a story shouldn't be fantasy just for the sake of being fantasy sloppa
Thoughts?
>>25399518you write like a child. journalistic tone and very simple, almost insulting. did you learn to read and write this year?
>>25399518I like the size of your handwriting, but not the serifsevery sentence of this composition is worth a paragraph describing more in detailhave you counted how many words this is?
>>25399518Very tell, not much show. Reads like an outline, or a fairy tale.
>>25399518This is fantastic, so little has been told but already I can sense this little farm girl may have some sexual deviations, some sexual hyperactivity if you will. Does she get on with the farm animals? Or does she herself prefer to be the ‘pig’ at the trough so to speak? Do tell.
>>25399429Normal educational books and style guides containe useful information regardless of the success of who wrote it.Your argument is only somewhat reasonable in regards to books talking about what it takes to make a book that is what might work in the market or could get published.
Finally done with my work week. Time to get back to writing. Starting a new story. Going to use a new word processor. Using a new structure I have never attempted before. And most importantly, I am actually going to outline this time around. I already have the beginning of the project in my head, but since this is a much bigger project with a structure I haven't used before using a outline is the best move. Plus since this time around I am using a proper word processor instead of online-notepad, I can make pretty bullet pointed list and such like back in my collage days when word wasn't a fucking subscription service.
>>25399694For the record, I prefer to write in Markdown, then use pandoc to convert that to a LibreOffice document, suitable for creating paperbacks and e-books. Markdown also meshes better with version-control systems like git.
>>25399700Sounds like a lot of extra steps, but if it works for you then great. I had open office installed on this computer before, but it's resolution was awful on my screen and made my eyes hurt. So for the past couple of years the vast majority of my writing I used Online-Notepad because it was simple with no distractions yet included spellcheck, which at the time was all I needed to get going. Now I want a proper word processor so I finally downloaded libreOffice, because I heard it doesn't have the same resolution issue of OpenOffice (I checked and it looks great), has a bunch of "new" features like grammar checker, and desktop publishing tools so that I don't really need secondary programs if I want to format something for print. That plus I kinda want to fool around with their updated draw program since it's fully vector base and I have fallen out of love with inkscape lately. I doubt it's anywhere near as capable, but it's been a long while since I used another vector based program. Something new might be just the thing to knock the rust off.
>>25399736Oh shit. This is going to ruin me. It has a built in thesaurus. I legitimately forgot that was a thing that word processors could do. I must not abuse this power.
>>25399736The main reason to use Markdown, aside from high compatibility with version-control, is that it's far less likely for subtle formatting errors to creep in. When you look at your text in a word processor, it's difficult to see if you accidentally changed the formatting somewhere, or accidentally created a paragraph style by hand instead of using a named style. With Markdown, all the formatting is in plain sight. Novels don't require much—heading 1 for chapter titles, heading 2 for intra-chapter breaks, the usual bold and italic, and for parenthetical sections such as poems or song lyrics, blockquote works fine. All these Markdown styles can be given counterparts in your LibreOffice style template, leading to a perfect translation to formatted text every time. From my point of view, this is a lot less work than authoring directly in a WYSIWYG word processor.
>>25399700>I prefer to write in MarkdownBased.I'm doing a screenplay, and I'm using something called Fountain format, which is just plain text, and then there are tools (and VS Code extensions) for rending it and outputting it as a properly formatted PDF. It's great, since I can commit my changes each day it in git. I do all my notes in markdown too. With a spell check VSC extension, it's not a bad experience. Though I do need to copypaste into Word once in a while to check for non-spelling typos.
>>25399750I am going to be honest with you. Most of what you said was over my head. Me grog. Me type words. Magic box make words look like book. Grog happy.
>>25399756I have a LibreOffice template that lets me convert Markdown into a properly formatted LibreOffice Writer document. I used pandoc's fenced_divs and bracketed_spans extensions to represent paragraph styles and character styles, respectively.
How can I tell if my writing is AI generated?
>>25399888This is an important question. The main way to tell if your AI is writing generated is if you can. Otherwise, you might be a redneck.
>>25399358Nta but there's another book from the same author focused in character writing (or characterization, as he'd call it). There he goes more in depth about what makes characters good/memorable and, by extension, the story. It's called The Art of Creative Writing.
Ok so I finally wrote something. How can I get some feedback? I don't have friends.
>>25400055Thanks, but I'm mainly looking to get better at writing compelling prose at the sentence level. I'm the anon trying to transition from technical writing, and I'm struggling to not sound like an emotionless uninvested observer.
feedback plz
>>25400548why are you faggots always so allergic to NAMES?
>>25400579he's a tramp, lad. name reveal comes later
>>25400548It's overwritten nonsense. WTF are rosy red shafts caught between the arches of trees even mean?
>>25400586esl? 'the sun drank the lake'. immediately before. what is your idea of good prose? should everything be stripped and literal to you?
>>25400592>>25400592how does the sun drink a lake? Holy shit man, You're putting up word salads that make absolutely zero sense. Even worse, you then get defensive and call out your critic as ESL!!! because you're such a fucking retard with your metaphors, imagery, and personification, I would liken you to the a fucking jeet that can't even distinguish the shit he eats from actual shit
>>25400592i gotta say the other anon is right. prose doesn't have to be literal but it should at least be LOGICAL. i can't understand at all how the sun would drink the lake. what implication of 'drinking' are you intending here? is it being evaporated? is the lake almost dried up? none of that was clear.
>>25400700>>25400661the visual appearance of the sun meeting the water. like an animal dipping its snout into the water.
>>25400711how about 'the lake swallowed the sun' instead?
>>25400711you're describing a fucking sunset? the sun doesn't drink any water during a sunset, not even close. Try again. I would even take "The lake quenched the sun's fire as blackness enveloped the tangerine sheen."
>>25400720more immediately obvious but more generic>>25400721unable to grasp metaphor. if you dont get the light in the willow arches bit at least defo esl. post ur prose i wanna see if you have any grounds for critique
So, penultimate chapter of my novel. Protagonist is held captive by the antagonist, basically spends nights delirious in the dungeon. The antagonist comes, they talk of philosophical matters yada yada...What ends up happening is that the other protag and their allies storm the besieged island fortress that the protag is being held in, and said other protag rushes to where his comrade is, and duels the antagonist to death, sacrificing his life for him.Does that make sense? Given that it's near the end of the novel I don't want to bloat it with things like a prolonged siege or more POV chapters, just something that occurs outside the protag's knowledge and ends in a simple duel that leads to the epilogue.
Alright I went and used my B&N gift card on this. I flipped through and it seemed interesting, hopefully it will have something useful in it.I still have a fucking $1.80 left on my card...
>>25400739you're the ESL for not being able to write a coherent sentence. It's always on the writer, never the reader.
Are there any good writing guides for political essays/theory?
>>25400739actually you know what, yeah keep going.
im using a >clanker to assist with coherency checks.But god these things are almost entirely useless. Normally they gaslight you into everything being the best thing ever and if you tell them not do, they become schizophrenic.I cant believe some people use them to actually write entire segments or the whole thing and there are people who actually read that dirvel?
>>25400828theyr'e good for a thesaurus and grammar check
Fun fact: if you write genre slop you should KYS because you’re a stupid mother fucker and there’s no hope for you, idiot.
>>25400921What's considered genre slop?
>>25401064all fiction
>>25401085but nonfiction is so boring to write
>>25401064anything that's in a genreSci-fi, fantasy, mystery, horror, romance etc
>>25400548I mean this in the nicest way possible: Are you familiar with the concept of a "misplaced modifier"
>>25399758I guess we can't all be STEM lords.>>25400194You can post it here, but prepare to be crapped on. Anonymity brings out the worst in some people.
>>25401131so everything
>>25400579>complains others are allergic to names>posts as "Anonymous"
>>25400586>rosy red shafts caught between the arches of treesSunbeams, obviously.>>25400592>>25400700>the sun drank the lakeThis >>25400711
>>25400721But the lake doesn't quench the sun's fire, and blackness doesn't envelope the tangerine sheen. Rant rant RANT RAVE SEEEEEETHE!!!1!
>>25401097that's the trouble with you kids these days, you think real life is boring so you want to stick your noses in pages full of make-believe. well, i'll tell you something. you think it was make-believe all those men i looked in the eyes and killed back in the war? you think it was make-believe when i took their women into dank and mold-musked chambers to hydrate my fingers and prick with their warm holes? get a grip!
>>25400770>$1.80 leftShould have gotten a candy bar.
>>25400921fun fact: literary fiction is just the drama genre>KYSyou first
>>25401182Yes, your acts of heroism and sex are definitely fiction.
>>25401196we weren't heroes. we were butt men.
>>25401174the problem with this is the sun keeps sinking into the lake. i understand you two want to argue this still, but animals don't typically sink into the water while they're drinking it. it does not make sense and 80%+ readers will think it sounds awkward. at least say 'and on the horizon, the sun drank from the lake before it disappeared to its depths, extinguishing the day into darkness.' there are an endless number of better ways to get the same idea across so why settle on something so clunky and mediocre?
>>25401208People's tastes differ.
>>25401216yes and that’s what sets apart the good from the great.
>>25401219You are neither, and you know it. You're just a small, petty, bitter little manlet who tries to feel good by making others feel bad.
How many rejections is too many?When should I go the Amazon route?
>>25401230>Amazon route when?Immediately.
>>25401185I was looking, the cheapest one they had was $7
>>25401247You didn't have the cash to make up the difference...?
>>25401248I did but I didn't want to spend that much. I already felt ashamed enough
Why shouldn't I just sell my chapters on Patreon, skipping Amazon completely?Amazon isn't going to do the marketing for me. Why do they deserve a cut?
Is there any point to asking for critique here? From what I remember in 2020-2023 this place was a huge crab bucket.
>>25400752I would definitely devote a chapter to the other protagonist storming the island. If the book feels bloated, cut something else. Endings are not the time to have things happen off screen.
>>25400548Purple prose, similar to the last time you asked for feedback about the complicated paragraph you wrote describing the tramp sitting down for the night with a hand lamp. Why don't you want the reader to be able to tell what is going on? This being the second time I am able to see the patter and can now tell you are doing it intentionally. So why?What is your reasoning in trying to use obscurest prose?
>>25400854A decent word processor can do both better. >>25400828You are talking about a machine who somehow fucks up basic math and simple logic problems and can't count to 100 or say things in alphabetical order. As someone who grew up as a sci-fi fan, my disappointment in the future we actually got is incalculable.
>>25400921Nigga, you don't even write.
>>25401164>I guess we can't all be STEM lords*shrugs*In my younger days I tried. Even got a bit of education in it. But could never get a job in the field and my education in it was obsolete as I was getting it. Got caught in the big switch from xp to vista, and from C++ and C# being used for everything to Java and Python being the industry standard. Then by the time I learned a bit of Java on my own they were moving on to Rust and I gave up keeping up with programing trends. Shit makes me feel old and I am still in my 30s. If I was smarter and didn't have adhd I probably would have been better off learning some sort of engineering. Too hard for me though.
>>25401165Genera fiction is a term used to exclude everything that isn't adult contemporary drama, which they instead call literary fiction because of it's focus on prose above nearly everything else. However I have read literary fiction and I am consistently unimpressed by it. It reads badly, is often extremely vapid, and the stories more often than not are the most boring shit ever committed to page. Only thing I dislike more is poetry.
>>25401302Do you have a established audience or renoun from somewhere else that you can parlay into directly advertising your patreon?Because if no one knows you or about your project they aren't likely to support you. Build a following on a web novel site first, like royal road, then open a patreon for your new stuff once you got fans. Amazon however is likely the better choice if you have a complete and polished book due to their built in advertising and discovery features along with print on demand options and kindle unlimited integration.
>>25401390>built in advertisingOn Amazon you compete with endless AI generated jeetshit. There is no "advertising" that you do not do yourself.
>>25401393I mean it has a system for built in ads. Which you don't get natively on pateron. People generally don't go to pateron to browse and shop. They go there because they were sent from somewhere else that did the advertising off platform. People go on amazon to shop, to search, to find something new, and they have built in ad systems you can make use of. That said, if you are worried about AI spammers then you could get most of your readers from off platform advertising and a following from somewhere else similar to what's required to be successful on patreon. In which case the choice of which platform is based on if you are writing serial fiction or have a complete and polished book to sell. If you have a complete book then Amazon is the better choice. If you are writing serialized stuff, and have a following somewhere else, than patreon will probably make you more money. Then you can double dip by collecting your serialized writings into books then selling them on amazon too.
>>25401371I know how flawed these things are but if it's fairly small things related to real world they can search real articles now instead of relying on their own database, it can be fair to double check when you don't have good keywords to search for. It would probably have taken me longer to find a real-world historical equivalent i can compare my fantasy city on and the good thing is that real world examples already come with socio-economic history and situation you can exploit for your own storytelling and writing. And while I love european medival history, I cant be assed to remember every recorded battle so I can give the clanker some ideas and numbers and point me in a direction and double theck the human article.
>>25401334>place is a huge crab bucketYou mean just like real life? Post away, ignore the crabs, and hope for useful feedback.
>>25401371You're talking ancient history. We now have AI models that can find security flaws in code that was written 28 years ago but that's still in use. And they will obviously get better. If you think AI has peaked, you're either an idiot or a crank.
>>25401225>my personal insults help me to deny realitynta but conflating critique of a passage where it was specifically asked for with “making someone feel bad” just because it wasn’t positive is kind of small and petty isn’t it?
>>25401381Although my chosen field is STEM, my real skill is being an information sponge. So not only do I keep pace well, but I stay well ahead. The flip side is I'm on enough performance-enhancing supplements to choke a buffalo. Still, that has advantages too.
>>25401387Sorry there weren’t enough ancient prophecies, magic swords, and spaceships to keep your retarded ass entertained. The rest of us are adults who enjoy actual stories.
>>25401614You were taking a metaphorical scene literally, as if you've never read a book in your life. The far more likely possibility is that you're a bitter crank. Simple as.
ok I'm gonna post this one last time before I move on to something else. I think it's basically done. No longer will you feel like you're trapped in semicolon hell. https://ogcameronclarke.substack.com/p/dolphinmy newest issue is that outside of the last thread, 1 other person compared the narrator to Holden from Catcher in the Rye. I never read it in hs because it sounded gay so I checked it out to figure out whether that was a compliment or an insult. Great book actually but some bits of it really are uncomfortably similar to my story. If I didn't know any better I'd think it was plagiarism. Swear to god I'd never read this fucking book though. I only ever knew it was about some guy who calls everyone phony. It almost makes me want to take these bits out, which is insane. literally everyone on the planet has read catcher in the rye tho
>>25401636as I told you previously, if you can pull off 21st century Holden Caulfield, you've made itworry less about the similarity, worry more about writing an engaging story and a likeable protagonistit's been decades since I read Catcher In The Rye myself, but I remember thinking I liked him despite the whole story being about an obvious fuckup trying to pull himself together. THAT is the real problem you face, from the start, your character seems to be just a fuckup, with no redeeming qualities. don't worry about Holden, fix that.
>>25401640>your character seems to be just a fuckup, with no redeeming qualities.damn lol. He's literally just me. If I can't fix my own life why should I fix hisfair point tho. some of the other stories I have planned out will be from the same "character" POV so I'll be trying to develop him a bit more in those.
I’m writing a sci-fi novel. My chapters are too short (one page) because I’m afraid of spending too much time describing things that don’t matter, but maybe they feel rushed instead. How do I strike the perfect balance?
>>25401621NTA but I agree...literary fiction tends to be really boring. It mostly seems to be rich people complaining about rich people problems.
>>25401651Because people like to read redemption arcs.>>25401665Don't worry so much about your first draft. Just get something down. You can edit later, expanding what sounds like a terse summary, when the muse hits you. Long-form fiction isn't written linearly.
>>25401672I understand. Not everyone is intelligent. For the dullards like you there are stories where drama comes down to which wizard casts the most biggerest fireball.
Anyone else writing to cope with being an unemployed NEET?I had a job in a meatstick factory, during some of the miserable moments I was thinking how I would apply some of the skills I learned there in my writing.Now due to an autism overload, I'm unemployed again and here. I'm going to make one final push to finish one of my projects, and attempt to get it published or try self publishing.It sucks. Having a shit job and being unemployed in your late 20's are two different versions of hell. However, I'm starting to think anything is better then being unemployed and about to turn 30.
>>25401682>the most biggerest fireball.You almost came off as some kind of top-hat wearing true elitist but that slip up at the end just made me picture some chris chan-esque creature typing that nonsense
>>25401677Appreciate it anon
>>25401651People want to read about improvement. If you want to write about someone who's just a downer, write a short story.
>>25401812It is a short story, it's just a little long I guess. I like reading about improvement too but not really all the time. In real life it feels like things mostly just get worse. I've had lots of friends go on their self improvement arcs and to me all it seemed to amount to was them becoming more annoying. Idk if I really even believe in improvement as a concept though yes it's nice to read about
>>25401836Is it long or short??! I disagree with the other anon, redemption isn’t realistic and I want to suffer in reading as I suffer in life. Misery loves company as they used to say.
>>25401164>You can post it hereGood to know. Though I'm not prepared to be crapped on, so I will pass.
>>25401839I think it comes out to around 20 pages or so which I'm pretty sure still qualifies as a short story
>youtube writing advice>erhm your prologue should be short>look inside my library>prologues last 6-7 pageshe means on a normal sized page not a book page, right?I have so many things sketched out now at the start simply because one thing might demand the other, either because to understand causation of the narrative or a characterization, because of extended worldbuilding and because starting in the middle of an action scene feels too hollywood-y
>>25401909prologue wordcount?fuck Youtube
>>25401909I too watch bookfox
>>25402025sometimes but not that i take advices from those channels too heart too much since their priority is selling their course and whatever.
>>25401909Post a prologue here for us to judge. Book advice really only applies if you're idea isn't more ambitious.>>25401922well in youtube guys defense a prologue should be a prologue and not a secret chapter 1>>25402025bookfox is emerging as one of the superior writing advice youtubers. Him, brandon mcnulty, and allyssa matesic are all you really need
>>25402050>allyssa matesicShe's only good for encouragement, but her writing advice on the craft is so-so
>>25400770That book is great, although you shouldn't really go abusing the rhetoric devices it teaches you.
>>25402060She's good for motivation if you have lofty dreams of being trad published in the future. However like another anon said, she's just hocking her editing and courses.IMO Brandon mcnulty is more authentic, he's just an author making advice videos, however his format of constantly critiquing movie scenes and plots gets kind of old
>>25401909prologue lasts how many pages??
>>25402062Thanks. I'll try not. I've been getting feedback though that my sentences are boring and tend to all follow the same basic patterns. It's LLLM feedback, but it's completely accurate. So hopefully some of this will help. I remember taking a rhetoric course in college. I don't remember anything from it, but I don't think it had anything to do with writing style and sentence structure...
>>25402067Almost thought this was a joke reading ladyboys in the first sentence. It seems to be serious. What is it supposed to be? Contemporary?Did you want a critique? It's structured very well, but seems to fall flat in alot of places. I'm guessing the MC is letting a friend know about his ambitious plans, and is getting brought down to earth. Perhaps display a little more emotion during some of these moments, i.e. the elation when he's thinking of moving or his frustration with his friend raining on his parade.>A plane moved slowly across the cloudless skyGood imagery, as someone who uses "cloudless sky" alot as well, maybe we should find a more unique term>Jake looked out the window as a great cloud prepared to move infront of the sunThis is good imagery tooAlso, if you're a chink, be less blatant. CCP? China's great? Fuck off bugman
>>25402050>a prologue should be a prologue and not a secret chapter 1doesn't help because chapter length is also debatedbut let's see if anon delivers
>>25402103This isn’t directed at you but I just can’t imagine caring or worrying about how long a chapter is. All these guidelines that aren’t even stylistic or anything to do with the actual art of telling a story seem so irrelevant to be ignored completely. I get there are accepted ‘formal’ requirements or starting points but I just can’t care!
>>25401909>6-7
This is my appreciation post. Thanks /lit/ for providing a place where we gay anons can get together and discuss our craft, stay motivated, and share ideas, feedback, and resources. God bless you, /wg/.
>>25402087>maybe we should find a more unique termalmost definitely.It is serious but everything is said with a halfway smirk. Have you ever read brit lit? I’m not Chinese, and while I don’t think N is wrong there, he’s pretty clearly meant to be chatting absolute breeze (why my mc tunes out).
>>25402050You guys should listen to Lara Hemling. She has the jaded cynical videos that have been very helpful
>>25402050>well in youtube guys defense a prologue should be a prologue and not a secret chapter 1That has nothing to do with length and everything to do with subject and presentation.
>>25401665There's no real rule about how long chapters have to be, nor do your chapters all have to be similar lengths. You can write chapters of wildly varying lengths if you like, or do lots of short chapters. But you don't have to settle on that kind of structure when you're first writing down the story. Just write it in a way that helps you get the story out, and worry about final organization later, during editing and revision, like the other anon said. Just being able to write your story down, in whatever way makes sense to you, is the most important first step.
>>25401909Stop with the fucking prologues and have the BALLS to start your story where it's meant to start and not fucking 500 years ago or some other arbitrary date.God I hate prologues. They never fucking matter in the story, because if something important happens in them your characters will learn about it later anyway. They're only there so authors have an excuse to show off all the cool fantasy things they thought of but due to their plot won't actually show until chapter 23, that way the readers can be reassured that yes the story feature actual magic stuff happening. You ever thought about how prologues these days are almost exclusively in fantasy stories? Because realistic books don't need to dangle such a crude carrot and sci-fi readers have always had a reputation for being smarter or at least not being put off by dreadful writing early on.
Are we allowed to post Wattpad Links? I just finished my first short story and I dont know how to share...Also before yall say I know wattpad is gay im still on the waitlist for AO3.
>Throughout the excerpt, the prose almost always chooses the most neutral wording.>Nothing is wrong with any of these sentences individually. They simply don't accumulate into a distinctive narrative voice.>The script feels written by someone trying very hard to be invisible.>That is often preferable to overwritten prose—but here it may go a little too far.thanks chatgpt...
>>25402067I lightly disagree with >>25402087 on "cloudless sky" and "a great cloud prepared to move in front of the sun." The atmosphere of the story (no pun intended but now it is) emanates apathy, and I would argue that clouds are typically assumed to be unfavorable without the context of seeking rain or rest from the sun. Perhaps instead of "cloudless," you're looking for "open," "clear," or most poignantly, "empty"? I think the last adjective fits best with the inactivity or indecision of Jake. Maybe even "overcast" or "dull" is a better attitude. For the second quote: you shouldn't use a personification haphazardly. To give personhood to an object or phenomenon is to give an attitude and goal to it; simply "preparing" doesn't give a clear vision of its movement or its disposition. You can prepare to move excitedly, OR you can prepare to move begrudgingly. If Jake perceives it with act with a person-like attitude, the author doesn't clarify what his perspective of it is. It's left ambiguous.You could always say "that's the point, he doesn't know whether he should be excited or not about Hua Hin/Hong Kong," but wouldn't that hesitation be better illustrated by a line like, "as the cloud inched in front of the sun," or any other sort of slow approach?That's just my nitpick. I could go on forever about any piece of work, but I'll just follow up with what someone else already said.
>>25402581how the hell does your chatgpt talk like that? mine is just glazing bullshit.
>>25402773See: >>25391654
>>25402496There's no "correct" way to share work as long as it's accessible. The only difference is how many people will volunteer to read it, and there's really no way to control that.
Chatgpt seems to always finds something wrong with my work. I even edited exactly how it wanted and it still found faults in what it suggested. So I gave up using it.
>>25401686Did you fail to prepare for your adulthood in your childhood? I'm interested in how people become NEETs in the first place.
>>25402126Guess the trolls took the day off. Good riddance, I say.
>>25402110>aren’t even stylistic or anything to do with the actual art of telling a storyit doeschapters are used to indicate shifts in tone, pacing, point of view, time, place, etc
>>25402841They're almost certainly still here, but nothing has baited a retarded discussion yet. The "don't give your bully a reaction" advice trumps yet again
>>25402846notice how nothing you listed involved length
>>25402846Just talking about chapter length my friend.
>>25402851>>25402850filed under "pacing"
>>25402814>>25402814Oh cool thanks!https://www.wattpad.com/1643370058-domestication-writings-from-across-terra-years-361Its pretty bad, I expect it to be its my first time. I Its also weird... Like its an in-universe anthology of non-fiction excerpts of writing. Its also very short like a quick >10 min read. I wanted to practice small and work my way up...well anyways feel free to check it
>>25402853It's not
The dark triad guy stopped shilling
>>25402858You FOOL, YOU'VE JINXED US ALL
>>25402857>speed>rhythm>flow>balancingand you think none of these has anything to do with length?
>>25402858No he was in the ‘modern world sucks’ thread today
>>25402877A one page short story can have slow pacing and a whole novel can have lightning pacing. Notice how it compares pacing to a heartbeat: Would you consider a baby with bradycardia to have a faster heartbeat than a 90 year old man with tachycardia, simply because it has lived less? That's ridiculous. What actually matters is the number events--or beats--that take place and develop the plot. The one-page story about starting a fire will have fewer plot-changing events versus Game of Thrones or The Count of Monte Christo because it's just a simpler plot which doesn't demand so many changes in intensity.
>>25402921and you think all that has nothing to do with wordcount, either in absolute or in proportion?
>>25402931Stories aren't equal, so neither should their wordcounts be. Some stories demand more detail to be comprehended, and that detail does not necessarily subtract from pacing.
>>25402943>in proportion
>>25402959No, it doesn't.
>>25402959Would you like to offer an opinion or are you just gonna keep waiting to nitpick everyone else's?
I hate comma rules!!!!
dere be no rules; do what want
>>25402855protip: labeling your work "bad" in your own post discourages readers. if you want to get read, sell your shit
I had a vision where my novel not only gets immensely popular but also instigates a massive spike in general readership
>>25403047We're waiting, anon.
>>25403044I actually added that on purpose cause I thought it would have the opposite effect. kinda figured yall likes pointing and laughing at bad writing....Good on yall for proving me wrong.
>>25402982His opinion is that shorter chapters have faster pacing than longer chapters.
>>25402982already havefrom a technical viewpoint, pacing is wordcount-dependentno doubt the guidelines are rough, and they vary from medium to medium - short story, novella, short novel, long novel - and situationally; whether it is a more action-driven chapter; or character development-driven; or expository about the setting, especially in scifi and fantasy; but ultimately it can always be expressed in wordcount
>>25403136sincerely disagree with this. pacing isn’t what lengthens or shortens a book. pacing is probably more proportional to plot and prose, not merely word count. the same rate pacing can be 4000 words or 1000 words depending on the writer and events in the chapter. doesn’t deal with length.
>>25403155>sincerely disagreecheers>pacing isn’t what lengthens or shortens a bookstrictly speaking, I agree, it isn'twhat lengthens or shortens a book is how much plot you're stuffing in itbut why?the answer is that for each plot element requires a certain number of words to adequately convey to the readerthe more elements, or the more complex a particular plot element is (which in another way of saying is "more sub-elements"), the more words will be needed>pacing is probably more proportional to plot and prose, not merely word countand indeed I gave a few other factors which impact pace and therefore affect wordcount, for longer and shorter>the same rate pacing can be 4000 words or 1000 words depending on the writer and events in the chapteryes, but this depends on the length of the overall story, and the other factors I listedfor example, readers expect a short story to express the primary conflict in fewer words, but will expect a novel to go into more detail regarding the conflict, and in turn will permit (even demand) the conflict to be articulated in more wordsexample two: readers typically expect a science-fiction or fantasy work to spend more words explaining the setting, as compared to a contemporary drama or romance set in New York City or Bumfuck Falls, Ohio>doesn’t deal with length.therefore, no; ultimately it can all be expressed in number of words.
It was a hallucination, and a convincing one. The cat sat in the corner of your room, enmeshed in the physical fabric. Enfleshed by the physical fabric. Dressed in the corporeal envelope. It had a weight and a mass—it would have left a depression on your duvet had it jumped on your bed, and a wrinkle on your trousers had it jumped on your leg—and seemed more real than your dresser. It was as real as your day, and would is your favourite word. The cat would have done x had it done y. I would do z if only ξ. Would lets you hold possibility—often shinier than reality—in your palm. All the cat did was disappear.You flopped onto the bed like a sack of rocks thrown by an ogre trapped in the library of Alexandria in general undirected frustration at the narrowness of his mental mode of being and at the unwieldy length of certain sentences he could not read. You were tired. No alarms, people are always tired, no surprises, one must be tired to fall asleep. But, like a sack of rocks, all the discrete parts of you rubbed one another and chafed and eroded, and the resultant dust must have found its way out of you, and became the fleeting cat. This is why it looked so real and why it had your eyes. People always complimented your eyes, and they would have complimented the cat’s. You would have, too, if only ξ.Where did the dust-cat go? is the natural question to ask. A new dimension? The next room over? No, it went right back into you, back into your mind, where it still is now, sulking that you did not play. The Siamese cat purrs and it purrs dejectedly. The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, yes, but never on this cat, not for as long as you live. The cat was the Day, and it would have cheered you up had you engaged with it, would have made you happy had you stroked it. But Would is a murderer whose victim is Did. How many dust-cats sulk in your minefield mind-fields—and how many frolic?
>>25403172>>25403136>completely ignores the heartbeat comparisoncheers
>>25403111If YOU know it sucks, and WE know it sucks, there's not much left to say. Agreement doesn't beckon conversation, disagreement does. What you're looking for is "I just wrote the GREATEST story about ____ ever because ______" which will guarantee disagreement. But, neither method guarantees discussion, because you'd have to convince /wg/, through some rhetorical skill, that not only can your work be understood and easily dissected, but that YOU can also be meaningfully dissected, criticized, and learn from it.SOME awareness is good so that people don't just write you off as delusional, but an openness to learn more about your strengths and weaknesses is key to garnering feedback. Next time you share a work, ask for specific advice about a certain topic so that critics have something to latch onto, like "glaze me on my metaphors" or "I believe my formatting is kino". Just anything that says "I'm not a novice, but I'm not a master."
>>25402859ANULO MUFA
>>25403242you're welcome to explain what that metaphor really means and how it is different from what I wrote, in operational terms
>>25403298it explains how a long book can have quick pacing and how a short story can have molasses pacing, which was the first thing I said >>25402921
>>25403303>>25402921>What actually matters is the number events--or beatswhich I already mentioned, and in more detail:>>25403172>plot element
>>25403319>What actually matters is the number of events--or beatswhich can be expanded or shrunk at will depending on what you seek to accomplish in your storytelling. If you sought to scientifically catalogue all of the physics (or magic) involved in pouring a glass of water, there would be hundreds of relevant details which are necessary and never drag because they all can get to the point concisely. You could also describe that same pouring of a glass of water in an action-thriller where the pouring has no great impact to the story/idea you're trying to convey at all, and it takes away from the pacing.How do we touch on the same concepts and arrive at opposite conclusions? It's because of this. I've argued that length and pacing are independent, referencing famous examples of long books you can breeze through, whereas you insist that more words--regardless of how they're used in a given sentence--will pull away from how quickly a series of meaningful events are perceived by the reader.If you make EVERY event meaningful, your pacing will never drag. Likewise, if you list events that DON'T appear immediately relevant or meaningful, it will. Sci-fi and fantasy exposition becomes the latter when the author doesn't tie it to immediate and relevant events, not because it's inevitably and necessarily slow.The easiest way to disprove a direct correlation is to write a story twice: one story is one word longer, but is easier to read and follow than its counterpart which is one word shorter. Does that sound impossible to do?
>>25403172None of what you wrote deals with pacing which is the rate at which a story moves across its plot points. Having 30 plot points instead of 10 makes no difference, the pacing can be the same for both. At this point you’re arguing just to argue. Chapter length has nothing to do with pacing. I’m going 100mph. Whether I’m driving 300 miles or 1000 miles it makes no difference, my pace is the same.
>>25401686Really? No takers for explaining how people become NEETs? I've only gotten as far as how they afford to be NEETs, e.g. parental indulgence and government welfare. But not how they fall down that deep dark hole to begin with.
>>25403357>the rate at which a story moves across its plot pointsand how would you measure this?>>25403348>which can be expanded or shrunk at will depending on what you seek to accomplish in your storytellingyes, as I said>You could also describe that same pouring of a glass of water in an action-thriller where the pouring has no great impact to the story/idea you're trying to convey at all, and it takes away from the pacingyesit's almost as if using more words for unnecessary description is what is meant by "slow pacing">I've argued that length and pacing are independentyes, I know>regardless of how they're usedis that what you took away from my posts listing in detail at least three ways in which sentences and words are used differently?>events that DON'T appear immediately relevant or meaningfulalmost as if >longer, but is easier to read and followbecause why? because it has more relevant plot events (or detail) for its length. because, as you gave in your example of pouring a glass of water, words were not wasted describing plot events which were not relevant.and how do you measure length?
>>25399188I write better than anyone ITT. My trick? Not browsing /wg/. I condone actually living and writing what you feel.
>>25403484My life sucks and I barely feel anything.
>>25403513Just get off 4chan and write.
>>25403530Can I come back to share what I wrote?
>>25403537Of course not.
>>25403399Definitely not by word count.
Any losers here writing fanfiction?
>>25403629mewhy?
>>25403583So I should just leave? But where will I get valuable feedback on my writing?
>>25403644I was just wondering if 4chin had a space where fanfiction writers can congregate. It's all I used to write before I lost my motivation
>>25403604then?
>>25403669Reddit. Unironically r/writingfeedback
>>25403674It’s a rate sir
>>25403392It's not one thing, it's a confluence of factors. Some of which are common complaints and some of which will have people screaming CHUD before you can finish your sentence. Which makes talking about it honestly very difficult unless you mainline the actual experience while the factors are inherent to the story instead of being soapbox lectures.- social marginality (which is where family dynamics ties in and this could expand almost infinitely)- that it's possible (sufficient resources to not die)- usually young men, and their disposability under the matriarchy (which doesn't exist)- demographics: global competition, industrial outsourcing, gerontocracy of Boomers- easy availability of pseudosocial interaction (from 4chan to bluesky, it's all the same)etc
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/176028/the-chemical-divorce/chapter/3680909/feared-desiresGetting to the good part, but you have to start reading from the beginning. What say you, /WG/?
>>25403733But reddit is for fags!
>>25403877I read the first chapter. I didn’t care for it. Too minimalist. Too little explained and too let set up. This left me with no interest in continuing.
>>25403989A fair assessment. I began in medias res to seize the reader's attention, but the story is very niche and would only appeal to history buffs and occultists and misfits. Female readers have told me they enjoyed the humor, however, which surprised me. The story is very experimental and not for everyone, but the target audience seems to really dig it.
>>25403399>>the rate at which a story moves across its plot points>and how would you measure this?If you're enjoying it, then fuck anything else. If you find it tedious your reader will too. It's an art form and the only real rule is don't be boring. But live human feedback is the only real metric that counts, tough as it can be.
>>25403877Not bad, a decent start. No problems with the overall style, as I like minimalist myself. I find the quippiness a bit to forced. I'd rather dial that down by 50% and replace the other half with pertinent character-revealing lines.
>>25404098Appreciate it. Yeah, the first edition was even quippier, so I'm very thankful I replaced it with the new edition.
>>25403989>dislike that there wasn't enough explanation>refuse to read the explanations in the later chapters for this reasonstrange logic
>>25404254Readers went from complaining about being confused to complaining about too much exposition, so I'm just going to explain everything from now on and ignore the complaints
>>25403399>it's almost as if using more words for unnecessary description is what is meant by "slow pacing"great, man. So a chapter can have many words and have any kind of pacing, egro length is different separate from pacing. You agree that it's about what's necessary, and what's necessary can change and thus change the length of a chapter, but not the pacing. Why did you pretend you had a counterargument again?>is that what you took away from my posts listing in detail at least three ways in which sentences and words are used differently?what I took away, and what you've tried to defend from the beginning, is that pacing is inseparable from length/word count to the point they're synonymous. Pacing is independent from the word total, and is only dependent on plot development. Now you're trying to spin your own words by pretending>what lengthens or shortens a book is how much plot you're stuffing in itand>the answer is that for each plot element requires a certain number of words to adequately convey to the reader>the more elements, or the more complex a particular plot element is (which in another way of saying is "more sub-elements"), the more words will be neededsomehow agrees with>beats...can be expanded or shrunk at will depending on what you seek to accomplish in your storytellingI'm saying MORE PLOT DOESN'T MEAN MORE WORDS, you are saying MORE PLOT DEMANDS MORE WORDS. THOSE ARE CONTRADICTORY STATEMENTS.A beat is a DIVISION, just like in music. Having more beats in a measure does NOT make the measure longer, it makes each beat proportionally shorter. The measure itself REMAINS THE SAME LENGTH. MORE BEATS DO NOT DEMAND MORE TIME, AKA MORE WORDS. Cutting a sandwich does not suddenly increase the total volume of the sandwich.You used the word "plot" and I used the word "beat" and you conflated the two because you don't understand basic storytelling concepts. If I wanted to say plot, I would have said plot. Notice how I didn't say plot.Building-a-fire short story offers one major beat: the flint sparking the twigs and starting a fire which roars across the icy mountaintop, fighting against the biting cold.Count of Monte Christo offers a billion: Man betrayed, sent to prison, finds wealth, uses wealth to get revenge, vengeance is paid.MORE BEATS, MORE PLOT, DESCRIBED IN FEWER WORDS. NO CORRELATION. Making the Count of Monte Christo have fewer beats and less plot is also possible: Man betrayed, finds wealth, vengeance is paid. None of these concepts carry mathematical guarantees. You can always idly describe the environment without moving forward, stretching out a beat, or refuse, shortening them. Does the description affect the plot? No, nothing is moving forward, because words in books aren't restricted to real or fictional time. Doesn't affect beat number or plot size.>and how do you measure length?how do you lose track of a conversation this quickly when it was the subject of discussion since message one
>>25403877>Getting to the good partthe author shouldn't admit this about their own writing then they're trying to get people to read it
>>25404380I personally think the opening is the best part, but people tell me they love Barb
>>25403392NEETdom comes from a mindset consisting of some arrangement of these beliefs:>I don't need to work for good things to come to me>I don't want to work if I know good things will come to me anyway>Nobody deserves the effort I would put into work>Nobody would care about the effort I put into work>I already have everything I want, why bother risking that by changing my lifestyle?>The way I make a difference in the world doesn't demand I get a job>No amount of effort I could put in a job is worth anything>I was never made/good for a job>Not having a job is part of my egotistical identityNow just think of ways someone could learn these kinds of lessons in unfortunate circumstances, and you have authentic character background/development
>>25403134I read a book by the author of Sputnik Sweetheart. This book was called "The City and it's Uncertain Walls," and it had big pacing issues despite its two-page chapters. It almost was like groundhog-day in the middle, but I couldn't tell if it was intentional. He wonders how the yellow submarine kid can read so fast. He goes to the cafe. He works at the library. But the chapters were short! So the pacing, naturally, must have been brisk! I think my problem is often making very dense chapters that are short but have around three simultaneous threads that are paralleling, with a flashback in the middle.Like in this excerpt, my MC goes to a concert, and I describe her feeling like a tumbling dead fish, and her friend gets sexually harassed which parallels the bit about her grabbing the quarter off of the desk, and saying "'can I see that' means you want to touch it," along with the cranking innuendo. It is crammed with beats. So it's like James Joyce, hopefully, despite a YA veneer. Anyway.>>25404005FINE. I'll READ IT. >>25404254People are dumb as hell.
>>25404474This is fantastic work. I want to see more of this.
>>25404474i like this a lot. is there chapter 1?
I can't fucking tell when I'm supposed to use a comma before "and". I can't tell if shit is an independent clause or a dependent clause, editing is so much harder than writing, it's pissing me off so much. I'm starting to understand why Corncob wrote like that, but I'm not a famous writer, so I won't be able to get away with ignoring commonly held rules. I fucking grammar so much it's unreal. Why did I decide to try and write a novel.
>>25404711This was supposed to say "I hate grammar so much it's unreal", but, as you can probably tell, I make more typos when I'm frustrated.
>>25403484>>25403629PYW
>>25404711>>25404714Same anon. This is where I find AI to be very useful. Grammar check every paragraph
>>25403484all this plus reading GOOD authors more
>>25404737bro stfu with the AI shilling
>>25403837From that list of reasons, it sounds like NEET is a choice.
>>25404399So, NEET is depression.
>>25404711Put the comma there.
>>25404739No shilling. AI doing grammar checks is one of the best uses I found for it.
>>25404474So the quarter connection is referring to a slot machine? (My second read through of this excerpt) Cranking, quarter, slot machine, yeah this is good. Please post the final work here or do you have a throwaway email I can reach out to?
>>25404751I hate oxford comma haters
>>25404753edmondxavier@proton.meThe quarter is just about people taking something without consent even if they think its harmless. Im really surprised that this resonated with WG. I've gotten lukewarm responses before for writing about a "foid.">>25404673>>25404636thxz for reading this. My story is so close to done, mostly fixing up mediocre stanzas. I'll send thr whole thing to you if you want, email me at proton. Otherwise carry on knowing that you made me feel good for a few minutes.
>>25404751So the Oxford comma is a buzzkill? I’d rather have stripper JFK and Stalin desu.
>>25404751I understand the oxford comma well enough, it's coordinating conjunction I keep having problems with.
>>25404751oxford comma users can't understand context, i guess.
>>25404779Meaning is difficult enough to unearth as it is. Why deliberately court ambiguity?
>>25404797Oh c’mon, live a little. Nothing in life is certain.
>>25404747Do you consider all retirees depressed?
>>25404359I had a longer reply written out, but>one major beat>a billionlolI've heard enough
>>25404836no you didn't, but I'm glad you stopped talking.
>>25403017I have given up remembering all the obscure rules and just focus on my drafts being understood. If the technically incorrect use of a particular punctuation doesn't inhibit comprehension than it's fine. Let the wannabe pro editors cry about it.
>>25403629No.I considered writing a few short stories based on public domain pulp heros but I always prefer to just make my own stuff loosely inspired by something rather than trying to add to someone else's story.
>Finished first draft of 140K word novel>Give myself 2 months>Open chapter 1>Hate everything about it>Rewrite the first 60,000 words from scratch>Finish second draft>Give myself another month>Open chapter 1 again>Hate it stillCurrently contemplating whether I just go with "it's probably fine" and hand it over to my line editor or go through all this bullshit again
>>25404944Do you know why you hate it? Rewriting something without having a specific thing to fix is pointless.
>>25404947I think it's just the pacing of the slower moments at the start of the novel which I struggle with. I don't feel that the beginning whets any reader's appetite, or compels them to turn another page. I feel confident about the second half of the book, but am really struggling on the first half. I feel I fixed issues in the prose itself, and word economy in my rewrites, but still don't find it exactly "compelling." But then I also wonder how much of that is me being overly self-critical.
Writing a chud-core cyberpunk novel about a Christian purist who refuses to mutilate the body given to him by God. He's on death row and the novel is written in the perspective of letters penned after his sentencing. Inspired by Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter
I've speedran from 50k to 60k words at the end of june and beginning of july, hitting 60k last week. Since then I have written only 2k words, feel empty, completely lacking motivation even though I am nearing completion of my first draft (aiming for like 70k words). Instead I am growing more and more anxious about not writing and knowing what I wrote so far being shit. So I try to force myself to write but shit comes out.It's over.
>>25404977>chud-core cyberpunk novel about a Christian puristClosely strange to my idea of a setting where they killed God.
>>25404986I was basically having the same problem you're having right now during may, but I managed to finally finish my first draft at 70,000 words at the end of June. Ganbare, Anon, don't give up yet.
Does anyone else hate it when authors whose stories are set in a modern setting (Earth) drop name-brands or real companies? I can't fucking stand it. I'm fine with>We ate at McDonald's before going homeOr something like that. But when you're like Stephen King, who CONSTANTLY references real-life highways, stores, clothing brands, restaurants, and so on every fucking time a character does anything, it drives me crazy. It pulls me out of the story and makes me wonder if he gets a penny for every time he mentions one of them. You don't have to say>Joe, wearing his Ralph Lauren polo shirt and Guess brand jeans, drove his Ford F-150 over to the Circle K off the I-50 and got himself a cold Diet Coke and bag of spicy Doritos. Just say>He pulled his big truck off the highway and into a small gas station just down the road. Climbing out of the driver's side door, he smoothed the wrinkles in his expensive name-brand polo and jeans before heading inside and grabbing himself a cold diet soda and bag of spicy chips.
>>25405012I specifically go out of my way to avoid Brand™ naming even of something as generic as bandaid.
>>25405012Yeah, that kind of does suck. Unless you're Don Delilo making a point of it like he did in White Noise. Making your own brands is far more fun anyway. My novel needed a character to have an energy drink, so originally I just used Jolt Cola. But then I challenged myself to create my own fictional energy drink and came up with Kidney Stone Fuel. I think my own brand is far better.
