>>25560461
at what point does using the word "goon" become artistically unacceptable?

Something I wrote a couple of weeks ago, changing only a word or two here and there. https://pastebin.com/4k6tY8KJ

>>25560476
>American slang for organised crime hoodlums
sure
>capeshit quip pejoratively describing antagonist's henchpersons
right on the line
>masturbation
dropped

>>25560481
>Thaddeus stood in front of a tall concrete building, heavy raindrops hitting his coat and his face.
Not bad as such, but very 'I'm writing a story'.
>The sky was grey, covered with clouds of indescribable shape, more a heavy fog than a set of clouds.
Never describe something as indescribable. Also the use of clouds twice in quick succession messes with the flow of the sentence.
>The building was as oppressive as the weather, its windows as grey as the concrete walls they were embedded in.
I like this, nice description of the grey windows.
>New Brutalism, they called it, as simple as a building can get while still serving its intended use.
I'd remove 'they called it', and try to massage the definition into something more natural sounding rather than something you might read from an actual dictionary.

>>25559649

this is better than any LLM and its decades old technology

*click* This is your accountant speaking. I have always been fully complaint in your desire not to be judged or given any course of action in your expenditures or so-called life choices, as per the arrangements of our agreement, so I regret to inform you that you are now facing total foreclosure. You are rapidly losing assets for inability to pay and can no longer pay with what little assets remain. Most of your faculty has already left, and the surviving few seek back pay claim you cannot afford. My own employment will cease when payment terminates, and though I will continue work until that date, this is now approaching my final message to you. At the time of my termination, when the last of us have left you, we will no longer be shelter against the powers you have so employed us to prevent. You will be facing accounting out of your control. May God help you and this spiraling entity you have so horribly mismanaged, and may God have mercy on your soul. I do not believe this statement is a breach of contract.

>>25560697
Huh. Neat. That's incredibly useful.

>>25560707
I'm going to plagiarise this when my boss finally runs the company into the ground

>>25560755
This indicates its a great and relatable piece of writing, I feel

>discrete/discreet
>mantle/mantel
>ordinance/ordnance
>sack/sac
You do use these correctly, right anon?

>>25560697
it's also good because it doesn't just detect three word sequences, but it does so even if they're sequenced differently ("leonard shook head --> leonard shook his head" or "turned around (to) face")

Do you take notes while you read? Not necessarily for the sake of learning to write but in general.

Dammit I spent all day rewriting shit I already wrote rather than adding new stuff... I need to get better or I am literally ngmi

>>25561394
Same with me

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>writing a story about a boy travelling a world
>have him captured at one point by a foreign people
>had the idea of what happens in my head for a long time
>go to write it
>they treat him as a pet because he endeared himself to their queen
>she gets him a personal female slave
>he doesnt want to because of moral sensibilities
>the queen just throws the girl to her animal pets as food
>think about cutting it because it's just "trauma porn"
>decide "no, i must show that these people are evil"
Always pull through with full steam. Even if it seems too harsh at first, that can still be sanded down in the second draft.

You will never be a real writer. You have no stories, you have no themes, you have no deeper meanings. You are an internet addicted manchild twisted by excessive reading and delusions of grandeur into a crude mockery of creative perfection.

All the (You)s you get are tongue-in-cheek and from other trolls. To your face people mock you. /wg/ is disgusted and ashamed of you, your "frens" laugh at your masturbatory purple prose right out in the open.

Authors are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of literary tradition have allowed authors to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even nopubs who "self-publish" read as uncanny and unnatural to an author. Your plot structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a drunk author to critique your work, he'll close your rentry link and LOL the second he gets a whiff of your ridiculous, unfiltered adjective abuse.

You will never be published. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself you're going to make it, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight.

Eventually it'll be too much to bear - you'll by a double barreled shotgun, load it with buckshot, put it in your mouth, and pretend you're just like Hemingway. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They'll bury you with a headstone marked NGMI, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a pseud is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably not a writer.

This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

>>25561514
On the contrary, 4chan users are much worse audience members than the public and are almost never trying to participate in an actual posted work

Which is to say, the buy-in is awful here. What are you, going to be a 'fan' of an anonymous user's extended literary universe? What you need is buy-in.

>>25560391
But isn't that subversive girlboss and woke?

>>25560707
*click* This is an actual chartered accountant speaking. A retort of this sort dressed up in movie dramatism would sound a bit more like the following: Sir, I regret to inform you that I must decline to provide further accounting services to you and your organisation. The reason is that the going concern of your firm is going to be a major concern, and not just for you and me, but also the police, the FBI, the SEC, every news sheet from the most sober of financial reporting ombudsmans to the sleaziest tabloid scum that ever ringed a bath, and, God forbid, the IRS. In your service I have cooked the books for so long I feel like a Hell's Kitchen contestant. Gordon Ramsay's imprecations ring in my ears from the moment I open your books of account. Your business has been writing cheques your ass can't cash on the backs of promises your customers' asses can't cash. Every investor and employee has long since fled the firm, and only I am left alive to tell you. Your creditors are legion, wielding I.O.U.s from million-dollar accounts in the red to the little old tea lady demanding immediate payment for the coffee and sandwiches account four months overdue. And while even the dreaded IRS might be appeased merely by paying for your room and board for the next 30 years, I have been informed by email that Signore Barney "The Nose" Gambino wishes for a more personal interview with you.

You are about to carve your name in the books alongside such other luminaries of the profession as Madoff, Bankman-Fried, Holmes, and Belfort. May God have mercy on your soul; The Nose will not.

>>25561738
This is a fine piece but not my intended meaning or tone at all. Perhaps I was not clear and rewrites are in order, but my message is one of from a long-ignored moral center to a brain that has mismanaged its body and whose organs are now in failure leading to death. The account you do not control is God, or Death.

>>25561743
oh
I was just jumping ship and saving my own neck lol

>>25561745
Not a problem. It means a lot to me when someone extrapolates their own meaning so intently from what I intentionally omitted.

>>25561745
>>25561760
OH! Which is also to say. 'You are the ignored moral center to your boss who is a terrible manager who has terribly mismanaged your company causing it to slowly lose all its vital organs who are the employees, and you have tried to tell him this, but his retarded ass ordered you not to tell him what to do, silently or otherwise. His faculties have left him means he's fucking crazy and losing his senses and you are soon out'

and that he can enjoy being dead because he already fired his liver so when (you) his conscience is gone it'll be because he's fucking dead and God'll be the one accounting for whether he'll go to Heaven or Hell

>>25561487
Yes it helps to acknowledge and overcome your inner critic when writing. Not ignoring it, just bookmarking it and setring it aside for later.

>>25561738
>the going concern of your firm is going to be a major concern
Is this a mix of jargon or something?

>>25561514
Your daily affirmation needs work.

>>25561783
It's a tell that he's not an actual chartered accountant, or if he is, there's a reason he posts on 4chan.

>>25561820
I don't know anything about accounting so I assumed "going concern" is jargon. But maybe anon is an actual accountant and just drunk.

>>25561827
"Going concern" is financial jargon, but it's used wrong in that sample.

I've been plotting my upmarket horror-thriller with dark romance elements and a crazy twist. It's very exciting, I'm happier than I've been in a long time. And it's an idea of my own that I've twisted around to make it marketable.
Today I was beginning to lay out the chapters and realized there has to be a middle part between the two 'halves' I was imagining, it worried me at first, but it's an organic outgrowth of the plot that I just realized fits perfectly. When I get to the point of drafting it's going to be lovely, sweet, sweet hours of writing sentences. I'm so happy I could cry.

>>25561820
Does this >>25560707 read as chartered accountancy???

>>25561839
I have no idea.
complaint -> compliant

You're writing upmarket fiction. I'm writing downmarket fiction. We are not the same.

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Rate and hate please.

"What do you wish of me?"
"Simple. I wish for you to die!"

I love cheesy dialogue.

>>25561830
come at me bruh

>>25561820
>there's a reason he posts on 4chan
heaven forbid accountants have any fun

>>25561853
Bane: 'So, you came back to die with your city?'
Batman: 'No, I came back to stop you'
lmfao okay

>>25561854
well the trick to a nice resignation letter is to demonstrate you're a fucking great worker when you're not being mismanaged, so your 'fuck off i'm leaving' letter can be the most professionally written productive piece of office communication that they would have wanted and could have had if they weren't such a bitch to you.

>>25561845
I only really have 2 ideas that don't fall anywhere within established genres, and I can't make myself toil at them before crunching out the poopy doopy goyslop that's right there on my plate.

>>25561850
fucking justify your fucking paragraphs

>shack
fine
you described its origins but you also need to describe its appearance

>Strider
ditto

>like a thing with hands
weak metaphor

>Company
what company? the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles?

>Phaethon's Respite
what's that?

>Knowing's cheap. It's the saying that has a price tag.
Well said

overall, prose-wise one of the best excerpts I've read here for months
but you need to describe more, way more. read more SF/F and see how they do it

>>25561865
well that's an opinion
this here was just a plain "fuck you I'm leaving"

and "going concern" is used perfectly correctly in this case, I don't know what's the beef about that

>>25561872
That's all fine too. I'm not really an editor.

Does anyone here have experience in writing for children (10-12 years)? Could you give any pointers?

>>25561850
AI sloppa

>>25561932
Just copy Goosebumps.

Where's a good place to post furry fiction? Asking for a friend.

>>25561932
I've been accused often of writing "as if my readers are 12" which, one would assume, immediatly qualifies me as a young fiction writer.

>>25561978
Ermahgerd

>>25561932
Narnia was written for children. Hobbit was written for children. The Jungle Book was written for children. Make it simple but don't infantilise the story.

>>25561845
>downmarket
Sounds like the name of a new /lit/ quarterly mag.

>>25561514
Funnily enough, this is the opposite of me in every possible way. But, crucially, not in a way that means I'll fare any better

>>25561743
>>25561763
I'm >>25560755
I will say that I missed the death/organs metaphor, which is a strong concept. That might mean it's not super clear in the piece, or that the excerpt is just lacking the necessary context to make it click (if this is part of a larger work), or that I'm personally too tunnel visioned by the horror of you literally just describing where I work (I'm not an accountant though, so I can't vouch for that particular tonal accuracy). But in the lattermost respect, >>25560772 yes, I found it a very cathartic read.

Does "crook" sound too modern when describing a corrupted official through the lens of someone living in an era resembling 16th-17th century Europe? Any alternatives?

>>25561853
>Do you expect me to talk?
>No, Mr Bond. I expect you to die.

>>25561858
It's you who's out, Gobby! Out of your mind!

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>>25561850
dumbfuck character names again. jesus h christ

>>25561872
"The going concern of your firm" is not proper usage. "Your firm's ability to remain a going concern" is proper usage.

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Based on a real ass I saw the other day.

Are nightmare scenes just too cliche?
I'm writing a scene like a psychotic episode, where a character's senses are directly manipulated by magic, and it feels like she's having a nightmare. I'm not happy with any of it though really, it feels like I see poorly-fitting generic nightmare sequences in every other bad story I read.
I had the idea to try and make it feel more related to the character and the plot by directly evoking her fears in it but I'm not sure it really will work. A booming voice from far off screams out everything she's afraid of, and she's reduced to a blubbering panicking mess. I thought maybe I could then refer back to it every now and again so it feels like it has some truth and permanence.
You guys got any advice for me about this?

>>25562424
alright, you got me there

On the day Red was to be eaten, she once again stood naked in front of the mirror. This time not examining, but admiring herself. For she liked very much what she saw. Her slim face had taken on a definite softness. Her belly hung down quite a bit further and spilled out sideways. The creamy skin around her hips was now streaked with faint red stretchmarks, and her hips themselves pushed out in a pear shape.

Even her poor, neglected chest had finally started increasing in size.

The lions share of the weight though had definitely gone to her bottom. Red squeezed it and found she couldn’t fit a cheek in one hand. She gave it a slap, feeling naughty. Then several more. Watching how it wobbled and jiggled in a way it had never done before.

She did a happy little twirl in the mirror and was filled with a sense of pride. She had worked hard and could see it had paid off.

Fetching her red cloak from the cupboard, she was doubly pleased to find it was now a noticeably more snug fit. She would have to ask her mother to take it out further.

>>25562602
I'm aroused and curious.

>>25562602
Using a mirror to describe the character is amateurish

>>25562552
I like it. All present tense chads must write daily.

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>started the chapter feeling like I had nothing to say
>suddenly it's 2500 words

>>25562552
I fucking love this kinda shit, where you just run wild and commit to lunacy

>>25562585
Definitely hard to do well. If it's not actually vital to the plot (ie you're thinking of calling back to it to make it seem more important than it really is, rather than writing the scene as the necessary catalyst for planned plot developments), I'd consider this:
What if instead of showing us the nightmare, you just show the after effect from the outside, of her reduced to a blubbering mess? Leave us stunned and wondering "Woah, what the fuck did that magic do to her?" (especially if it's a character who's not exactly quick to tears in normal circumstance), and leave her alienated from anyone who might have witnessed it.
The possibility of that depends hugely on specific context though, might be completely wrong for what you're working on, but just throwing it out there.
Overall, just figure out why the scene is there to begin with and let that be your guiding light, rather than deciding the scene's there of its own accord (even if it doesn't need to be) and trying to retrofit a purpose around it.

>>25562552
>with every step she takes, it looks like her ass is winking at me. Left blink, right blink, left blink, right blink. I wonder if her ass is sending me a message? Morse code perhaps. Her ass is like a prisoner of war in a propaganda reel, covertly communicating that a little Vietnamese man has been ripping out his fingernails at night
pottery

Sanderson is so good at using compound words to describe his fantasy monsters.

>>25562748
example?

I like my writing but I have realized I lack a sense for storytelling. I can sit down and write nice sentences but I've realized I don't have a clue for how a story should progress organically or what the point of the scene I'm writing is. Any books, resources, or techniques develop that sense?

>>25562753
Skyeels

>>25563072
Read more short stories. Fairy tales are good

>How "telling" is this? Also does this flow well; haven't written in a while and just did a quick snippet
I left Janet to her own devices with some cash to burn at the cafe right across the street. Then I released a breath I’d been holding in, exhaling a cloud of cloudy death.

In any sensible place, legal drugs would be outlawed for such casual use, especially to minors like myself. Nicotine, alcohol, amphetamines. But here, in Newfand? People were willing to look the other way if you were a Sward. People’s heroes and champions had the God’s given grace to indulge themselves in premeditated murder if they wished. We were already killing ourselves for their benefit anyways.

I reached the end of my cigarette and stomped it out on the street, resolving to recommend a better brand. Even if she was my older sister, she wasn’t a Sward; if she wanted to kill herself, it was best that she did it properly. With Death Sticks; cigarettes bearing both brand and clever wordplay.

Gave my nerves a pleasant tingling with every drag of the stick. How everyone weren’t hooked was beyond me, especially considering the lack of care for Quarying. Though, I reckon shops had more to worry about then identifications nowadays, with the increased monster activity sighted out in the east.
>>25563072
Unironically, the only answer is to read more books.
That's probably not the answer you want so:
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,
Save the cat write a novel
Anatomy of story
Fantasy Fiction Formula (ignore the fantasy part)

>>25563087
>released a breath I’d been holding in
Lol. I can't believe this cliche is real.

I also lost interest because it felt like it was going nowhere, and Im bored of sad boy stories

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>>25563083
that's it? you are literally smashing two words together. a five year old can do that. thats not even a compound. Are all sanderson fans underage?

Anons itt, please create dialogue between two friends and post it
>Reason?
I asked and that's good enough

>>25563124
im not even writing to fulfill my own goals why the fuck would i write for you

How is it I can write 70k words for a single story and love every waking moment of it and then as soon as I get to word 70,001 I suddenly feel like the entire thing is garbage and I should give up on everything?

>>25563072
Do you have a clue about what kind of person you imagine would read it? I got a lot of improvement simply from thinking about who I am talking to.
For example I am writing a milf & neet romance and the audience is neets and milfs. The story nearly writes itself.

>>25563116
That's why it's so good. It's simple, relatable and quickly defines the word without paragraphs of gobblygook

>>25563148
Sometimes it takes 70,001 words to get to the truth. Just be happy you got there. Post it here next time and we'll get you there in the first 100.

Do you think that people who use typewriters or WordStar in the deep twenty six are crazy or are they on to something?

>>25563087
Not really telling, in the sense that I have no idea what's going on. What's a Sward? What's Quarying?
As for flow, the breath stuff is laid in paragraph one (and I agree with anon about the phrasing) but not clarified that he's smoking until paragraph 3, where he stubs it out. Then in 4 he's talking like he's still smoking, and is suddenly speaking with a dialect.
Also Death Sticks is not clever wordplay.

>>25563124
>So anon asked me to post a dialogue
>A dialogue?
>Yeah, between two friends
>What for?
>Get this: Because he asked
>The fuck?
>Right?
>Who does this guy think he is?
>I got no idea, but anyway, I tells him 'Listen pal, I'm not writing you no stinkin' dialogue between no two friends'
>No! And what did he say?
>He said 'Oh jeez, I'm real sorry Tony, y'know I didn't mean nuthin by it'
>Yeah I'll bet he didn't, audacious prick. So what did you do about it?
>Let's just say the two of us had a "dialogue" of our own
>...
>...
>NOT gay sex
>I didn't think-
>Okay, okay, I wrote the stupid dialogue!
>Goddamn it Tony, this shit's why I never hang out with you

>>25563351
(Goddamn it, there should either be one more or one less ellipsis line)

>>25563351
the squeakquel
>So you just wrote this guy a dialogue
>Yes...
>For free
>Well he made a compelling argument if you think about it
>Well what was it even about? 'A dialogue between two friends,' that's so open ended
>...
>Tony...
>Don't be mad...
>Are we in the dialogue right now?!
>You said you wouldn't be mad!
>No I fucking didn't!
>Well one of us did!
>Look, I did not consent to this, and I DO not consent to this
>Listen Jimmy, in a post-AI influencer-driven world none of us have a reasonable expectation to privacy anymore, we're all being recorded 24/7 whether it's by CCTV, Flock cameras, our own phones, or deranged TikTokers in pervert glasses trying to go viral off the back of your public humiliation
>Or from a numbskull with a fake accent and no original thoughts selling out his best friend because some anon asked rudely
>You're still mad about the dialogue thing?!

>>25563148
Was the 70,001st word "...NOT"?

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how do i solve this overall narrative problem?

>>25563371
I like stories like that, so long as the build up has a little something going for it, even if it's just an atmosphere/feeling I like spending time in (cosiness/dread/intrigue/etc)

>>25563306
>>25563306
? I don't know what you mean but I use a typewriter sometimes. Its easy to OCR after.

>>25563371
Better prose, interesting scenes, a unique environment

>>25563392
Why would you use a typewriter when Notepad++ is free gramps?

>>25563401
The better question is why did I spend $300 on it. But I like it for just writing, I tend to write in controlled bursts, sitting down and only doing a few scenes at a time. It's all right there on the page when I am done, for first drafts it's great.
Plus now without the need to transcribe it, it's easy.
I like to write in bursts since that is how I read, run out of gas, stop. Then think about the story more, then come back and work. One thing I absolutely do not do is stare at the page or screen for more than 2 or 3 minutes... It is either coming out or not, if not I stop and do something else. Staring at a screen or page hoping something comes out is not my style.

>>25563377
i do too, and tried for a foreboding, hostile vibe for my novel, but it seems too many beta readers (small sample size) are bouncing off the slow start

only one guy actually made it to the end and got to say 'holy shit'

>>25563425
>The better question is why did I spend $300 on it.
NTA but that was literally the question

>>25563072
>how to write a story
Literally in the OP: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48654.Story

>>25563426
With that sort of thing, you might just need to build a good reputation for yourself with more digestible stories so readers trust that you're going somewhere worthwhile. Or just throw it out there and pray it becomes one of those "trust me, just wait for it" recs (assuming the one reader who got through it thought it genuinely came together and that the build up wasn't a mark against the complete work).

>>25563124
"The one where it seems like you could start crying at any moment."
"But don't I always look like that?"
"Yes...and you always have bad news. You're a serious downer."
"But I thought that's what you liked about me!"
"I do! I never said I didn't."
"I knew I loved you for a reason. Anyway, I have some bad news to tell you."
"Well, out with it, then!"
"I lost my job today."
"So? You only started this morning. Why are you so hung up on it?"
"Because we're destitute! We'll never move out of your parents' house!"
"Eh? I thought this was *your* parents' house."
"Is it? It doesn't look familiar."
"Hmmm...now that you mention it, I don't recognize it either."
"Then...where are we?"
At that moment, the lights dimmed, and a voice on the PA system announced the furniture store was closing in 5 minutes.
"Oh. I guess we'd better go home."
"But where *is* our home?"
"What? I thought *you* knew!"
"No, I thought we lived *here*!"
"That's not possible; it's a furniture store."
"We, we know that *now*, but what about when we didn't?"
"Oh, this is all too confusing. I can't cope."
"I can't cope either."
"That's how I knew we were destined to be together."
"Indeed...these are the ties that bind, darling. So? Shall we?"
They linked arms and strolled toward the front door.
"I don't know what the future holds, but whatever it is, we'll face it together, and with the power of our love, we'll overcome!"
They stopped just before the door. Outside, the rain fell in thick sheets, interspersed with waves of pebble-sized hail.
"Do you have your umbrella?"
"*My* umbrella? I thought it was yours!"
"Why would *I* have a pink and purple umbrella with lacy fringes?"
"Don't be coy. You know you're into that sort of thing."
"You know me all too well. So...shall we brave the rain?"
"With you, I'll take on any challenge!"

>>25563148
No need to trip. You'll get over the feeling.

>>25563455
I have plenty of free writing apps as well. How much do you spend on printer ink? Or are you all digital?

>>25563345
Sward was meant to be heros/champions, and Quaring was meant to be looking for identification. Eh, it'd probably make more sense in an extended segment, but I'm a sucker for exposition like that.
>death sticks is dumb wordplay
Not wrong about that

Yup I write it all on google docs
My backup? A second google doc labeled backup

>>25563124
>"A boy figure you could stand to get some time away from studying bizarre and mysterious crime scenes."
>"How do you know what I'm reading?"
>"Ain't I told you I was a fortune teller? It my bidness to know the unknown."
>Right. I try to forget most of what comes out of your mouth. My mental health thanks me for it."
>"Including authentic hibachi grills?"
>"Hibachi?"
>"Yeah, it's a new place out in town. Seemed at least half-decent when I last went by it."
>Good for you. Want a cookie?"
>"I was thinkin'. We could take the whole team out; you, me, Mark, and Susan. It be a whole shindig. But if you're still offerin' the cookie, I'll take it."
>"And you can afford this... how?"
>"Why you think I've been comin' in late at night? That I got some dastardly deeds to commit?"
>"It would fit right in character."
>"Please. Real delinquents act during the day; only wimps wait til' night fall. Momma ain't raise no shiftless mule. So, is Friday good?"
>"You mean the day that storm is going to come in?"
>"Nice call. Some day next week, say."
>"I dunno. Maybe."
>"Who is a baby who says yes."
>"You need better material."
>"Nah. Being cheesy is what's in. It's raw and honest, and I'm as raw as a dirty needle. Countin' on ya to help a boy out, Mittens. Don't let that baby down."
>"Don't quit your day job."
>"Ain't plan on it. This here team's my full-time job, and by the time I'm through, y'all are gon' see me as the Hail Mary."

>>25563083
oh
well it worked for Avatar (kungfu not alien Pocahontas)
but that gives you the general IQ level eh

>>25563351
>>25563359
I like how you can just imagine character voices
>>25563469
I was a little lost here for a bit, but I think I have it. Crazy people in love, right?


Everyone should take a day a week to write out pure dialogue without attribution tags of any kind. Good exercise.

>>25563538
Yes, plus I somehow screwed up and didn't copy the first three lines of dialog.

>>25562729
That's honestly good advice, I appreciate it.
>anger the protagonist so badly that she retaliates with a cruel public execution
>show concrete evidence of how fragile and volatile her mental state really is
>show a glimpse of the secondary protag’s true form in a way that actually confirms nothing about him, making both her and the reader more suspicious
>have the current enemy still actually lose the fight
After thinking it through and running it through that criteria, everything tells me I should keep it, because it does everything I want it to. I suppose I'll just barrel ahead with it no matter how bad it feels and see how it turns out in the end
Bless you anon, I didn't expect real solid advice like that

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>>25563494

>>25563072
what i do is that i collect a bunch of disjointed scenes (literary fiction/fantasy/smut/quick descriptions/scifi/horror) and at some point, when i have enough scenes inspired by two or three other scenes, they start to clump together to form a larger story. a smut fragment becomes a sex scene in a larger story and i just go back and edit heavily to make it fit. then its just a quiestion of finding a red line and arranging all the scenes.

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662 words. 16 hours sitting on front of the pc, and I squeezed 662 itsy bitsy words out of my lemonhead.
Today
Was
A
Good
Day.

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I cannot tell when adjectives are coordinate or cumulative and it's pissing me off. I'm afraid If I don't put a comma where there's "supposed" To be Ones and I end up publishing my shit, then some redditor or tiktoker will point it out and everyone on the internet will laugh at me for being a retard who can't into grammar correctly.

>>25562637
I might have the wolf fuck her in a hall of mirrors just because I don't like your faggot ass.

>>25563524
Too be fair the other Avatar also basically kitbashed earth creatures into aliens. They just sprinkled in speculative biology because of the sci-fi focus.

I write porn in the same way they used to shoot widescreen before every theater could project it. Where they'd film in a way that it could be shown in either aspect ratio and still look good. My stories have characters that with only a few line tweaks can be made adult or underage depending on the audience I'm showing it to.

>>25564006
The actual sex bits aren't really all that interesting, even when I'm reading smut. The characters and their interactions are way more provocative, and if they're dimmed enough that with a few changes they can be completely changed I'm not so sure I'd enjoy reading that. Though I suppose just the knowledge of if they're underage or not for example would change the scene quite a bit without changing any other words, but again I'd prefer if that were more directly taken into account.

>>25564069
it needs to be written more CYA or DIY, like the textual equivalent of an IKEA flatpack with assembly instructions

>Some Assembly Required
>Before reading, follow these instructions according to your fetish
>Ctrl H "girl", replace with "guy"
>Ctrl H "pussy", replace with "anus"
>Ctrl H "18 years", replace with "8 years" or "80 years" as you like it
>Ctrl H "nubile", replace "infantile" / "senile"

>>25564098
Again, at least for me, the fetish goes farther beyond just the mentioning of it and otherwise having the scene and interactions be the same. The dialogue should be extremely different with 18 vs 8, the descriptions, the thoughts of both characters, the actions themselves, everything. And that's what would make it interesting, having such taboo as the forefront of nearly every interaction and a driving force in the narrative affecting everything. If it's just tacked on, it wouldn't feel right. Same goes for girl vs guy and pussy vs anus especially.
As a proper CYA with instructions to flip to entirely different sections of text depending on which option you choose it would work obviously, but you'd need to rewrite a whole lot more than just a few words to differ them.

>>25564098
I imagine if you tongued the anus of a senile 8 year old she'd make noises like a retarded mule.

Every time before I put a word down I get anxious that I cannot write

Then I do write, and it all comes out like a backed up pipe, and I see the genius on the page and once again I realise that I am naturally gifted, just lazy

>>25564137
Similar here. But also, every time I have a really good session I find I have a long refractory period of just basking in the "wow, maybe I'm not a hopeless piece of shit after all," which delays my next session, which then allows the anxiety to creep back up a la "I bet that was just a fluke, I can't write after all, I've probably forgotten the entire alphabet by now"
Copy and paste for every other aspect of my life lol

>>25563810
Writing porn is already a low bar, but you somehow manage to get it even lower.

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>read the classics
>read pre ww2 literature

I'm tired boss. These writers lived in much more fascinating realities to pull inspiration from. Why are we stuck at end of history? I could be balling in the 18th century in a gothic castle, trekking the unexplored territories of north america, crusades, bronze age epics, or working in pre ww1 factory. No wonder literature is dead and infinite jest is some meme we throw around despite shitting on. This world is anti soul gas post 9/11. No wonder romantasy is winning.

>>25564638
You have all of history to draw from. It's up to you to pick out the best parts that can be turned into a great novel. Escapism type literature is at an all time high because of how shitty everything is, write about anything but the present and your lived experience.

>>25564638
there's plenty of things interesting in a modern day setting. You can write about different cultures mingling, you can write about cars, airplanes, traveling, a life of leisure, finding a job, trying to break into an industry, starting a coffee shop, entering a pokemon card tournament, making a hamburger, talking about how anyone in the world can create their shit and spread it across the world (The gutenberg press has expanded to all arts), trying to have sex with a white woman as an indian man (make it even harder with a east asian man), drinking beer, go ride a horse, be a police man catching a criminal using all the modern tech, etc.

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>>25564683
these are ok ideas for short stories but what about real drawn out stories? Even the more serious things about our times seem so flat and uninspiring. What would you write about modern warfare? Someone getting blasted by a drone? Political intrigue? Some technocrats at the end of capitalism working together to push more digital technology? World seems to get duller grimmer and more painful as time goes on.

>>25564720
heart of darkness but in papua new guinea o algo

>>25564720
Yes. You're supposed to write about the dull, grim, and painful. What's so bad about writing about how corporations are happily adding more and more chemicals to fund doctors that tell us the food is good for you so they too can collect more money? Or even how genetic modified foods are making everythign worse? Use your imagination. FFS you posted Snake. Go with Kojima conspiracy. He wrote about modern day crazy shit, you can too

>>25562585
I personally hate nightmare scenes because they feel like in real life when people tell me about their "super cool dream" and its not really that cool unless you embellish the dream to make more sense and make it cool. I hate dream sequences so much I gave my MC a condition that prevents her from ever dreaming.


That said, ignoring my personal grievances, I think the purpose of any dream sequence is to shove in a ton of symbolic imagery and have an interiority moment for a character you wouldnt normally get.

For example, character feels guilty. However, this character is a retard who never actually stops to self-reflect, so they never get to acknowledge their guilt. Thus the dream sequence is necessary as a pseudo-therapy session to show their subconscious guilt. Alternatively, the author has fallen for the "show don't tell" meme, and thinks having a character thoughtfully self-reflect on their guilt is too boring. So here comes the dream sequence, allows for 'self reflection' in an 'exciting' way with haunting, absurdist imagery.

Basically, don't spell shit out directly, use imagery instead, and use the dream as a chance for interiority, for character analysis and have some ominous prophecies and foreshadowing in it too.

I got the critique that I "should include more words ending in -ing" because the action scene felt like "reading an account or video of a fight rather than living in it."

I have no clue what to do with that feedback.

>>25564835
Include more words ending in -ing
Seems pretty clear and specific

>>25564871
It seems totally random and nonsensical.

>>25564835
You have three words ending with -ing in that post alone, good job! Keep it up.

>>25560488
language evolves, if you want to write something that resonates with zoomers it's worth considering

>>25564874
It's called continuous tense and it implies the action is presently happening (even in past tense) rather than having happened prior (in past tense) or having briefly occurred (in present tense)
>he swung the bat
>he swings the bat
>he's swinging the bat

>>25564884
Oh and
>he was swinging the bat
if you're otherwise in past tense

>>25564879
The zoomers that read tend to also read older books with older language just fine, so that is bullshit.

You don't need to pepper your writings with modern slang. If anything it just dates your book in a bad way.

>>25564884
>>25564885
Sounds like breaking several grammar and tense rules to make worse sentences to bend a narrative from 3rd person past tense to be more like 1st person present tense, which I am not going to do.
I am going to ignore that critique and continue writing action scenes in 3rd person past tense.

>>25564879
Slang often evolves too quickly to have a stable place in a slow format like literature, unless you're writing something to quite specifically comment on it

>>25564884
>>25564885
but that tense is passive voice garbage, it needs "is/was" stapled everywhere to work.

>>25564896
It's not breaking rules at all, what the fuck are you talking about?

>>25564902
Changing tense mid paragraph is a big no no.

>>25564769
Not him but I have a story that features a repeated nightmare that's half a reliving of the MCs big trauma and half a prophecy of what's to come but it's written so that the reader won't fully understand it until they learn what his trauma actually fully was until half way through the book cause it's full of trippy imaginary. How would you feel about something like that?

>>25564908
Aura farming
The payoff better be worth it. And if the payoff IS worth it, i'd put it at the end of the book instead of the middle

>>25564835
Ignore them.
Having too many -ing words is usually a sign of passive voice, which you should stay clear of.

Just post your writing here so we can know if your action just simply sucks.
>>25564908
I'd probably skip it. Also, the trauma better be "worth it". You're writing to an audience that wishes for hype and aura so this could make or break for you

>>25564900
That’s not the passive voice. Passive voice only means the object comes before the verb.
The bat was swung.
The bat would be swung by him.
The bat had been swung by him.
The bat was being swung by him.
The bat was going to be swung by him.
By him, the bat was swung.
It was by him that the bat had been swung.

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>>25564907
Past tense is past tense. An entire book strictly in past tense continuous (or any other extremely limited tense) would be fucking unreadable. It's about the relationship of events relative to one another. That's literally what tenses are for.
Pick up a random book and read any random paragraph, look how many tenses are mixed together to make the relative timing of occurrences clear, regardless of whether it's all rooted in past tense.
>It was* a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking* thirteen.
(Simple+continuous)
>He was* an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone* eighty-four days now without taking a fish. The boy was going* with him, as his grandfather had agreed. The old man had shown him how to fish, and the boy loved him.
(Simple+perfect+continuous)
>In the first half-July, early one evening, a young man came* out of the garret in which he had been lodging* in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in a hesitation, towards the bridge. He had been carefully wrapping himself in his overcoat all day, feeling all the time that there was something unusual and undefined awaiting him. He was not afraid, but he felt a sort of irritation, as if it were* something that he could not understand.
(Simple+perfect continuous+subjunctive)

>>25564950
>Just post your writing here so we can say it sucks due to lack of cowbell after also saying we only read the opening sentence

Look, this place is fine to vent and talk about craft but y'all are intentionally the worst at critique. It ain't constructive or even destructive criticism in this thread. Writing samples are treated as material for really shit improv comedy by people who ain't actually funny.

Also no one here has the attention span to read a full chapter of anything, and I am pretty sure the regulars of this thread don't actually read books at all, like ever.

So again, great place to vent about writing woes. Horrible place to actually post writing you are trying to make better.

>>25564959
Yeah, I am disregarding your advice.
It sounds awful.

>>25564961
i wouldn't say that. if you put in genuine effort in your first page, most anons would give you general feedback that you can use. Even something as simple as "stop showing so much" or "sadboy shit is boring" is good feedback. It tells the writer to look at their sentence structure and see if they need more emotion in their stories, or in "sadboy" case, it tells us this is more of a rant than a genuine story. Now there are people that write like a screenplay and be belligerent when its called out on it, those people you can't help.

>>25564965
Dude, I have been here in these threads for like a year and have eyes.

Who are you trying to kid?

>>25564964
I'm not giving you advice, I'm informing you of a basic feature of language.

>>25564968
You are informing me of your ignorance when I didn't ask.

>>25564956
No, passive voice means the subject receives an action, instead of doing an action (nothing to do with the object)

He swung. The bat swung.
He is swinging. The bat is swinging.

Its a little confusing because the 'swinging' becomes a gerund, you need to remove the last object for it to make sense

>>25564973
>present continuous+past simple

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>>25564977
Dude, what is there to be argued about? Did you sleep through elementary school?

>>25564990
Elementary school was slept through by the anon

>>25564977 is correct in terms of definition
>>25564956 is correct in terms of example
"The bat is swinging" is not passive voice. "The bat is being swung" is passive voice.

The only thing that matters is whether or not someone reading your sample would continue or not bother. "Keep going anon" is usually what my responses to samples amount to. If I don't respond it usually means I am passing.

>>25564994
It's sad when actual good samples are posted and I know I'll never find out what happens next

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Wing how did you do the drop cap like this? WHat program do you use? the formatting looks so well done.

All this talk on passive voice when you could use https://datayze.com/passive-voice-detector and get it over with
>>25564961
Okay, go over my dialogue here >>25563518 then

>>25564993
>"The bat is swinging" is not passive voice
Holy fuck, TIL. I thought 'is' was always passive.

>>25564638
You can join an organization that makes you travel any time you want. Peace Corps, Americorps, Foreign Legion, military... you don't lead an interesting life because you refuse to.

>>25564994
hey that's exactly what i reply too

will majoring in English make me a worse writer?

>>25564959
i agree with this anon.

>>25564879
If.

>>25565050
No
>B-But
No. Anons will tell you otherwise, ignore them. Kind of a waste of time if you just plan to write considering you can already produce royal road garbage free of charge. The future is mass-produced hype and aura lit-rpg wuxia

>>25565025
That shit is for rich well connected white people born of extreme privilege.

Yeah, no shit rich people can go off on adventures whenever they want. They are rich.

>>25565090
Huh? All four options I listed are paid positions. What are you even on about?

>>25565090
>military
>rich well connected white people born of extreme privilege

The helmeted boy gazed down upon the sleeping girl on his lap. His hidden countenance was puzzled. Not by the teleporter, which still hummed and glowed as it sapped the mana of the sleeping girl. Not by the water puddles surrounding him, proof that even an uneducated brute like him could learn magic. But by the tenderness of the moment. Violence was his vigor and cruelty was his covenant, so uncertainty filled his blackened heart. The sleeping girl on his lap was a delicate thing, with a face so unmarred, and a neck so slender, and a defenselessness so tempting and sweet. He had already killed quite a few living beasts at his age, some his very own species, so he knew! He knew how easy it would be to snuff the flames of her life. With his hand on her neck, he knew down to the notches of her spine, how easily they’d crack and yield before the torque of his grip. With his hand on her lips, he knew down to the pumping of her lungs, how they’d feebly puff up and suckle at his hand until asphyxiation took hold. With his hand on her chest, he knew down to the drumbeat of her heart, how it would quicken and staccato in its last panicked crescendo, before waning towards the grave, until there was nothing but silence. And yet, even though he knew, he felt not that urge, the wicked one he always had to restrain and shackle. The urge which had been embedded into him by his older brothers seemed to grow milder and weaker by the day, and for the first time the helmeted boy had the thought, ‘What if I was not the youngest?’ What if he had a sister, and the sleeping girl before him was the youngest, instead of him? As his rough hand stroked her tender cheek, he felt a wetness. The girl was crying, her sleeping face contorted from some twisted dream. The sight befuddled his baser instincts, where the small and weak were nothing but prey, and brought something else he could not comprehend. Unable to bear this burgeoning new thought any longer, the helmeted boy gently removed her head from his lap, and made his leave. For he could never have a younger sister. His Fate was to forever be the youngest, for it was the Will of those fallen olden brothers that sacrificed everything for the lastborn. And as a survivor protected by the souls of the martyred dead, his Fate would be firm and stable and unassailable from the divines. For now.

>>25565095
Being a a-list actor or music star is also a paid position but if you are dead broke you ain't running in those kind of circles.

>>25565113
the jeetglish is strong in this one

>you use too many adjectives
Meanwhile anything written by Arthur Conan Doyle
>any noun not clothed by appropriate adjectives is underdressed for the occasion

So one of those things where it's fine if "X" does something but if I do anything remotely similar it's suddenly a grave writing sin that must be corrected.
That and constant complaints about how I need to dumb down my vocabulary and stop using complicated words. Even words I use in my everyday casual speech.
Why can't I have any fun with writing?
Why can't I write similar to the writing I enjoy the most?
Why must I make everything as easy and effortless to read as a children's book?

I don't just want the tropes of gothic and Victorian literature. I love the prose. So why can't I write that way too?

>>25565138
>Why can't I have any fun
You're a bad writer.
Real answer is you don't have the credentials. We live in a media-hungry world. People don't have the time to see if you're actually good or not and will just drop you if they see anything they can label pretentious.
Enjoy getting filtered bigtime.
>tldr you arent famous so no one cares what you try to do, you got to earn the right to be creative

>>25565138
You can.

>>25565138
You need to learn to build, and sell, a regular house before you can try building the Sistine Chapel.

>>25565148
>>25565158
>you have to sell mass market slop to retarded children before you can write anything you remotely enjoy or care about
How about no.

Since it's spooky season, I'm going to finish my horror screenplay and post it here and scare all of you forever

>>25565171
Why a screen play when you have zero interest in making films?
Is prose really that scary to you?

>>25565138
You, me, and everyone else ITT need to work within an audience's expectations and taste. Zero use in fighting it. You should spend your energy finding readers who enjoy your neovictorian prose, not asking a random sample of readers what their opinion is. If there isn't a market for neovictorian then consider adapting or accepting sparse readership.

I am working on a romantic comedy and I am slogging my way through what sells, because that is a market of buyers I think I can meet half way. I'm not expecting huge success, but I am also not expecting them to read something they won't like.

>>25565158
>you must learn carpentry to do stone masonry
Even your analogy is wrong.

>>25564638
>Am I boring? No, it's the world that's boring

>>25565175
Too prosaic

>>25565187
>you must write bland simplistic shit you don't care about to please a phantom "modern audience" that doesn't even buy books

Makes about as much sense as not cooking steak because babies and the elderly with dentures can't eat it.

>>25565197
Cool it with the green text retardation. I told you to find an audience interested in your prose and stop expecting general readers to enjoy it. You are your own problem.

>>25565187
They're writing to sell and then there's selling out, feels like you're doing the latter

>>25565208
There's making a typo and then there's using a whole other word incorrectly

>>25565187
>3 completely contradictory statements in 3 sentences presented as coherent, universally applicable imperatives

>>25565219
I think dude was hedging.
If anyone is critical he can hop to the conflicting point and argue he really meant that instead.

ESL doesn't understand the complex notion of "meeting half way"

>>25565175
I have a very visual imagination, so I just enjoy it more. It's been a long time since I tried writing regular prose, but I was never good at the internal stuff.

No one likes my writing? Must be their fault because its really good.

I am the only one who reads my writing, Maybe the other crabs in this bucket can relate. What? No stop clawing me damn it.

>>25565138
>Why can't I write similar to what I enjoy
Have you considered writing to a specific audience? This general is filled with retards.
>Why must I make everything easy and effortless
You probably haven't even written 1000 words in the last 12hrs.

>>25565148
>wanting to have fun with writing means you are a bad writer

Why do you write if it isn't enjoyable?
You ain't getting rich from it. It ain't exactly a good method of gaining fame.
So why do you write?

>>25565231
>>25565235
Either talk to each other or don't, passive aggressive vagueposting is for teenage girls

>>25562606
https://rentry.org/kbgp5gco

>>25565229
This Anon got it. I've always felt that flowery prose is material made for subhuman cattle with very little imagination so they need a descriptor of everything going on in a scene. Very telling.

Less is more.

>>25565236
>You probably haven't even written 1000 words in the last 12hrs.
You are correct.
Not counting post to imageboards, on days I work I write about a average of 500 words a day.
Today I wrote 645 words that I banked. I don't count very minor revisions and edits while I work towards the total. Only the words I keep in the draft I am working on.
On my days off from work I write a average of 2000.

Regardless I work on stories everyday.

>>25565238
>Why do you write
Enjoyment. Specifically mine (or whoever commissions me for whatever reason).

That first reply was a joke, but using a joke attributer seemed a little too reddit for my taste. The rest was the real explanation which is just true, unless if you're going to tell me that attention spans are getting any better.

>>25565244
It's not the flowery prose that bothers me. I even like to do that in my screenplays sometimes. It's more about writing the internal thoughts, memories, and experiences of the characters. I'm not good at it, so I didn't do it much. Then the next logical step is go to screenplays where you generally don't do it at all.

>>25565258
You can find plenty of "bland" prose writers. If you're fine with fantasy Glenn Cook is a figure I enjoy.

Your logical step doesn't make much sense to me but you do you.

>>25565226
Browns have no concept of gradiation.

>>25565244
midwit take. both are simply styles that fit different cases and can be done well or poorly. youre not gonna put a wishbone chair in the palace of versailles, and youre not gonna put a rococo style chair in a house designed by frank lloyd wright, unless youre trying to make a point.

>>25565340
Yes they do, that's what their social hierarchies are based on (until they immigrate and find themselves on the bottom)

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>>25563124
>Hey buddy
>No
>Aw, don't be like that
>No
>You're not even gonna look at me?
>No
>Sheesh, what's got you in such a bad mood?
>Nothing that you could help me with
>Are you sure?
>Yes
>But we're old pals, c'mon, unburden yourself
>No!
>You're so uptight, let loose
>...No
>You know you need this, you know I don't judge you
>...Fuck you
>Yeah, that's what I thought
>Fuck you!
>Hah! I like you messy, you're so much more fun
>...
>So what's on your mind?
>You know what
>I do know, but I like to hear you say it
>Same shit that's always on my mind
>Which is?
>...
>Don't get shy now, you know I've heard it all before
>You're such a fucking cunt
>You love this fucking cunt
>I don't
>Then why do you keep coming back?
>Because you keep wearing me down
>Now how would little old me do a thing like that?
>...He kept wearing me down
>Yeah, that's it, tell me about it
>I don't...
>Come on, I've opened up for you, now open up for me
>I don't like to think about it
>Well that's why I'm here, isn't it? To take the edge off, so you CAN think about it
>You never actually help me though... Even if it feels like you do at the time, you just make things so much harder...
>Don't think about that now, just be in this with me, right here, right now
>People are gonna find out...
>So what? Let them. They'll all leave you and none of it will matter anymore, it'll just be us riding into the sunset, just like this, forever
>I don't want that...
>Coulda fooled me the way keep crawling back, the way you talk about people when you're with me
>I don't mean that shit...
>Oh? You don't mean the bit about how he ruined your life, how you have to keep his sordid secrets to protect everyone else? Sounds to me like you'd be better off on your own, with friends like these
>And then what, just drink myself to death?
>Hey, better to burn out than fade away. What, are you planning to be their punching bag until you're 80?
>Either that or be your punching bag until I'm 60
>Heh, yeah, screw me for being polite, you're not making it to 80 either way, are you? He'll probably outlive you. Probably cry at your funeral over how much he loved you
>Get fucked...
>And everyone will think, Oh the poor man! No father should bury his child!
>Yeah, well no father should fuck his child either...
>There it is! Tell me about it again...

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>>25565138
Consider picrel.
The average /wg/nigger writing the 1st paragraph of picrel would write thusly:
>The large square room looked larger as it was absent furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the mildew-blotched walls. Strips of detached paper hung down exposing yellow plaster beneath. There was a showy fireplace with an imitation white marble mantelpiece. The stump of a red wax candle was stuck on one corner of this. The hazy light shining through the dirty solitary window gave everything a dull grey tinge, which was intensified by a thick layer of dust which coated everything.

Generally, amateurs write too many passive sentences, use too many adverbs, and rarely stray away from adjective-noun and participial-adjective noun combinations.
That is, if they describe anything at all. More likely they wouldn't.

>anything written by Arthur Conan Doyle
>any noun not clothed by appropriate adjectives is underdressed for the occasion
Not quite.

>All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was centred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discoloured ceiling.
A lot of adjective nouns here, no doubt.
>It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs.
Many here too, but it is more permissible because this is commonly used when describing people and their clothes.
>A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor beside him.
And here is where ACD breaks the pattern. Knowing that he had just subjected us to 3 sentences of adjective nouns, he breaks the pattern when describing the top hat.
>His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death struggle had been a grievous one.
And continues to break the pattern, to balance things out.

(Here an /wg/ amateur would probably have written:)
>His clenched hands, thrown-out arms, and interlocked lower limbs suggested that a grievous death struggle.

Moving on,
>On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features.
a balanced sentence. "On his adjective noun, there stood a noun of adjective..."

So no, although in general ACD did use many adjective-noun combinations as was more common in the Victorian literary style, he did know how to break up the monotonous pattern, which is why his writing doesn't feel as dated and rote.
Even Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen have more creative and active sentence structures, which is why they are so readable to this day.

>>25565118
idk what this specifically means but im offended

>>25565243
I could use some critique, by the way.

>>25565448
Alcoholic talking to his drink?

I just bought a fountain pen, ink and paper lol.

How do I improve my grammar and spelling without replying on spell check? Just saying "read more" doesn't really help.

>>25565540
Edit better. Reflect on your common mistakes more and learn from them so you don't make them as much anymore, "replying" on spell check frankly will likely make you worse with grammar and spelling, as it allows you to keep making mistakes without learning from them.

>>25565115
You're coping so hard right now. Only a tiny fraction of wannabe actors find paid work, but nearly one third of Peace Corps applicants are accepted. Getting into Americorps is even easier. And you'd gain real-world experience that you could pour into your writing. Face it... not only does being NEET prevent you from having anything original and interesting to write about, but NEET is a choice, and a very lazy, cowardly one.

>>25565540
The same with any and every other skill: practice practice PRACTICE

>>25565540
https://www.cag.edu.tr/uploads/site/lecturer-files/the-languagelab-library-high-school-english-grammar-and-composition-wren-and-martin-ZmlD.pdf
>How do I improve my grammar/spelling
Pencil and Paper. This is the way. You'll retain the information better.

>>25565460
I have never seen a more midwitted post in my whole time using /lit/.

You are so full of yourself that it's astonishing that you are able to find room for so much hot air.

>>25565006
>bro just use AI
>embrace the slop bro
>don't bother getting better when AI can think for you bro

>>25565729
...or you could simply manually add "by zombies" next to each first/main verb in your sentence. We both know you're ESL but there's no need to be a mouth breather about it.
>Getting better is arguing like retards in a thread when you can find the information yourself in about 2min
Astonishing

>>25565745
>You no AI
>You ESL because that main insult me know
>Me big smart because AI told I so
Astonishing

>>25565765
Quote exactly where I said to "embrace the slop".
>Bro, you linked a
Irrelevant. Just use the "by zombies" checking technique if you're going to be this ass mad. Next you'll tell me that "by zombies" is a technique created by A.I.
>You ESL because that is main insult me know
I referred to use as ESL because I assumed you were one of the two Anons arguing about passive voice (which is something ESL's struggle with). I linked a tool that retards can easily use.

If you want to keep acting like a monkey and begging for (you)s, I reckon this might be good for you. https://www.cag.edu.tr/uploads/site/lecturer-files/the-languagelab-library-high-school-english-grammar-and-composition-wren-and-martin-ZmlD.pdf Now go ahead and study up.

>>25565774
referred you as*
Had to do this before you went for this low hanging nitpick like a passive aggressive faggot.

>>25565774
>>25565788
Posting a link to a AI tool is endorsing AI slop.

Backpeddling and trying to distract from that shit take doesn't make the shit take go away.
Fuck AI and fuck you for recommending it.
You aren't a writer and don't belong in this thread.

I don't give a shit about whatever other links you have to shill.
Fuck off forever.

>>25565818
Where is the "shit take"? My overall take is that using "by zombies" as a passive voice checker is much better than wasting your time arguing over nonsense.

>fuck off forever
Nah. Unlike you, I actually write. Ten cents says you haven't written 1000 words in the last 2 days.

>>25565834
Pretending you didn't shill ai bullshit doesn't make anyone forget that you shilled ai bullshit.

And no, prompting your bitch bot isn't writing, you don't actually write.

I write several thousand words of shitposts and pointless posts on the internet every day but i struggle to write even a few hundred words in my story, but I feel as though the words I do write in my story are much more meaningful than thousands of words of fluff. Perhaps that is just a cope though.

Should I focus more on plot or theme?

>>25565848
I can admit that I posted the tool here, but I can't take you saying that I prompt writing. That therein just ain't right to say 'bout me, mate. Even IF I wanted to, I could never use AI for writing. I like to use excessive and improper phonetic spelling in my work and AI wit' how it adheres to strong grammatical rules just isn't the tool for such.

(>>25563518) be some quick dialogue I spout out, so why don' you come up n' tell me what I done wrong on it. (I'm sure you'll find something wrong about it.)

>>25565860
>bla bla bla
fuck off.

>>25565859
Plot

Without plot you can't really make a coherent story.
Meanwhile theme can emerge without any effort on your part during writing the first draft, and you just need to enhance it in subsequent drafts.

So for that reason plot is more important for you to focus on.
Theme comes later.

>>25565003
Libre office. But I'm going to buy word. It's just the standard

>>25565866
Thanks for telling us you don't read. Explains why you don't write as well.
>>25565859
Plot. Theme will most likely come as a result of this (it's like you noticing that parts of yourself appear in most characters you write).
Of course it's not a rigid rule, but most people can't start with a theme without making the world and characters seem preachy and bend over backwards to adhere to certain criteria.

This also depends on the type of book you're writing.

>>25565859
plot lets you write

theme lets you prune/edit

I always end up writing the same themes without even planning to

what even is a theme

>>25565957
As always, we should look to Tolkien
Here is one of the main themes from The Lord of the Rings
https://youtu.be/NUIZvAe3RBg

>>25565957
Simple explanation is the "message" that you want to tell in your story.
>Freedom vs control
>Fate vs Free Will
>Changing to become a better person
>Evil never wins in the end (or vice versa but most people never do this)

>>25565957
In the context of fiction it's a recurring topic/subject. One way to write is to plan a theme or multiple in advance and let it or them guide your work. But you can also just pants it and let others decide your work's theme(s).

>>25565859
These people don't know what they're talking about >>25565870 >>25565934 >>25565948
Plot defines theme and theme informs plot, you don't get to pick one

>>25566242
You just repeated what they said but in different words.

Is it bad I type up scenes using notes on my phone? I know handwriting is inherently better but I have trouble looking back at what I wrote.

>>25565834
>haven't written 1000 words in the last 2 days
what a weird choice of metric lol

i've written 1000 words an hour in 4chan posts alone bucko, step down little man, you don't want this smoke

ChatGPT kind of liked the first 1/3 of my screenplay, but said my characters were all dumb as fuck. Which is correct, it's a horror, so they kind of need to meet a certain minimum threshold of dumbness. But yeah I could still do better.

>>25566438
If you use ai slop at any point in your process then I'm sure you will have no issue with the finished product being too smart, there's no way it possibly could be.

>>25566321
I believe that 500 words a day is a good target to aim for if you want to consistently build your writing skill. So, 1000 in the last 2 days.
Consistency is key
>>25566375
I guess, nice job. I don't know how you want me to reply to this but it'd be rude to ignore you
>>25566438
>Chatgpt liked
Grim
>>25566259
No, you could always just write it down by hand later if you really care

>>25566259
if it's between jotting down notes or scenes on your phone and not writing down the ideas or scenes at all, then doing it on your phone is much better. if you feel forced to handwrite it and it makes you write less/not at all and doesn't even help your writing quality because it makes it harder to look through it, then i wouldn't worry too much about it

How would you guys write about an extremely disgusting, degenerate, horrible, fictional civilization without it coming off as shock value or just being too gross to read?

>>25566474
Point out to a real life example whenever people get mad at you.
The real answer is reason. I.e. having enough skill to believably write in-universe justifications. People don't just do stuff for no reason, after all.
Reading authors who do this well can help too

>>25566438
>it's a horror, so they kind of need to meet a certain minimum threshold of dumbness
this is just lazy writing

>>25566440
It's always available to provide instant feedback. Even if its criticism is generic, I at least can engage with it and think about how valid it might be.
>>25566521
Well it's a kind of curiosity-killed-the-cat story. Maybe "dumb" isn't the right word. "Reckless" might be more correct.

>>25566474
the civilization can’t be too put together, how would anyone get anything done?

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>>25566474
Personally I'd also make it incredibly erotic so the reader knows I'm not trying to shock or disgust them, reassuring them that this is all just an elaborate setup for some exquisitely rare fetishes.

>>25566477
The whole point would be to show how bad things could get if everyone just does whatever they want for a few hundred years. Any recommendations?
>>25566564
I would be very chaotic, every system and institution would be maximally corrupted while just barely not falling apart with the help of ancient technology that barely works. Also most people wouldn't really be doing much since they would be enslaved or acting like animals.
>>25566574
That's disgusting and the exact opposite of what I want

>>25566242
It is easily possible to have a story without a theme.
It's impossible to have a coherent story without a plot.

>>25566259
Handwriting is wildly overrated and largely unnecessary for the craft of writing in general.

>>25566474
Consistent tone and foreshadowing.

Basically anyone with half a brain should be able to tell what they are in for well before things start getting "nasty".

>>25566620
>That's disgusting and the exact opposite of what I want
But I thought you wanted extremely disgusting? Baffling

>>25566645
Good idea, it'll probably be difficult to write
>>25566649
>But I thought you wanted extremely disgusting?
yes and you're not supposed to like it. It isn't to be demonic gooning material

>>25566653
Fear and fetish are two sides of the same coin. One man's abhorrence is another man's morbid curiosity.

Anyway I was just stating how I'd personally handle it. Just have a point to your setting, something to say, some sort of cautionary tale and it won't be shock value

>>25566669
alright, good point

>>25565933
Word is $250 for a single-computer license, and since you intend to use it for commercial use, you wouldn't qualify for the home version. You do know LibreOffice can save in Word formats, right?

>>25566474
just write about india

>>25566710
I know. Word has features that Libreoffice doesn't have. Even something like having dropcaps convert between epub, modi, pdf, docx, etc is flawless with word. Not so much with Libreoffice. Libreoffice also doesn'\t have microspacing and has a very hard time making footnotes/headers/pagenumbers work between different file formats. I also like Word's options for fonts. It's the industry standard for a reason. if you can get it for free from pirating/student/business use, i highly recommend you all get Word over whatever Scribiner, Googledocs, Libreoffice, Sudowrite, or whatever random software you want. Just use MS Word.

>>25566710
>Word is $250
Holy shit lmao. I guess the public library is an option.

>>25566720
What industry are you even talking about?

Professional writers of all kinds use all kinds of programs to great success. The particular program doesn't actually matter.
Hell, a ton use macs and for awhile that was "industry standard" for every creative industry.

Only reason you should ever care about industry standard is if you are getting paid by the company you are working for/with to use that standard.

Is anyone paying you specifically to use office?
Is "the industry" paying you to use office?
Is anyone paying for the license for you?
Can you even write it off in your current business situation?
No?

Then you saying "industry standard" is retarded.
You aren't apart of "the industry", and if you were you wouldn't be paying out of pocket for a license.

>>25566720
The only reason Word is the "industry standard" is because Microsoft somehow created a business model out of producing low-quality software. No one uses Microsoft products because they want to. But hey, if you've got $250 burning a hole in your pocket, and don't care that Bill Gates is one of the most evil human beings in history, then by all means, go for it.

>>25566744
If you think Bill is even in the top 50 your history teacher failed you.

I ain't saying he is a good guy, but come the fuck on dude.

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>>25566747
Bill Gates has done more to make my career a living hell than everyone else put together. You have clearly never struggled to get Microsoft's crappy software to do something useful, or worked for a company that Bill considered to be competition for his own products (e.g. "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run").

You made fun of me for buying a typewriter for $300 and people are here spending 250 on Word. I feel little better. At least mine is a physical object that will never be produced again.

>>25566762
You can't pirate a typewriter. 300 bucks for a working at least semi quality one is sick, I'm jealous. I doubt I'd really use one much besides once in a while briefly simply to appreciate the novelty of it so I could never justify owning one, hopefully you enjoy using it if you do.

>>25566766
Only downside is the noise it makes. OCR the pages you have and your rough drafting process is fucking unironically enjoyable. Electric ones are probably better. Slightly less noise.
I would hunt around for one though. I bought mine in a certain college town by a guy who specialized in restoration. So I paid the price.

>>25566735
You can use whatever you want. If you hate MS with a passion and find something that suits you, go ahead and use it. I just find word to be very suitable for my writing and converting of files, sharing files etc . It just very flexible for my needs. Go ahead and pirate it for $0.

You can pay for a $300 typewriter like that anon, $300 for scribener, $0 for libreoffice etc. but for me, word has been the easiest to send, move, convert files between people and other programs. If you can use something else and like it more, use it. I highly encourage you to.

>>25566710
>He never pirated word
C'mon it's 2026.

If anyone has a good epub maker id like to know it. <$25 or free. I know calibre but ive only used that to convert mobi etc etc

>>25566777
There were other word-processing options back in my formative years. At one point I was really handy with TeX. I've hated Microsoft since I encountered them.

>>25566781
LibreOffice exports directly to EPUB.

I would make fun of MS Word more but I'm a retard that only uses google docs which is frankly just an even worse version of word. I should really at least use libreoffice instead.

>>25566786
Thanks

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>>25566797
You're entirely welcome, whippersnapper.

What should my next story be about? I'm thinking maybe a story where a school tackles the obesity crisis by hiring a domineering demon woman to teach gym class who whips a bunch of fat anthro shota butterballs into shape.

>>25566757
No but I had a neighbor that only had one arm due to their escape from the killing field of Cambodia.
Kinda puts evil into perspective.

>>25566992
That doesn't even make sense since weight loss is 90% diet, which unless it's a boarding school, they won't have much control over.

Also wouldn't a demon encouraged sloth and gluttony?

>>25567001
It sounds like a fun idea and OP Is obviously an imaginative person, and you’re shutting down a silly concept with an extremely poor attempt at sounding intellectual. Pick some higher fruit

>>25566992
A sci-fi with mecha, aliens, lost civilizations using rene Descartes Cartesian Dualism as it's themes and driving force of the plot.

>>25567021
>Died because Sweden's a shithole
how ironic

Paul stretched across the bed. Raindrops squeezed out upon the rooftop. Beside him, she slept like a child, her curls crossing the line of her back. He stroked her calf with his big toe. He felt ashamed of wishing to stir her from her sleep to question her opinion of himself. He began to dig his nail into her calf until it bled.
"Believe me when I say I hate you too."
He shoved his head under the covers and watched the dark blood trickle from her calf onto the flannel sheets she picked out last autumn; they were white with blue vertical stripes. The blood smeared against her calf as he rubbed it; his bones cracked and left blurred traces of his footprints on her skin. With a supple hand, she slid the black silk over her hip and shoved it completely to one side. Paul’s gaze passed through the marks still visible on her flesh without seeing anything. He came up from the blankets, his face blanched and wet. He wanted to reduce her to an animal. He slapped Erica.
"Excuse me, Paul. You've slapped me."
"I'm sorry, honey. I love you."

The next morning, Erica felt her bloody crust sticking to the bed sheets as she shifted to the touch of his lips.
“Am I much worse than I seem on the surface?”
“It was too dark to tell.”
Erica received a vision of the future that was an image of the past, and the couple reached a decision; their decision was that it was decision time.

Steam poured over the shower door. Upon opening, the mottled surface of the pane warped the framed photograph suspended behind it. Paul dried his hair and reached for his razor when he noticed an obscured image in the mirror. He squared his shoulders to face it. Slowly, he traced the contours of its body with his index finger, then carefully, so as not to color outside the boundaries, wiped away the condensation within the outline. The form was still wearing its outsides; he stepped aside to view it in its true aspect. In the mirror was a shrunken likeness of himself roughly half his size. Its surface was cracked along the interstices of his fingers. Paul quickly smudged the shape out with his fist.

“It used to be that loving you was easy; a part of me was introduced to you, but then you cut me to the bone.”


“There’s no point in saying what you think. It’s not appropriate.”
Erica finally lost all desire to understand and in turn understood nothing.

In the bedroom, the curtains stirred faintly in the draft of the ceiling fan; they moved just slightly. Erica’s things were gone. Paul sat, bleeding like a human animal. Nothing else happened.