Thread 24698741

"Reading Rambo" edition

Previous: >>24684535

/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ
RESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvC

Please limit excerpts to one post.
Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.
Follow prompts made below and discuss written works 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.
Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.
(And maybe double-space your WIPs to allow edits if you want 'em.)

Simple guides on writing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFk

Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiD2Qcth0EI

>>24698741 (OP)
Another Reddit meme for another Reddit thread.

>>24698746
I downloaded that image from /tv/.

Are there any rules of grammar or any known style guides that say you can't use "I" to begin a sentence?
Every English class in every school I've gone to didn't let students start sentences with "I," and I kept up the habit of not writing that way into my 30's now, but it wasn't until today that I asked myself if that's an actual rule.

>>24698759
I think that's due to stylistic rules. Obviously if you're writing a novel in first person, or narrating the thoughts of someone in third person, you can use I sometimes.

>>24698759
Your teachers are mostly right. Using "I" to start a sentence is limited to specific contexts - >>24698764 mentioned two, and the other one is if you're expressing your own thoughts in something you're writing (e.g., "I think...", "I feel..."). But in literally any other context, starting a sentence with "I" is a mistake. And even when it isn't, the chances that you can find a better way to phrase a sentence so "I" doesn't start the sentence are pretty good. And in the case of writing opinion pieces and whatnot where your opinions come into play, getting rid of "I" statements can be helpful in getting to your point without subconsciously hedging your bets (e.g., "I think Rei is Best Girl, and here's why" vs. "Rei is Best Girl, and here's why").

>>24698753
So?

What if I presented the 14 y/o love interest as the MC and her 22 y/o boyfriend as the love interest instead?

>>24698819
Your work would still be ignored. Meanwhile, this has a 4.57 rating on Goodreeads.

>>24698841
that's gotta be some AI shit

>>24698841
Better ignored than cancelled

>>24698759
I have never heard of this stupid rule. If you're writing in first person you will definitely be starting sentences with I all the time.

>>24698877
Cope.
>>24698879
Far from being cancelled, Watkins is raking it in. What are you even on about?

I still have no idea what I'm doing. I can't come up with good characters, good designs good prose, change perspective, anything I actually want to do.

Every time I open a Google doc and try writing it feels torturous because nothing that I'm wanting to write comes out. Its never to the standard that I want immediately.

>>24698989
Sounds like you should give up

>>24698989
Same. All my characters seem bland and flat compared to famous ones that are actually successful.

>>24698989
Are you sure you're cut out to be a writer? Why do you want to write?

>>24698989
>Its never to the standard that I want immediately.
That's one of your problems: You expect to make gold right out of the gate when even the best writers will always make at least a little bullshit. Stop expecting perfection of yourself; you'll never reach it and you'll beat yourself up for not reaching it right out of the gate.

Half of writing is editing. But that half has to take place AFTER you finish the writing. Editing while writing is a sure-fire way to fuck your shit up. So stop doing it.

>>24699022
i just use a different voice in my head for each character its that easy

>want to write something
>get depressed because I don't have it written

>have something written
>get depressed because nobody reads it

>somebody reads it
>get depressed because people can read it so fast and easily while it took me so much time and effort to write
I think I have issues that writing can't solve

>>24699422
>write something people can't read fast or easily
>get depressed because nobody reads it

>>24699438
>write something that gets people easy and fast
>they call it "smut"

>>24698989
It never gets easier and it's not easier for anyone else
Anyone who doesn't find great difficulty writing is writing shit
Push on
*sick guitar riff Sysphius meme plays*

>>24698841
t-b-f the book appears very direct about what it is, so anyone inclined to give it a poor rating (i.e., not interested in that sort of thing) won't pick it up in the first place.
>>24698877
It was published 2018, did legible AI books not turn up until the 2020s or did they have those back then too and I'm just forgetting?

>>24698879
You're not famous unless you've been cancelled at least a few times.

>>24698759
I ditto this >>24698909
I've been told before to write like that on job applications because it's supposed to signal that you don't care about yourself and will sell your soul to the company. You might've just had that brainwashing done to you young.
I do, however, remember getting told not to start sentences with "and." And I now know that's a bullshit rule, too.

>>24698809
I think this guy is probably like the know-it-all kid from Polar Express IRL
I don't think there's a need to intellectualize your writing through this kind of dissection. You end up setting yourself a ton of arbitrary hindrances. Let the words flow.

>>24698753
I read this in Homer's "I bought these shoes from a hobo" voice

>24699479
>I ditto this ><24698909
The rule that you uphold is the same you break. You are as honest as a wind is still.

>>24699479
>I ditto this ><24698909
The rule that you uphold is the same you break. You are as honest as a wind is still.

i shared my wip draft with my girlfriend and i feel so embarrassed

>>24698991
>>24699037
I've been writing and role-playing for 12 years. I've been writing since I was 12 years old.

>>24699461
>did legible AI books not turn up until the 2020s or did they have those back then too and I'm just forgetting?
AI only really became a thing last year. The models before that were useless

>>24699037
>>24699022
>>24698991
I've been writing and role-playing for 12 years. I've been writing since I was 12 years old. I've also had people tell me that I'm an amazing writer. I don't know how I did it before.

>>24698989
this poster doesn't want to write
this poster will not listen to what you say
this poster makes this post every other week and has for years
ignore this poster

Do readers like light-novels? I've just commissioned some illustrations...

Also, I just wrote my first webnovel!! Easy to look at on the phone, easy easy...

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/128737/the-wheel-and-the-wing

>>24699966
>>>/lit/wng
nice art doe

>>24699978
Haha... my topic was of web novels but also light novels to get one foot in the door. Good catch.

>>24698759
>Every English class in every school I've gone to didn't let students start sentences with "I,"
Not because of grammarr but because of style. Since "don't write your essay in first person you retards" is too complicated for the average american schoolchild to understand

>>24698753
It’s woke DEI bullshit dude, it makes you look dull and uncreative. Delete the pic or the thread and make a better one. You can do better man.

>>24700110
lol touch grass chud

>>24699790
You need to stop caring about what the inner voice you've cultivated to protect your ego says, kids do whatever the fuck they want because they feel like it and don't have the years of failures and other people shitting on their efforts that adults have.

Where to find real (non-ai) beta readers in the big 25? Most websites I've looked are useless without a subscription.
I'm willing to take the time to read and swap critiques.

>>24699582
Soon to be ex-girlfriend now

>>24698967
I'm talking about an underage heroine.

>>24698741 (OP)
I'm 67k words into my book but I hit a mental roadblock and I went from writing full chapters in a day to not getting more that 300 words a week. I hate It because I know how to end the story. I hope to make a push and just blarb whatever comes out of my head into the computer and let It rest into a Word file.

>>24699978
/wng/ is only for a specific kind of webnovel

>>24700479
I'm in a similar boat. 50k words in, have no idea how to proceed with the middle portion, though I do have a vague idea of the ending. I just can't think up anything interesting to happen to link them.

>>24700482
What kind is that?

>>24700482
nah

>>24700493
Let's hope we can finish our books before losing hope.

Yay I finally finished the first draft of my princess story the rest of you all hate. What are some good tips on how to edit?

>>24700544
Make the prose as purple as possible. Add a lot of alliteration also.

I'm looking back at my old writing and wondering how I did it before.

>>24700565
I do this too

In high school I had to go see a therapist / social worker. My mother at some point gave him some essay I wrote, I don't even know what about. From then on he was convinced I was some genius writer and kept comparing me to Oscar Wilde. I read some of us stuff and it's nothing like the garbage I write.

So I keep reading books and books and I hardly feel encouraged in my writing due to my own fault of normalizing myself quite a lot. I do hate some authors and their obvious fetishes but I think I should be open with mine when writing. I'm not writing porn, I mean that I lack confidence, intellectual insecurity is rather pathetic when writing.

>>24700587
>I do hate some authors and their obvious fetishes but I think I should be open with mine when writing.
Be cringe and free, and you'll have an audience.

7th rejection letter. I should have just wrote a queer romantasy about a woman in a coffee shop being kidnapped by aliens who become sympathetic to her plight and agree to help her punish her boss by repeatedly pegging him. "Space Lesbians Fuck The Patriarchy".
I'd probably be on my way to being a millionaire right now.

You can shit on AI all you want, but I find it very helpful to work with it to find me plausible locations for my setting. I'm doing a story in Los Angeles, know nothing about it, and ChatGPT is helping me find locations I can base me scenes in that are realistic so the natives won't complain about plot holes.

>>24700659
AI is the future and anyone who says otherwise is just coping.
I use it to make illustrations about the setting I write. I'm not publishing those, I just like to make them and share them on X.

>>24700684
I've done that too, trying to help me get a feel for outfits and designs since I can't draw worth shit.

The twig-woven nests fall
to the ground and shine as black
licorice to taunt me that would
accept any sustenance. My muscles
have long since passed the point of
cramping no not mere cramping they
contract and bubble to crush
my bones from within I'm sure of
it worms through my shoes to
feast on my dead skin, they'll hit the living
soon enough. Carcass after carcass
passes me by in pieces torn by not
savages but madmen and the stench
begs me to finally fall and join the soup
I have already become so tender.

>>24700482
not really, they talk about all of the different flavors and genres of popular webfic
if you're just writing a trad book and planning to drop it on royalroad or something like that, though, they will advise you against it (because it's retarded to do that).

>write outline
>start story
>something I didn't begin to consider in my outline pops up
Am I doing it right? M

>>24700659
But chatgpt doesn't know anything about los angeles either.

>>24700740
The various flavors of progression fantasy are all they seriously entertain. If you want to do any other type of webnovel you're SOL.

>>24700851
My goodness a stray m found its way into my post!

>>24700859
not true

>>24700866
Let's have a look at the OPs of their past threads... Oops, all prog fantasy!

>>24700872
it's a picture

>>24700258
You could reach out to me personally if you want to swap.
I have an 85K-word satirical horror manuscript in need of feedback. I posted about it looking for readers quite a few threads ago.
productionblues@proton.me

>>24700859
they talk about Katalepsis (lesbian cosmic horror), Pale Lights (trad fantasy, more or less), Wandering Inn (way more slice of life than actual progfantasy, but sure, technically a litrpg), Worm (capeshit with minor progression elements). there are also several sci-fi fans writing space opera shit there
essentially all long-running serials will be prog fantasy in some strict definitional sense though. but so are most actual fantasy and sci fi novels lmao
if it's popular as a web novel, they'll talk about it and not be bothered. they get annoyed when people come in with obvious trad-style writing that isn't popular anywhere on the web.

>>24700854
I'm cross-referencing its recommendations with Google Maps. I'm noting locations and measuring driving distance to see what's plausible.

>>24700659
>hallucinates locations

>>24700916
Less than a dozen out of the hundreds of stories they talk about and it's all royalroad.

>>24700921
Why do you need ChatGPT if you're still using Google Maps anyway? Cut out the middleman. Better yet, crawl out of your hovel, visit the place, and get some genuine experience with it

>>24700946
They talk about webnovel.com and scribblehub.com serials plenty
Which major web novels do they shun? You're talking out of your ass

>>24700946
you're making no sense and this coming from nowhere
be honest, are you just baiting a threadwar to pass the time?

>>24700948
Because LA is fuckhuge and trying to find certain features is like finding a needle in a haystack. And hell no, I couldn't be paid enough to visit that dump.

>>24700951
>and scribblehub.com serials
Now you're being silly.

>>24700993
scribblehub is the one that allows erotica and they do talk about smutty serials on occasion. much less commonly, of course, but smutty serials are a very small niche, so that makes sense.
the only writing they shun is tradshit, because obviously it doesn't belong in the web novel slop thread

Spent 9 hours editing today. My story is still an utter mess but I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe this will turn into something worth reading in the end

>>24700740
tradpub is hopeless.

>>24701002
You're being dishonest about what they talk about and who to write for, their suggestions all revolve around publishing for royalroad.

Try to force myself to finish this short story or write something very short and simple to push myself out of this funk?

>>24701029
>You're being dishonest about what they talk about
How so? They talk about RR stories most but they definitely talk about webnovel and chinkshit (RI, LOTM, SS, etc) all the time. They also frequently talk about serials only posted on personal author sites (wildbow's stuff, TWI)
Most writers there focus on royalroad because it is by a full order of magnitude the most popular western-oriented web serial site. It's like complaining that a self-pub thread mostly talks about how to publish on Amazon instead of the tiny pub sites no one has ever heard of. You're being retarded, man
Besides, that wasn't even the topic. You were whining that they shun serials other than RR, and they certainly don't.
I wasn't convinced, but now I am: You're definitely some tradfag who dropped his 30k word collection of short stories and got told to fuck off because that isn't what the web novel thread is for

>>24701041
I've never posted any stories of mine there because I know the community.

>>24701046
You come off as extremely low IQ. You just say whatever comes to mind as if it has anything to do with anything.

>>24700479
Two suggestions:

1. Switch to writing something else for a little while; getting out of your headspace for your main project can help you refocus later on.

2. If you're running into a problem with the story itself, your issue is likely somewhere before where you're at now and you just don't realize it yet, so look back and see if there's something you wrote that put you into a corner.

>>24701060
You come off as desperate to protect your community from any criticism even when it's based in fact.

>has nothing to say
>can't hold onto a rhetorical point
>pointlessly chain replying for hours on end
name thyself

wrote 37k words this week lads, how are the rest of you doing?

>>24701159
Wrote about 140 words on the 31st. I've been busy bingeing webnovel sloppa after finishing the Iliad recently, and before I start on the Odyssey.

>>24701122
there are many valid things to insult /wng/ for but what you've said has been nonsense the entire time. that's why im responding.
more importantly, you have to be like 80 iq because nothing you say stays on topic, you just post random shit as if you're making a point

>>24701170
>names the classics hes reading
>doesn't name the slop
come on anon don't be shy

>>24701327
Oh. It's https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/75359/on-foreign-soils-we-die , almost done with it. It has the typical litrpg elements but they're sidelined, and there's sometimes jabs by characters being annoyed and trying to swipe them away which is a nice touch.

>>24701356
>GATE but from the perspective of the natives
neat. next time I'm feeling slop I'll check it out
personally my next read is going to be Don Quixote. I worry my ability to write a comedic scene is ass so I hope it'll help

>>24698741 (OP)
>but don't my word for it muthafukkas

How do I level up my first draft skills so I'm not constantly in the habit of rushing them out? I know full well I can do better than that since I'm able to make coherent posts that get my point across.

>>24701426
whatever it is your thinking right now it's mental poison
quality is not the function of the first draft

>>24701159
literally how

>>24701159
I'm at 54,668 words on the WIP.
Pondering the point of it, by now I think I'm just doing it out of habit.

>>24700659
>This nigga hasn't heard of babby's first literaly advice of "Write what you know about"
NGMI

>>24701471
I quit my job on Tuesday so I had a lot of time and I'm working on a section with characters I enjoy writing so it was pretty easy to crank out

>>24701489
I'm at about 126k so far, this is a sequel to an earlier story which was about 230k so if I can wrap it up at around 200k I'll be happy

>>24701493
>write what you know about
>everyone else knows about it too
>they don't want to read about what they already know

>>24701504
why do you think universality is often praised as a merit in writing?

>>24701501
>I quit my job on Tuesday
I wish i could. What did you do?

>>24701513
Extended car warranty stuff. I had a really good relationship with my boss so she guaranteed me rehire if I want to come back, which takes a lot of stress off of me. I'm going to take a couple months and focus on writing and then either come back or look for something new.

I did 1200 words today. Then I ate a giant cheeseburger and passed out. Now I'm trying to write 1200 more.

>>24701126
Who is Elon Musk?

>>24701501
My WIP is the sequel of a book I’m presently seeking representation for.
The previous one had 109,215 words.

>>24700460
Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" had a 15-year-old heroine and a 30-year-old hero, and he's still around. I know you're trying to be edgy, but you're being normie.

>>24700971
>setting your story in a place you hate

>>24699022
All characters start bland until you actually develop them.

How should I approach made up science, especially in like the 1800s? For example, if I want to write about a scientist creating a chemical that mutates people, or is looking for an antidote to something, we already know nothing they could do during that time could really create that. Should I just ignore the impossibility entirely and just vaguely go "he mixed some chemicals?" I just want fucked up experiments and mad scientist shit. It feels weird though to write something that dumb, at least with magic you can just go "it just works like that." With fake science I keep going "how would that even work though?"

Maybe some examples of books that do this well? Frankenstein basically went "I ain't telling you shit because it's too dangerous" which isn't really the method I want to use.

>>24702097
The authors in the past actually read a lot, did research and mixed known scientific elements with fiction and played with the unknowns to create sufficiently believable stories. Shelley wrote Frankenstein when galvanism was in fashion. Lovecraft read about theory of relativity and astrophysics, among other topics. It takes both work and creativity.

>>24700659
I find AI useful as an editor. If it passes through AI, I often find it works/I got through the big problems. You gotta be specific though. You cannot say "Edit this", you gotta say "This is my genre, my target audience, my goals, my tone, background, summary, and I just want development/line pass and I want to publish to a professional setting".

>>24702213
>I find AI useful as an editor

>>24702687
NTA but I edited my entire book using ChatGPT and Grammarly. An acquaintance who was both an English teacher and librarian found no errors when she read it.

>anons talking past each other because they're using "editing" as a catchall term for many concepts once again

>>24702736
proofreader, anon. you used it as a proofreader. editing involves a lot more than making sure you don't have misspellings

Finding a literary agent who is not: a woman, a sheeny, a dindu gatekeeper, or a homo.

Challenge level: Impossible.

Seriously, every agent is obsessed with "elevating neural divergent, LGTBQAP+, BIPOC voices". How many books about retarded gay pajeets do we need?

>>24703177
they follow what sells

>>24702097
The character could always react "I don't know how it works; I'm not a scientist."

>>24703189
If only.

>>24703189
lol

I did 1500 words yesterday. That's more writing than I've done in months. How come I had an easier time writing a new story than getting back to finish existing stories?

>>24703207
so if we get 15 people together to buy some obscure release, a data analyst in an office tower somewhere is going to be like woah this book sold above median by 3 copies, we might have something here

>>24701632
You and I both know it's from a different time with a different culture.

>>24703189
They follow what's allowed to sell, which is a subtle but key distinction.

Imagine a literary agent unironically saying his goal is "Helping the straight White male because everyone else is too jewish"

>>24703221
That agent would be so fucking based.
He’d probably be up to his eyeballs in submissions from 4chan.

>>24703215
There have been a number of efforts by anons in this thread to support each other's books like this, but it always seems to end in failed-crab bucketing. I own several works from anons here, and posted nice reviews of them on Amazon and GoodReads, but no one ever returned the favor.

>>24703260
A lot of authors here post their shit then disappear. Remember that lit Renaissance nonsense a few anons claimed they started? Nothing came from it and it self combusted from their discord server

>>24703316
lol
there was a discord?

>>24703318
There's been a few discord's every now and then. Most active one right now is really just 3 of us posting word progress on how many words we did that day and occasionally words of encouragement, but its pretty disconnected from here and dead majority of the time. There used to be a slightly larger and more active discord where each anon had his own channel for their works but I was either kicked out or it got deleted. This specific one was like 3‐4 years ago.

can anyone explain to me the "[adjective] if [adjective]" form, please?

>Timmy is a gifted if aggressive chess player.

Those are random adjectives so maybe they don't quite make sense with that form, but yeah, what's the difference between that and just saying

>Timmy is a gifted and aggressive chess player.
When and why do people use the former expression?

>>24703500
The 2nd adjective serves to temper, and detract from, the 1st one. Timmy might be a gifted chess player, but that gift is tempered by his aggression. One of my favorite examples is "iguanas are accomplished if clumsy climbers".

>>24703510
Thank you very much.

>>24703500
replace 'if' with 'but' and maybe it'll make more sense to you

>>24703500
you don't just use it for any two adjectives
>Timmy is a gifted if unsportsmanlike chess player.
you use it in the context of "sure, he's gifted, but he's also unsportsmanlike". you're highlighting the relation between the two

>>24703516
>>24703519
Thank you.

I'm admittedly new to /lit/. Can I shill the book I just dropped on here? Does it have to be on this post or can I make a new thread?

>>24703584
buy an ad
unless you have some sort of presence on /lit/ to earn you good will, shilling will just get you insulted and bullied
you can drop a link here if you want. people typically take an open palmed "please check out my book" better than astroturfing and shilling

>>24703607
Oh, I mean "Shilling" in a more slangy self-promo sort of way.

Hey, I wrote a surreal sci-fi comedy called "Welcome To the Deep Estate" that just dropped.

The blurb:

John Doe always thought his dad was bonkers—ranting about secret lizard people and a shadowy Deep State pulling the strings. Then a newspaper from another timeline lands on his doorstep, and things get… weird.

A hidden message leads him to an unlisted office with an extra-secret elevator that only has one button: Down.

At the very bottom, John discovers the Bureau of the Bizarre, the organization keeping the world blissfully unaware of the truth: reality is kind of insane.

You can check out the reviews here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239514749-welcome-to-the-deep-estate

>>24703664
I can't tell
is the cover AI?

>>24703667
No. I spent 20+ hours with a Wacom board and a bottle full of adderall.

>>24703667
AI is the future.
In the future, all jobs will either be done by AI or pajeets.

>>24703693
I couldn't care less about your hedgie propaganda, race traitor. just wanted to know about his shit

>>24703664
Sounds like fun, but have you heard of the Laundry Files?

Do you guys find novels, short stories, or poems the hardest to write?

>>24703794
4chan posts

>>24703794
novels easily

>>24703697
Chill out, sarr.
He has told you the needful information.

>>24703794
Novels. I can write short stories all day long. I don't try to write poetry.

>>24703664
The sample was mildly interesting, but too short for me to make a decision. Also, $16.99 for a paperback?! For 332 pages, I might have bought it for $9.99.

>>24703664
You review your own book on the GoodReads page, which was cringe enough. Then that exact same review was posted on Amazon, under a different name. Are your other reviews just as made up? Are you just creating accounts to shill your book & astroturf its popularity? I mean, that's on-brand for a 4chan author, but it's all so tiresome.

I just submitted this short story to an anthology. The theme was pulp monsters, but I wrote an emotional southern gothic instead. Am I screwed?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ErZkRz1iKdHTcU6zGkcsSHTTSVWuy6tvM-d8baHq_O0/edit?usp=drivesdk

>>24703929
I liked it! It's engaging and well written!
You're right, it's very southern Gothic, but that's still a pulp-fiction monster. I think you're fine. Any anthology would be proud to include that story.
And I found a typo: creapin' -> creepin'

>>24704005

Thanks, dude. I’ve been really worried about it. You’re making my day.

>24703810
>AI slopper calling others indian
AI is only used by jeets

>>24703780
>Laundry Files
No, I have not. Looking at the wiki, I can see some similarities for sure. I'd give it a read, but I don't want to inadvertently steal any ideas.

>>24703891
Blame Amazon for the paperback price. I get only $4 bucks in royalties and Bezos pockets the rest. The Ebook is only $3 bucks though. Honestly, I just want people to read it at this point.
You can check out my substack for the fist two chapters

chapter one

https://substack.com/@kevinkaneauthor/p-172122968

chapter 2
https://kevinkaneauthor.substack.com/p/preview-welcome-to-the-deep-estate-3d0

>>24703914
Lol. I'm honestly surprised GoodReads lets you do that as an author. The review, though, is obviously a joke. But you're right about it being cringe. I just figured out how to remove the star rating so my review won't affect it. Also, I'd look at the other reviewer's profile. They're real people who regularly review other books.

>>24704034
If the anthology doesn't pick it up, you may consider posting it to r/nosleep. That's a pretty well-read subreddit, and I think your story conforms to all their nitpicky rules.

Nude model anon here, I'm having doubts about the pacing of my story. Each chapter is her just doing poses in increasingly more provocative ways, but each step is critical until she meets the male photograph and they start getting together. I can't really rush their meeting, but it doesn't get more spicy until he enters the picture.

>>24704049
I ran into the same issue with my book.
I wanted it at a $10.00 price point for the paperback, but it was at about 17 bucks.

>>24704089
Yeah, it was like a minimum price of 13 bucks with zero royalties going to you. I swear to god, Bezos's cock rocket is being fueled by the dreams of indie authors

>>24704111
Can you just not offer a paperback edition?

>>24704191
That IS the paperback edition.

>>24703664
i read the first chapt (kinda skimmed it). it's really not bad. but you may confuse the reader a bit because it starts off sounding like YA (the tone and the talk of "dad" and all that) but then the type of humor that shows up later is clearly adult-oriented.

>>24703584
>Can I shill the book I just dropped on here?
not unless you are a member of this board

>>24704235
How do I sign up?

>>24704226
Crazy. I never thought of that coming off as YA. I figured he would come off as a slacker with daddy issues.
>>24704235
Show me the hoops and I'll jump through them.

>>24704278
There is a woman around here that collects the dues. Her name is Honor Levy. They call her the Queen of /lit.

>>24704248
Don't listen to >>24704235. 4chan is like Los Angeles; literally everyone is allowed to be here. You're fine. Honor Levy is a self-shilling newfag.

Here's my shitty book, anons.
I'm shilling it, even though I don't expect anyone here to buy it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F49FYHWM

>>24704368
I will not buy it, but thanks for shilling it.

In all seriousness, 703 pages is an accomplishment. Good job on finishing what you started. You are in the elite 0.01%.

>>24704368
703 pages. Wow. Reminds me of my first novel. Is there a reason why you didn't indent any of the paragraphs?

>>24703929
Feels like something I'd read in one of those Lovecraft-inspired anthologies you find all over the place, or at least you used to about a decade ago, idk if those are still in fashion. It's a good story and I think it definitely works for the theme.

>>24704402
>Is there a reason why you didn't indent any of the paragraphs?
Thank you.
>>24704405
>Is there a reason why you didn't indent any of the paragraphs?
Yes, a very good reason, actually.
I am a jackass.

>>24704402
Thank you.
>>24704405
>Is there a reason why you didn't indent any of the paragraphs?
Yes, a very compelling reason: I am a jackass.

>>24704451
Fuck it. Cormac McCarthy didn't use chapters when writing The Road. Just say its a stylistic choice.

>>24704460
He also didn't use punctuation or a spellcheck when writing No Country

>>24704460
Good enough.
I can blame a bunch of stuff on stylistic choice.
Shit, people don't read, anyway, as my sales reflect, so it isn't like anyone's really going to hammer me for it.

>>24704368
That aislop under plain text on the cover is extremely hideous and portends a very bad book, anon.

>>24704498
Don't judge a book by its cover.

Sometimes I see posters wondering why the next big thing hasn't emerged out of /lit/ yet but that doesn't surprise me given most of us are writing like this

>>24704498
Perfect name for an anthology of shitty ai kids storys: Aislop Fables

>Eric finds himself... stalked by the yandere specter of his dead-ex, a cruel and sadistic ghoul
How much you wanna bet the writer has had serious relationship issues?
"Dead ex" is two words btw

>>24704504
Everyone judges a book by its cover. At the very least, a good cover demonstrates your care in presenting your work in the best possible light.
>>24704505
I mean, you got essentially Hitchhiker's Guide meets the backrooms right here: >>24703664

It's simple: when you skimp out by generating AIslop for the cover, you signal that you skimped out on the writing too, and you signal that your book is not to be read.
>>24703664

you guys are so mean, i was going to post my writing but now i'm not lol

>>24704533
Now THIS is why /lit/ hasn't produced the next Great Gatsby motherfucker

>>24704521


The plain text was a default from Amazon.
You're welcome to your own opinion.
But I'm not paying 200 bucks to some blue-haired tumblrina with a septum piercing, when I can barely make my mortgage and AI can give me a cover just as good for fucking free.
But, you do you, boo.

>>24704533
/wg/ is a crab-bucket and always will be. Post your work, or don't. Just don't expect anything useful from the critique you get.
Funny enough, AI is better than them at THAT, too.

>>24703664
There was an anon who wrote something similar several weeks ago (down to the floppy disk), but he titled each chapter a "penetration." Actually I think he has the same last name as you.

Also, you might want to drop the em dash from the blurb or people will think it's an AI book.

>>24704072
Anon, watch Blow-up, then read Anais Nin's Delta of Venus and its sequel, then watch Blow-up again. If after that no solution arises, you should probably give up writing altogether.

>>24704581
No need to drop em dashes, the AI cover already makes people assume the writing was also generated by chatGPT

>>24704546
Gentlemen, we have found the next F Gardner.

>>24704533
>noo why can't the internet hate machine be my little hugbox :,(
go back

>>24704533
post it when I feel like giving an effort crit and I'll do my best to help you out

>>24704072
Watch La belle noiseuse (1991)

teim 2 edit

>>24704581
>Authors use emdashes.
>OpenAI steals from authors to train ChatGPT.
>ChatGPT uses em dashes.
>Now, everyone thinks authors are using ChatGPT if they continue to use em dashes.
UGH

Weird. That wasn't me. If you remember who it was, let me know.

I love Em dashes. If ADHD were a punctuation mark, it'd be an Em Dash.

>>24704730
What is happening in this webm? Why was this made into a webm?

>>24704837
>What is happening in this webm?
Follow me downstairs and I'll show you; after that, we can have some amontillado.

Writing while hypomanic lads. Only way to do it.

>>24703239
And yet he'd be instantly canned by payment processors.

That's why I retired from being an agent.

>>24704903
didn't you post this years ago?

>>24703929
I really like this, although your tone/accent seems a bit uneven in some places. Good luck!

>>24705118
For example:
"Nobody knows if it was the vibratin’ of that note, or a frequency he tapped into like some station on the radio dialed directly to Hell"
I can't imagine meanspirited rural 19th century kids knowing about sound and radio waves.

>>24705122
*19th/20th century

>>24705124

It’s the 1920s. I felt like the metaphor was necessary to explain the monster, and kind of justify it to myself that the kids were wealthy, and would have been able to afford one, even if the narrator might not have one.

But you’re right. I’m not exactly an expert of the period. I wrote it thinking of To Kill a Mockingbird, which takes place about a decade later.

>>24704035
China is number 2 on using AI

>>24704035
Thought you could hide from me?
You are not understanding, sarr.
I am against the mass waves of jeets, but am slightly amused by AI art, because artists thought AI would somehow elevate them and take down blue-collar workers and coders.
Instead, AI is just as good as them and far cheaper, while everyone else is redeemed by endless waves of pajeets.
The future is bleak, anons.

Why the hero's journey is not on the RESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS pastebin?
Is bad or what?

>>24704837
If you actually watched the movie you'd know how hard that scene hits

>>24705602
>the hero's journey
The Hero with 1000 Faces probably isn't there because it's an anthropological textbook and not particularly about writing. Maybe storytelling in general, but only tenuously i-m-o.
Honestly, you could probably get it added if you made enough noise (or just made a new thread with a new pastebin).
But if you want my opinion, yes, it's bad. Following it like a set of instructions can lead to formulaic writing. Sure, you'll get results, but the results will be formulaic. I think you're supposed to use it to evaluate texts, not write them.

>>24705618
>evaluate
Maybe that's not the right word. Maybe "assess" or "digest" would fit better.

>>24704903
>Sandy Hook
good writing anon

I can easily see down what I want to happen in a scene. I can describe the plot and characters with ease, but I can't fit the life of me actually write it as a novel. The prose just doesn't come. I have to constantly stop to try to figure out how to even remotely describe what I'm picturing in my head. How the fuck do I fix this? Do I have to let AI write my story or something?

>>24705642
see>>24699449

>>24705647
He's talking about the opposite problem though. I know what ideas I went to put down but I just can't seem to write words to describe them.

I'm failing at step 0. I actually feel like I'm illiterate.

>>24705664
Opposite problem, huh? Good news, the same rules apply.
Just push past it and write.

>>24705642
sounds like maybe you don't read enough

>>24705618
>Sure, you'll get results, but the results will be formulaic
Why would that be a bad thing? Given that you want to just write a good story?

>>24705642
Just describe it any old way. Draft zero is basically just getting your notes organized by time instead of topic. Later, you'll go over what you wrote and rewrite/embellish it. This is normal. I can write a short story or screenplay in one shot and it comes out close to final-draft quality, but I can't do that with a novel. Very few people can.

>>24705776
I see. I thought others could just vomit vaguely novel-sounding sentences onto the page. Thank you.

>>24705787
The only two writers I've ever heard of that could do that were Isaac Asimov and L. Ron Hubbard. Everyone else has to do it the hard way. Don't beat yourself up!
I find that, once I get out draft zero, I go away from that novel for a while, perhaps work on something else meanwhile, and when I come back to it, I've forgotten enough of the details that I'm able to expand and embellish it much more easily. Maybe you'll find that works for you.

>>24705787
>>24705833
I kind of write this way in that the actual chapters I write I usually don't have to edit very much, but I also write an extremely detailed outline before I start actually writing so I think it'd be fair to say that the outline is really the first draft, although I personally don't think about it that way.

How do I know if something is worth writing

Any anons up for some laughs and cringe? Behold, the first short story I ever wrote. I don't want to say my age when I wrote it but you'd probably be able to guess just from all the edge. Maybe just how bad it is will give you inspiration to write. It's titled Chocolates, about a guy who wakes up on the day he'd planned to commit unalive:

https://pastebin.com/7DFYpchz

>>24705787
Ian Flemming reportedly could. He said he never edits. But his writing is pretty shit so it makes sense.

>>24705787
I'm an advocate of the middle ground. Don't get lost in detail, but do put some thought into it the first time too. If your initial draft is a total clusterfuck, you easily lose sight of the forest for the trees, by which I mean that you're so occupied fixing the blatant surface-level mistakes in editing, you fail to address the deeper, underlying issues that influence the long-term direction of your narrative. Like building a house, it helps to have some kind of plan and systematic approach to it, instead of just throwing wood and bricks in a pile and saying "I'll fix it later"

>>24705869
Outline

>>24705899
I usually don't do rough drafts, but I do edit pretty heavily afterward.
Right now, I'm kind of editing as I go to save time later.

>>24704368
I do want to add: This was the first novel I ever completed, and it has all of those first novel traits. I'm poor to the point of poverty and can't afford nice things like professional editors and artists.
My more recent stuff is better, and I'm currently seeking traditional publishing for it.

>>24705699
formulaic =! good

>>24705945
Or you could just pants it and see how it turns out.

>>24705963
You fucked up sacrificing your first publication in a self-pub. You will be forever branded as a self-publisher. Agents will think to themselves, "Why should I take on this client when they'll just dump their manuscript on Amazon KDP?"

>>24706074
that's not the reason they'll be leery. it's that they'll see you have a stinker in your history with 0 ratings
if you self-pub and it does even ok, that's a HUGE plus to an agent for your next book

I'm 500 words deep into my next novel.

>>24706129
Your AIslop will only help you cope for so long

>>24706097
It's too bad anon can't write.

24706134
24706136
You don't deserve a (you).
You don't even deserve the good AI slop.

>>24700118
Your uninspired sheep mentally thread pic just show everyone how midwit you are.
Post some of your “writing” (so-called lmfao) you Broken Wokester.

>>24706074
So don't tell them? Use a pen name and the agents won't find your foxgirl fanfic buried among the millions of others on Amazon.

>>24706074
Agents get 20 submissions a week and take on 6-7 new clients a year. They're not looking for books they can publish; they're looking for authors they can sell to publishers. They're chasing trends and betting on horses. You're manuscript is often a tertiary concern.

Half the agents taking queries want to know your follower count so they can sell that you have a built-in audience. The other half are looking for LGBT BiPOC writers because they're the hot new thing right now. Even then, the LGBT BiPOC writers have to write LGBT BiPOC fiction to capture their 'lived experience,' which looks good on a publisher's website. They can't just be LGBT BiPOC writers who write about robots and shit unless they happen to be gay robots.

When you look at Pierce Brown's Red Rising, it's clear the only reason he even saw a publisher was because he could say the book was "Like Hunger Games" when YA was all the rage.

>>24706266
While gene-spliced Moreaus are a part of the canon for "Blood-Dimmed Stars," foxgirls do not yet appear in any of my stories.

Shadows Falls was just an early urban fantasy romp that I'm not at all embarrassed by.
Nobody will care, not me, not an agent, not you, not even the crabs picking at it in this thread.

>>24706357
she cute

>>24706358
Thank you. My wife fears that BDS will end up with a bunch of furries as the fanbase.
I'm afraid it won't have fans at all.

>>24703929

Read this one.

Let me tell you I swear to you god
he'd come to the block and get so high
he'd forget he had a wife at home if
he remembered what a woman was at
all one time jake past by and our man
asked him if he knew "what this was"
and started jacking off right then and
there
He got his ass kicked that day didn't
stop smiling

>>24706514
Passed*

>>24706352
>the LGBT BiPOC writers have to write LGBT BiPOC fiction to capture their 'lived experience,
All you're saying really just applies to literary fiction, which is not what most people are writing.

>>24706607
Eh. We'll that's my jam. I like writing about garden gnomes and shit

you know a general has become a cemetery when namefags start using it as their personal blog

>>24706703
If it's a cemetery, it's because guys like you buried it in piles of shit.
You don't write, you criticize those who do.
You don't encourage writers, you attack them.
And now you're shocked that most writers would avoid /wg/?

>>24706736
I do write and im pretty much the only person who's given out effort crits in months
>AI spammer
moron

>>24706785
I haven't seen effort crits in months, so I just don't believe you very much.
And I like making AI art, don't know why that bothers some of the autists around here; it's not like it hurts you.

>>24706805
>it's not like it hurts you
we want you to support artists and illustrators. they are all part of the ecosystem and they need to make a living too

I'm working on a story, this is it so far: There's a small cabin snoozing in the shade of an oak. It's separated from the street by a small lawn, lots of raw dirt and a mild blush of green. On the opposite side of the street runs a hedgerow, and someone is hidden in that hedgerow, binoculars pressed to his eyes. That's [You]. Your binoculars are aimed squarely at the open window of the cabin. You can't see much but you hear the see-saw whine of a bed under duress. A few hours pass and you're still planted in the hedgerow. The door springs open, and out comes a tall formidable figure, shorn of shirt and pants, his boxers full of the summer breeze. He stretches and the sun picks out the beautiful ridges of muscle along his shoulder. That's [Me]. But your attention isn't arrested for long. Your binoculars swing toward the open doorway, and inside, a woman lies naked on the bed. She's propped on one elbow, admiring the hard contours of my back; mischief gleams in her eyes. Yep, that's [Your Mom]. So far that's all I got. OK, anons. Time to focus group how this plays out. Remember, you're angry, but there's also perverse lust in what you feel--which redoubles the anger. You're not even sure whether it's me you want, or your mom. But overriding all is the urge to kill. What weapon have you brought with you?

>>24706820
KEK! Okay.
You can larp as a neo-luddite if you like.
If I have to choose between free art from a computer and paying some blue-haired sodomite with a septum piercing and ten self-diagnosed mental illnesses and personality disorders, along with crayon flags in "her" bio, I know which one is the obvious choice.

>>24706838

Your AI art is bad. Why does it all look submerged in urine?

>>24706848
Could just be a problem on your end.
I heard jaundice causes yellowing of the eyes. Maybe you should get some sun.

>>24706838
>KEK
either all posters who come here and do this are equally as retarded as you or you've been here for a long time making abysmal posts

>>24706785
>effort crits
You weren't >>24704005 and don't pretend you were.

>>24706820
Artists/illustrators charge way too much & are usually LGBTQ+ drama queens.

>>24706871
come on now

>>24706820
>they are all part of the ecosystem and they need to make a living too
If they produce anything of quality people will hire them. If not, they can take their scribbles and go find a real job. No one owes them money.

>>24706868
You're allowed to have that opinion.
You may also have the most painful-looking "thumbs up" I've ever seen.

>>24706896
a writer trying to take this position is hilarious

>>24706903
Why? I write. I publish. No one buys it. I keep working my day job. I keep working on my writing hoping it gets better eventually and people will someday read it. The cycle continues.

>>24706910
do you lack theory of mind and self awareness? how does this differ from an artist?
nobody is buying your writing because it is fiscally worthless, as is the art of the artists you sneer on

>>24706920
Many writers aren't appreciated until after their death. Herman Melville was an unsuccessful writer, having to hold down a number of day jobs to keep his family fed, and it was only after his 100th birthday (by which time he was long dead) that his work was reappraised, and now he's considered part of the western canon. Franz Kafka was so unsuccessful in his life that he ordered the executor of his will to burn all his work, and it's only because he didn't that we know of him at all. Philip K. Dick struggled during his lifetime, despite 125 short stories and 44 novels, and only saw real money with the selling of the movie rights to his 1969 novel "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep", which became the 1982 movie "Blade Runner", but unfortunately he passed away from a stroke 4 months before the movie was released. Proust's "In Search Of Lost Time" couldn't find a publisher, so he funded his own printing, not a small act in that time. I could go on.

I write, I self published, someone bought it, got offended, reported me to my boss, and I got fired. I can't find another job that pays as well as what I used to have.

Shit sucks.

>>24706979
and great authors today like Colleen Hoover, RF Kuang, Brandon Sanderson and other artists will be known as masters after they're dead.

>>24706920
Do you know why no one really cares?
The quality of most artists has plummeted.
Meanwhile, the basket cases that are drawn to the arts have become less and less enjoyable.
So much so that I hesitate to pay them.
Meanwhile, AI is free, can keep its stupid opinions to itself, and the quality is just as good in most cases.
You are in the midst of the new Industrial Revolution. It will do for the arts what the Power Loom did for textiles, and this will happen whether (you) like it or not.
You can get over it, or die mad about it, but this is the future.
And for writers?
It will affect us, too. Either the quality of our writing improves or, when AI finally catches up (and it will) we'll be doing this for an increasingly niche audience.

>>24706979
how does this follow from the preceding talking point
non-sequitur

>>24706979
>>24707001
books that explain this phenomena?

>>24706995
hilarious if true. sorry dude, never bring your authentic self to work no matter what some cat lady or single mom in hr says.

I really want to write something in it, but I've always been a horrible writer. I can't for the life of me come up with compelling character motivations, good prose, natural dialogue, plot hooks, or even any decent basis for a story. To make it worse, I'm afraid of making something so utterly dogshit that it'll cause me to discarding the setting and give up entirely.

>>24706995
What'd you write?
Why were you fired?

>>24707005
Because the work of these great authors was "fiscally worthless" in their time, but wasn't afterwards. Melville's work is part of the western canon, and Philip K. Dick's children are billionaires. Did you deliberately miss that, or are you really this obtuse?

>>24707003
you've allowed external systems of evaluation to effect your internal world
market value can't be the only personal value by which you measure something. if it is then you are lacking something inside
this is the reason people treat you like a soulless insect for worshiping AI

>>24707012
I wrote a fantasy book, there was a sexual assault/prison scene where my FeMC escapes from being raped, but that was considered inappropriate and HR woman thought I had rape tendencies, therefore, I was a danger to other female coworkers. They reported me to the police (they dismissed it), but nobody in my job wants to even give me a letter of recommendation and has distanced themselves as far as possible from me.

>>24707007
You need books to explain this phenomena? Sometimes, an author's work is so ahead of its time, it's not appreciated until much later. "Gormenghast" by Mervyn Peake comes to mind. It generated little more than seething in his lifetime, but is now considered a classic of Gothic literature.
I had to make peace that my penchant for writing high-concept, idea-driven fiction will be unappreciated in my lifetime, but maybe my younger relations will be able to monetize it after I'm dead.

>>24707016
so you are equally as worthless as the artists you look down on, and equally as genius as them only excepting the recognition of your contemporaries?
are you saying that you're one of the tasteless fools that can't recognize good art, and that the artists you look down on are going to be added to the cannon after their death?
a writer snobbing on an artist is retarded. it's all the same shit

I've always wanted to be a creative ever since I was young. I've day dreamed about being one and tried working my ass off trying to write ever since I was around 12. My parents tried pushing me towards it for school assignments. I also wanted to draw but never got into it seriously.

I've been wanting to write again for nearly 2 years now and have barely made any progress towards that goal. I've only done one little drabble like 2 years ago and haven't done any exercises since then. I've been trying to get myself to write, but all of it looks too complicated and exhausting for me. I've tried multiple different strategies, but they never seem to work. I've tried forcing myself to write, but can only make myself write a couple of sentences for barely 30 seconds before stopping and looking at my phone again.

I've never been able to complete a single multichapter story in my entire life and actually coming up with stories isn't much better. I can't think anything through and everything about trying to make an entire story looks too hard for me. I want to be a creative really badly, but nothing I've done seems to have amounted to much of anything. I want to become one so badly, and I want to stop wasting my life doing nothing.

>>24706995
This is why I'm careful not to discuss my writing at work with anyone but a select few based co-workers. One of my webnovels has a scene where the main character pretty much rapes an NPC in a video game world. Needless to say, I don't publicize this in the workplace.

>>24706979
The guy who wrote Leaving Las Vegas killed himself right before the movie came out. I wonder why.

>>24707027
No, it's not the same shit at all. You can go on Amazon and buy an e-book of my work for 99 cents. You can also look around the Internet and find where I've posted them for free. If I enlist a graphic artist to make a book cover, it'll cost hundreds. Not even remotely comparable.

>>24707036
To be fair, the novel's main character was suicidal.

>>24707038
so your book is worth less than the cover art?

>>24707041
At the moment, sure seems like it. But I've always made my own cover art, or used AI to make elements of it, which I then combined laboriously using standard image-editing tools. Plus, I've resigned myself to, at best, my writing being well-regarded only after I'm dead. People like Andy Weir managed to catch a lightning bolt in a bottle, and more power to them.

>>24707017
My "system of evaluation" is cost, speed, and quality. The fact is that if the math lines up against paying the weirdo with an asymmetrical haircut and a rainbow flag in the bio, then that is just too bad.
Pic related was allegedly drawn by a professional artist.

>>24707052
I was hoping poking at your pride would make you second guess this framework that a price point is deterministic of substance

>>24706979
F Scott Fitzgerald was the same way. Died thinking Great Gatsby was a forgotten failure, and only a decade or two after his death his friend pushed it and it became popular.

We're all gonna make it, Anons, 100 years from today

>>24706352
But why would publishers want those LGBT bipoc stories and authors? You know that none of them are going to sell. None of them. Readers generally don't want to read them. The few that do will read it on some smut website instead (because of your identity is based on who you have sex with then the stories will contain sex).

>>24707020
Ironic, since dollars to donuts the majority of them read rape smut in their off time.

>>24707020
My book (urban fantasy) contains multiple explicit rapes, murders, cannibalism, arson, and mutilation.
No publisher or agent is going to touch this with a ten-foot pole.
THAT was why I had to self-publish.
I'm sorry that the HR shrew got you over some bitchy karen. I hope you can find better work, soon.

>>24706785
>im pretty much the only person who's given out effort crits in months
I used to do it here and there for genrefic posters but I left for /wng/

>>24707028
>I've never been able to complete a single multichapter story in my entire life and actually coming up with stories isn't much better. I can't think anything through and everything about trying to make an entire story looks too hard for me. I want to be a creative really badly, but nothing I've done seems to have amounted to much of anything. I want to become one so badly, and I want to stop wasting my life doing nothing.
Go write smut on literotica or something. You can crank out a few chapters of the story and people will be satisfied.

>>24707112
effort posting on /wg/ is pretty exhausting
>closely read and reread someone's piece
>give them thorough and deliberate feedback
>point them to similar works and authors that might help
>they sperg out
happens on /wng/ too but it seems way more rarely

>>24707041
Different anon, but yes. I spent $20 making my book, and that was all for ordering beta copies to test the print and color. I haven't made any of that money back. Like fuck I'm spending $400 on a drawing for it.

>>24707125
how can you say that your 100s of hours of effort is worth less than the 6~ hours the artist spent drawing?
you dumb fucks need some damn dignity. you've been brainwashed to think like consumers instead of rational human beings

Enough vacationing. Tomorrow I'm back to writing at least 1000 words a day. Let's see how long it takes me to get another finished draft.

>/wg/cucks got a new F. Gardner to shit up their dead general
Serves you right, crabs

>>24706995
>publishing under your real name / identity
Skill issue.

>>24707197
We have sinned a great sin, and the Lord has punished us with two namefags and a bunch of AI art.
The art isn't awful, but it isn't great, either.
The namefags, however, are shitting up the general.

>>24703500
This this incorrect and requires two commas.
>Timmy is a gifted, if aggressive, chess player.
>Timmy is a gifted, though aggressive, chess player.
People are just retarded.

>>24707274
>Timmy is a gifted, if aggressive, chess player.
You can see that Grammarly also corrects this.

>>24703500
>Timmy is a gifted and aggressive chess player.
>When and why do people use the former expression?
In your example, it just identifies a player as both gifted and aggressive.
>Timmy is a gifted, if aggressive, chess player.
In your other example, it identifies the player and then makes a qualifying statement about their ability as gifted. Show that despite their gifted ability, they remain aggressive. This implies that gifted players do not normally play aggressively, and provides that additional information where the previous sentence did not.

>>24707274
pretty sure the subject is more semantic than grammatical
like >>24707288 points out
it's probably a dialect thing. how you insert and connect dependent clauses is like half of prose styling. seems subjective

The worst thing about writing is that you have to make a bunch of money doing it before anybody cares to read it.

Help that make sense.

>>24707321
I make no money from it and my parents and my gf love to read my writing :)

This is a chattering little hive, isn't it? Really, you guys jaw a mighty lot about writing, which I always thought of as a lonely pursuit. At some point you have to lay aside the advice and encouragement, and it's all down to the act itself.

>>24707327
We write plenty. https://lampbylit.com/magazine/authors/ We just can't get any traction outside of our hug box.

>>24707338
>all slop
>fantasy slop
>my diary desu slop
>schizo rambling slop
>not even one attempted litfic
surly you can do better

>>24707341
>crab slop
surely you could be less surly

>>24707354
i'm digging through all works, nothing is remotely interesting

>>24707357
Not with that attitude. And why would you care about litfic anyway? It's a genre several centuries out of date.

>>24707357
my favorite works from here have been travelogues. there was also a substack poet who was quite good. I recall a daily flash poster who was good as well
there've been pieces in &amp that were good
in all likelihood those stories are mid and enjoyable to those who like it
if the premises you're seeing were written by [classic author] would you be more interested? my bet's that you're simply not the one these stories are for

Do you guys write out a specific scene outline right before writing the scene?

I was thinking of doing this so that I don't forget details like what the surroundings look like.

>>24707384
I just wing it

>>24707384
faster for me to write the scene and figure it out after
do whatever works for you

>have to write about a coronation
>Not Christian
>No idea what the fuck goes on

>>24707465
Write what you know, or do research.

New thread:
>>24707466
>>24707466
>>24707466
...since our time here is short

>>24706062
Why?