Thread 24707466

"Catzilla" edition

Previous: >>24698741

/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=muUZjovOFRg

Howdy. Just looking for more feedback on the first chapter of my 15th century witchhunter novel.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14S_LW0Mg-fklbTWqmTvcWm60erAXimbZK6X0ynaWYQw/edit?usp=drivesdk

I just want to know if people vibe with it, and if you’d keep reading. I’ve shared it before, but I’m looking for as much feedback as I can get because I want to start submitting the book and I’m terrified.

Thanks.

>>24707500
I would but I don't want to ID myself by clicking on the link

>>24707512
Paste it into a private browser , retard grandpa

You can call me retarded for this (I very much am), but I learned how to craft a story through TV, video games, movies, and a few graphic novels, so I actually didn't realize how important prose was until I started trying to write my own shit. I put a ton of work into building the plot and making interesting, layered characters, so I figured as long as the text is clear and readable, then everything will be fine. When I heard for the first time that there are a lot of people who read books strictly for the prose over the plot, my mind was legitimately blown. Have you guys ever gotten that sense from other texts you've read/written, or is this a uniquely me problem?

You guys wanna give some some feedback on this short story? I submitted it to Raconteur Press looking for pulp monster stories, but I went southern gothic. I don’t know what my chances are.

Enjoy my shit AI art.

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

>>24707550
no. I grew up reading
it's like how a musician appreciates music more deeply, or how an artist will see more in a painting than a layman. you just get more out of a medium the more you're familiar with it
if you're open to it, try getting into poetry. poetry generally has a lot more concentration on the effect of a phrase
aphorisms and speeches might help stir you. becoming conscious of the language itself and appreciating it isn't something I had to learn, but if I had to I'd look here

>>24707550
Prose and plot is not to be distinguished. If I described to you that: “A man went through a ruin,” that leaves nothing to be questioned. I’ve just given everything away, killed the cat before it even lifted a paw out of the bag.

But if I described that: “A man stumbled through a sprawl of cracked bricks stacked high under an oven-bake sun,” there’s information there.

The prose is not for fluffy description: the man is stumbling; not walking, skipping or running. He could be hurt, or drunk, or maybe a cripple: you don’t know yet, but there’s certainly more to grasp onto there than just “a man went through.”

A “sprawl” implies disorder, the bricks are laid about almost randomly. And the bricks are cracked, due to age or damage. We know this is some kind of ruin, since they’re “stacked high,” as if part of some larger structure that no longer exists whole. Finally the “oven-bake sun,” tells us it’s daytime and that the man is probably in a precarious circumstance, stumbling around a ruin with the sun beating down on him. This is slightly more interesting, and creates a level of tension and uncertainty through just a single sentence.

Even though the “plot” of the two sentences is essentially the same, the prose in the second sentence builds more to forward the plot than the first. Prose and plot work in tandem to build the story: isolating them just makes you a weaker writer.

>>24707500
just post a screenshot or something. nobody wants to click on google links.

>>24707584
prose and plot can be distinguished
it's why linguistics and narratology are different fields of study. the components of a sentence can be abstracted into linguistic units and the components of a narrative into story elements
yes, obviously the base atomic units of a story are mutually dependent once they're structured together as parts of a story
this is a pseudo intellectual stance and doesn't do anything to deepen the conversation or further the craft of writing

>>24707550
Every story I've ever read has been shit. I'm dead serious. I read strictly to find well-written passages, the more fantastical and poetic the better. Could give a rat's ass about the plot as long as the writing is interesting.

>>24707602
>prose and plot can be distinguished
I never said they couldn’t be distinguished. Calling someone a pseud when you can’t even parse the meaning of the first sentence of a post is hilarious. I even made a point of distinguishing plot and prose focused writing, then conveyed why it was unhelpful for writers to think on strictly definitional terms. Not surprising a bugman like you couldn’t grasp that.

>>24707620
>smugly talks past the person he's replying to
why even bother if you don't want to acknowledge the conversation and talking points
the point you brought was reductive and the mentality detractive to anyone looking to improve their writing
you're a tard

>>24707627
>the point you brought was reductive and the mentality detractive to anyone looking to improve their writing
Telling people to focus on being intentional with their prose to enhance the plot is bad advice? You have brought nothing substantial beyond “ur a pseud.” Provide better advice then.

Instead you're flailing over being clocked as a histrionic monkey that reactively replies to things without reading. How amusing.

How do I find out if the ending I'm working on is stupid without spoiling it to people?

>>24707634
studying and understanding the components of writing is a good thing that is conductive to good writing
thinking "prose and plot is not to be distinguished" is reductive and conductive only to surface level thinking unto mediocrity
I gave my advice in the other reply. actionable advice rather than vagueries and notional implications
the actual of your advice amounts to
>Prose and plot work in tandem to build the story: isolating them just makes you a weaker writer.
which is idiotic. intellectualizing and deconstructing a subject doesn't necessitate leaving it deconstructed. you apply what you learn from separating to effectively construct
>How amusing.
mmm.... perhaps a little more sodium chloride next time...

>>24707649
>>24707569
>bro…just go into like poetry man
>aphorisms and speeches man
Blandly recommending “poetry” is like recommending a fisherman to cast his line in any random body of water. No direction, not even a type of poetry: real actionable, huh? You’re a retard.

>you apply what you learn from separating to effectively construct
Writers don’t sit in a room “training” their prose like a neurotic bodybuilder trying to isolate specific muscles. Are you on crack?

>>24707688
you seem to be rage replying
if they wanted further direction on what poets to read or where to start with poetry, I'd have given further advice. same with speeches. "do [x] (read poetry/aphorisms/speeches)" is in fact an imperative sentence and is actionable advice. your subjective metrics and goal posts don't come into the definition
not all writers study but if an anon comes in wanting to improve it is dipshit retarded to tell them to not try and pursue effective learning
most writers do in fact work on their prose and story telling skills. you've seriously never met someone who's done writing exercises? never joined a critique circle? never attended a workshop?
you can umbrella it under a logical extreme if it helps you cope. many people do in fact give a concentrated effort at improving at their given interests
I called you out on handing out vague pseudy bullshit to an unsure writer because that's shitty behavior, not to attack you personally. you should take a deep breath and settle down

>>24707638
>without spoiling it to people?
you shouldn't worry about that. when you sell a novel, you have to give them the whole summary so spoilers just doesn't figure into the writing/publishing process.

>>24707701
>if they wanted further direction on what poets to read or where to start with poetry, I'd have given further advice
Or you could have given some specific poets to start with, instead of just giving the literary equivalent of “watch movies,” to a film student. Or do you not see a difference between Walt Whitman and Rupi Kaur?
>most writers do in fact work on their prose and story telling skills
Even in this reply you’ve unconsciously conceded that prose and plot are not to be simply isolated: they are distinct but clearly work together, inextricable from one another.

You don’t train for a marathon by hopping on one foot at a time. You run, both feet stepping to support the other. This really isn’t that complicated.

>>24707728
I trusted that he'd be able to google his beginner pursuits and am willing to offer advice where it's wanted. again, your goal posts don't matter. fact is that it was actionable advice, and in my opinion point in the right direction
>Even in this reply you’ve unconsciously conceded that prose and plot are not to be simply isolated
it's a statement that directly isolate the two concepts... come on. again, they are clearly extricable, they only become inextricable in context, but even then the qualities which inform the mechanics of their function as a part of the story can be broken down and observed
this might come as a surprise to you but biomechanics and kinesiology exist and are essential fields to top level athletes. bit of a self denying metaphor

>>24707550
I'm exactly the same as you. If your post had been made several hours earlier I might've thought that I drunk posted it myself.
>>24707584
>A man went through a ruin
>A man stumbled through a sprawl of cracked bricks stacked high under an oven-bake sun
The two examples aren't equivalent though. The latter might imply a ruin, but it might also imply that he's stumbling through a construction site where they had just piled up all the broken bricks to be taken away.
A ruin typically isn't "stacked bricks" since the bricks are usually built into a wall with mortar in-between.
This last one is just a suggestion: "an oven-bake sun" looks like a typo of "oven-baked X". You probably don't want to use that phrase.

>>24707770
>a wandering /crit/ poster
confused but well meaning

>>24707748
>I trusted that he'd be able to google his beginner pursuits
Telling someone to google “poetry” on a writing general is what you call advice? Why can’t you rec just one poet? Almost as if this entire exchange is just you projecting since you have nothing to offer.
>qualities which inform the mechanics of their function as a part of the story can be broken down
Yeah, that kind of sounds like breaking down a sentence and explaining how the mechanics function…oh wait I did that in my initial post.
>biomechanics and kinesiology exist
You don’t need to study either to understand that you need two legs to run. Not sure how you’re still getting filtered by that very simple analogy.

>>24707811
>breaking down a sentence and explaining how the mechanics function
>oh wait I did that in my initial post.
no you fucking did not lol. you babbled incoherently with examples that didn't even exemplify the singular point you were trying to make. you use poor metaphors rather than relying on any technical language or concepts, I seriously doubt you understand the mechanics of a narrative or of language beyond your first glance impressions. you don't even seem to care to engage with the subject of writing and just seething at me
>You don’t need to study either to understand that you need two legs to run
yes, obviously. and again, these are fields which are essential to top level athletes. again, when someone tries to learn, it's good practice to encourage effective learning
choosing not to learn is fine. you are allowed to be a stupid fuck and as mediocre as you like. hell, study isn't even essential to good writing. but if one is interested in improvement and wants to understand something new to them, it makes you a real bitch to tell them to not think about it deeply
>no conversational points or arguments
>pure seethe
you've spent the entire conversation trying to talk past me and hiding behind pretension. waste of time to have tried to treat you like you could hold a dialogue. you're seriously stupid. knowing this about yourself, you shouldn't offer advice. atleast not to people who are uncertain and might be vulnerable to actually listening to you

>>24707825
>you don't even seem to care to engage with the subject of writing
Rich coming from a retard who recommends “poetry and aphorisms” to a person concerned about prose and plot.
>choosing not to learn is fine
Again no one said this…reading and writing is how you improve. But writing only prose or only plot is nonsensical and borderline self-destructive. Stories naturally use both plot and prose working in tandem: isolating either reduces the text to aimless purple drivel or bland Wikipedia synopses. You clearly prefer the latter.
>hiding behind pretension
More projection. I offered concrete advice and you sperged out, misreading the entire thing to top it off. It wasn’t even good or complex, but somehow you’ve extrapolated this delusion that it conveys that no one should practice writing….you really should read more.

>>24707825
>you use poor metaphors rather than relying on any technical language or concepts
Such a great self-tell here, by the way. The notion that you need to use pseud technical terms to discuss writing, instead of metaphorical language (which is really just a microcosm of the storytelling process) is fucking hilarious. The fact you seem to struggle to grasp even the simple metaphors makes this even funnier.

>>24707834
low literacy ass
god damn you are so stupid that it's straight up frustrating to read what you have to say. you cannot follow a conversational—
aw fuck me
>>low level opinions on writing
>drops constant non-sequiturs
>gets triggered and rage replies endlessly
>argumentation relies on hiding behind smug pretension
>gets confused mid conversation and forgets premises and subjects
FUCK
can't believe I got baited by your dumb fucking ass AGAIN
dammit. your opinions are so fucking stupid that I reply to them every damn time. a team of full time twitter influencers couldn't craft better bait than you just voicing your ignorant ideas on writing

>Thread starts with two retards giving horrible advice to a bigger retard which then devolves into a slap fight.
Nice, we just need the ai spammer namefag from the last thread to completely ruin this dogshit thread.

>>24707844
I'm sneething leave me alone
telling someone who finds the idea of noticing prose bewildering to read language which is designed to be noticed is not bad advice

>>24707841
> you cannot follow a conversational—
>aw fuck me
Typing out your inner dialogue for all of us to see just shows how shallow your mind truly is.

>>24707849
you are the dumbest motherfucker on this board and you haunt this thread like the smell of shit in an outhouse

>>24707847
>read language which is designed to be noticed is not bad advice
All written works are designed to be noticed. A pornographic magazine titled “BIG TITS BELOW” is designed to be noticed.

What are retarded metric for language in general. What purpose is it for, other than to be noticed and communicated?

>>24707856
noticed for the structure and form of the language itself, not the semantic meaning it provides

>>24707858
god. FUCK
using "language" to indicate the word choice and syntax is standard practice when talking about creative writing
where the fuck are you people coming from that I can't use the shared jargon of writers

>>24707858
>structure and form
What do you think the structure of a headline is designed for? If you’re just recommending ANY speech or poem for this guy to read, may as well have him reading the tabloids as well.

Such dumb advice.

>>24707867
poems and speeches are designed to be emotionally evocative from the top to the bottom, from the meaning of the words to the phonetic sounds they make
someone who is so unfamiliar with writing that they don't think about the prose, the vehicle on which the entire medium is conveyed, is not going to know what to read to help their specific lack. categories are broad, but someone that ignorant and with such a wide reaching issue doesn't need a specific poem or speech. he needs a good example to learn from
it's not such a absurd and ridiculous grace to extend the benefit of the doubt that someone given the advice "read [X]" would think to google "good [X]"
god fuck. you're the dumb compulsive replying faggot that prowls the thread during these hours aren't you. I'm still being baited like a dumbass aren't I
fuck. I just want to talk about writing and the only person ever around is a fucking NPC that just regurgitates the same inane shit month after month

>>24707876
>poems and speeches are designed to be emotionally evocative from the top to the bottom
And tabloids are also emotionally evocative: they evoke lust, outrage, greed, envy….from top to bottom.

After all this time you still can’t name a single poet or speech that you find compelling. Almost as if you don’t read at all, or if you do, you’re too scared to admit to liking anything…which is equally as worthless on this thread when you’re supposed to give advice. What a pseud.
>you're the dumb compulsive replying faggot that prowls the thread
You should step away from the mirror.

does YA have a function? if you write YA fiction, what's your motivator for the genre? back in 2020 everyone here called my stuff quite YA and I let myself get bullied out of a style for a few years. now I feel like I can finally look at a project that's drenched in it, but I really want to anti-pseud myself before I put the gloves on and get to work with editing 600 pages of slop. is it true that intention is the key ingredient here? I know I shouldn't be coming here for advice of all things, but anonymous faggots tend to think next to my aisle and I'll be shilling to you either a self indulgent YA fantasy book or a long winded mostly adult fantasy book either way. I know some of you write like insane monkeys and need to know how you keep banging the keys.

>>24707889
What books do you mostly read? That will largely affect how your writing sounds.

I know I should just use YA as an excuse to have as much fun as possible with how much corn can exactly be fit on a cob; it would be such a crazy thing to switch genres during editing.

>>24707881
>And tabloids are also emotionally evocative[...] from top to bottom.
no they fucking are not you dishonest, slimy little fuck. the form is designed to the needs of a cost/benefit analysis of churning out the most eye catching slop for the least effort. it is not a wholly coherent construct
>still can’t name a single poet or speech that you find compelling
it's not that I can't you little wannabe sophist fuck. it's that I'm not blind and know that you're using it as a way to try to denigrate my propositions on the grounds of my personal opinions and tastes. I am 100% more well read than you, you absolute little fag. yes, I know poets. keats, tennyson, byron. elliott, bukowski, auden
>You should step away from the mirror.
I KNOW
you're the human equivalent of a chatbot with a limited memory. you can't hold very much in your memory and have to place and tie together rhetorical points and topics on conjecture, and insert the latest thought you had no matter how low the relevance. the insistence on your vapid running metaphor, the insistence on the tabloids. you always do this and you've always done this. you genuinely have a cognitive dysfunction or mental disorder, people are always calling you out as making no sense
and like a chatbot I use you as a sounding board to talk about literary ideas to myself, offering talking points, counterfactuals, rebuttals and values as if you can actually parse them
fuck me. all because there are 0 fronts to discuss writing as a craft. discord is a vile haven for groomers and underages, reddit is a hugbox, twitter is a performative space of pretension where everyone acts like you
/wg/ is unironically one of the best public forums to discuss writing as a craft and one of its most prolific posters is dumber than a chatbot

>>24707889
>does YA have a function?
sales primarily
to be less bitter, I think it's primary function and appeal is in the purity of naivety. earnest, emotionally driven highschool-like social dynamics; heroic protagonists; explorations of comfortable familiar, but slightly exoticized worlds
as a YA writer, who naturally inclines to writing YA, you'd probably know the function better than me. why do you write YA? what are the qualities that you think make your writing YA?
>is it true that intention is the key ingredient here?
it's the base principal which drives your writing, yes. you should have a clear vision and thorough understanding of your intent
that being said, it's not at all unusual to find that clarity as you write. it's normal to consider an exploration of your intent to be part of a person's drafting process. personally I struggle to write without a clear intent

>>24707908
>no they fucking are not you dishonest, slimy little fuck
Tabloids are extremely evocative. Especially the ones with big boobs on them.
>you're using it as a way to try to denigrate my propositions on the grounds of my personal opinions and tastes
So this entire time you’ve been utterly terrified of the possibility of defending a recommendation, so you just say “google poetry” to the guy. Hilarious.
>keats, tennyson, byron. elliott, bukowski, auden
You can’t give the original guy anything, but you’ll give me a whole list after I abused you for two hours. That’s called Stockholm syndrome. Btw that’s a basic ass list. If you said something like Alexander Pope or Robinson Jeffers, I would be more interested. But it looks like you just took your own advice and googled poets to regurgitate as if you know something.
>you always do this
You clearly have a problem and think everyone who takes advantage of this for their own amusement is the same person. And maybe they are in some cosmic sense but you are genuinely retarded and it’s funny to do this to you.

>>24707920
not a single of your taking points are logically coherent and worth acknowledging. the main thing that makes you a bait dispenser is that you don't make sense. you cannot tie together an articulate thought and like watching a toddler struggle to put a round peg into a square hole, I feel compelled to correct everything you say that doesn't make any sense
/wg/ is a low poster count, low activity thread. there just aren't that many posters
last time I recall falling for your archetypical dipshittery, you were praising some a ghost story slopper as if they were one of the great authors

>>24707925
>not a single of your taking points are logically coherent and worth acknowledging
I don’t have “taking” points, not every interaction is an argument where you have to take everything at face value and analyze the logical consistency of every statement. Do you have Asperger’s?

>last time I recall falling for your archetypical dipshittery, you were praising some a ghost story slopper
Yes, everyone who comes into contact with you and notices you’re a barely literate bugman is the same person. That is a healthy mindset to have.

>>24707914
>it's normal to consider an exploration of your intent to be part of a person's drafting process. personally I struggle to write without a clear intent
Intent is inherently part of the writing process. Trying to write without intent is like sailing into the ocean without a map. What a retard!

>>24707933
>being argumentative and hostile because he's triggered
>has no points to make or personal interest in the subject
god you're such an argumentative faggot. I hate that I can recognize you because we're the only ones who post at these hours on this dead general
panters is a meme phrase because it's such a common process
>What a retard!
god I fucking hate you so much. you are so god damn stupid. you are accusing me to be a retard on the basis of not writing clear intent when I say that I struggle to write without, implying that I take on the implicit counterfactual style of writing with intent
fuck. how do you exist without a handler. why do you need me to spell out every little thing for you

>>24707942
I genuinely hope you aren’t angling for a career in creative writing. Just by the way you write (ignoring the weird formatting that’s as clear as trip), it’s obvious how unimaginative and boring you are. You’ve read all that poetry and retained not even a modicum of the emotional depth or insight, you can’t even parse out sarcasm. Truly unbelievable, what a sad prison your mind is….

>>24707954
I should be a teacher. I feel a compulsion to correct you and instruct you but I know that you're an intellectually dishonest little fag and no amount of effort could ever improve you
enjoy your heightened blood pressure. I atleast got to bounce some of my own ideas off you, even if you weren't able to engage with a single one of them
what a waste of a morning. I've truly got to learn to let sleeping retards lie. assume a dumbass opinion to have come from a dumbass

>>24707908
>/wg/ is unironically one of the best public forums to discuss writing as a craft
We got someone from bizarro world here

>>24707966
>bounce ideas
You seethed for two hours instead of writing or reading. Even the original advice you wanted to give was lost because you were too scared to give a rec until it was bullied out of you.

Keep coping. You’re a perpetual victim and it will never not be funny to fuck with you.

>>24707977
as someone who's been around the block, it is
specifically public. I've touched on the topic before but just go to some in person workshops and try the usual social sites and blog post about it
90% of writers are socially inept with severe personality defects
/wg/ will exchange actual in-depth critiques and post legible pieces of writing. it's not the thread's most common behavior but it actually happens

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.

Thoughts?

They banned hands. After all, only serial punchers and psychopathic chokers would want to possess hands. However, politicians made great arguments, claiming that making hands illegal wouldn't be enough, because terrorists would use their arms instead. So they banned arms, and went to chopping.
People, unfortunately, resorted to kicking each other instead. A donkey also kicked a child who was harrasing it. The community went up in legs and protested, demanding legs be regulated and banned. Some individuals argued that banning legs would make moving around inconvenient, but they were silenced and ignored as conspiracy theorists who wanted to kick children to death. No one needed military-grade legs, they said, so the community banned legs, and went to chopping.
And who would have guessed that, with no arms and no legs, they would start biting? No one, because no one actually bit anyone, except for a single case where a man bit another, not to cause him harm, but to pull him out of harm's way (he had no arms to drag him and no legs to push him). However, a wild dog with rabies bit a baby, so the community felt great terror, and decided to protest against the dangerous assault weapons called teeth. They wanted common-sense anti-teeth laws, so they banned teeth, and removed everyone's dentures.
They believed their community was finally safe, but people started yelling at each other and saying mean words, insults, hurtful remarks, and so on. Moreover, radical all-directional extremists were spreading misinformation, claiming that people used to have legs and walk around freely, or have arms with hands that made life easier and more pleasant, radicalizing the youth into hateful all-directional ideologies. Being tolerant, such grievous hate crimes couldn't be tolerated, so they banned tongues, and went to chopping.
But what no one knew is that speech is not the only way of communication--people began expressing disapproval with the movements of their eyes, eyebrows, nose, and lips. People were afraid once more, so they banned them all, and went to chopping.
And at last, having done all this, they were deeply miserable and in pain, so they came to the conclusion--common sensical, mind you--that life itself was dangerous and harmful, so they banned life, and went door-to-door confiscating everyone's genitals. These that you see here are the last generation, last of their kind.

>>24708236
Cute but too on the nose, need to stretch it out more. I wrote this in high school, it's just a modest proposal but for book burning

It has come to my attention that you and your group are trying to remove several books from the required reading lists of your children’s classes. I whole heartedly agree with your movement. For too long the so called ‘teachers’ have taught our children horrible and evil things, they should not be allowed to teach unclean things like they are. My child used the word “fart” (excuse the language) the other day, I was shocked and appalled, and after I was done washing his mouth out with antibacterial soap, he told me he had learned it from The Catcher and the Rye, which was required reading for his class.

I, of course, was outraged. I demanded to see his book, so that it couldn’t tarnish his safe mind any longer. The book was filled with horrible smut, and mocked the name of god many times. I believe the writer of the book was a demon, trying to teach our little angels the awful things in the world. Naturally, I locked the book away and replaced his book with a more child friendly book, The Bible. While he was busy reading it, I contacted the school and told them I was removing my child from the school until this matter was resolved.

Later that week, at the school board meeting, I brought the horrible smut to the attention of the parents and school board members. I do not know why, but they seemed to think I was joking. I had, earlier in the week, gone through and picked out a few choice points in the book. I presented them to the board, and one of the members (I believe he was an English teacher) actually had the audacity to ask if I had read the book cover to cover. Of course I hadn’t, the book was a work of evil, and surely it would have filled my mind with unclean thoughts. Then, another member opened my eyes to a world I had never noticed before.

She told me of the horrible things that go on in our children’s lives. I don’t know how I missed them, but somewhere, somehow, I did. We were in the library, and she pulled a book off the shelf at random, flipped a few pages, and found a passage in the book describing intercourse between a male and female. I nearly fainted at the thought of it, how could these things be in our schools?! I promptly told them I would never return to the school, and neither would my child.

>>24708253
Kek. Pretty good.
Thanks for the feedback.

>>24708267
meh I was 16

But here’s where it really hit me. On my way home, I noticed that no matter what station I picked on the radio, horrible and unclean things were being preached at me, and I could do nothing as they molested my mind. I tried to keep from thinking about it by looking at the sights of the road, but every where I looked I would see ads promoting the female body, and people doing unclean things like kissing, in public! Which led me to my idea; your group is great, but you need to expand.
We should begin fighting all books that promote anything bad in our eyes. This would prevent our children from learning the horrible truths of the world, which soil their good souls. I believe banning them simply won’t do, however. We should burn them en masse, that way the world will be ridden of their smut, and we can cut back on heating bills. While books may be the source of most evil, there’s evil everywhere else.
The movement, which I shall dub “Crusade for Reforming All People” should
then move onto the horrible evil that is music. When I reached my house, I demanded to have my child’s iPod, so that I could see whether or not he was listening to what I heard on the radio. What I listened to horrified me so much that I didn’t sleep for several nights afterwards, afraid that the evil things that I listened to would come back and haunt me in my dreams. Crusade for Reforming All People should attempt to shut down all of the radio stations for their broadcasting of evil.
As I’m writing this, I just feel like enough cannot be done to silence the awfulness of the world. We must clean the entire country of its filth if the Crusade for Reforming All People is to succeed. We must get the support of the government, and then begin to round up people who have been tarnished by the evils of the world. I believe we should put them in camps, where they may concentrate on removing evil from their system. If they are too far gone, I’m afraid termination might be the only solution. I shall dub this system of purifying people “Soul Helping Internment Training”.

The harsh reality is that we cannot hope to keep our children from the awful things in the world. The only solution to this is, I’m afraid, completely reforming the world of its evil ways. With your help, and the help of several other like minded organizations, I believe we can achieve this goal of worldwide purity. There can be no other solution. We cannot do anything else about it but attempt to change everyone else’s views. People who we have never met before should conform to our ways, because if they don’t, we all might just have to take our kids out of the public schooling, and they’ll be super sorry then. Please, write me back on your thoughts and ideas. I’m currently trying to get a Copyright for “Crusade for Reforming All People” and “Soul Helping Internment Training”, so I’ll write again whenever we can really put the plan into action.

>>24708178
Give up

>Got into writing
>Can't actually write about anything because everything that I want to write would require a visual medium more than literary one
>Can't change POVs

Writing fucking sucks. I wish I got into drawing instead. Now, I don't know what to do.

>>24708309
write a screenplay

>>24707550
You guys will really do anything but read a book, when even a lusterless book is a success by way of its publication and holds an array of keys to its own making. You'll watch TV for hours together, thinking, because you're following a story, your author-brain is forming new channels down which fresh ideas crackle; meanwhile TV writing and book writing are poles apart and you're really just being a lazy-ass, aren't you?

I want to give my writing to an AI for a first pass of critique. However, I'm afraid of the AI retaining what I give it and regurgitating it to someone else. Is there a way to be sure that this won't happen? Is there an AI that we know doesn't retain info from chats? Or am I just being paranoid?

7 rejections so far.
I'm beginning to wonder if there's even a point to trying traditional publishing.

>>24708434
I dunno. ChatGPT is my primary beta reader.
It took a while, but I finally got it to stop trying to write for me, and just give me feedback.
I like AI art, but I expect to be the only one doing the actual writing.

We're not even halfway through today and I've already got my 1000 words in. We're so back

>>24708434
No AI in the world will give you the level of critique sound writing mind will. Why not do what writers have done through the ages, and find a fellow-traveler with a trusty heart and a mind you respect to review your work judiciously. To answer your question, of course the AI will steal your writing. It'll feed down its circuity, dividing and subdividing, and appear in bite-size increments across ai-generated content all over the web. You'll open a website and a phrase will arrest you. At first you won't know where it came from but quickly realize it populated your own writing once upon a time. But then, it's not impossible the AI knit that phrase out of the scraps of numberless webpages, but it's that very uncertainty that will sit hard on your stomach for years to come. What you held high as work of art winked out at you from an AI-generated ad, which endured three days and was dust on the digital breeze. Yeah, find a friend.

>>24708482
>>24708434
>>24708445
I don't even care about traditional publishing at this point, it's a farce and nobody even reads books, i've taken to just having the book online for free on substack and marketing it irl and other places for funsies. Maybe people will think it's more valuable information if I charge them for it but I don't really care, it's supposed to reach people and teach them, not make me rich

>>24708482
I have some kind of weird aversion to showing other people what I've written in an unpolished state. It's been like this since I was young. It feels akin to standing in front of said person completely nude. This is why I'm considering AI. I was hoping it might be a baby step toward breaking me out of this weird headspace about my writing. I have let my wife read my writing a few times and it was agonizing. I think I was only able to bear it at all because I've been vulnerable with her in the past and I know I can trust her.

>>24708507
Maybe it would help to find another writer, someone with whom you can be mutually vulnerable.

>>24708529
>>24708507
A man commissions a picture of a cat from an artist he likes and they agree upon a date that for the picture to be finished. After missing the deadlines many times the man visits the artist at his house and threatens him that he's not going to pay him. In a flurry the artist rushes to his canvas and paints a masterpiece in front of the man which he hands to him. The man is astounded but happy with his picture and asks why the artist didn't just make the picture in the first place. The artist scoffs and runs to his cabinets where he throws then open and dozens of paintings of the cat, all just as good as the one he just made, tumble out.


tl;dr artist shit

>>24708549
I'm not sure I grasp your point. Are you saying that my drafts are not much different from the finished work, so there shouldn't be a difference between letting someone read the drafts and the final piece? I don't think perfectionism is the reason for my issue. I don't mind the rough edges. It just feels... invasive? Like the reader is wandering through my mind and soul with every passing sentence.

>>24708632
then get over yourself

>>24707550
I can't stand people who care more about flowery/descriptive prose than plot. I don't give a fuck about what a character is wearing, the color of their hair, etc. if it will have no bearing on the current of future plot. It annoys the shit out of me.

>>24708632
>Like the reader is wandering through my mind and soul with every passing sentence.
More like you’re scared the reader will enter your mind and reach a dead end before he’s even walked a few feet. You are insecure about expressing your interior world in an art form that almost entirely depends on that world to have depth or at the very least be a little interesting.

You probably wrote a meandering draft that conveys very little and barely even plays with language in an interesting way. Probably just an overall boring piece that has your wife scrunching her face in that “writer’s workshop” way of trying to find something nice to say to balance out the impending criticism.

If it doesn’t capture interest in the first sentence, doesn’t cause the reader to take pause, or fails to even make the reader react in any way beyond boredom, then you’ve failed miserably and need to shelve it, move on. Of course you’ll just reject this as naysaying and continue doing the literary equivalent of bashing your head in a wall, searching for poor souls to sit and read your drivel. As is the case with this entire board.

>get an idea that I fall in love with
>completely chase it trying to figure out what it is and what to write
>cant evolve from the short story/pages
feel my lack of experience, prose, skill and practice would waste it

What should I do? I have a glimpse of something I'd love to read but feeling blocked

Why do these posts read like some of you eat urinal cakes out of public restrooms? Free piece of advice: it's fuzzing your brain and, by extension, your writing. Please desist for all our sakes.

>>24708864
have you ever tried one? How do you know they're not tasty?

>>24708887
yeah why do you think the restrooms are public retard

>>24708313
How did that scruffy looking guy end up with a qt like her?

>>24708973
They first met when he was still allowed to shower at the YMCA. She mistook the off-brand body wash for some kind of citrusy cologne and it was over before it started. Her dad raised her on an island. Anything tropical sends her mind spinning. Coconuts and palms and leaves on the ground where she sleeps with this man who smells nothing of citrus now, just cigarettes and dirt. But even that is better than the cold and her dreams are still of tangerines.

My next novel is so far 2418 words long!
I have no idea how long it'll be, I'm just chugging away! Choo choo! All aboard the creativity train!

>>24709001
My post number... it's... over 9000!

>>24708655
The clothes don’t make the man, but they can tell us quite a bit about him.

The aisles of the supermarket were strangely crowded around us with coed students
I knew I shouldn't do it, but I thought it would be funny. And ultimately I had to.
I put the wrapped soft cheese onto the top of her head, and she turned around and looked at me.
And I held my expression blank as I looked back at her angry face and the cheese fell off her head.
I was delighted because it made three of the girls around her laugh. sort of an contagious laugh between the three of them and they looked at me.
She looked over her shoulder as she stormed away, and as she looked at me with embarrassment and betrayal but mostly growing rage, i just shrugged,
a sort of performative class clown shrug. after all, i couldn't help myself.

>>24709062
Bro I thought you were gonna sexually assault someone

>>24708507
I just post excerpts here.
The crabs have made me immune to criticism.

>>24708973
>>24708994
We first met at the gem and jam in Tucson, years ago when it was at the Slaughterhouse. It's a music festival that goes on during a massive gem and mineral show, kind of totally unrelated besides the fact that they sell a lot of jewelry and hippy rocks and shit. I was breaking up with a girl who I had just traveled from San Diego with, a rich girl from Ramona who had a nice K5 Blazer that we slept in the back of. We'd only been dating a few weeks, the rich girl and I. I was a crusty traveler type who had been hitchhiking and moving around for over a year living out of a backpack at this point, the rich girl was basically a stars in her eyes pampered high maintenance princess.
I was one of the only people with weed and I was going through kind of a moment with my feelings hurt by this rich girl who was basically trying to make me jealous by pretending she would find another guy to hang out with, so I walked over to the camp next to us and ran over what was going on and asked what they thought of it. They told me I should break up with her and we did a few days later.

The meeting down in Tucson was just a random thing and I continued hitchhiking, up through Vegas into Reno and Nor CA, through Oregon to Washington and then back down to Oregon. Several months later I was standing on the corner in Eugene Oregon when the girl you see sitting with me in the doorway recognized me from when we had parked next to her in Tucson. She told me back in Tucson she'd seen me several times around town randomly walking before we even met, no simple feat considering how large the city is.

So I guess to answer your question, just b urself

>>24709020
As I said, sure, if it is anything relevant to the plot/story. If not, no. I don't need a page describing a sunset either.

Well, the e-book and paperback have been submitted to Amazon. In 72 hours I can buy my own novel and put it on my shelf. Feels good

He didn't say ten negative things for the rest of his life. The pain was faster than life. Is this curbing? Is this dusk? Or some other dream, a neanderthal clambering? Thank you from the outcast and outlaw, for the acceptance, for the beauty, for forgiveness. O mighty and harrowing day! Tell me what is ruining us. O furious and lethal despair! This gushing water, this gushing water, this torrent of speed. The dissonance of morality, a inherent encumbrance in our spirit, o mighty nation. The sunshine is disappearing silently behind night's dark hills. Our spirit, our light! This furious lightning bolt, wordless in it's caress, lethality is it's spine. Divinity by design, irresolute and fathomless, a spiritual and transfiguring tower above the abyss

How do I actually force myself to write? I don't have much character ideas, or how to put them together, I don't have ideas for plots, and I don't know how to make compelling prose or good character writing, basically anything with a story. What should I do?

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.

How do I make myself write more than this? I've been only been roleplaying smut and that's it.

What do you guys think of nonprofit publishers? They dont' pay you anything but at least you are published. The newspapers and magazines will review it and you are eligible for prizes and stuff. Is it better than self-publishing? Has any famous writer taken this route to getting published?

>>24709118
Did she spend the night with you in the doorway?

The sun, old and wounded, dragged itself over the broken edge of the world, spilling light like blood across the mist-drowned expanse of To’Nih Plateau. Like the essence of some restless shade, fog laid thick upon the land. Trees cast long, fingered shadows, measuring time in dark strokes upon the earth. Flowers, quivered as they unfurled, eager supplicants to a god who had risen once more.
Ostra sniffed, a sharp pull meant to reclaim an errant thread of snot, but it was no use for the mucus inched further down toward his lips. Scowling, he pressed a knuckle to one nostril and blew. The stubborn clot hit the limb he was perched on with a splat.
Reeds shifted underneath, and Ostra froze. Slow and deliberate, he shifted his weight on the broad limb. Beneath his toes, the bark was coarse and allowed for a solid grip.
He raised his bow and notched an arrow. His muscles primed and his breath in a calming rhythm.
A puff of steam unraveled above the grass, curling and vanishing into crisp morning air. Beneath, something breathed, a heavy wet exhalation followed by slow percussion of hooves on earth.
Five paces away, the thicket parted as though a seam had been torn. Ostra watched. A pair of curved horns emerged, dark and ridged. The broad snout of a bovinbo followed with flared dripping nostrils. Nose down rooting through the dirt, the beast was blind to the hunter above.
Ostra pulled the bowstring taut, the fibers digging into his blistered fingers. His back began to burn from the strain of his muscles, yet he did not waver. A slow breath ghosted from his lips. The bovinbo shifted, oblivious, turning just enough to bare the breadth of its neck.
A wet strangled honk, half bellow, half gurgle, rang out. The beast staggered, its cry flecked with blood. An arrow jutted from the bovinbo’s thick neck darkening from its seeping mana.
The beast lurched, legs buckling, hitting the earth with a dampened thud. Ostra rose, his fist punching the air in silent triumph. That triumph was short lived for the bark broke away under his feet
He hit the dirt with a thud, damp grass swallowing his fall but doing nothing for his ego. Pain licked at his scraped skin, and he recalled the words of Elder Nyith. “Pride courts humiliation.”
Grimacing, he pushed upright, brushing dirt from his arms. Above, a hawk carved slow circles into the sky, its cry sharp as flint. Ostra exhaled, the practicals had seen his kill. Now the ordeal truly begins.
He looked toward the fallen bovinbo, then back to the gnarled oak where his spear rested. He snatched it and tore the cover free to reveal a gleaming obsidian blade. The shaft felt sturdy in his hands; the familiar weight recalled the years of practice.
Ahead, the beast waned. Its breaths rasped, shallow and broken, the rise and fall of its ribs danced with no rhythm.

I want to write Sword and Sorcery. But I'm also French. Who the fuck is gonna read french Sword and Sorcery?

>>24707987
>90% of writers are socially inept with severe personality defects
You just describe the entirety of /wg/
>/wg/ will exchange actual in-depth critiques and post legible pieces of writing. it's not the thread's most common behavior but it actually happens
Nigga, we barely even get work posted here anymore and when we do get it, the only ones that get replies are the absolutely horrible ones (who don't even get critiqued, people just mock them) and they deserve it desu, is it really that difficult to format shit properly?

>>24709001
Are you the guy writing the weird western about a wolfgirl?

>>24709565
How about uhhh the millions of people who speak French? There’s lots of great French fantasy media. If it’s good, it’ll be translated eventually

>>24709624
No, right now I'm writing political satire

>>24709565
t'es con

>>24709502
>muh fame
ngmi

>>24709506
Yeah, we ended up dating and getting an RV together a few months later. We're still together, that was over 10 years ago now.

How do I motivate myself to write something that isn't just smut for me to jack off to?

>>24709887
Write what your heart and your mind together tell you to

I tripled my manuscript's length today

>>24709502
If they actually have a substantial audience, I think its worth it
>magazine and newspapers
Two absolutely dead mediums, completely irrelevant
>muh prizes
Worthless

My sister said I’ll never write anything worth reading because all I’ve ever done is jerk off and play video games. I told her she’s a fdukbbbitch with a half nigger baby.

>>24710153
she's right. Her story about having a retarded useless brother and a half nigger baby is far more interesting than your ideas.

>>24710153
post your family photo

>>24709421
We have no idea. Maybe you're not cut out to be a writer.

>>24710178
Then how was I able to write for 13 years before that?

>>24710224
Maybe you were a different person back then.

>>24709104
Same. Putting cheese on girls' heads is better, though.

>>24709295
>Feels good
I hope it will. Sucks that Amazon is so stingy they won't even give you one copy of your own book for free.

>>24707562
I liked it

I started a story in distant 3rd person limited.
Would it be weird if I use a major plot point to switch the perspective to close 3rd person where the thoughts and feelings of the MC are now described in narration, or do you think I should stay in the bed I made for myself and stick to 3rd person limited?

Or to use different terms (I don't know what people use anymore) Would it be weird to go from 3rd person Objective to 3rd person Limited-Omniscient after a transition scene?

>>24707500
2 paragraphs in and I don't want to read anymore.
The sentence structure is bizare. Why the long pauses and jerky halted lack of flow?
It seems like you are imitating AI writing badly as bait in the way your sentences are written.

My suggestion is as always to read your stuff out loud to get a feel for where it doesn't flow.
Better yet, try to convince someone else to read portions of it out loud and hear them trip over the odd tempo and weird word choices.

>>24710604
fine as long as it's done intentionally

>>24708434
AI doesn't "retain" anything, but it is dumped into a database and will be used to train future AI. The solution is to become technically literate enough that you can set up your own AI running on consumer hardware.

>>24707550
Until my collage years I never read novels for pleasure. I mostly ether read for informational content, to satisfy schooling requirements, or read stuff that included visual representation like manga, VNs, and comics.
So I get where you are coming from.
Even in my 30s I still prefer a well crafted plot over pretty or cleaver prose if I have to choose between the two. I will also add that there are many good, even great books with unadorned plain prose that just tries to be as clear and comprehensible as possible. Writers like George Orwell were huge proponents of such a writing style.
So you can get very far and make wonderful stories even with straight forward unadorned prose.

That said, yes there are readers, especially readers of "litterary fiction" who almost exlusively care about artful use of the written word and care far more about prose than plot.

You have two choices. Get better at prose, which will take awhile but will make you a better writer overall, or realize you can't please everyone and focus on making the best story you can with what your inclinations draw you towards.

I wrote this for that poor anon's letter writing thread which is certain to end badly as it requires actual effort from the users of this board. I credit him for the interesting prompt.

Would it make sense for a character to want to unalive themself after a self grape?

>study laws of mechanics, thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum physics to make my slop seem more plausible
>lose all desire to write slop when I realize I'm too intelligent for it

>>24707638
You spoil the ending. If they still want to read it anyway, it's good. If they have no interest in reading it after being spoiled, it's bad.

>>24710619
>but it is dumped into a database and will be used to train future AI
That's exactly what I was afraid of. I have an old laptop I could probably turn into a local server. Even if it doesn't turn out to be useful for my writing, it'll at least look good on my resume as a hobby project. Been wanting to play around with local models anyway.

Draquelord the Dark Lord of darkness spread his vile evil across the land. He had control of dark orcs, which were like orcs but more evil. They made sport of hunting humans, and when they caught them they engaged in rape, torture, and murder or their poor prey. It was a tapestry of suffering. But the people did not despair for they all knew of the secret sacred prophecy about a warrior who would rise up and vanquish Darquelord and his dark orcs horde. They would know that hero as the one neither man nor woman. They were beyond either, and better than all. One day, a child in the labor camps, while eating their meager rations after a day of grueling work in the dark mines, declared to its parents “so I’m nonbinary.” They wept, for they knew their savior had finally come.

>>24711110
You need far bigger hardware than an "old laptop". These AI models push current-generation GPUs to their limits.

I moused into your mother's room last nite, unveiled my angry-red member and, seeing the glistening tip, she locked me in her legs and wouldn't let go till I conceived you a sibling. I drove untold millions of little swimming mites into her aged oven, and still she wouldn't let go. On and on she forced me, pump and seed, pump and seed, until it wouldn't spiral out anymore; only an exhale of dust. I collapsed into her arms and she stroked my nape and whispered how good her little man did. I lay facedown in the cool cheek of the pillow and she gave my butt a gentle pat. She said, Just stay inside me. Make me whole like my son never did.

>>24711140
That's only if you want to run the latest and greatest general models. For this kind of thing a smaller more directed model would be more than enough. You don't need crazy specs for that.

>>24710729
Are you intentionally using nu-speak to illicit responses or are you new here? If it is just the latter, what is self-rape in this context?

>>24709210
>I don't need a page describing a sunset either.
This talk of "needing" is odd. After all we don't simply read literature to 'find out what happens.' That is but one aspect of the medium of storytelling in general. Storytelling in its most basic form; pre-historic man telling a tale to his family around a fire, the plot takes precedent and is the most important aspect (although vivid descriptions in oral stories are important). The written word however, has the ability to do so much more. Your mindset is one that I often see booktokkers, this childish hunger for plot and dialogue "what happens next I must know!" People enjoy reading literature for an array of reasons; plot being just one of them. Beautiful prose is just that, beautiful, and whether you find it to be beautiful depends entirely upon what kind of response it illicits in you. Did the description of the sunset remind you of a memory? Did it make you think about the beauty of life on earth? Are the words themselves enchanting to you? Do they have a quality or meaning that you find evocative? This is one of the great purposes for such prose. Another purpose being that descriptions bring the world and people of the narrative to life. When written well, descriptions of even the mundane can add detail and information that can be incredibly important, but even descriptions that are completely superfluous to the plot itself can enhance the narrative greatly. Maybe you have only encountered poorly written or tedious descriptions in prose, or maybe you just lack the attention span.

>>24711359
elicits*

What is a good ratio of description of beautiful scenes and locales, to actual dialogue and plot-progressing action?

I'm writing science fiction and I used to focus way too much on dialogue and simple plot-progression, to the point that it felt almost like a radiodrama. So now I try to write segments describing the scenery and what is going on around the characters, but I don't want to slide too far the other way to the point where I might as well just have illustrations.

>>24711716
season to taste, although modern tastes heavily prefer dialog and plot

>>24709881
das cute

>>24710679
es muy bueno, amigo

>>24711359
please, no. no sunsets under any circumstance!

>>24711329
You know when it’s emotionally damaging and causes dissociation.

>>24707466 (OP)
ESL general

>>24709529
i too talk and write like an exaggerated willam shatner

I wrote 3 words today on top of my daily 1000

The dark presences loomed into his mind and left their indelible stain. Our love will taint the stars, she promised. We inherently stumble towards gnosis just by living. We are repudiated by the light of truth, pillars of stability and sanity. This spine of lightning and wood is crushing on it's infinite, sad weight. A sea of glass voices and it's chaotic reverence is a killing field for poetic soul. The sad and weary is the outlaw's meritocratic pillow and he dreams soundly. The trials of the damned were held every day, splintering the doubt. This vocal slithering is a reckoning without shelter for false ideals.

>>24711737
I'm definitely a dialogue guy, but describing cool architecture and battleships and futuristic dress is very addicting once you start doing it. I think the key is using the descriptions to also say something informative about where the story is going, and what the characters are feeling at the time. The Imperial Palace says something about the Empire and the Emperor. If you see the palace, and then meet the Emperor, you should already know him in some sense because you've seen what sort of palace he built for himself, what kind of people he employs, what he thinks is important to present outwards to the people he rules. If the protagonist sees something beautiful and is melancholy because he knows that beautiful things always fade, you get an impression as to what is going on with him without having to actually say it.

>>24712023
I just automatically skip overly point descriptions. The idiots that wrote "the classics" with their overly long descriptions about grass growing in a field saw to that (looking at you, Tolstoy).

>>24711918
I’ll daily your 1,000 with muh dick faggot

>>24712102
While you're busy playing with your privates, I'll be busy birthing a novel

>>24712119
Don’t know how you’ll give birth with my dick in your dick faggot

>>24712079
I guess that's just as well, I do the same thing sometimes, but I still like writing them. Some people are going to enjoy it, others will skip it. I think as long as you don't hide important details deep in the descriptions it's not causing any harm. I do hate when the writer includes something really dense and tedious but then makes it essential to the plot so you can't skip it without losing sight of what is happening.

>>24707908
>/wg/ is unironically one of the best public forums to discuss writing as a craft
What do you think the word “unironically” is doing for you in that sentence? Other than signaling you haven’t shed away the Redditor soi-speak, of course.

>>24712079
Tolstoy never wrote a superfluous word

>>24710679
There’s no fucking way this originated on this board. It’s not perfect - typos etc. but it’s far too lyrical for the ESL pseuds here. I’m guessing it’s a primary source.

I own my writer pen name as a .com domain name. Does it make sense to build a website there and try to put my story there? I'd probably be serializing it and popularizing it on social media. I have some decent followings on a few accounts.

>>24713063
it's an interesting topic, maybe you should make a new thread for it about developing and hosting author pages

>>24713115
You know what, I'll do exactly that.

>>24710153
She's right about you but you're also right about her. Kill her and her niglet spawn to restore your family honor.

>>24708313
>>24709118
>>24709881
The first three months on the road as a noob hobo are written at deadlit.substack.com

This thread is so seldom used what's even the point? /lit/ should let it die.

>>24713637
agreed we need room for more 'what did james joyce mean by this?' threads, now THOSE are poppin

>>24713644
I actually agree with you, assuming I glean your point correctly amid that sludge of snark. But at least those threads are built on answerable premises; there's no answer to a cell of shitty writers, except close it down.

>>24713637
But this is the best place to get honest feedback on the internet!

>>24713681
actually you can't see the forest for the trees

other people you consider shitty writers who write so much without caring about what other people think should inspire you and make you do more of your own with less self consciousness. If they didn't exist, your art would be the '''shitty'''' art. Get a brain, moran.

last page, not sure if it lands.

>>24714557
i like it. what does the first page look like?

I was kinda late today but I made it to 4 over 1000 words.

>>24714557
I leik metafiction

>>24712591
eh, War & Peace gets repetitive after a while, a few characters could've gotten cut

>>24714817
… you asked

>>24714892
fair. I’ve been trying to move away from that but it comes out of me naturally

>>24713637
Never heard of a containment thread before? Tardo

>>24714949
Reads like schizobabble

>>24714949
haha, thanks for the shout out

>>24715005
any time

>>24715020
how far along are you on this?

>>24713539
you're not the same guy that showed up broke somewhere in oregon/washington are you?

>>24715060
no I’m UK (for now), why?

>>24715002
on some level it is but that’s most likely my fault I’ve been shifting between first- and third-person narratives on this piece

Bro fml

What am I supposed to use now?

I read an article on a Russian wounded in Ukraine and felt inspired to write. It’s been a long time since I sat down and banged out a story in one go, I’d appreciate any feedback:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E9tTYs2hXp7EAoVv1yGP8v--Xh-dTbxajDQJp8x9-BA/edit?usp=sharing

>>24715097
>Still using wokebin in the year of our lord (2015 + 10)
NGMI

>>24715076
just wondering. there was another anon writing similar material

>girl asks for my writing samples
>"oh sure hold on" I give her the same 3 short stories I've been giving everyone who's asked me that for the last almost-decade, plus an early draft of a novel I got going on
>we talk for a while longer
>afterward, no more replies
>ohboyherewego.jpg
>start wondering whether my stories were shit
>they're the ones I feel most proud of, but that's not exactly a high bar to clear
>while I'm reading, I realize that Story A was a raunchy sex comedy with no sex
>Story B was about a guy going with a girl to get an abortion (and being invited to fuck her, but he stops midway out of contrived guilt and ends up masturbating in the dawn after she left. It's supposed to show how pathetic he was)
>Story C was alright I guess
>I forgot all about this
>the novel was just some guy sperging out because his glasses fell off after bumping into a Japanese girl in front of an airplane bathroom stall
>nowonder.pdf
Man. I should really update my story portfolio. Or quit writing. Maybe both.

>>24715097
rentry.org

>>24715606
>she invites you to talk the matter over with her in the little apartment she shares with her best friend
>she opens the door
>'hello, anon, how nice of you to come'
>she takes the three steps necessary to bring her across the floor to you
>she says in a matter-of-fact voice
>'i thought it would be silly to waste time.’

>>24715333
>>24715060
>somewhere in oregon/washington
Nah, the only things I've posted here at specifically about the Seattle times, though I later hitchhiked Oregon and Washington I've never written about it here

>>24715900
Don't get my hopes up, Anon. My heart is but a tiny, brittle thing. If someone were to so much as stare, it will crumble to dust.
She actually replied roughly an hour ago, and we talked about things. I think she just hasn't read my samples yet. Once she does, that's my cue to start panicking again.
To make my blogpost at least somewhat on-topic, a word of advice to Anons: Don't be stupid like me and send the first draft of your novel to random women on the internet. 9 out of 10 publishers say the anxiety that follows is not fun in the slightest.

This thread is such a waste of space. You all should be writing instead of talking about writing--you need all the practice you can get. But any excuse not to do the necessary work and tirelessly bitch is the rule of this website, isn't it?

>>24716123
Yuck. I dont share with anyone. If I want women to know I write, I do slam poetry. Who wants to read the techno occult hyper capitalist mindsludge of a madman? No one. But boy oh boy do they love me in my plaid and trucker hat rhyming about art I like.

>>24716123
only sent someone something i’d written out the blue one time & it went over really well

>>24716123
If your hobby was playing Apex Legends 24/7 then maybe don't share that, but you get cool points for being someone who writes, most people don't have a hobby like that.

>>24716219
I just wrote my minimum of 1000 words for the day so I'm not sure who you're talking about, buddy.

>>24716314
Post the story.

I've ranged up and down these boards, but when I ask myself what is the most needless thread on 4chan, my mind always recurs to /wg/. There really is no point. All posters know it too. That's why it's so seldom used. There hangs about it the air of dead dreams. It becomes a perverse talisman to all the /lit/ posters who didn't quit their day job. Look at the distasteful silence that howls down these threads. It's only broken by the same two voices batting their word counts back and forth, as though any formless mass of writing is fit to print. Most writers sweat blood to reach 1000 publishable words. Your daily 1000, written to no purpose, would require a gift of unerring judgement to equal theirs. And, let's be honest, if you did possess such a gift, would 4chan be the first place you boast about it?

chatGPT polemics against the /wg/. an unexpected swerve for the board.

>>24715154
maybe post the first page or something and not on google

>>24714949
post moar

how is the start of my epilogue?

>>24717223
Well, I like anything with Mongols and steppe raiders in general so I'll be biased toward it. I like it. Though, I don't know if this makes sense, but I feel it's better as a prologue than an epilogue, really (then again, it's literally the first page I've read of your book, so what would I know).
Also it seems you have a typo with "The Romans Empire'. Either it should be "The Roman Empire" or "Empire of the Romans" or maybe "The Romans' Empire" (?) but I don't know what your intention was.
All-in-all, it does its job and the second paragraph sounds like something I'd hear in Atilla Total War, so that's good.

Hello /wg/. I spent the last week having an affair with my youngest niece who is not really my niece. We had a decades long tension between us because of our childhood and we just decided to see if it works out sorta after bumping into one another. During all this I had the realization that my life has been pretty crazy, so I want to make a memoir or auto-biography of sorts, but I want to keep it as anonymous as possible, because it involves my mentioned niece and I don't want to ruin her family, and I committed a lot of crimes in my youth. I'll read the guides posted, but I have a few more questions. How hard is it to publish such a book? Is there any risk of legal action against me if I admit to crimes in a book? How anonymously can I publish a book and still make a little profit if possible? High-lights from my bizarre life:

>Mother left me at a daycare, where one of the workers just took me home, forever.
>Was raised with one name, but that name is not my legal name.
>Father was not really my father but my adopted brother but not really because I was never adopted
>"Sister" married young to a wealthy red neck
>Father/brother was murdered in a gang shootout
>Adopted Mother was a career criminal running foodstamp scams, tax fraud, selling Perceptions pills, robbing drug dealers
>She once used me to aid in a carjacking
>Moved to a mountainside home
>Lived with my 3 Nieces and Nephew for a few years, oldest Niece groomed me sexually, taught me how to eat pussy, kiss, and make her orgasm with my fingers
>Started sexual relationship with my other two nieces before we even know what sex was
>My nieces mother found out about all the sexual stuff all of us had been doing, she beat me so bad my ear is deformed and pointed like an elf ear because of shitty redneck stitching, Oldest Niece who had done the grooming got away with everything
>Got involved in a carjacking ring, was shot in the stomach and had it treated by some random bubba inna woods
>Hardened criminal that my adopted mother was, she die in a random accident where her leg was severed and she bleed to death.
>Got put in a boys home with 45 other boys 12-17 because none of my "family" wanted me.
>First night in the boys home took part in train being run on some girl from the girls home down the street and someone set a closet on fire.
>started a sexual relationship with a much older women I was selling weed to
>beat someone to death maybe
>Most recently, reuniting with my youngest "Niece" literally out of nowhere after 10 years of not speaking and having an affair.

That's just some of the stuff I have written down at the moment. Years of moving around and aging has made the exact specifics of when and where things happened foggy. I've spent the last few weeks practically tracking down every school I went to, ever home I lived it, just my entire past. I'm just asking for general advice as well, What would the best format for something like this be? Any recommended auto-biography and memoirs?

>>24717381
you should perhaps see a therapist instead

>>24717381
>recommended auto-biography and memoirs?
Hillbilly Elegy?

>>24717381
Holy soap opera, meanwhile I just played video games at home.

>>24717400
Nah, I'm well adjusted and married now, ignore the affair, I even went from being extremely racist from living with rednecks and attending the blackest school in my city to being less racist after living in a boys home with almost all black kids.
>>24717407
>look it up
>JD Vance
Is it actually worth reading? I'm being sincere here and will get my book done one way or the other.

>>24717420
git er done

>>24717420
>worth reading?
I'm sure it's shit, but if I was writing a hillbilly memoir I would probably want to do research the competition

>>24717447
I wouldn't really consider my self a hillbilly or a redneck honestly. I had always suspected something was off because my mother was as pale as whitest snow with dirty reddish hair, but I was much darker, almost Arabian or Asian complexion, far taller than other kids my age. Strangely, everyone says I have a cali surfer bro accent. I'm guessing you're just shooting the shit. Do you have one you would honestly recommend?
>>24717417
>Holy soap opera
Yes, I too realized this. Probably because of my childhood being groomed. I had a warped view of sexual affection most of my life, which led to me being very forward sexually with women. I've probably got some children I don't know about out there. I've slept with multiple women who were in relationships. I know I was a bad person and one day I might want some closure on some of that. I slept with a close friends wife while he was working, then we watched a movie with her kids. I cucked a foster brother after he told me he was interest the girl. My mother being a legitimate criminal always looking for easy cash really messed with my moral compass, it took a near death experience for me to turn my life around and try go completely honest. I'll go watch those guides now.

>>24717381
Sounds like you want to focus more on your sexual escapades than your political capital so your potential autobiography won't interest me very much but best of luck to you in your writing

>>24717458
>it took a near death experience for me to turn my life around and try go completely honest.
Then why you just said " I spent the last week having an affair with my youngest niece"?
I mean, sure you probably went from 0 to 70 or something, but that still sounds off.

>>24715097
https://litterbox.catbox.moe/

>>24716980
>>24715154
Okay, how’s this?

https://litter.catbox.moe/ts9q6x75fy6umos6.pdf

>>24717653
people don't like to click on pdf files, fren

>>24717716
Goddamnit

>>24712591
He himself has admitted he should've cut out all the non-fictional chapters about philosophy from the novel

>>24714901
>a few characters could've gotten cut
Fuck no, we could've used more

>>24717716
Why? What sort of potato PDF reader are you using that doesn't ask you whether you want to run active content? In all my years of downloading, the only infected document I ever ran across was a .chm file. Leave it to Microsoft to make an e-book format that can be infected.

>>24718242
4chan went down for 2 weeks because of a .pdf file upload, hacker got access to everything.

>>24718076
For me, it was the whole local politics section that could have been cut.

>>24707466 (OP)
How should I organize my folder of drafts and ideas that started in the late 10s and contains a bunch of duplicates?

>>24718242
I don't want any more junk filling my already cluttered download folder. Pressing shift+del takes too much effort and you don't deserve my bandwidth.

>>24718388
>The core vulnerability was 4chan's use of a version of Ghostscript, a program used for processing PostScript and PDF files, that was over a decade old. This version was riddled with publicly known security vulnerabilities.
Unless your software-update policy is as atrociously indefensible as this Belarussian basket-weaving forum, you have nothing to worry about.

>>24719324
This is from Adobe's own site
>Viruses, Trojans, and malware have many ways of hiding inside a PDF and often show up in email downloads or attachments like eBooks and other documents. They usually come from unknown or unfamiliar senders.

>You can defend yourself against viruses and other attacks through best practices, good judgment, and constant vigilance.

>>24719324
Most people won't risk it, at least in this website.
If you want others to read your story, then find other options to share it.

>>24719342
Adobe's PDF reader is only one of many options. Your web browser can read PDFs.
>>24719349
But there's no defensible reason for this.

>>24719324
why can't you scan downloaded pdfs with windows defender?

I think I'm going to have to turn my deuteragonist into a groomer. It's an awful thing, but it'll have to be done.

how do I know if my story is ready to be queried?

>>24719428
Why? What's your target audience?

>>24715154
Post a screenshot of the first page.

>>24717653
You're either an ESL, or you haven't proofread this at all. I noticed there's a lot of comma splices. In the end, it's not so much a story as a warfare slice-of-life. Maybe this is what you intended.

What software does /lit/ use for writing?

I've just been using notepad so far since it's quick and easy for brainstorming ideas, but it's obviously not ideal for anything long-form. I checked /g/'s wiki but they all seem more programming oriented or are just Office clones.

What platforms would be good for getting an initial audience? I'd rather not have to post on a sub-plebbit, but an audience is an audience...

>>24719627
NTA, but here you are, faggots. I swear, you people are timid little mice.

>>24714557
Nice

>>24719751
I use Obsidian opening on windows startup.

Windows key + R
type: "shell:startup"
paste a shortcut of Obsidian (or other apps) there

This can avoid procastination sometimes. Obsidian can be as simple or as complex as you want, but even if you don't read anything it already works well.

>>24719753
es muy bueno, amigo.

Should you embrace cheesiness in your writing or make it as realistic as possible?

>>24719753
>On the 13th of June while on patrol near Chasiv Yar, Yuri Vladios was blown up.
You should have ended the sentence there. The auxiliary details on the type of drone, the specifics of the explosives, all that stuff takes away perspective.

The next paragraphs go into detail on Yuri’s perspective. We see what he sees, all his impressions of the world around him. He has no idea about the type of drone that blasted him or the type of report that will be filed, so that info is best left to be implied later on in the text, or not mentioned at all.

>my book isn't on Anna's Archive
Feels bad no one ever bothered to pirate it

>>24719751
Scrivener.

>>24719751
Microsoft Word.
How long have they been developing this piece of shit and it is still filled with user-experience issues? It's probably developed by H1B workers.

>>24719708
EFL, and I do love my commas.

Not sure what my goal was, I just felt the urge to write after reading that article I linked at the start of the story. Originally ended it after Yuri passes out in the van, but then got depressed by that ending and wrote the second half.

>>24719753
>>24719758
Thank you for doing that. In the future I’ll do the same.

>>24719952
That makes sense, thanks for the feedback. I agree that it’s punchier without the details of the explosion, my autism for military equipment took over.

>>24719751
Google docs for writing and Drive for storage. Real easy to access my work from any device and has pretty much everything you need in a word processors.

I like color coding my folders :)

Does anybody write fantasy here, or should I go to the worldbuilding thread?

>>24720420
Everyone here writes fantasy

>>24720420
I don't write fantasy.

Im writing a speculative fiction SCIFI book. Out of all my books I think it has the most potential, but its also the most difficult to write. Im at 9k words and Im already struggling, whilst Im aiming for the 40k minimum.
didnt struggle nearly this much with my fantasy novels

>>24720276
>H1Bs
You wish. These days, it's "developed" by AI. As is the rest of Microsoft's software. That's why it works worse than it did ever before.

>>24720323
Sure, NP. Assuming you can hang with the Linux command line, here are some helpful tips:
Convert PDF to png:
gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=png16m -r300 -sOutputFile=output%03d.png input.pdf -dBATCH
Vertical montage of PNGs:
magick convert -append input*.png output.png

>>24720735
The most glaring issue for me is the unoptimized software every company has. Games especially. It's all 50gb or something crazy and I don't notice much improvement to games 10 years ago. Even low res pixel games are 3gbs.

>>24720762
It's the relentless push to hire cheaper and cheaper programmers, which disfavors native programmers and favors "guest workers". For example, on top of the lost business, Boeing had to pay out ~$3.6B for the fallout related to the 737 MAX crashes, which came from hideously inadequate engineering made by hideously inadequate engineers, demonstrating once and for all that cheap programmers aren't actually cheaper. Microsoft has never learned this lesson, but for some reason isn't held financially responsible for the consequences of their hideously insecure software.

>>24720618
That's because, in fantasy, you can just make shit up to resolve plot issues. The foundation of speculative fiction not only has to make sense, but has to say something meaningful about our times and where they might lead. Being a STEMlord, I can spot when a science fiction writer doesn't have the necessary rigor of thought. They can write space opera all they want; they just can't call it science fiction.

>>24707466 (OP)
How do I gain the courage to steal from multiple stories simultaneously?
Is it as simple a matter as doing it?

>>24720041
This might sound pathetic but you can upload it yourself.

>>24721002
How would one even be able to find and hire the new Carmacks of the world?
>>24720735
Who do you think uses that "AI"?

>>24721164
>how to find new Carmacks
How about by actually looking for them, instead of deliberately trying to import third-world slave labor.
>who uses that AI
Managers with no background whatsoever in engineering. The practice is called "vibe coding". And it's a disaster.

>>24721158
You shouldn't steal from any story, you dirty hack.

>>24721158
>simultaneously
Cloning machine or time travel I suppose.

What's an interesting colour I can make a flower that gives you really cool psychedelic visions? I like green but feel it is too overdone

>>24721296
What flower is green? The fuck? Go outside and look at a flower petal.

>>24719753
>>24719758
This is bad, really bad. Even if you were a student in uni creative writing course, this wouldn’t get you good marks. Using font changes is extremely hacky.

>>24721330
Zinnia
Hellebore
Hydrangea
Gladiolus
Cymbidium orchid

>>24721413
>Gladiolus
Do any of these flowers look green to you? Leaves are green, flowers aren't

>>24721418
That's Yellow

>>24721443
I think you should see an ophthalmologist.

Anyone knows good alternatives to r/nosleep?
It has insane traffick but the mods are such cunts.
Sometimes they can just not understand what you've written and apply a 30 day ban. They misread the big reveal at the end of my story which explains how the post is someone else writing down the last thoughts of the narrator so he can both die and have his story logged in acocrdance to their larp rules.

I literally just want to write and i don't get why they need to be so rigorous with this shit.
It's also literally like, first strike 30 day ban, second strike, permaban with no appeal.
?

>>24721539
>traffick
traffic.*

BERNARD WOODRIGHT hurried into the parlor room of 554 Hicks Street with wisps of reddish hair on his scalp fluttering as he moved. His sack coat of dulled brown (long overdue for retirement) swished into the room along with him, leaving a puff of dust in its trail; a gentleman coughed when he passed and fluttered his hand before his scrunched face. Bernard came to a sudden stop, inspecting his white shirt that had been spotted with little blotches of blackened oil, before tugging at a red kerchief knotted around his neck. He straightening himself, and apologized profusely while pawing at his thumb-printed spectacles.

No one paid much attention to Bernard; the men in the parlor stared, then continued about their business chattering or staring into nothingness.

The room’s walls were covered in dark green paint, brown floorboards which had been scuffed beige from scurrying, all giving the appearance that the parlor was somehow deep within a forest despite nestled in affluent Brooklyn Heights. Three windows in a bay placement faced Manhattan, two with their heavy green fabric curtains pulled closed despite the beautiful September mid-day light, and in the center of the room stood something hidden; reaching to the ceiling where it almost touched. Large and protruding with little metallic arms pressed out, It was covered in a large and thick tanned sheet. Cabled steel moved from every corner of the room towards the base of the object, where it promptly disappeared beneath the drapery.

“I do thank you all for attending!” Bernard said while wheezing to no one and everyone all at once. He set a large industrial cauldron alight, causing gas pipes to hum and heat water into a consistent bubbling, before saying “won’t be much longer now, Gentlemen.”

He withdrew his drab sack coat, opened a closet door at the end of the room fitted with three hanging coats of much higher quality: three Wellington-styled top hats, a broom stick, a metallic contraption, and paused in thought, scratching at his freckled balding scalp.

Of the seven invited, two never responded and two outright refused his invitation, and the three distinguished gentlemen who had come were now pooled around the room: Horatio Bloom’s belly pressed against his vest while he sat in a leathered chair. He stared at his pocket watch, settled it down, coughed, then stared at it a second time before huffing audible and loud.

Tobias Harding and William Hawthorne were drinking coffee from chipped saucers, standing by the sole window with its curtains drawn open. It was the one source of illumination in the room, and they stared out beyond the glass towards a large protruding tower of greyed gothic stone, shooting into the azure sky between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

“Suppose Roebling actually does it,” Tobias said, ignoring Bernard’s antics as he tripped over a steel cable.

“He won’t,” William responded.

“Well, suppose he does. Suppose he manages to build the bridge—“

>>24721212
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." -T.S. Eliot

>>24721539
This is such a huge problem that they literally had to create an entry in their Wiki to address it.
https://reddit.com/r/nosleep/wiki/similarsubreddits
I've posted 8 stories to r/nosleep. 6 were removed. 1 was removed but reinstated. Only 1 was never removed. I completely agree the r/nosleep mods are cunts who can't even read. Their reasons for removing stories are thinly supported or outright insane, as if they don't even understand the English language or the nature of fiction. Fortunately, their readership has plummeted; they used to average 2000-3000 readers at any one time. Now it's more like 150. Just deserts.

>>24721626
I've been talking to them on modmail all evening. I was reached out to by 3 different mods and only 1 of them seems like he isn't just using chatGPT to write out his answers.

Basically my issue went like this.
>Post story
>Removed 1 second after via automod
>Didn't get that's what happened at first so i just reposted it thinking i might've had a connection issue or something.
>Inquire why that happened
>No response for two days
>Repost story under a different title
>Story stays afloat for a day, a guy DMs me asking if he can narrate
>Mods remove it and ban me for 30 for reposting
>Can NEVER EVER post that story on the sub EVER AGAIN even if i edit the offending parts.

They really seem to be just cunts. Before engaging with the sub and only hearing of them i thought, hey, maybe that's what you need to run a hobbyist writing group of these proportions, and then i'm immediately hit with a very thinly justified 30 day ban and a total embargo on that particular story(I don't get what the purpose of that is.)

>>24721626
>Just deserts.
Heh. Anyway you deserve it for writing for them and not one of the 4chan generals exclusively

I have to say a lot of r/nosleep stories have a weird esoteric quality to them that's distinctly inhuman. It was like that even before the advent of AI writing.
I'm sure there's a reason for that, like maybe there's some way they're monetizing it a cent for every ten words so they need to pump out infinity of slop. I've got no idea.

There's a ten of stories that have one initial hook and then no story structure or themes beyond a happened then b happened then c happened and they stretch it out into 40k word series.

>>24721275
I can only steal from one at a time and I feel fake, I see a story where the guy blatantly copies from multiple at once and I'm in awe.

>>24721663
I feel like a fraud when I write those "stories" so I always give up

>>24721655
I write stories for 4chan also. The problem is I mostly just receive seething for my efforts. Doesn't really encourage me to contribute.

>>24721663
r/nosleep is a weird concept. You can read the rules for the full story, but everything has to be a first person account of something scary. That seriously limits what can be posted there. It was worth trying to meet their rules back when they had more readers, but there's little point now.

>>24721706
Ive had fun with mine but the mods sidint like it

I have adhd and ever since i was born i have to think stories in my mind to be able to fall asleep. I am 26 and frankly, i am kinda tired of forgetting all those fun stories and characters... So i want to pickup writing as a hobby. Perhaps upload on wattpad?

What apps do you guys use to write and brainstorm?

>>24721847
I do that too and i dont have adhd.
Also its really hard to make your ideas be as cool on paper as they are in your head. Its insanely rewarding tho.

Wattpad's a fine pick ig

>>24721847
Scrivener. Don't do wattpad, or the site called webnovel. Royalroad is a safe bet; so is scribblehub and spacebattles.

>>24721854
>Wattpad's
just wondering, what is the difference between this and royal road?

>>24721861
Ok i see. What is wrong with wattpad? It's the first thing that comes up when i search places where amateur writers post their stuff?
Scrivener, is it free or pirateable?
I am just a amateur so i wont have a finantial return.
>>24721854
You might have. Do you constantly forget short term things(where you just put your stuff, what you wanted to do next)? Do you often procrastinate? Do you often get lost?

>>24721872
Wattpad has no discovery mechanisms whatsoever. You'll post stuff there and literally no one will read it. Even though I don't write LitRPG, I've gotten good engagement on RoyalRoad, but I get more engagement posting to one of Reddit's many fiction-oriented subs.

Just download LibreOffice and start writing ffs

>>24721917
Are they fine with AI gens?

>>24721927
No site is fine with AI gens.

>>24721930
But what if they cant prove it?

>>24721932
Why would you even ask? If you're generating fiction with AI then you're not a writer.

you're a writer if you write that you are

>>24721945
You've been inside too long. Go outside and touch grass.

>>24708655
I half agree. Going on and on about inane bullshit that's irrelevent is pointless. Ift should serve a purpose.

>>24707466 (OP)
I took a creative writing class, but i was afraid to turn in any work that i was actually more interested in writing.

>>24721968
Butcher claims Dresden and Codex Alera both began out of spite.

>>24707466 (OP)
How does one construct my thoughts in a coherent manner and write without coming across as a neurotic retard

>>24722046
edit them later

>>24722046
Read more.

>>24722046
Don't write like me

How do you start a story in third limited when it starts by MC getting isekai'd into an unknown situation? He doesn't know what's going on and it's mostly his thoughts. Would you start the story in first person and switch to third person in later chapters?

The Martian starts with this:
>I'm pretty much fucked. That's my considered opinion. Fucked.
>Six days into what should be the greatest two months of my life, and it's turned into a nightmare..
>I don't even know who'll read this. I guess someone will find it eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now.
>For the record... I didn't die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew thought I did, and I can't blame them. Maybe there'll be a day of national mourning from me, and my Wikipedia page will say, "Mark Watney is the only human being to have died on Mars."
>And it'll be right, probably. 'Cause I'll surely die here. Just not on Sol 6 when everyone thinks I did.

How would you write this in third limited? I don't think you can, am I wrong? I want to evoke something similar where it's just the character and his thoughts, but I hear that people don't like stories in first person. So how do you do it?

So many of you plebs are so obsessed with the idea of ‘writing’ or being ‘writers’ over the simple act of: writing.

Just write. What software or program you use does not matter. You can literally use the notes app on your phone. Write because you want to write; stop caring about shit and just fucking write, pussy.

“How do I do—“ shut up, and write. “What if my character—“ fuck you, write.

The more you write the better you’ll get. Read other authors, study them, and write. Keep shit simple and clear, that’s all you need to know.

>>24722238
>t. non-writer
Blind leading the blind

>>24722235
Ok, the WN thread taught me that I'm retarded with some simple advice:
>Just replace “I” with the character’s name and edit the rest as necessary.

>Mark's pretty much fucked. That was his considered opinion. Fucked.
>Six days into what should've been the greatest two months of his life, and it had turned into a nightmare.
>Mark didn't know who would ever read this. He guessed that someone would find it eventually. Maybe in a hundred years.
>For the record... He didn't die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew had thought he had, and he couldn't blame them. Maybe there was a day of national mourning for him, and his Wikipedia page said, "Mark Watney is the only human being to have died on Mars."
>And it would be right, probably. 'Cause he was certainly going to die up there. Just not on Sol 6 when everyone thought he did.

>>24722268
Immediately spotted a typo (I wonder if it was phone auto correct since I wrote that the second time):
>Mark WAS pretty much fucked.

>>24722268
>>24722272
>struggling to change from first person to third person
>struggling with tenses
Either you're ESL or you've read exactly 3 books your entire life.

>>24722305
Look, some of us hated literature class and preferred math. But I am also an ESL. Well, technically, not even my second language, but further down the list. I've never paid attention to tenses or first/third person. When I read a story they could mix it all up for I care. It'll still be more readable than the MTLs I've read before.

>>24722313
>I've never paid attention to tenses or first/third person
Of course not. You're a drooling tard who can't inherently notice basic things like differences in narration or who is narrating. Even children understand this.

>>24722373
It's irrelevant information for the story though. This is a stylistic choice, nothing more.

>>24722442
If you somehow manage to miss the most basic, obvious, constantly repeated parts of a narrative, what do you actually see when you stare at the pages? Chapter titles?

>>24722486
The story. When you look at a picture you don't see the individual pixels. You see the ideas and shapes that the image is trying to depict.

The same goes for a story. I don't see the words on the page describing the sunset, I see the sunset itself.

>>24722508
>sees the picture
>but can't tell who has the camera

>>24707466 (OP)
Is there some study guide/ collage of good resources on becoming a better writer floating around here? Currently I just read and write in an unguided manner. But are there any gems out there that I should look into?

>>24722528
ChatGPT

>>24721939
Are you mentally retarded?
It's just the art lmao. And hell, only retards refuse to use AI for brainstorming, it has loads and loads of books and articles fed into it, it's better as a brainstorming partner than any human ever could be.

tips on writing first person unreliable narrator?

>>24722528
There are HOWTO resources in the OP. Always have been.
>>24722566
You're moving the goalposts. This conversation started with someone asking about posting AI gens >>24721927, not using AI for brainstorming.

>>24722635
AI ART gens, not writing.

>>24722645
You weren't clear on that, so as far as I'm concerned, you're moving the goalposts again. And if that was really your question, you could have answered it yourself by looking at the site and determining, with your own eye, whether much of the graphic art attached to stories is AI generated. It's pretty easy to spot.

>>24722651
Ah true, guess i forgot a word there in my posts. I was wondering why you were being so obtuse, now i get why.

>>24722656
Liar. "Obtuse" is not going on Wattpad, looking at the graphic art associated with stories, and spending all of 10 seconds determining whether they look AI generated.

>>24722569
my diary, to be honest

>81,500 words down
>318,500 more to go
Just finished a major scene, feeling good

>>24722569
unrealiable narrator is such a shitty and overrated gimmick

>>24722983
>>24722983
>>24722983
since our time here is short...

>>24707500

>>24710610 is being a faggot, sentence structure is fine, flow is good. You could make some improvements, third paragraph has 'trotted a goat' then 'common features in all Toggenburger goats' in the next sentence, maybe mix up the second one with something like 'features found in all of the Toggenburger breed' etc, but it's a good start overall.

>>24723218
No, the person you’re quoting is correct: the writing is verbose while lacking in flow and clarity. The result makes it unreadable.

>The only evidence of its once proud past was sealed away in the Church, a place where muck and slime seemingly wicked from its immaculate bastions, hoarded by covetous priests afflicted with their own plagues of corruption, greed, and contemptible ambition.

This one sample alone is crammed full with adverbs and adjectives. What is the purpose—the tell that the Church is corrupt? If that’s the case just say so, although I would argue it’s better to show than tell. If you’re going to spend so many words, the least the writer can do is show rather than (in an obtuse way) tell.

>>24723327
It's completely unreadable

>>24721847
I'm 32 and feel the same way, except I have a backlog I'm deeply embarrassed about for how long it's taken to stop slipping into daydreams and notes