Thread 24782783

"Frustration" edition

Previous: >>24766768

/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=-F7UsI6C0u4

judge me

>>24782822
First thing's first - why are you writing this? Do you really think anyone wants to read the depressing non-doings of what you get up to alone in your flat?

Everyone gets out of bed, everyone shits, gets food from the fridge, looks at themselves in the mirror, so spare us the dingy details - WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT THIS MAUDLIN CRAP?

Go for a fucking jog and write about that. Anything else, please.

>>24782822
>He did not eat last night.
When you leave out a single sentence alone between paragraphs like that it's because you want to emphasize it, so it MUST have some meaning behind. Doing it to this specific sentence is extremely retarded.
Didn't read anything else because this pissed me off.

Here's the final tally from the previous thread. Not as much seething as I had expected. Hopefully people can continue to be polite and respectful!

And here's the bingo card for this thread. Make us proud!

>>24782822
not interesting to me. i'm not sure where the interest is supposed to lie. reading this i do not have the sense of entering into a rich creative work that will surprise and delight and make me think about the possibilities of fiction. instead it just seems to be trying to impress me with the signifiers of a sort of stereotyped contemporary cool. save that for the relatable like-baiting tweets. i say this as someone who unironically worships Tao Lin.

What do you guys think?

>mfw favorite sub-genre is solved
>can't ever write about it that other people haven't written before, and better
It's over.

>>24782822
I'll explain it to you in normoid terms but basically you need a hook before you can make people read about your boo boos.
MHE does essentially this and no one cares bc the 75% of it is not related and enjoyable

>>24782836
i tried to make it so boring it isn't maudlin
>>24782870
i tried to make a rhythmic beat to move the text along
>>24782887
i tried to capture contemporary life in all its sucky banality. i am big loser and every dumb detail is true. cool people do interesting things

>>24781769
Money is not the only think you can pay me with

Unpopular opinion: if you have fun writing it, people will no have fun reading it.

>>24783425
Don't have fun*

>>24782946
You posted this already.

>>24782946
at minimum you should read mckee on dialog

I sharted on a carpet

>>24782783 (OP)
I contacted a guy on reedsy to edit my novel. He did a sample edit of a page and I really liked his insight and suggestions. It feels weird to hand off a project and take it to "the next phase." A bit surreal, even.

>>24783659
>reedsy
i will never forget what they did to our girl

>>24783143
>>24782887
>i tried to capture contemporary life in all its sucky banality
You know you can do that with writing that isn't sucky and banal, right?

What’s the point no one will ever read this I wish I was dead

>>24783856
if i knew how i would be better

should have said: if i knew better i would be better. i have to edit a lot.

>>24783873
Maybe think about how you could juxtapose banal action to emotionally charged, borderline psychotic language. I don't personally, and I don't think anyone else does either, want to read detailed descriptions of the act of doom scrolling. If I had to do that to get the part where you describe in detail wanting to tear all of your skin off, that might be worth it.

>>24783608
What's wrong with the dialogue?

>>24782884
Lol u sound mad sorry we told you your shit writing was shit

>>24782946
A Lesson by Robert McKee on 10 traits of faulty dialogue
Robert McKee lectures on Screenplay Writing. But this has great implications for writing dialogue in novels and especially short stories as well.

Repititiousness

The more often you repeat words, phrases, beats, qualities of emotion, the less effect they have. In fact, after two usages the third can ruin your work.

2) Triteness

Never settle for the familiar, obvious choice. Take mundane dialogue and experiment with iterations. Go a little crazy, improvise, you can cut whatever doesn't work.

3) Neutral Language

Change neutral phrases like "Oh my God" to something only that character might say, such as "Good Lawd almighty in heaven above" etc.

4) Ostentation

Flowery language and artistic pretensions don't belong in dialogue.

5) Arid Speech

Always choose familiar words over the exotic

Concrete > Abstract

Direct Phrases > Circumlocution

Short words > Long words

Saxon Words > Latin Words (no 'ations' 'uality' polysyllabic words)

Heighten content moreso than real life dialogue. (Vividness, imagery, figures of speech, metaphor, simile, tropes in language) Tarantino and Elmore Leonard are good references.

6) Overstatement

Avoid Puny conflicts (weak motivation) Lift the desires, motivations, and conflicts to match expression. Understatement > Overstatement

7) Talking Wall Paper

How's the weather etc. / irrelevant small talk.

Does this beat of dialogue progress my scene? Does the scene progress the story? Any dialogue that does not serve the story is wall paper (strip it) wallpaper can be functional if its used to create suspense (in the example of guards talking to each other while protagonist sneaks by etc.)

8) Forced Exposition

Information in dialogue which both characters already know.

The solution to peppering exposition into dialogue is to use it as ammunition in an argument or a seduction / manipulation. Readers will be fascinated by the conflict and the exposition while filter through.

9) Malformation

Scenes badly shaped:

Turning point occurs after only 1 or 2 beats

Beats are gnarled, zig-zag, and prattle on forever before turning point

Flat scene - beats are just chit chat with no turning point

A scene must be shaped beat by beat, up to a turning point which occurs not too early and not too late

"On the Nose" Dialogue

Bold lines that say exactly what the character is thinking (no subtext). 90% of what we think and feel is subconscious. Try to prevent characters from saying exactly what is on their mind. Focus on the underlying aspect of character's desires, and mask that behind metaphor or plot devices

In your case. Too expostional.
>I want to dance already
Should be
>Dis bixnood nigga needs us to swig and sway like the realest niggas we be repping

>>24783958
The fuck is a beat? We're not writing a song here.

>>24783968
A beat is what you're going to get if you ask another stupid question that Google could resolve for you faster than posting here.

>>24782946
I honestly can't see anything wrong with this dialogue.

>>24783980
Holy fuck you can't even use Google properly. Please consider suicide.

>>24783992
>it can be literally anything
lmao nice definition

>>24783997
It can be literally anything small that moves the story forward. Seriously consider suicide.

>>24782946
This reminds me of a Harry Potter fanfic I read in the past.

>>24783968
IIRC the legend goes that the term originates from theater. Anglophone theater enthusiasts invited Russian directors to give talks. One of them was asked how they go about adapting a script into the physical reality of the stage or something along those lines. The director responded that they go about it "bit by bit." The Russian accent made it sound like "beat by beat."

>>24783958
>simply follow these steps and you'll write something worth reading
lol. lmao even

>>24783681
Who is this? Boyish girls make my heart melt

>>24784292
How boyish? Do you like them with a weiner?

>>24784292
for me its this red head
https://youtu.be/_BBrDhgGz1k?si=Dnm8DxV7sOlKu38k

Would anybody like to read an amusing scene of 11 children eating dinner together? I won't pretend it's at all polished, but I do assure you of the amusement

What should one do when they receive feedback and it's given entirely through strict structural analysis or rules that you don't subscribe to, with very little given about the story on the page? For example when you ask for feedback and someone does this >>24783958

I'm brainstorming a story. I want it to be magical girls mixed with spy genre. Like magical Sailor Moon with James Bond mixed together.
The only show that mixes these together (that I know) of is Release the Spyce.
Of course you need a reason for why these girls are chosen to be spies. In Release the Spyce, there's a special spice that you eat that gives you superpowers, but only works before you're an adult. Pretty clever.
I don't want to copy the ideas. What do you guys think?

>>24785290
Ignore it because its just regurgitating some fags advice, chatGPT-esque post

>>24785303
But how do I determine whether I am right in ignoring it or if I am being one of those writers who can't take feedback?

>>24783958
>Never settle for the familiar
>Always choose familiar
thanks

Man that turns into panther, panther that turns into man, man that thinks hes a panther, or panther that thinks hes a man?

>>24785346
panther thinks he is a man

>>24785350
Human body or panther body?

>>24783958
>How to write like ChatGPT

>>24785353
I don't know, but that was the only option that seemed remotely interesting to me.

>>24785353
as in, a panther with a panther's body who thinks it is a human

>>24785358
Wild panther?
Its a black panther

I just wanted to mention big cats

>>24785364
I fell for the "took someone on /wg/ seriously again" award

>>24785355
ChatGPT is optimal writing.

>>24785364
How about a cougar that thinks it's a panther

I found out that if I masturbate I lose all the will to write afterwards, but that I also get my best ideas during masturbation.

>>24785593
then masturbate without ejaculation, dummy.

>>24785594
That feels weird.

>>24785604
suffer for your art

Is there any way to make this work?

>>24785301
Do they sleep with their targets?

>completed detailed outlines for like 6 different novels
>never actually get down to writing them

>>24785578
>>24785355
Speaking of that, you could probably give ChatGPT a bunch of rules on how to write and let it rewrite your story based on that and it wouldn't appear like it's written by AI.

>>24785578
ChatGPT is mediocre writing because it always goes for the statistical mean in its prediction of what people want out of an AI-generated story. I've seen movies riffed by Mystery Science Theater 3000 that were better written than AI slop - seriously, I'd take the original shooting script for Space Mutiny over an AI "rewrite" of it any day.

If you're genuinely impressed by AI writing in any way, you've either read too few actual books/stories written by people or suffered severe brain damage.

>>24785959
No. This is a family friendly story.

>>24785594
Any time I try this I end up being unable to think about anything OTHER than cumming until I do.

>>24782946
I had A.I. to rewrite this. AI is simply better. That said, if I told AI to write a medieval bachelorette scene, it does worse.

>>24787022
What prompt for the rewrite did you use?

>>24787051
i just told Gemini to rewrite it

>>24787022
It's over.

man im 15k words into my novel/novelette and it's getting hard to keep writing because i have nobody to bounce my ideas off of (except my fucking mom lol)
if anyone wants to check out my project here's the link
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1elCQC5cJrkEYSY7U24GR6fVbMDlb8UfFMCXav6cVJ94/edit?usp=sharing

Not clicking that.

>>24787022
It's honestly not "better". It's far too direct and loses a lot of subtlety. Look at this paragraph.
>Another practiced, bright smile, another cordial but empty felicitation.
It's very telling and needs to be direct. The original the reader already knows the bullshit smile and cordial felicitation without needing the words "bright, empty, or "A necessary charade"

It's all there. And Victoria does not need to "yearn to be haughty." she already is but suppresses it, the author never needs to state it, it's inferred. And that subtlety makes the original piece a lot better.

>>24786565
>>24787022
What you get out depends a lot on what you put in. The more creative you are, the more creative they can be. Poor prompting will give you poor results. Most people will use LLMs as a crutch for their own weaknesses with predictable results, sloppa. They're not good writers or ideas guys, but they may be better than you. If you're using them for actual writing, maybe take a good hard look at yourself. That they do represent the statistical mean (normies) can be beneficial, if you care what normies think, you just have to be careful of affirmation bias. It's like having a normie friend to bounce ideas off of, you just need to instruct them to be critical. By far the best uses for LLMs are going to play on where they're stronger than pretty much any person alive, and the best examples of that right now are recall, analyzing and summarizing large data sets, and doing tedious tasks. There is no better tool for note taking, world building, or outlining. The more complex, the more useful they are. It's fucking amazing to just ask in plain language if you do forget something instead of digging through pages and pages of notes and to revise an entire knowledge base with a single request.

>>24785314
Unless you're taking it personally and treating the feedbacker like they're an asshole just for disagreeable pointers, you're taking feedback well. It's not expected of you—and would probably be a bad idea—to accept every single piece of feedback you receive.

>>24785314
You need to trust your guts for stuff like that
If you can't trust in your own instincts, you may as well give up in being a writer

bite me boys

>>24782783 (OP)
>had an idea for a scifi story that would've been cool years ago
>now the twist exists IRL
Can I salvage it?

Hey guys its me the guy who writes porn I made $600 so far this month and am likely on a list

>>24787191
Use AI. Just be warned that AI will glaze the shit out of you even if it's wrong.

>>24787817
Based but don't talk to me or my wife's son ever again

>>24787736
I think your enter key's broken m8

>>24787736
Why would you post this let alone write it to begin with?

>>24787856
It's obviously a free-verse poem.

>>24787864
Oh. Well you forgot the poetry, in that case.
Also, I think your enter key is broken.

>>24787817
Being on a list is good. Maybe people will be able to find your writing more easily.

>>24787736
Never write again

>>24787871
>he doesn't know what a free-verse poem is
>also NTA

>>24787864
>>24787893
>I can just hit enter a lot and now my shitty three sentences are now somehow magically a poem
Lol no

>>24787864
>>24787893
>I can just hit enter a lot and now my shitty three sentences are now somehow magically a poem
Lol no

>>24787736
I read this with a vocal fry. Do you listen to Red Scare?

>>24787905
>>24787906
>I post the same thing twice in a row and somehow that magically makes my argument twice as strong
Lol no

>>24787247
I found adding "keep the tone and don't use purple prose" helps a bit.

>>24787912
You can't post twice in 60 seconds but you sure are mad that I did.

>>24787817
Please tell me how, anon. What platform?

They said that every dragon had a reverse scale, a single fatal flaw. A tap and the beast would fall.

But they lied.

Because *they* were dragons. And Vincent now realized how clever they really were.

He stood over the smouldering ruin of what once used to be a monastery. White stone now blackened, the air still trembling with the ghost of dragonfire. He clutched the remains of the scroll they'd risked everything to find.

The Drakonomicon. Supposedly written by humans during the first war. Supposedly filled with the secrets to slay the beasts. He'd thought it was their final weapon.

But the words inside weren't warnings. They were lies. Propaganda. Falsehoods carefully crafted to lull dragon hunters into arrogance.

He now understood the truth: dragons wanted humans to believe in the "reverse scale." They wanted their hunters to aim for it, to focus on something that didn't exist.

Vincent wiped ash from his face as something shifted in the smoke ahead. A deep rumble, more felt than heard.

It was still here.

The crimson dragon unfurled her wings. Her obsidian eyes were watching him. Not as prey, not as a threat, but something worse - amusement.

"You read it, didn't you? Good. Now you know."

Vincent's sword felt too light in his hand. He had no plan, no backup.

"The greatest lie a dragon ever told is that it could be killed," the dragon jeered.

Vincent's eyes narrowed in realization, "But if that's true, then why the lie?" He paused, looking the dragon straight in the eyes, "If nothing can challenge you, then there's no reason to misdirect us."

His grip on the sword tightened and he raised it in front of him, blade shining in gold. Hope and determination filled his gaze. They had a weakness and he was going to find it. No matter what.

-

Rate my fiction that AI totally didn't help me with.

>>24787915
I refuse to pay money for this crappy site.

>>24787838
nigga u are retarded

>>24787935
I don't have a pass either the 4channel did it not me.

>>24787946
Well, if you didn't do it, then why would i be jealous? I didn't even realize your posts were less than 60 seconds apart until you mentioned it. And you still don't know what free verse is.

>>24787961
I already told you I'm NTA. And "hurr durr it's shit" is not constructive feedback. Why are you even ITT?

>>24787948
I didnt say you were jealous I said you were mad. Freudian slip I guess. And I do know what free verse poetry is, it's prose that not-poets format like poetry in order to call it poetry.

>>24787972
I'm neither jealous nor mad, I'm just wondering why you came here to troll, since you're clearly not interested in writing. I am notably NOT asking you to post your writing, because I can't imagine it'd be interesting or competent in the least.

>>24787966
>And "hurr durr it's shit" is not constructive feedback
I disagree. I think it's the best feedback he can receive, and pretending it's anything but some of the most abject dogshit ever clacked out is almost malicious in comparison.

>>24787982
Sure if you say so buddy. Anyway I'm the most famous and important writer on /lit/ you scum.

>>24787998
You're neither. Enjoy your faggy studio apartment.

>>24787877
kek

>>24787998
This dude definitely has an Asian fetish. Fucking dweeb.

>>24787998
>posts a photo of a shaved chimp on ritalin
what did he mean by this

Excuse me, I wasn't "trolling" -- I was simply trying to bully him off the site, so as to keep the riff-raff out of our sanctum.

>>24788023
>denies trolling
>admits to trolling

>>24788030
I notably AM demanding you post your writing so we know who's constantly seething in here. I bet you don't even have a fancyquote.

>>24787998
Do not bring F. Gardner into this. That man is too famous and successful to be posting here.

>>24788045
>paragraph spacing and indentation
Holy hideous indieslop batman

i actually heard you dorks and my poem is now better

>>24788581
since i'm at it i'll show you how I fixed another line

here

The finale to a never-to-be-finished tragedy titled "The Ham-Man Condition" by Anonymous

Jutting up from the chipbed of his forlorn dreams, Anon trawls up across his desk in a drunken whir, sending away the disordered remains of the night's dalliance. Mind ablazened in frenzies of litters never born and body in shivers not the greatest coat could calm, in infinite resignation he mounts his wheel the final time. Slotting his neck between the cold lonesome bars, he recalls again that terrible reality: never shall long-pork be hamster, for neither are swine but in name. With his last decisive breath, he squeaks out a final "Ebichu, Umaru, I failed you!" and like the circus man who dances the cyr wheel, he thrusts forward with shoulder and foot to spin his contraption toward the roof, round the top, and finally, with great momentum, to impact his crown with the ever-firm shag below, stopping lodged at the tangent point.
The coroner, in unparalleled disbelief at this spun out tragedy before him, declined to comment whether it were the impact that did him in, the shift of his body weight on his pinned brain stem, or perhaps a protracted and miserable strangulation; it is out of respect that we shan't speculate either. We might only hope our friend, now free from the pipe maze of his cage, has found his furry yearnings in that realm which waits for us all.

Istg I promised it would just be "professional" friendliness, that I'm here for you open as someone who could help you handle your transition into this new life and that I'd be at most, some sort of guide for you but dear fucking god I can't help falling for you. I kept the door open incase you needed someone to be a friend but dear god you kept prying and prodding at my strings and now it's obvious to the both of us that I'm hopelessly clinging to the idea of you every-fucking-second. I don't wanna be cold. I don't wanna be distant. But I'm afraid any warmth I leave for your benefit has this inevitable quality of turning into another wildfire. I was unaware of how fucking deeply it crept on me but going on an implosive rage when I saw you leave with someone has become this painful reminder that I need to be careful, slow down and see that this thing is completely out of my control that I'm completely at the mercy at how wildly and madly captivated I am by you. Maybe in another life, we'll meet again when you're not already bound in the arms of someone else but for now, please stop trying to get close to me. I'm letting go of this, surrendering myself to the act of surrender and understanding that life simply has its ways, despite how heart wrenching they may be.

>>24788638
>>24788705
It's bad because it's nonsense and you want to just talk about your fee fees using purple prose.

Give me a story, not your whining

>>24787918
Well the real dough is in the stuff that most people are disgusted to write, but that more people are willing to indulge in and can't get anywhere else. Unless you're able to write a romance novel with lots of sex, which I don't do. If you're a woman and write trite smut with oily six pack men on the covers with self inserts and a (disturbingly) formulaic romance novel setup, then you'll make insane dough. It's not the vapid 'easy' thing that people assume it is, writing romance. It takes an awful lot of appealing to a very specific formula of fantasies, with lots of rules, and you have to compete with literally all the women who LOVE to write that shit and do it like they don't need to be paid to do it.
But I write the ridiculous hardcore stuff that is banned on Amazon.
Basically if you go to Smashwords and other no-limits sites and write gay homo incest rape you will almost guaranteed make some money. Once, there was a story about a toilet tentacle monster that blew out a twink through all three holes (whew) and it was on the bestseller list on Smashwords for like a month. Wasn't mine though.
I do not write gay homo incest rape. I write something slightly smaller on Smashwords, but I haven't released anything in weeks and the money's still flowing, so make of that what you will.
To discourage you, I had to write a whole ass novel on Literotica and make it temporarily to the #2 all time spot of my category after hitting all the tropes perfect and fulfilling the fantasies that all the commenters were asking for on other stories. From there I was able to build up a catalogue through short stories and put them up for sale. It's taken a long time and a lot of burnout, and I'm not really into the kink that I'm known for, but I'm making money without doing anything now, except monthly releases of less than 10,000 words. But I'm ramping up again, so I might be able to make a hell of a lot more soon.
>>24787839
I'm going to have intimate relations with your wife and your son. Then you. Then your dog. Then you again. And then your wife again. And then I'll run away with your dog and you'll never see that pooch once we fly to Aruba to live in a little fuck hut in the sand. Your son will love me and long for me but I'll be long gone.
>>24787877
Thank you. I feel much better now.

>>24789343
Jesus Christ. I followed that rawlyraws some time ago (I got bored of the formula) and I looked into his fite, it was really high effort stuff with art and shit. I thought it was too much effort for what I assumed wasn't hat much money for so body who writes satanic incest.

>>24782946
What's with this Victoria story that's been spammed for three threads straight. And it gets comments, more than the average excerpt posted on /wg/. We ignore shill spam posts

>>24788045
If you let go of the idea of it as a serious moment and more as an intentional comedy, it really does become the absolute peak. I'm crying.

>>24789500
It's a technically competent text but completely boring.

>>24787191
I read up to 5. I can't really give any pointers or anything like that because I just generally don't like stream-of-consciousness stories, so any advice would just be me imposing a stylistic preference. I liked parts of it. The bit about Muslim fighters was good. The obsessiveness of training was good. Started to lose me a bit on the history of the character, but mostly because I don't know who or what he is yet. It was fine enough for me to maybe revisit at some point and read more, so it at least worked on that level.

>>24788837
>>24788638 (me)
nigger its a story about a guy obsessed with hamsters, tries to breed hamster-human hybrids, and kills himself with a man-sized hamster wheel
>muh fee fees, give me a story
you're illiterate. you wouldn't know a story if it happened to you.

>>24783425
That sucks, because writing is a goddam torture.

>>24787736
What are the angels? I don't get it. Always remember that idiots read too.

>>24789645
Boring is relative.

>>24789500
you made me look to make sure it wasn't the victoria from my story being posted desu

>>24790095
Post yours

>>24790098
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/117925/the-yellow-typhoon-and-the-final-waltz

Can anyone actually tell me what's wrong in: >>24787931
I'd love some feedback. Do people just assume it's spam and just scroll over it? Is it the AI joke I made?

>>24790137
It was definitely the ai "joke" you made. My only gripe is you abuse your enter key too often. At least your tense usage is thoroughly consistent, good job on that. Dialogue tags should be needed for the first dialogue because I have no idea who is speaking with how much you slam your enter key.

>>24790137
It reads like it's written by AI. And despite the show don't tell meme, you need it. We'll just use the Victoria story again
>>24782946
In the second paragraph where we learn she's pretty, we also learn she's a bitch, vain, and arrogant without stating it. Compare it to yours

>Because *they* were dragons. And Vincent now realized how clever they really were.
Give us a scene how the dragons are clever. Not to mention we know nothing about Vincent except he was tricked by dragons somehow.

>He stood over the smouldering ruin of what once used to be a monastery. White stone now blackened, the air still trembling with the ghost of dragonfire. He clutched the remains of the scroll they'd risked everything to find.
None of this matters yet. The Draconimicon? I'm still trying to figure out how the dragons tricked Vincent. We only know Vincent, who are the others? Why should I care?

You should probably start where the dragon is talking to Vincent.
"Squid, did the book amuse you?" The crimson dragon asked.
Vincent remained silent
"Well did you?" It snorted out a small flick.of flame.
Vincent shielded his face from the heat. A small wisp, yet, its heat heavier than the bite of venomwasps.
"Have you read how you can kill us? The Crimson dragon laughed. "Squid, nothing besides time can kill a dragon."

>>24787931
The AI joke stopped me.
It's fine. Too many short paragraphs. Why is his gaze being described if he's the PoV? Hope and determination might fill his heart, but only his gaze if someone else is looking at him. Why is the sword light if he's feeling suddenly defeated? Shouldn't it feel heavy? Heavy is usually associated with negative emotions, light with positive.
Overall it's fine work. Fantasy doesn't need to be amazingly written, it just needs to tell the story. The scene is definitely oddly paced though. Too quick. We go from low point to "solution" in like three sentences. Just flesh it out a but and it works, imo.

I found an ad for a vanity publisher that'll put out a book of poetry for only about 40USD. Thinking of blowing some cash, but I don't write poetry. Think they'll let me fill it with short fiction instead?

>>24790450
Why are you asking us we're not the publisher dumbshit

>>24790453
Their customer service is closed for the night and the website says today's the last day you can sign up.

>>24790453
>>24790459
Never mind, I reached out anyway and they got back to me saying they don't do fiction.
:(

>>24790459
Then send it in anyway. At worst they'll ignore you or call you a dumbshit too for submitting a short story for a poetry compilation.

>>24790474
Vanity publishers expect a paycheck before they'll let you send anything in

>>24790489
If you don't have $40 to blow them again why the fuck are you asking? It's a rhetorical question. The answer is you're a dumbshit.

>>24790450
Just make it yourself for free using Amazon.

>>24787931
Neat concept. But the execution feels rushed, like it should be a much longer story. As the old cliché goes, it might be more enthralling to see the character(s) do these things (fight dragons, get the scroll, spread the propaganda, etc) instead of you just telling us they happened.
Not sure if or how you used AI but GPTzero says, "We are highly confident this text is entirely human" so you might not be overusing it. The prose is a little flat regardless. Hard to tell if that's LLM sloppiness or just inexperience. The latter is nothing that reading and practice can't fix.

>>24790500
Good point

>>24790102
>royalroad.com
remain in your containment thread

"Here Goes" 10/10/'25

Ere go the dogs, which know play. Birds, which reap from rains.
How have they went, the fairer-friendly faces. ~ Girls go to college indeed.
What knowledge I've of the Autumns, there are now many. . .
I hear a sweeping-fall too: ~ my hoarse breath.
Sigh with me, spirit.

Here goes the half-moon. And the super-moon? Know I the difference? . . Ah, brighter.
Candles have been used. A mere flicker. After, neurological charts abandoned too; thanks be.
Diviners haven't a seat. ~ I could never tell, I envied well; t'was about all!
So is this lament? Grumbling, ~ "kvetching," Moses cried!
Maybe I've 'The Delta Blues.'

Ere, so goeth I.

>>24790522
*Numerological, not neurological. Silly, computer.

>>24790522
illegible

>>24790529
It's a poem.

>>24790531
Ok? It's still not clear enough to be read; unreadable; not legible or decipherable.

>>24790534
It's about seasons. Things belonging. The author not.

>>24790536
Ok? It's still not free of ambiguity, doubt, and obstacles, or distinct, sharp, and well-marked enough to be looked at and interpreted.

>>24790547
I spent 5 minutes on it. The topic is "frustration." I followed the cue.

>>24790552
Ok? The written piece under consideration remains mired in a level of ambiguity and uncertainty that persists stubbornly, introducing an array of doubts and obstacles that detract from its overall clarity and coherence. Furthermore, it does not possess the necessary distinctiveness, sharpness, or well-defined markers that would allow it to be easily analyzed, scrutinized, or interpreted by its readers. Instead, the text appears to be clouded by vague phrasing and poorly articulated ideas, creating a convoluted tapestry of thoughts that makes it challenging for anyone attempting to engage with its content. This lack of precision contributes significantly to a confusing reading experience, obscuring the author's intended meaning and complicating the reader's ability to glean insight or draw meaningful conclusions. Consequently, it becomes abundantly clear that the written work is far from being a straightforward exposition; rather, it is an intricate labyrinth of words that requires patience and persistence to navigate effectively, further highlighting its shortcomings in terms of clarity and interpretive ease.

>>24790556
Let's see your verse then. Stop busting out the thesaurus for 'ambiguous,' 'indecipherable,' etc. What kind of screed is that -- stating the same thing over-and-over?
I just wanted to piece together some rhymes about the continuity of the world. All the while the narrator isn't resolved to be a part of the order, the changing. Be it of season, or of finding purpose in cycles.
*I should of edited it more. I just wanted to write something before the day ended.
I've gotta eat, shit, read, sleep. I just wanted some verse that went together to stay sharp.
Criticise me please. Though why must the criticism be so redundant?

>>24790522
It reads as pretentious and in a way that's not justified.

Have you ever thought about killing yourself?

>>24790570
I haven't written a poem in many years and I'm pushing your buttons. If you want more crit, I can recommend you not use lone ampersands outside of internet slang, and even then only to indicate either "approximately" or joy/elation/excitement/a playful tone~

>>24790520
Just self-publish on Amazon. They won't charge you anything to put your book online.

>>24790556
t. filtered

>>24790596
An 'amperdand' is what, this: '&' ?

>>24790647
My bad, I meant tildes

>>24790649
>>24790713 is a more formal poem you just inspired me to edit. It's on the "Poetry General" thread. I'm only telling you this because I was too proud to accept your obviously true critique.
**What I mean to say is thank you for putting pressure on me to be less esoteric. I need a 'fire lit under my ass' in that department. -- Because I excuse as pretension or 'deepness,' what in truth is just laziness.

>>24790634
Publishing it on amazon sounds incredibly daunting.

>>24790738
It's just filling out information on a handful of web pages, and uploading a docx. If you want a paperback version, you have to follow a downloadable template to lay out your paperback cover. They literally give you something you can load into GIMP/Photoshop over which you place your images/text/etc. I struggle to think of how it could be any simpler.

>>24790738
If you've ever filled out a form online, you have the skills to publish on Amazon. The daunting part is getting anyone to read it.

>>24790522
idgi but im a tarded. the word choices are nice. dont listen to these grumpy anons though they don't know shit about shit either.

>>24790471
Why are poetryfags so snob?

>>24790815
They probably just want to print it cheaply and poems tend not to use tons of paper

>>24790170
Yeah, you're right. I've been reading too many web novels recently.
>>24790197
>Give us a scene how the dragons are clever. Not to mention we know nothing about Vincent except he was tricked by dragons somehow.
I thought that was obvious, but perhaps it isn't.
"They say that every dragon has a weakness - their reverse scale."
It's a saying that people have about dragons and what their ultimate weakness is. That's the trick though - dragons convinced humans that they have a weakness that doesn't exist. They did it by spreading this as common wisdom/a saying. I play into the "they" part of "they say".
Vincent gets his hopes crushed, because what his hopes relied upon ended up being a lie. He regains hope when he realizes that all-powerful beings wouldn't need to make up such a lie in the first place. The dragons wouldn't put in so much effort for no reason. The lie is misdirection to stop people from investigating what their actual weakness is.
>>24790202
>Why is his gaze being described if he's the PoV? Hope and determination might fill his heart, but only his gaze if someone else is looking at him. Why is the sword light if he's feeling suddenly defeated? Shouldn't it feel heavy? Heavy is usually associated with negative emotions, light with positive.
You are completely correct. I don't know what I was thinking. I might be an ESL, but I do know everything you mentioned.
>The scene is definitely oddly paced though. Too quick. We go from low point to "solution" in like three sentences.
I felt that there needed to be something in between there too, but I couldn't come up with anything that fit properly.
>>24790514
I've been learning to write over the past few months. I was looking into how to start a story and went through a bunch of the ones that I liked. I came up with this as an example start for a story: a mystery that leads to character emotion, while there's an impending conflict. The idea being that this sets up the goal of finding what the true weakness of dragons is to defeat them.

Thank you for the feedback, everyone.

>>24790877
Many here are ngmi, but this poster is gmi

>>24782783 (OP)
why would i get bored of short stories and novels? i just dont find narrative as interesting as the density of poetry or aphorism

Deep into editing and it's starting to sink in that I wrote a whole darn book.

>>24791157
>verbs carrying the sentences
>the limping, trembling and freezing
Ackshually, "frozen" is an adjective, and without a preceding comma, that "trembling" looks a lot like an adverb.

>>24782783 (OP)
How do you write a convincing motive for a crime like murder?
>"Write it down, by all means. I know that’s another fact that tells against me, but I’m not afraid of facts and I tell them against myself. Do you hear? Do you know, gentlemen, you take me for a different sort of man from what I am,” he added, suddenly gloomy and dejected. “You have to deal with a man of honor, a man of the highest honor; above all—don’t lose sight of it—a man who’s done a lot of nasty things, but has always been, and still is, honorable at bottom, in his inner being. I don’t know how to express it. That’s just what’s made me wretched all my life, that I yearned to be honorable, that I was, so to say, a martyr to a sense of honor, seeking for it with a lantern, with the lantern of Diogenes, and yet all my life I’ve been doing filthy things like all of us, gentlemen ... that is like me alone. That was a mistake, like me alone, me alone!... Gentlemen, my head aches ...” His brows contracted with pain. “You see, gentlemen, I couldn’t bear the look of him, there was something in him ignoble, impudent, trampling on everything sacred, something sneering and irreverent, loathsome, loathsome. But now that he’s dead, I feel differently."

>>24789676
using this message board makes us all idiots so

a clearer description of the angels won't better the poem but they are meant to evoke the weird spirituality of corporate americana remembered through clouds of reefer, and allude to the touching naïveté of the young people who sustain it (before feeling its boot against their necks)

"A Confession of the True Beast – or, The Mockery of My Soul's Torment"

Yes! Yes, I confess! Not to the deed itself, oh no, for the blade of the truth, that sharpest of instruments, has yet to find its mark in the quivering flesh of my damned soul. But to a greater sin, a more profound, a more... Karamazovian lie! For all those righteous fools who saw my torment, my writhing, my incoherent cries – they saw a performance! Oh, a masterful one, I grant you! A devilishly clever ballet of the fractured mind!

They spoke of madness, of a soul undone by passion, by alcohol, by the ancient, cursed blood that flows like fevered fire in these veins! They called it... schizophrenia! A grand, medical name for the simple, calculating truth of a man cornered like a rat in his own inferno. And I was stuck in the circle of Lust! Lust, lust, lust!

And I, Dmitri Karamazov, I played the part with every fiber of my being, with every tortured gasp! My racing thoughts? Ha! They raced, yes, but not to the void of unreason, but to the cunning calculation of escape! How to weave a tapestry of delusion so convincing that the very air around me would shriek with the echoes of my supposed madness? How to conjure voices from the ether, not from hell, but from the depths of my own theatrical depravity?

The incoherence? A mask, my friends, a brilliant, shimmering mask over the lucid, terrible truth! I stumbled over words, not because my thoughts were broken, but because I was sculpting the impression of a shattered mind! Each stammer, each sudden leap from celestial visions to earthly mud, was a stroke of the brush, painting the portrait of a man unhinged, a man beyond the comprehension of your paltry laws!

And the delusions! Oh, the grand, glorious delusions! Of devils, of angels, of my tormented conscience wrestling with God Himself! They saw it as the blossoming of a sick mind, did they not? But I saw it as a shield, a colossal, shimmering shield woven from the very fabric of despair, to hide the cold, hard, calculating core of my horrid desire!

For what was the crime, you ask? A terrible, unspeakable thing, yes! Born not of a momentary madness, but of a deep, festering hunger! A desire so raw, so primal, so... Karamazovian that it threatened to devour my very being! And to escape its just recompense, to avoid the axe of the law for the axe of my own terrible longing, I chose this path! The path of the madman! The path of the pitiable, shattered soul!

So, let them pity me! Let them send me to their hospitals, their asylums, their quiet places of despair! For in their misguided compassion, in their belief in my illness, I have found my true freedom! Not the freedom of the innocent, but the freedom of the utterly, truly damned! For the crime was not the act, but the cold, calculating fraud of my feigned madness!

>>24791412
>How do you write a convincing motive for a crime like murder?

>"I post on /wg/"
>*BOOM*

>>24791188
Gerunds and verbal adjectives are still verb forms

>>24791571
HAHAHAHAHA OMG HAHAHAAHAHA OMG OMG LULULUL

>>24790877
Your idea is cool, so that's the most important part. And the writing isn't bad, there's just not enough of it.
I think with this scene you're too wrapped up in the Story (big S) and not thinking enough about the story (little s). The character is fighting a dragon. Presumably he just escaped some fiery breath, and this is a lull in the action where he's realized the reverse-scale is a trick. But he's not out of the woods yet. He still has a dragon right there in front of him. Even if his mind is racing, he needs to deal with that first before he has time to work through any major implications. Is it important for him to kill this dragon right here, right now? Or does he just need to survive? The dragon pauses to mock him, but presumably the dragon isn't just letting him go. It still wants to eat him or kill him or whatever. So maybe he needs to escape first. Whether its by some clever plan or by the dragon mockingly letting him go because "He's no hero after all", he's gotta get out of there somehow. Then, once he's away and safe and is reflecting on his failure and his despair, he'll have time to safely realize the implications: why would they need to lie if they were actually immortal? The added benefit here would be that you'd have the chance to use the classic "hope, failure, despair, resolve, hope" character cycle into the story, and it would flesh the moment out to make it less sudden and more natural.

how tf do i finally write something ? i have entire stories playing out in my head, scene by scene how it starts to the end, even with shitty little details and between filler scenes but i literally can't write even a single paragraph of anything once i want to.
am i genuinely retarded or just not up to writing??

>>24792041
You are probably not actually incapable of writing, you are just incapable of writing well. So stop worrying about writing well. Just write exactly what you want to happen, in the exact sequence you want it to happen in. Don't worry about vocabulary or even grammar, and definitely do not worry about flow or avoiding reptition. Just get words onto the paper. Don't edit until you've finished the entire scene. Or, even better, the entire book. Once you have everything written, then you can go back and try to make things sound better, or eliminate unnecessary passages.

>>24792054
thanks i'll try it. it just kinda feels really discouraging and i can't move past a paragraph if it's not up what i would consider "perfection". i'm writing for myself mostly too which is extra weird lol

>>24790754
Don't they require a bank account?

What would make for a fun children's book?
>A Skeleton trying to get a body
>A fairy looking for a tree
>A little girl making a better burger against the boys

>>24792129
I like skeleton the most, but they are all fine ideas.

Is it really that cliche to write about a teacher MC? i was thinking about a teacher in a small village that has his first job and gets involved with the mother of one of his students but she's into some BDSM shit.

>>24792151
You should write a writer MC.

>>24792151
Male teacher female student. Female student cucks her teacher with another male teacher

>>24792129
The skeleton one is neat, the second one feels incomplete, and the third one could work as a story but doesn't sound interesting to me.

Is it acceptable to have a main character whose core motivation changes throughout the story?
The MC is first interested in a wealth of knowledge but then becomes devoted to family midway through.

>>24792129
A fairy looking for a tree because (reason).
or
A fairy looking for a (very special) tree.

>>24792355
That's a pretty common character arc. Though somewhat more typically the character would only realize toward the end of the story how their motivation had shifted. There's really no reason it can't happen in the middle though.

>>24792361
She is looking for yggdrasil so she can usher in Ragnarok and the world fenrir tries to stop her and eat her.

It began on a Tuesday. The plankton made his move, but it wasn’t business. It was theatre. He put the whale on a stage and asked the crab to choose between his money and his blood. The crab chose blood. It was the wrong answer.
The machine was hungry. We saw the whale rendered, the pink slurry pumping into a bucket. Then they brought out the starfish. He was still smiling. He thought it was a ride.
The joke of it all came from another dimension. Two men made of static and cheap gin appeared in a flash of sick green light. They held up the secret that had defined our lives—the formula, the reason for the blood and the chum—and they called it a fraud. A punchline written by an accountant. Then they left. A joke can’t kill a man, but it can kill a world.
The crab was the first to go. He went home to his anchor, to his monument of unspendable years, and found the weight of a future that would never arrive too heavy to bear. The rope he used was older than he was. It knew the way.
The squid got what he always wanted. Silence. Peace. A world without a laugh track. He locked himself in his house and waited for the art to come. It never did. He just sat there, letting the blue light from a screen eat him from the inside out. The peace was a cancer.
But the sponge… the sponge was different. He was built to absorb. He tried to drink the memory away with mustard and tears, but it did no good. The joy he’d once soaked up had been wrung out of him, leaving him empty, and the world kept pouring its misery in.
We found him in the ruins of Goober's. The place stank of rot and forgotten birthdays. He was in the bathroom, kneeling. The toilet was a kind of altar, overflowing with the worst things a world can produce.
He wasn't drowning. He was trying to get clean. He’d learned that the good things—the memories of laughter, the shape of a starfish’s hand, the sound of a whale’s cry—were the real poison. They were the burning. So he was trying to wash them out, to replace them with something honest, something that felt like the world did now.

>>24793145
There is no hope in this hell...none at all.

>>24793181
Be the hope you want to see brother.

>>24793194
I want to be more hopeful than Spongebob dying in the gutter and Squidward wasting away.

>I need to get her to say yes.
>I need to get her to say "yes."

Which of these is correct, boys?

>>24792116
I think so. I have a bank account I only use for online stuff, e.g. PayPal, and getting paid meagerly for my writing on Amazon.

>>24793339
Italicized is the new way

>>24793339
There's no reason to put yes in quotes in that context. It's just cumbersome.

>>24793403
That's what I thought too but without the quotes it also seems wrong

>>24793356
Is it?

>>24793339
Your options are actually
>I need to get her to say yes.
>I need to get her to say, "Yes."
I recommend the former; it's sleeker

Does using solecisms count as having a voice?

Whens the next writing contest

Just how erudite do you have to be before you can really start writing literature yourself rather than merely reading it? Whenever I consider writing something a voice in my head says "You, a writer? You haven't even read X or Y super important author yet, you're basically a kindergartener yet to enter elementary school as far as the art of literature goes." But as you probably know you will never feel like you read all that one ought to read due to their historical importance, fame or quality.

>>24793702
You're mindfucking yourself. It's not hard you just do it.

How do we market our works of genius?

I haven’t written much since the ai slop era started, and now I’m worried that ai erotica has rotted my brain into not being able to write anymore.
I’m legit afraid that I’ll try to write again and it’ll be full of ‘isms.

>>24793339
sup its ya boi zoomzoom here
>I need to get her to say *yes*.

>>24793791
The best way to get someone to read your book is to get other people read your book. Stop worrying about sales and start worrying about exposure. Everything is downstream from that.

>>24783425
I laugh at my own jokes...

>>24792129
I see you're going for a bargain bin Wizard of Oz.
(Just kidding... first one is best but second can be good too if developed.)

>A tree is considered an urban legend in a post apocalyptic world populated by fairies. They think it's like some edgy horror fairy-tale version of a solar panel. Twisting tendrils called branches and roots. Fairies used to peel off its skin to make tablets (paper). Green flakes that change to blood red and poop brown when they die and fall off. One fairy has watched too much history channel and wants to prove they are real.
>A tree has been cut down and the fairy, a masterful detective, is investigating the crime. Problem is, all the animals are the back-of-the-woods, don't ask questions, horror novel type. They pull various shenanigans to hide important details. The fairy has trouble even finding the fallen tree, let alone who did it. But she makes a breakthrough when she finds the squirrel family whose home had been taken away.
>Fairies love to play with trees. A fairy, feeling rather unappreciated in her family, wants to find the perfect tree. Only the best tree will do. Along the way, she learns that there may not be such a thing as a best tree, that there are many trees each with their own redeeming qualities. And when she finds a rather small, bland tree that also feels unappreciated in his forest, she decides to befriend him.

How do I give honest feedback to someone who is insecure and feels bad about their writing?

>>24793999
Just give it. They’ll get over it.

>>24793999
onion sandwich
begin with compliment, give criticism, end with compliment

>>24793823
This is the truth. Selling a book is impossible. Marketing a book is hopefully possible.

How do I know how many descriptions I should add? Should it be just enough to immerse the reader and to point out interesting things?

>>24794054
You should add many prescriptions

>>24794054
At a minimum, it's to stop your reader from imagining the wrong things.
>Here is Sam. Sam likes to drink beer while watching NASCAR, hit things with rocks, and shout ooga booga. (5 chapters later). Sam blushed, because it was time for her period.
Here, the reader starts off thinking Sam is a rather caveman-like guy, and when it's shown that Sam is a girl, the reader is jolted and has to reimagine Sam as a girl, which is annoying.

I am of the belief that the lazy ass reader can go imagine all the details on his own. But clearly there is no upper limit to description, since Tolkien does a lot of it in The Two Towers. Also it would be funny if you put in non-necessary descriptions as footnotes.

>>24787931
>The crimson dragon unfurled her wings. Her obsidian eyes were watching him.
I would change this to
>The crimson dragon unfurled her wings watching him through her obsidian eyes.
Because giving actions to body parts is too passive.

Analyzed some books I like for style insights because I am autistic (not actually)

Some takeaways:
>Sentence length has decreased over time (kinda obvious)
>Corncob McCarthy uses way more verbs than adjectives.
>Most writing is 13-17% verbs.
>Apparently Jane Austen didn't have a very large vocabulary.

>>24793339
So, the second one is wrong.
The first one could be wrong.
"I need her to say yes." (spoken dialogue)
I need her to say yes. (narrator/thoughts)

I had an idea.

let it all work out

>>24795338
No u

Hey guys, I'm about to start writing a large apocalyptic novel. I have an idea that I can't live with myself if I don't write it down. Is it fair to assume that creating this will have a huge toll on my life over the next few years? It's already hurting my relationship and my work.
>inb4 apocalyptic is overdone
I'm aware.

>>24795489
Jesus Christ you’re just writing, faggot. It’s not the end of the world.

"The fresh brisk October air filled the parking lot between the two apartment buildings while breaks between silence were punctuated by the gentle rustling of falling leaves in the post rainfall breeze. It had been, at this point, five months since he had last seen his son, and about the same amount of time since he had seen his wife and dogs. The carcass of a home remained, observed by the passing of the seasons and illuminated by the headlights of the neighbor’s car parked facing his floor apartment kitchen window. To all external viewers it appeared as a regular bachelor pad, it had recently been stripped of the liveliness brought henceforth into it by a blossoming family thawing into spring-hearted vigor after an icy winter. Upon more careful inspection there were signs of more: a mural of a calm forest in the bedroom, a dog collar on the floor under a nightstand, three empty closets that would have assuredly be full if the man currently presiding in the apartment had the means to truly afford it unsupported, and a bathroom with ample storage space in the form of shelving above the toilet. The top shelf was occupied by an artificial plant whose plastic leaves draped downwards towards the sink as if to remind that apart from the sterile modern bathroom there is something worth more to return to in a place that’s not here. For the occupant of this apartment however, his story ends in this bathroom before it truly began. This is not a tale of deliverance, nor is it a tale of redemption. It is a portal to the cold dark reality that lies before each human as a choice: to persist, endure, and transcend, or to accept, forgo, and collapse. Therein lies the choice presented to our first character prior to plunging a knife into his heart in the bathtub. Why did he do it? Well, to be frank, I can’t deliver a clear answer on that. Perhaps there are only so many methods of aptly communicating the complexity in language, where custom and culture shape what we value and how we discuss those values such that no direct and meaningful explanation can be ventured towards. Perhaps, further, this explanation can best be perceived as the sounds uttered from his gasping throat, restless feet shifting against the fiberglass tub, the slight sound of his naked flesh adhering and lifting to the blood-moistened surface, and the cessation of the struggle as his heart rapidly slowed to a stop after he yanked the sharpened knife from between his ribs. "

r8 h8 appreci8

>>24795732
I mean it IS going to have a toll on your life if you're a professional writer and said project will be at the very end of your thoughts day in and day out for years to come.

But, 99.99% of this thread are not professional writers and never will be so it's fair to assume the contrary.

>>24795844
Stopped reading pretty quickly on account of it doesn't breathe.

>>24795850
does it make you feel drowned?

>>24795732
In order to get this out, this means I'm going to have to dedicate a lot of my time and thoughts to this obviously. That means setting aside other hobbies, losing time with my wife, poorer performance at my job, etc. I'm just wondering if anyone had any experience with this and if it's a good/bad idea in spite of the cost. I'm a pretty busy person. It's not my livelihood but that's part of the problem.

>>24795885
write a page a day and stop being a faggot

>>24795489
Sounds gay.
Write anyway. Communicate better with your friends and loved ones.

>>24795891
>>24795902
Okay, I will. Thanks.

What do you think? I haven't edited with this chapter so far in any capacity, even to correct or tidy tidbits. I usually wait until I'm finished, then I edit from top to bottom and then it's moving to the next chapter.

>>24795959
Why should we waste our valuable time reading some shit you haven’t bothered to edit?

>>24794123
throw in a comma please
>The crimson dragon unfurled her wings, watching him through her obsidian eyes.

>>24795968
NTA but unedited writing is a true testament to a writer's skill nowadays, anyone can come up with decent prose if you allow him days to hone something into decency

>>24795959
It is beautiful but you have to have some kind of sea monster in the water

Hi guys, newfag here, I was told to go here for advice. See, I’m writing this game, about two hours long, making it myself actually. But, since /v/ is a shit-hole, does having a great story matter at all? I don’t want to waste my time, as I’m more than competent at writing and I know the medium style of storytelling, but does it really matter in the end, or nah?

>>24795853
It made me feel like you don't know where to end a sentence.

>>24796153
true
and tips?

>>24789343
I'm thinking a lot about this. I'm not a terrible writer. The way is to advertise the writing in Literotica and sell short books in smashwords?

>>24796202
I gave you one, let it breathe. That's your #1 problem. Breathing is the combination of two actions, inhaling and exhaling. At rest, it's slow and drawn out and there's often space between them. At pace it's hurried. Sometimes you gasp, sometimes you hyperventilate. Most of time it's pretty steady and rhythmic. It would be different for a man with a knife in his heart. In practice, that, means appropriately varying sentence length and structure in a way that compliments your tone. Right now it doesn't. it's a fucking slog.

#2 You have so much extra bullshit language in there that detracts from what you're actually saying and the impact of it. You're robbing yourself. How much do you think is actually doing any heavy lifting? If you're honest with yourself, I think you'll find it's not a lot.

#3 The shift in narrative style from show to tell is jarring and not in a good way.

There's some good imagery and word choice in there. You could edit it into half the length and have something far more impactful, maybe good.

>>24791749
That's a great idea!
>>24790933
I hope and wish. Thank you.
>>24795996
>>24794123
It reads much better. The next sentence can be improved too. "Amusement" is fine, but not with that sentence construction.

Hypothetically, if I suddenly became an amazing writing, what are the chances I could make a full time living writing novels? Is the publishing industry a pure meritocracy, or is there a ton of bullshit involved?

Do you guys get any advice/feedback in your rejections from agents? Because I'm at about 40 rejections and all they say is "it's not a right fit for me" and that they encourage me to try a different agent.
I want to get feedback, but don't want to be seen as an amateur...

>>24796715
>Hypothetically, if I suddenly became an amazing writing
I don't see that happening

>>24796747
Agents are not a feedback service

>>24796747
Imagine approaching agents and not making those scumbags crawl on their hands and knees through broken glass and halved lemons to represent you

Here's my latest masturbatory aide

>>24796807
Most of us can't leverage your huge culture capital anon

>>24796715
Becoming amazing at writing counterintuitively hurts your odds of making a living writing

>>24796109
The Doom creator said something like, story in video games is like story in porn. If it's there, hey, that's neat. If it's good, that's even neater. But it doesn't need to be either for the game to be worth playing.
I would definitely focus on perfecting the interactive elements above all else. But it's your game, do what you want. There are plenty of beloved games with dull gameplay and lots of plot. They call them "story-rich."

>>24796109
highly recommend you check out these autopsy reports from the dev of the 'Of the Killer' series: http://harmonyzone.org/text/killernotes/autopsypile.html

he normally makes more free-form, experimental games, but here he was trying out linear horror plots, so it was very interesting to read his thoughts on the different possibilities and limitations that narrative form creates

(the same guy also wrote a really stimulating, slightly cryptic essay on dialogue in video games: http://harmonyzone.org/text/monsterparty.html)

>>24796941
>This kind of stolid, researched and dutifully ‘characterised’ Quality Prose turns out to be perfect filler for the indeterminate non-spaces of the videogame text system, and we are once again reminded that the Iowa Writer’s Workshop was not the least of the CIA’s crimes against humanity.
lol

>>24796004
>unedited writing is a true testament to a writer's skill
True. But what is there to say about all these people publicly confessing their lack of skill?

bros the webnovel general is making fun of us again....

Is there any difference in these phrases, boys? Or is one incorrect?

>so much so, so that
>so much so that

>>24797321
i can't imagine a context in which the first would be correct. second looks fine to me.

I've wrote what I best could call "heretical fan fiction" and would like some human feedback.
This has a gimmick to it. Each chapter/day has a song that is tied to it. I would recommend listening to the songs to get the full "feeling" of the story.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/135386/boomer-revelations-a-heavy-metal-apocalypse

Prologue: Crazy Train
Day 1: Bat out of Hell
Day 2: Rainbow in the Dark

Be honest, do you think it'd be interesting premise writing a story/book from a "victim's" point of view? It's about a serial killer killing women and having specific fixation and type, and by chance the killer moves next door to her and starts stalking/obsessing over her over the course of the book.
It'd be something like YA with the girl starting college and slowly escalate and reveal things as the book goes on. Not entirely dark/horror theme, but more like like a slow-burn plus some romance, bit of a cozy and slice of life kinda type in there too.
It'd be similar to the main character from the movie Run (2020) in terms of killer's intentions.

>>24797633
Sure. Now start

>>24797690
>Now start
:(

>>24796747
Agents don't sell books. Agents sell people. They might not even have read your book to give you feedback. They just made a snap-decision based on the type of person you are.

>>24797522
i'll give you a pass for writing fanfic since it's biblical, but you gotta keep your posts in the other general

>>24797744
Yeah, that's the tough part, having ideas is great but you gotta take the time and effort to express them.

>>24797841
>might not even have read your book
obviously not. they are more than likely going just by your summary and the first few pages if even that

Here's the corrected version if anyone cares to read

>>24798440
-Is the "lights of gold and silver" sentence missing a word, or am I just dumb?
-It was a little confusing because you didn't specify the PoV until the end, so I didn't know who we were following. I guess this is probably a section of a bigger thing though, so that might not be a real problem.
-There were some other confusing moments but thoae all might have been due to this being just a snippet.
-I won't criticize the vocabulary because I imagine you like it that way and don't mind that 90% of the reading audience will struggle with it. On the off chance you aren't aware of that though, I will mention it.
-It's overall fine writing, in my opinion.

>>24798534
>Is the "lights of gold and silver"
You're right and I'd actually never notice. It's supposed to be "Torches of gold and silver light burned steadily", thanks.
>PoV
You're right in assuming that. I wanted to see if the writing can hold its own weight without being carried by context or the story or the setting itself, just plain words ooc.
>Vocabulary
You're fine to criticize it. It's meant to be archaic but not too archaic as to not be incomprehensible, though that's something I've noted down for the second draft, mostly.

>>24796109
What kind of game?
RPG? Story is all important.
FPS? Story is mildly important.
Platformer? Story means next to nothing.

>>24798545
I try to limit personal preference criticisms. I may not like it, but someone else will. If everyone only writes what I like, they'll miss their actual audience. Anyway, I think you hit the right balance of archaic but accessible. Anyone with half a brain can just use context to figure what the unfamiliar words mean.

>>24797522
Go back to your containment general, royalslopper

>>24798440
I have no idea what the first sentence is even trying to say.
>Cacheu
>Sufo
>Rosmarinus
>Maestro
>Leonard
>Kadesh
>The Red Tide
>All on the first page.
Introduce these proper nouns slowly. Just have Sufo say
"I am a man of the Cacheu," said Sufo, "I bring the emperor what he desires."
"And as everyone else."
Sufo pushes aside his cloak and reveals a covered orb. He lifts the cloth slightly to reveal the glowing orb inside---just enough to let the guards know.
"Let him in!"

>>24798645
I should have mentioned that this is but an out of context snippet right in the middle of the 12th chapter. Wanted to see if there's any gravitas to the prose if you stripped the text of all context.

A good writer can pull you in the story through his cadence alone, so much that you should be able to open a book right in the middle and be enthralled by it (not saying I'm anyone close, god forbid, just my two cents)

What does one do when they think they might have an interesting premise for a story, but don't know how to turn it into a story?

>>24799162
it means that you don't have a story

>>24799162
You post it in r*eddit as a writing prompt

saw someone accused of using AI to write their post because they said "This is not X, it's..." at one point, which is indeed a hallmark of AI writing. It's so over.

I tried for months, for years, to figure out where I wanted to put the story I've been working on for about five years now. I was told to self-publish it because it has some features that make it unpalatable to the big publishing houses. Also I'm a straight white male with some socially conservative political views so I'm basically a no-go for those houses anyway.

I kept debating whether to put it on Substack, Royal Road, AO3, Wattpad, all these places, and then it hit me: I actually own the domain name of my pen name as a .com domain. I pay Google about $15 a year for it. So I'm just gonna get a website built on it, and put the story THERE.

I'm getting it worked on as we speak. Very excited to see how it turns out.

How do I write cops characters above a "Cuff 'em Jenkins" level

>>24799277
Oh i remember you
You're that guy who was asking about how to make a website for your stories right?
(You always use the same gif)

>>24799338
Unfortunately they're just not very interesting or complex people most of the time, there's not a lot to work with. You can give them depth and make them realistic, inasmuch as cops have depth anyway. Your cop is probably a failed high school athlete, maybe regional college, probably baseball, maybe football. He's an alcoholic, beats his wife and maybe even children (if he's not already divorced), and he's crooked, basically just a criminal with a badge. If he's not these things yet, he's probably still a rookie who joined for the salary and pension, maybe in part for the right reasons, and eventually he'll have to make a immoral decision to protect his "brothers". Otherwise he's NGMI, on the outs, they won't let him into the inner circle and he'll probably quit, and if he doesn't, they'll probably set him up or won't show up when he calls for backup in a deadly confrontation. They don't have friends that aren't cops anymore because they look at everyone else as criminals so they don't have rich social lives or anything, and as a requirement they're not very intelligent, so they don't generally have interesting hobbies or internal lives either. Or you can just pretend they're good guys like the lies they tell themselves and everyone else, the way they want to be seen.

>>24799369
I meant like police procedure

>>24799398
Oh. Just make them say "okay" a lot in a weird way. That's most of the procedure.

>>24799446
What do detectives actually do?
>I think I found a pattern bro

>>24799463
Not a lot honestly. They show up on a crime scene and mostly just mull around all day. Then they drive around all day and ask a couple people questions. Then they maybe have a research day in the office. Then it's back to driving around all day to talk to people. Sometimes there's people of interest or suspects they bring in or meet at the station for interviews. After several days to several months of this they might have someone to pin it on, regardless of guilt. Then they lock them in a room for as long as possible and make them uncomfortable to try to coerce a confession out of them before they request a lawyer. Maybe 50/50 they end up with an arrest. Then it's paperwork time. Then they'll get called to court and get paid to mull around all day until its time to testify. They'll probably lie and perjure themselves on the stand but it's okay because they know the judge and DA. Rinse and repeat. Fill in the gaps with lots of coffee, lots of donuts. Lots of days off, lots of days paid to just stand around thumbing each others buttholes.

>>24799277
post the link here when youre finished i want to read your story!

On Tuesday, Brazil lost 7–1 to Germany, and the Yangon sky ran out of rain. On Wednesday, twenty-seven of us from Class C went out to play football. We returned ten minutes after the second bell for Burmese. We were late because we could be; our teacher was a drunkard who rarely bothered with the whole teaching thing. When he showed up, he sang sad and old songs. He sang well. He’d started drinking five years ago when his wife, Class C’s 4th grade Science teacher, died of TB. Nobody had the heart to fire him, and he drank himself to death the next year when we were in the 9th grade. They say his ghost still sings. My cousin, who graduated a couple years ago from TTC, recently told me she’d heard him. That Wednesday, though alive, he didn’t sing. But better safe than sorry. A scout was needed to check, and Curly volunteered. More balls than curls. He went. Then came a smack, a scream, and sharp words from our class master, Daw Khin Than Myint, who had waited for us with a cane. I have the rest of the story. I'd like to get some feedback on it. I can send it to you if y'all are interested.

>>24783958
>Good Lawd almighty in heaven above
dolly golly gee stick a pig on my dingaling and call it martin luther king, what kind of advice is that?

>>24783992
>AI overview

>>24783980
>a driving impact or force
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beat

>>24800458
Automatically generated at the very top of the page. There's zero excuse for not being able to find that answer.

https://www.reddit.com/user/ImpuneTypewriter/comments/1ngcdyu/the_intelligence_creature/

Please crit.
I know the title is ass or w/e but i'd like to hear your thoughts on the short story itself. I feel like it's pretty ok for what it is but idk for sure.

Please and thank you.

>>24800681
I don't want to be able to see your post history, if it even is your account to begin with.

>>24800681
i have no interest in rambling schizo stories.

“Near the collapse of Nazi Germany, there was a young boy about your age living in Dresden. All he’d ever known was the war, even his father was a stranger to him, a number scribbled in a thousand-page ledger. And this boy, he ate when he was told to eat, and he slept when he was told to sleep, and he believed when he was told to believe. And the food, though little, still arrived every day. And the sleep, though little, still arrived every night. And so, he believed what he was told to believe. And he was a good Christian, this young boy, who was told that the world would end heralded by the sound of trumpets, and every tear would be wiped away from his eyes. And while bouncing a ball against his kitchen sink one day, he heard trumpets ricochet around his house—for between the clouds approached the Allied warplanes, the wind instrument of falling bombs, and the heavy drum of explosives. But the boy had been lied to. He believed every tear would be wiped away from his eyes, but as the screams of his eighty-year-old neighbour cut through the noise, and the howling of his family dog stopped, he couldn’t stop crying. But just when he’d lost all hope, an Allied bomb landed outside his window. The white flash shone brighter than anything he had ever seen before, brighter even than when he first stared steadfast at the Sun, and with all his might he tried harder than he’d ever tried before to look away, to not be blinded. But he couldn’t. As, although he didn’t realise it at the time, his skin was aflame, and he was melting like a wax candle. And his eyelids were the first to go. Now he saw the truth; he couldn’t look away. And his priest had been right. The trumpets had wiped away every tear from his eyes, so why did he still feel like crying?”

>>24800779
>>24800721
Fair
I'll post it in like a rentry next time sowwy.

>>24799494
Write a story that's just this 1:1 with all of the boring bits but it's set in a whimsical and unreal world of wonder and magic.

>>24800424
Post a link or whatever. I'm interested enough to check out more.
>>24800681
It's interesting enough that I'd be interested in reading it, but you need to go through a few more rounds of editing first. It's too hard to focus when everythings all janky.

>>24800876
Gotcha! What's the most jarring thing in terms of comfort of reading?

>>24800881
For example:
>Looking back at it, i think i know exactly why it all came down to it, why i had to become a frantic runaway, paranoid of the things lurking in the corner of my eye, why i couldn't stop even for a second, not to eat, not to sleep, not even to relieve myself, why this ever-extending mass of joints, vaguely shaped like a human, and adorned in a jacket seemingly labeled with the insignia of every major federal agency, alongside a few of them that i was certain don't exist was hot on my trail.
You reference "it" twice in the first few words. But I don't know what "it" is or even if the first "it" is the same as the second "it." Then the sentence runs on for the entire paragraph. I mean I can understand it all, but it's just kind of a chore to read. I'm not sure why run-on sentences slow me down when I'm reading, but they do.
>There at it chest laid these symbols, going in order of real agencies to utter nonsense the further down the they were placed.
It should be "its." Not that little typos here or there are that important, but when they're everywhere it hurts the flow. Also, "laid" is a weird word choice to use here. And "from" instead of "of." The "further down they were placed" is also kind of awkward.
>Every inch of the jacket worn by the creature was covered in those insignia
You can delete "worn by the creature." It's passive and also unnecessary, because you've already told us the jacket belongs to the creature and jackets are assumed to be worn unless otherwise specified.
>began at it's unbelieveably thin midsection
"It's" is a contraction of "it is." "Its" is possessive. Again, not a huge deal, just too many instances of this.
In the first few paragraphs you have a lot of 'first-draft' type of errors which make it hard to want to continue even though the narrative is interesting.

>>24800903
My being ESL is the main source of these little issues. Thanks for bringing it up. I already went through it a few times, but i guess i should've been more vigilant.

I know this is just highschool grammar, but do you happen to know any solid books that could make me better at spotting these sorts of errors?

>>24800961
Ahh, that makes sense. I don't really know of any specific books, but I think any normal "English grammar for adults" type of book should at least help. "Elements of Style" is the classic reccommend for stylistic writing, but that one is hit or miss, and your biggest problem isn't necessarily style. At least, not yet.
My best advice would be simplify. Use as plain language as possible, and as few words as necessary. Eventually, you'll probably also consider working with an actual editor, or at least someone who is willing to read through and point out the issues. But no need to jump right to that. Just take your time and be patient.

>>24800961
The narrative is interesting though. The story makes me want to read it, despite all the grammar stuff. So you're on the right track.

>>24801008
Yaay!
It's the first thing i've ever written. I'm working on 2 other things rn. I've been lazy about it.
One is an Mother Horse Eyes fanfic where a lab-grown nerve tissue replaces fiberoptic cable narrated by a construction worker who has to manage setting up the living infrastracture.

The second is a much less structured stream of consciousness type thing, about a contract worker who sweeps cryptids and anomalies under the rug for a day job.
Much more in the vein of humour than real spooks.

With the caveat that there isn't like a "Veil" over things, the deepstate isn't out to cover stuff up, it's just that the general public doesn't want to see any non-euclidean garbage on their day to day.
It's essentially potholes in reality and the mc is tasked with filling them out. There isn't any glory or intrigue to it.

>>24801002
>Ahh, that makes sense. I don't really know of any specific books, but I think any normal "English grammar for adults" type of book should at least help. "Elements of Style" is the classic reccommend for stylistic writing, but that one is hit or miss, and your biggest problem isn't necessarily style. At least, not yet.

I'll look into college coursework materials for writing in english ig. I'll read through the Elements of Style because i might as well.

I've seen that Philip.K.Dick has a ton of grammar and spelling errors in his works, he gets around it because if you read through in spite of them, it's still enjoyable.

Ofc i'm nowhere near his level, but i hope that the same principle may apply.

>>24801031
>With the caveat that there isn't like a "Veil" over things, the deepstate isn't out to cover stuff up, it's just that the general public doesn't want to see any non-euclidean garbage on their day to day.
>It's essentially potholes in reality and the mc is tasked with filling them out. There isn't any glory or intrigue to it.
I like this aspect of the ideas a lot. The cliche of the Men in Black covering things up is overdone anyway.

>>24801048
I love the trope a lot, but personally i've read through thousands of SCPs, Delta Green manuals and a bunch of other stuff similar to that so the idea itself isn't too crazy to me anymore.

One rule i have for the story is that none of the anomalies can be any more dangerous than a bear would. Like it can kill you, but it's no all-knowing slumbering deity or anything.

Sometimes it's bullets that produce the voices of stonewall protestors instead of gunshots, or a thing that makes you blind anytime it would have entered your vision, assumedly becuase seeing it would harm you or something.

>>24801085
>One rule i have for the story is that none of the anomalies can be any more dangerous than a bear would.
That's a really good rule. I like that.

January last year my book was on pace to be done by June. Now because of delays (laziness and random expenses), it's gonna be done around april 2026 if I don't want to rush anything. I know it was a random self imposed deadline and nobody was really waiting on it, but it still feels like shit. It's taking everything in me to not shortcut and just have it out by december at least. I need more patience.

>>24801429
What worked for me was not allowing myself to do things like use 4chan until I'd written a minimum number of words. I did 1000 and buffed up my first draft from maybe like 35K to 85K in a handful of months. Of course, it helps that I was funemployed at the time.

>write an entire chapter with a queen discussing her battle strategy
>battle starts
>her plan goes out the window
>LOL God wills it
>CHARGE!!!!
Is this a cheap way to resolve things? or should I write an anime scene of 0.000001% success and it succeeds?

>>24801429
>just 6 more months bro I swear
Doubt

>>24801813
History has more examples of "fuck it we roll" charges winning the day than it does super genius plans actually working. Fiction is what makes us feel like it was the other way around.

>>24802147
History has more examples of "fuck it we roll" charges going to hell than it has them working out.

Here’s the opening of a 4000-5000-word short story. Don't hold back; harsh critiques are absolutely welcome.


The glass clinked as Liam slammed it back onto the counter.
“…Pff. Weak, huh? I’ll show them weak…”
He sat half-slumped on the stool, hoodie slipping off one shoulder.
The skin-tight suit peeked out underneath, like he couldn’t even bother hiding it properly.
Liam was absurdly pale and cute, with a petite frame, slender legs that curved into the most delicious set of hips, and a pert little ass that jiggled with every step. The skin-tight suit hugged him a little too well.
He tugged at the suit, cheeks flushing pink.
“…Ugh. Why does it always squeeze around there… Tch. Not my fault I’m built like this…”
The bartender raised an eyebrow, polishing a glass.
“Rough night, kid?” he asked, eyebrow up.
“Night? Tch. More like a rough life.” Liam puffed his cheeks, glaring at the empty glass like it personally offended him.
“My squad ditched me. Said I was too soft… too fragile.” He jabbed a finger into his chest, wobbling slightly on the stool.
The bartender slid another drink across without waiting for permission.
“Ha! I’m the brains! The genius! I don’t need muscle-heads anyway.” Liam wined
“And yet you’re here, whining in my bar, broke as hell.” His voice was dry, amused.
Liam froze, lips parting then snapping shut. His ears went a delicate shade of red.
“…S-Shut up. It’s… temporary. Totally temporary…” he muttered.
The man leaned in, voice low and just a little dangerous.
“Heard you’re about to get kicked out. No money, no team. That true?”
Liam chewed the inside of his cheek, eyes flicking to the dingy window where the city burned neon.
“…Maybe.”
he said softly, like that single word could be blamed on someone else.
A smirk. The bartender rubbed the rim of the glass and set it down with a soft clack.
“Well. I might have something for you. Simple job. Museum uptown. Necklace, old legend, big payout. Easy in and out, if you’re sharp.”
Liam’s fingers tightened around the glass.
“…A heist? Alone?” For half a breath, he felt it, the small, cold tick of doubt. ‘Can I actually do this?’
The bartender’s grin widened, teeth flashing under the bar lights.
“Unless you’re too weak for it.” He tapped the counter for emphasis.
‘Wha-?!’ Liam shot upright so fast his stool squeaked.
“Weak?! Me?! I’ll show you weak! I can handle it alone!” His bravado wavered halfway through; he sounded equal parts indignant and thrilled.
“Good.” The bartender pushed a folded note toward him. “Blueprints. Schedule. Your golden ticket.”
Liam snatched it with hands that trembled just a little. Pride flared.