/lit/ - Literature

God I fucking hate magic school settings

>>23338500
aren't you adorable

>>23338500
And yet they are a popular genre. Even if most people hated school we all love reading about them, it's a setting everyone is familiar with.

>>23338500
I was considering a magic school type location for my current project
after thinking about it for maybe 15 minutes I realized my characters would've never put up with that shit in a million years, and so the idea was tossed aside. good riddance to that kind of impulse. as someone with an advanced degree I say with the utmost certainty: school is for losers, it's such a waste of life

Finished my first book in a trilogy. I should be happy, I'm not. When doing a full read-through I have realised my MC is a nobody with no agency. All the interesting characters and scenes he's just there in the background, being an ignorant imbecile whose only purpose is to get info-dumped upon. My story outline is for him to go from loser to hero over the three books but I think I've royally fucked up my pacing. *sigh*

>>23338512
>hates played-out lazy trope fueled stories
>edgy

if you dont know what a word means, dont use it

>>23338541
>can only imagine the worst examples of a setting
crab

>>23338519
institutionalisation is a condidtion we are all familiar with. its just capitalising on romanticising a pathological experience that was forced on us

this is a secret in the industry im only letting go here this once in this here thread. screenshot, write it down, you may never see it again. all stories considered "great" adhere to the below steps:

1. The character sees one side (A) as good and the other (B) as evil, aiming to fully embrace A.

2. While committed to A, they encounter appealing aspects of B, causing doubt and confusion.

3. Ignoring the beneficial aspects of B leads to significant losses, viewed negatively from the perspective of A.

4. In response to these losses, the character reinforces their commitment to A, ignoring the positive qualities of B.

5. Efforts to emphasize A inadvertently lead to situations favoring B, causing internal conflict and hindering their goal.

6. The character attempts to harmonize A and B, aiming to resolve the internal conflict.

7. attempt at balance fails due to unresolved issues from initial commitment to A taking fruit as critical revelation of ultimate loss

8. critical revelation of ultimate loss leads to a looming critical decision and confusion of whether character will fully give into A or B as
response

9. reflecting on their experiences, character fully gives into B as response to critical revelation and critical decision, resulting in dramatic transformation

this applies to all sorts of stories from breaking bad, hunter x hunter (especialyl the chimera ant arc), attack on titan. Zuko's arc in avatar the last airbender. The godfather. the good place. crime and punishment, the picture of dorian grey, pride and prejudice. etc

your welcome

>>23338544
>worst examples

so every example?

>>23338313
I can't stop writing about gross lesbian femcels lads

>>23338313
Wonder if I reach 100 views if I continue.

I dunno how Royal Road even counts view, if it counts click as views, or scrolling as views, or if requires some time.

I think I just came up with the coolest fucking way to introduce the main character
>Martial arts story, of course
>Opens in a bar/pit fighting joint where people bet on who'll win. Standard stuff.
>Introduced to this somewhat short-ish fair-skinned guy with messy hair. People constantly point out his eyes and how they stand out so much.
>He fights an incredibly thick brawler and wins
>He fights a highly skilled Judoka and wins
>He fights a fast-ass kickboxer and wins
>He then fights a champion Karateka and wins.
>He beats all of these guys in elaborate fights where we get a good idea of his character. He's just a young man with a kind heart who wants to make others smile and can't stand people who make others unhappy.
>Then the 5th guy comes in as a surprise challenger from the audience. He's taller, has tawny skin, is absolutely shredded, has a weirdly neatly combed hairdo, and is noticeably missing his left hand. He coldly threatens to gut the little dude like a fish.
>The little guy doesn't win this one. At all. He feels actual fear and pisses himself right before the taller guy knocks him the fuck out and nearly kills him by punching him in the solar plexus and then soccer kicking him in the jaw when he doubles over. The taller guy has this terrifying glare on the entire time.
>That little guy wasn't the main character, it was the taller guy.
>He takes his prize money and leaves the little guy in a puddle of his own piss and blood.
>He narrates to himself about how there's always some "Rising star" or wannabe "Hero" who needs to learn that they're just a miniscule fish in a massive ocean

>>23338559
so the super secret to a grandmaster story is poorly describing the measly "fall from grace" trope?

>>23338567
maybe you ought to try going outside sometime

>>23338576
cool anime scene. but werent you gunna talk about writing a book?

>>23338583
This is actually based on an ex of mine that I met at a bartending gig I did, so yeah I do go outside

>>23338579
or the opposite. eitherway this story is about a great change. if you're insistent on no change (aka a boring as fuck story) then this method will not work

>>23338592
Have we gotten to the point where characters fighting as a central theme is just "Anime."
I am not going to write The Pearl, I'm writing about dudes punching each other in the face because I understand the philosophical meaning behind it

>>23338602
>Have we gotten to the point where characters fighting as a central theme is just "Anime."

Yes. Everyone knows the best literature is just beautiful women talking at dinner parties.

>>23338602
the epic fight choreography is one thing, but you have the obvious close-up reaction shots. you might as well go all the way and have them say TS-TSEME! YAMATE! SORE WA ARIENAI—

>>23338593
then uh... rent free

>>23338627
You wanna know what this story is about?
It's about a man rediscovering his drive. He used to be like one of those enthusiastic protagonist types but he lost his left hand to a fighter who was far out of his league. So now he goes around crushing the dreams of younger, rising-star fighters before they end up like him.
But actually having to teach and effectively raise one of these types, one with a flat-out traumatic past, helps to reignite the flames.
Pretty basic shit

>>23338593

Was that before or after you became a tranny?

>>23338633
Yes, I miss her a lot, but if you read the passage, you'd see the kind of girl she was.

Exquisite pussy however (I can't control myself around these women)

>>23338648
Yes we know you've been talking about this for months, stop daydreaming here and go write it

This guy writes better than you.

In the dim and twirling gloaming, mine eyes espied the lacustrine mirror, whither mine own blood did mingle with the sweat of endeavours most frantic, my mind unmoored from its cranial anchorage. Aye, the same rouge that tincts mine attire, caked now into the overgrown thatch of mine hair as I fervently quest after the Wound—oh certes, monsieur, it lurks assuredly there, 'twas fated to be, I mutter aloud, mayhap only to assay whether mine own voice hath metamorphosed to a mere croak. Behold! I am become as a clod of grass, browning and yellowing, drawn into a spectral vision this instant, within this tumbling “psycho-kistiscope”—this phantasmagorical stroboscopic disc with images manifold, engendering the illusion of motion, twirling first into madness, then easing into lucidity as mine vision doth petrify into this scene where I perceive myself discharging into the sponged and bloated fenlands by the oscillating waters.

There, a faceless automaton, its guise grim as Acheron’s ferryman, thrusts a rapier of red copper into my dorsal flesh, drawing it out only to plunge again with measured, visceral ferocity, repeating its gutting choreography as I endeavour to right myself in vain, over and again, as a motif looped upon a twirling parasol or disc, until the grand, lethal vision doth trivialize and decay—like a cheap layer of trompe-l'œil upon a canvas, dripping away to unveil aught else—a dissolving eruption into the ensuing tableau: a man lies rigid against the skeleton of an abandoned fire-kiln, draped in weeping willows, with distant, grotesque shapes skirting the marsh. There, vagrant souls and their progeny, men and women alike, scrape against reeds and rushes, inhaling the churning, ink-spotted clouds of fungal Stachybotrys. Decayed yew-wood crackles into splinters, and sticky, mind-altering ergotamines ooze down like night-black honey into the quagmire, amid myriad decayed microcosms that persist as husked shells of yester eve.

1/3

>>23338859

These elaborate and vivid imaginings stir within my mind—brewing and grinding me awake as I wheeze and crackle, recalling the manikin and its blade, its swift retreat, and the pervasive blood-sweat now covering me, my body so benumbed I canst not discern the wound, and my sweat so corrupted it leeches the colour from my blood. As I persist in this mortal coil, these elements shall amalgamate with other death-fluids to forge a clay-like amalgam, mummifying me unto this arboreal sentinel as I gaze towards the horizon's fuzz, where the waves lap in glittering uncertainty, so immaculate and unsettled, indeterminate as the sun doth close its nightly wink—adieu...

Clouds, frayed and stratified in endless layers, little windows of peculiar luminance creaking ajar. I recollect the ritual of my youth—pursuing the winding, blotched fleur-de-tan, where the path was not overgrown with garden loops and sand traps, deep down where men and their dames of ill repute convene during the most vile, curdling hours of the night—a locale that never reveals itself by common paths or arboreal ascent, for it effaces all trace of itself as Sol ascends upon the swirled majesty of Lake St Claire, its periphery alive with fungal effervescence and frothy flora, belching plant life and foaming with desperate, exotic vegetation receding into the crevices of wood and light's bends...

Mine stomach churns as I climax with the rueful potion I administered but moments prior—the instant I dismounted from my steed and declared myself, arriving with a mantle of dust upon my cape and boots. With a dropper clandestinely in hand, I suckled air through one conduit whilst a sufficient measure of the liquid chemical solution collected in a metered chamber, thence connected by a metal conduit to the ultimate component of this apparatus: my very mouth—emitting a resonant, rolling sound of Eastern timbre once the dosage exhausted itself: a melody of whirling metal tubes and the clattering of bricks through curved, tunnel-like acoustics once depleted of its alcoholic enigma.

2/3

>>23338860

This deplorable, decrepit chasm of a drug, this malicious play of time and will... it is—a fully-realized dream overpowering my vision: I trod the sloshing path come morn, away from the Marsh, stumbling as the copper automaton, cruelly efficient with its faceless gaze, vanishes into the urbanscape. A youth ambles in opposing direction, gasping, summoning the courage to speak, catching my glance and pointing right where the dreadful, smoking effigy had impaled me. "Oh, sir, I must hasten on, but... that... ’tis..." pointing at my waist and chest, darting his eyes as if the sight is too macabre, glancing from my waist to my eyes and back, ere he ducks into the shadows of sword-grass and Aethyrium, vanishing ere I tumble into a Second State, startled, as my limbs project endlessly, crawling fiendishly along my corpus in what felt like a cycling array of interlocked woodcut illustrations of myself, rotated through a shattered kaleidoscope—out of body, ensnared within the fussing nucleus of a monstrous, timeless apparatus, compelled to spectate my own demise like a bird too low tethered to a cloud—watching this fractured man in search of a wound that exists not, whilst still these tar-drops of claying blood-sweat fall to the ground, leaving the freshest trail until at last a quizzical, dusken light breaks through, and I discern the true hue—it is not blood—there was never a wound—but ink, dropping from my pen.

3/3

>>23338859
very very purple.

>>23338573
>pages 19
Yeah, you should maybe have something to actually look at, if you want views.

>>23338876
19 pages is something look at, it might take like 40 minutes to read it

>>23338859

This is genius

>>23338576
please fuck off

>>23338902
RR counts 275 words per page. 19 pages is a bit over 5k words. Anyone without disabilities reads that in under 10 minutes. Nobody's going to bother for a chapter or two. You have fucking nothing.

Does "two-toned monochrome" make sense in describing this goose's neck? I'm looking for a more creative way than to just say white neck, black throat.

>>23338945
>Anyone without disabilities reads that in under 10 minutes.
The average reading speed is 238 words, so 5 000 words would take 21 minutes.

Light novel chapters are often less than 1 000 words.

Regardless, I want to believe that if I keep going, it will garner more interest, but there is no evidence of it.

Additionally you could argue more pages makes the reader less interested because idea of reading more pages would exhaust them.

>>23338956
try a metaphor. dipped in ink. something about shadow.

>>23338961
>Regardless, I want to believe that if I keep going, it will garner more interest, but there is no evidence of it.
you have 2 measly chapters. you have absolutely no basis to say this.
if you keep posting on a regular schedule you will get regular readers

>>23338961
nta, but you need to release with more chapters or people will assume there's a good chance it will be abandoned. or so i've heard

>>23338961
>more pages makes the reader less interested because idea of reading more pages would exhaust them
You've officially seized the top spot as the most retarded person I've ever seen in these threads, holy shit

Today is the same as yesterday, and yesterday will be the same as tomorrow.
- Click -
The computer screen illuminated and flickered with a soft blue hue. Words changed and pictures appeared. Various graphics cluttered the screen, ranging from pictures of cats in compromising positions, to headlines detailing three people who died in a car accident on the local highway. It happened at 3:48 p.m. There was some information about the weather. It will be 79 degrees tomorrow. Despite the silence, the room sparked signs of life. Unseen crickets chirped as a light flickered against a ghastly face colored by a blue glare coming from the electric box. Ice melted inside a clear glass cup; the condensation of droplets ran down the side.
- Click -
The screen flickered and moved. A new display of different words and pictures. Feds stoke Fears of Inflation, Congress Passes Law Against Guns, Naomi and Chris Calls it Quits!, Man Marries Robot; a New Trend? How to Properly Give and Receive a Kiss, New Fish Discovered in India, Ten Tips to Get the Girl of Your Dreams!, Mudslide in Mexico Reveals New Ruins, Fan Causes Disaster at the Tour De France, Heat Wave Renews Fear of Climate Change, Pizza Place That Will Blow Your Mind, and Drug Cartels Believe to Have Kidnapped Fifty. The hand and finger coordinated together to move a small pointer toward the topic “Ten Tips to Get the Girl of Your Dreams!”.
- Click -

>>23339045
A large picture of a pretty girl with a big toothy smile from ear to ear displayed on the screen. She had dark brown hair, green eyes, and wore a purple sweater and sat on a white sofa, with her legs crossed. She looked straight at the person on the other side of the computer screen. A perfect shot. The finger manipulated the computer device and rolled a button to lower the page away from the girl. There the large text displayed what was advertised only a few seconds ago. “Ten Tips to Get the Girl of Your Dreams!”, written by Susan Coleans, and updated this morning at 9:03 A.M.
A deep breath exhaled from the lips of the person looking at the bright white screen. The cold pizza tasted fine. Caleb’s eyes strained from the glowing lights coming from the metallic box. Although he tried his best to forget, the inevitability of baldness and eventual defeat lingered in his thoughts. His scalp had as much hair as the unshaven shards of hair on his chin and under his nose. Although his lips were chapped and dry, only made worse from constant licks of his tongue, he powered through the hours of repetitive motions that dominated his day. The screen was more important. He read the first tip of ten. “Tip 1: Repeat After Me! BE CONFIDENT!”
There’s nothing sexier than a man who is confident! His suave movements, his determined stare, and woo-la-la, his gruff and strong demands. No girl can resist any man that is able to take charge, know what he wants, and be unafraid of failure!
Caleb read more of the article and onto the next tip. “Tip 2: Passion! Passion! Passion!”
The “P” word. Nope, the “P” that you’re looking for isn’t a body part, but rather a feeling! Passion is the name of the game, and the best players are filled to the brim with it! Us ladies love nothing more than a man that has passion in his life. Passion can be found in his work, hobbies, and friends! That translates well in love and finding one of the fairer sex. Passion is the nectar that brings in all the female bees to the flower, so be sure to have passion to bring all the ladies to you. And you may get some honey along the way.
Caleb moved past the next tip. “Tip 3: Love Life!”, “Tip 4: Connections make Connections!”, “Tip 5: Clean and Rea... Tip 6: Get… Tip 7: Swea…. Tip:… T...”... “Tip 10: Be Yourself!”
“Most importantly, and the most important tip of all. Just remember to be yourself!”
“What a bunch of garbage,” Caleb muttered, “I read the same tips at work three days ago.”

>>23339048
The light switch in his room was a distance away. Much too far for him to exert any energy, but the strain on his eyes and pitch black room won out and forced Caleb’s body to pop loud cracks from his joints. The room brightened up immediately. Colors from all shades materialized. The once black walls in the room turned a pastel green. It matched well with the white desk and white frame of his chair. A gray laminate hardwood adorned the floor, equipped with a decorated red and brown rug, laid below the white desk. Two large windows decorated with white blinds and trim covered one side of the room. A giclee print of a sunflower hung on the third side of the room. The white door to the room was open and connected to a hallway toward a restroom, the living room, and Caleb’s bedroom. Other computer equipment ranging from an eighteen inch monitor, a mouse pad, speakers, and a figurine with Caleb’s favorite cartoon character from his childhood, the XRM-5350 adorned his desk.
Three cups of orange juice with dark green spots and three unfinished plastic bottles gathered together on the side of his desk. Caleb’s home office was not particularly interesting, but functional. His can of soda left a ring of water as his parched throat took pleasure from the light lemon carbonation popping on his tongue. The pointer on his computer screen moved and with another click, “Ten Tips to get the Girl of your Dreams!” disappeared from his sight. The website he originally browsed reappeared. Caleb shrugged his shoulders and stretched his neck left and right.

Somehow I wrote 50 pages this month. Don't know how I managed that but I'm at least halfway through my project now.

>>23338313
this entire thread sounds like alex yiik

>>23338961
It’s RR not /lit/. People actually read there.

Where do I go for people for my feedback? I mean, can I just give it to my friends? Sounds like they'll be bias as hell

>>23339113
I just find that hard to believe.

>>23339136
Never give your stuff to your friend or family, their input is less than worthless, unless they are known readers. Most likely they don't have interest in your stuff either way.

>>23338500
I'm writing one now, in other language.

>a world with magic
>wizards are aristocrat
>protagonist is a girl whose parents are the most powerful ones
>she has no magic power
>have to participate classes, but no magic ever comes out from her
>everyday in school is torture for her, she's like a cripple in PE class
>parents knew the situation, but they are too prideful to admit their kid is a "squib", so they force the school to accept her, asking everyone to play along

>magic in this world is linked to moral
>doing anything immoral will lower your powerlevel, and you'll lose all magic power forever if you killed someone
>so most of her classmates never outright bully her, afraid of losing their power

The story starts as psychological misery porn, with detailed daily life of this little girl, about how she can't even trust anyone being nice to her.
Later, she ran into a underground communist assassin, who has the ability to kill wizard and redistribute their magic power to "muggles" and turn them into wizards.

>(he can produce around 20 wizards for one killed wizard on average)
>she then joined him and gain magic power, be trained under him and started their Robin Hood adventure with tons of trolley problem

Some plot twists:
>wizard parents can only have wizard kids
>she having no magic power is due to her mom was a "muggle" who bought her power from that assassin

>>23338530
taking school seriously would have let you escape your mommy's basement, and then you wouldn't be a jobless kissless incel NEET shutin

>>23338560
J.K. Rowling wrote a very popular series involving a magical school, and it made her a BILLIONAIRE. Its awfulness exists only in your jealous little head.

>>23339416
seems we have yet another delusional "success=quality" brainlet here. Next thing Im sure to hear is mr beast is the best youtuber of all time... except Im sure youd really say that

My friends told me that ChatGPT is a better writer than I will ever be so now I’m going to kill myself should I have ChatGPT write my suicide letter?

>>23339564
FACT: McDonald’s wouldn’t be so successful if it wasn’t producing the highest quality of food. Why would people willingly consume trash in such high amounts?

>>23339580
Not sure if serious but McDonalds is nowhere near as bad for you as it used to be. Also you deserve to be punished for your food analogy.

>>23339580
mcdonalds is "good" the same way doing drugs is good. someone came along and convinced you to consume it and you became a junkie. So not that different from reading trash like hary potter/game thrones

>>23339169
Interesting until you get to:

>Later, she ran into a underground communist assassin, who has the ability to kill wizard and redistribute their magic power to "muggles" and turn them into wizards.

Which is awful. The premise is strong, but almost any other way for your protagonist to get magic would be better than this.

>>23338567
Can someone give me some feedback on this please?

>>23339660
Stopped reading at “makeshift set of blankets.” What were they makeshifted into? The set? A set is a set. Unless it’s a set is mismatched blankets? Or maybe a makeshift bed that’s actually just a pile of blankets. You used “makeshift” without giving any thought to what the word meant, and how it should be used.

>>23338567
it’s not bad, anon, but it didn’t click with me personally, probably just because nothing really happened during it. the quality of the writing is good. a little verbose for my taste, but we’ll written. there are a couple proofreading things like a missing word in one sentence, but overall I would say keep at it. you’re doing good.

>>23338961
You are such a whiny bitch. how many times are you going to post those stats and be told the same thing?

Although other anons are right that more content IS needed for RR readers to be interested, I can tell you that your story will never be actually popular, no matter how many chapters you release. Your stats are horrible even for only two chapters released. Also by that picture of genre tags you posted, your story isn't on trend for RR, so you don't even have that to rely on.

Kindly stop spamming the same whiny questions over and over, thanks

>>23339169
>>23339642
I agree with this anon. The rando communist assassin is weak. Keep it simple. You have a magic universe, and she's filled with resentment, so lean into that. She makes a pact with a demon. Something small and potentially cute, like an imp - which is of course a big no no - and this pact requires her to do less than savory things, mostly of a sacrificial nature. Keep it nice and easy up front. She has to steal other children's belongings and offer them. She has to "steal" people's sleep by not letting them rest. She has to "steal" people's health by giving them small doses of poison or befouling their food. And suddenly from doing these things she gets a small amount of magic, and she's thrilled, her parents are thrilled, and it escalates. Obviously the demon wants more than just to corrupt her, it wants magic doodads and eventually wizard blood so it's power grows. But start small.

>>23338567
>i am the void but with a breedable waist
gouging my fucking eyes out. no one talks this, not even pick me 'psyop' femcels

>>23338567
Great stuff but needs a little editing.

You have small redundant bits, e.g.:
>the small metal crucifix that hung on her wall
could be
>the small metal crucifix on her wall
>onto all of her belongings, that is, the little she did have
>onto the few belongings she had
>the growing crowd of viewers which had been slowly amassing
>the slowly amassing crowd of viewers

You have a garden path sentence here:
>Behind her, hung with tape and tears, ripped photographs of celebrities from glamor magazines posed nude in the grimelight.
"ripped" read like a verb and then once I got to "posed" I had to backtrack to realize that it was an adjective.

>The window was left open not out of necessity, given the heat of the day, but because it did not fully close.
I'm left confused about whether the day really is hot.

>so she could taste the acridness of the used up tar like it was some other discarded girl just like her, skin equally abandoned
>"My love is like a void - it's a pool of acrid tar and nothingness, but it's beautiful in its nothingness."
This almost works. The repetition of "acrid" is jarring but then the phrasing isn't similar enough to get a good effect. If you used the exact words "acrid tar" in the first sentence then I think it'd become pretty strong, it'd feel like she's repeating her own thoughts.

>the curtains saw better days
should be
>the curtains had seen better days

Stuff like that. You've got some good sentences and imagery so I think it's just a matter of careful rereading to catch these.
Also please don't take such wide screenshots, they're hard to handle

>>23339711
You seem like an incredibly insufferable person. Opinion discarded.

>>23339712
Thanks. It's difficult to share scenes "where something happens" without first feeling the need to show the context, so I'd rather show the introduction to chapters or characters and get feedback on those because ultimately those are the things that get people hooked anyways.

>>23340035
Thanks for the detailed response! Some great advice, I'll be sure to add it in.

>>23339169
It's a good opening. Witch and wizard against the world, for the benefit of all. There are many possibilities for arcs (What happens if the new wizards (...)?) (Will he turn into a capitalist like America wants him to?) (What kind of magic...).

>>23339806
Might just continue to spite you

>>23339642
Awful in what way?
Protagonist lost her magic after her first killing mission anyway, and became mental toward using magic afterwards.

Magic is just fluff. The story is mostly about exploring the social dynamic between the magic users and normal people.

>some wizards find it more free to be able to act spitefully, so they voluntarily do some evil deeds and get rid of their power
>wizards having literal moral high ground makes them not trusting normal people as much
>some of them are subconsciously racist, but at the same time they can't act it out and had hard times dealing with normal people's maliciousness
>wizards also act as priests in this world
>some normal people can't stand the existence of objectively-morally-superior group of people who naturally have more power
>certain wizard not losing his power after committing atrocious deeds makes people start doubting the morality mechanic of the world


>>23339967
>The rando communist assassin
It's just an exaggeration. He's a deep character with his own story arc. But he did get his unique power(redistribution) by making a pact with demon.

I don't know how to express all the story details precisely, because I'm ESL.
What I want to say is that I'm heavily inspired by Dostoevsky, so the story is mostly focusing on philosophical debate, inner monologue and religion.
(The assassin is a Raskolnikov-like character.)

>read/watch/see something
>think about how I could fit a scene like that into my story
How dumb is this?

>>23340243
You would have continued to be annoying even if I didn't say anything, so it was a no win situation. At least this way I get to call you a whiny bitch.

>>23339416
She violates many commonly accepted rules of what constitutes good writing. She gets away with it because her books are marketed to children who are not a discerning demographic and don't know any better.

>>23340275
>The assassin is a Raskolnikov-like character
I don't see how. Raskolnikov's arc was him discovering he was not, in fact, the super badass, I can kill all the old ladies I want without remorse, ubermench.
And his power seems multiplicative, so well beyond redistribution.

>tfw spending more time searching the thesaurus than writing new sentences

What d'you think of this.

>Emmeth corrected his first thought. He wasn't holding a ceremonial blade, beautiful and useless, but a real weapon. An old warrioress, dressed in silver to conceal her steel, who had spilled blood, sometimes in the greatest of secrecy, the one given to assassins and politicians, who each day change the history of nations at the cost of their soul.

Too much ? It's a cool sword, but I haven't quite figured out what to do with it yet.

>>23340440
That last sentence feels kinda long, lots of commas that could probably be places you could break it up.

>>23340452
I might remove the last part, feels like it's implied enough without spilling it out.

>>23340042
>Opinion discarded.

The anon is right though. You should listen and also simplify your purple prose and think twice about saying cringey things like "grimelight."

>>23338567
What font is this?

>>23340429
Most of the time when I stuck for a word the solution is not to turn to the thesaurus but to look at what I'm trying to describe from a different angle. Actually I don't think I've ever found the thesaurus to be helpful. The word it suggests it never quite the right one; the right one normally appears to you suddenly and unsearched for.

Test

>>23340693
My problem is I am a very boring person who thinks like "Character did X. Then he did Y. Then he walked over to Z."

So I use the thesaurus to find a spicy looking word and use that as a branching off point to go back and liven up my sentences.

>>23340736
Hmm, well I would say: read fiction and poetry to increase your vocabulary, and the right words will start coming to you naturally. Otherwise your prose will that artificial thesaurus feel: 'Character accomplished X. Then he performed Y. The he ambled over to Z.'

>>23340509
Purple prose is not anything more verbose than Hemingway. I'll ignore your advice and listen to the one who actually gave me clear cut, constructive feedback (while also saying that the work is great) over someone who just says "yeah it's purple" and doesn't give anything more substantial than that

>>23340549
EB Garamond

I think my novel is finally at a good place, as this is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

>>23340849
Where did you get a beta reader?

>>23338313
Someone posted this on lit on one of these threads I think and I didn't read it at the time but I eventually got around to it and just wanted to tell that person I liked it, if they're here.

>>23340354
So did Shakespeare. He made up most of the words in his plays, but they caught on.

How do I write deep and complex characters?

>>23338724
But I did

>>23340945
By having empathy for others

>>23340945
make them ambivalent about various things and also somewhat hypocritical

>>23340893
She's no Shakespeare, that's for sure, as much as she may condition herself to believe she is.

>>23340945
Think about things that you feel strongly about. Then imagine a character who feels the same way about something different. If a character hates libertarianism or religion or whatever, think about something you hate and why. If a character loves his hometown, think about something you love. Adapt your feelings but change the endpoints.

What do i write about? I have the creative impulse but no fixation through which it could be expressed.
I've also never written before so i have no idea where would i even begin assuming i had a topic already.

I hate just doing nothing day after day.

I don't read anymore. My language is dry and clinical. There isn't a single rrason why snyone would want to resd what i write

>>23340849
Do you want me to punch it up before you sell it? I'm free this week

>>23341135
punch my balls up

>>23340736
if the story is compelling then "spicy words" dont fucking matter

>>23339588
awww, is someone's pretentious litfic getting completely ignored? poor baby

is using a semicolon to connect two independent clauses with a conjunction instead of a comma considered “old fashioned” or an archaism nowadays?

>>23341242
if you like the way it sounds, do it

>>23341103
Most people who write do so because they have something to say. If you don't, why do you want to write?
>I hate just doing nothing day after day.
I'm sure your mom would appreciate if you moved out of her basement and got a job. What's stopping you?

>>23338573
getting better, for some reason 2nd chapter is getting views faster than 1st despite being uploaded a week later

an anon told me that when you finish a novel you should start another one so the dread doesn't have time to settle in. I guess he's right. instead of pursuing a formal education and a carrer, I'm deluding myself into thinking writing can get me anywhere. I've sent the novel to a competition, so tomorrow I'll start planing the next one - so on and so forth until I die

>>23341284
NTA but I do it to create something new. Self-expression will happen naturally through writing.

>>23341409
Doesn't sound like self-expression is happening that way. You need to write something you feel deeply, or else you'll bore the reader. Readers can sniff out a pseud.

>>23339169
>a world with magic
>wizards are aristocrat
>protagonist is a girl whose parents are the most powerful ones
>she has no magic power
>have to participate classes, but no magic ever comes out from her
>everyday in school is torture for her, she's like a cripple in PE class
>parents knew the situation, but they are too prideful to admit their kid is a "squib", so they force the school to accept her, asking everyone to play along
this is fine but everything else is really retarded, also your english is not even close to being good enough to write a story so if you practice through creative writing you should use some kind of grammar tool

>>23340851
Curious about this too. And how do you make sure one doesn't plagiarize your work? Do you hire them through reputable companies or something?

>>23339169
That's interesting and a genuinely relatable struggle.
Not knowing if people are being nice genuinely or just trying to appease you

>>23341493
I think youre mincing my words. I think I absolutely have things to say, but if I wanted to just say something, I'd write an editorial.
From Bradbury's example, people don't want to read a book explictly advertising a lesson, such as "save the rainforest." They want a story. And Bradbury's feelings came along with Fahrenheit 451 but it was still a vivid dystopian concept regardless of that. To start with the moral in your head can rob of you of both creativity and discovery of where you might be wrong.
Also John Gardner's Art of Fiction disagrees with your idea too. Very early on, in fact. There is nothing "pseud" about putting the art before your own self. It stands to reason that any decent author who trusts himself will express what he needs to.

>>23338313
i watched wozeck the other night and started to play with my flex nib, if you know what i mean

Any good books for how to write fantasy fiction? I'm particularly interested in sword and sorcery short stories

How do i start having cool ideas like>>23339169
I used to be creative as a kid but then depression filtered me.
It's been years since i've rhought up of something cool.

>>23341827
"Pulp on Pulp" by Kit Sun Cheah

>>23341284
I work. It's just a boring slop-job that leaves me dissatisfied with life.

I dont know what i why, but i do want to write.
I have nothing to say, though. Other than maybe that everything sucks and i'm peroetually bored.

>>23341874
Thanks anon

>>23338313
What would be some good fantasy names for mutations that allow the wielder to use fantastical abilities?

Colloquially the term in my setting is "mutations" but I wanted a more technical term. I liked Bloodline Limit from Naruto a little, but I also think it's not quite the right term, as I am not a fan of the "limit" part.

>>23341827
You can look up Jed Herne on youtube. He gives advice on fantasy writing.

>>23341982
>take writing advice for fantasyslop from a jewtuber
The absolute state of this board

>>23340849
Nothing about that absolutely vague, impersonal, and uninformative comment suggests they even read the work. I hope you didn't pay money for this

>>23342032
Hopefully this is just a side note at the end after a more detailed analysis

>>23342024
He has at least 3 published books. How many do you have anon?

>Send some of my stuff to agents yesterday
Kind of wish I was dead desu

>>23342043
Are they good books? (Are they popular books?) Is it good advice? What did you learn from him? Sell me on this guy. I read half a chapter of The Thunder Heist just now and it feels a bit sloppy, many phrases and details that don't really come together properly.
I do want to check out Brandon Sanderson because even people who don't like his books seem to like his advice

What am I actually paying an editor for?

Can anyone write? I've got the entirety of today free. 12+ hours of nothing. Should i try it? If so, what do i even write about?

Maybe i should just read first, but that's for a different thread ig.

>>23342043
are you a reader of his books that seeks his advice because you love his writing so much and want to emulate it, or are you a consumer of his advice that only knows about his books because they're linked in the youtube description? because only the former makes sense but with most of these youtube "teachers" it's typically the latter.

>>23340790
>doesn't give anything more substantial than that
the other guy told you with extreme specificity why a phrase in your first sentence was ugly nonsense and you also ignored him because he wasn't being nice enough about it. people like you are just hopeless.

https://www.scribd.com/document/551280851/Unfiltered

Trimmed some fat from this, but now it's a few minutes too short. Thoughts?

>>23342255
ideally your editor is better than you at nearly everything, and they carrying your draft to greatness

>>23342255
To cut your manuscript in half and tell you there's now not enough material for it to be published. That'll be $2000 + tax and tip.

Do you think it would be a good idea for my first book to be a romance story about a trans crippled woman? Would that get published? It seems the top sellers are all yaslop romance

>>23343296
>a trans crippled woman
crippled meaning more than just his junk was all sliced up up? so he's both in a wheelchair and his also cock got hacked up and turned into a never healing wound? does the story involve multiple followup surgeries and an anal fistula, and the person he falls in love with is the doctor who butchered him?
I think that's a great idea, anon, and in no way repulsive.

>>23343315
Yeah anon chapter 3 is going to be a detailed description of her surgery to remove her cock

I know nobody here reads past the first sentence or two but I'm posting this anyway because it might be the single coolest fight scene I've ever written

>>23343323
>her cock
now, I know you're just playing with language, but this is a bit too avant garde for my tastes

>>23338313
I'm struggling very hard with pacing. Everything I write feels slow when I'm writing it, but then I reread and the words and sentences feel like they're moving way too fast. Anyone have any resources specifically for pacing and tempo/rhythm?

>>23343602
>Everything I write feels slow when I'm writing it
writing coherent scenes and dialogue does take time
>but then I reread and the words and sentences feel like they're moving way too fast
why do you think this is a bad thing? do you want your reader to be gripped by the story or do you want them to ponderously slog

>>23343498
>this is a bit too avant garde for my tastes
avant garde these nuts on your face

>>23338956
>Does "two-toned monochrome" make sense in describing this goose's neck?
no

>>23342269
If you don't have something to write, then don't.
I don't mean that to offend, but I just think all art should come from a place of wanting to say something anything; even pulp shouldn't be devoid of meaning.
I'm not saying you need some high concept literature, but there should be something that is you in your work.
I started with fantasy, and everything has had some sort of fantastical element, but all of it is about something.
Give it a try, and maybe you don't realize that you have something to say without first starting.
I didn't have the central theme of my story at the start, but as I wrote I realized that the theme kept showing up naturally.

Hi Lit, I've been thinking of writing a proper book instead of fanfiction. I already started on Obisdian, and this is the general Idea I've written down.
> Male and Female protagonist
> Isekai-esqe scenario
> Bloodborne inspiration, eldritch fuckery
> Continent is called "Ervus", while the starting country is called Albion, with a fusion of Gaelic and English cultures.
> I was thinking of the setting, on a global scale, be around the second age of imperialism. Think scramble of Africa or the carving of China.

My big hurdle is that I'm unsure if I should go all in on the isekai tropes, but subvert them. Like, the world was your typical isekai world where some loser guy dies, respawns, get a harem and kills the demon lord etc. The point of divergence I have planned is the "Astral Descent", where the Cosmos start being an active participant, with cultists and Star Gods influencing the land. What do you think?

How do you write someone who's madly in love with someone else but not in a way where it's creepy or exploitive.
Like, he GENUINELY loves and respects her

>>23344714
Well, it's sort of an oxymoron to have someone "madly" in love with someone and have that NOT be "creepy."

>>23341242
yes
>>23341255
How does a semicolon sound?

>>23338313
My chapter is essentially 7-minute long conversation. Should I try make them shorter?
Most scenes in fiction are only adapted into 3 minute scenes.

>>23341242
No, I do it all the time. Isn't it what you're supposed to do?

>>23344769
Oh you get what I mean. He genuinely loves and cares about her, and she actually starts returning his affections later on

How do I write literary fiction? Most of the posts in these threads seem to be in the Young Adult section both in writing talent and genre.

>>23344834
You can't write literary fiction yet you degrade everyone as being YA? Post writing faggot

I'm interested in writing Airport page turners, no ambitions for literary greatness. This however, does not excuse poor plotting and storytelling. I have a story idea, but I can't answer the why on the part of The antagonists. My protagonists are being targeted by a gang, I've yet to find out why, and I don't know why my Protagonists can't just turn to the police.

>>23341378
Against my better judgement I looked up that chapter name. I found nothing.

>chapter about going to a ballet
>it's important to the story
>never been to a ballet IRL
>watched some on youtube but it's not the same as being there
Literally how do you write about things you know nothing about?

>>23344783
>How does a semicolon sound?
I was referring more to the conjunction and how it sounds in the sentence, but a semi colon sounds like a longer pause than a comma. I have an arguably bad habit of starting sentences here and there with a conjunction, which is similar, and where arguably a semi colon could be used, but in roughly 50k words of writing I'll use less than 10 semi colons total

>>23344891
i can't imagine the actual mechanics of the specific ballet are important to the plot of your book.
>The music swelled and the dancers pranced gayly.
Done.

>>23344851
Because the police are useless and corrupt and couldn't find their ass with both hands? Just how much experience with real life do you have?

>>23344851
because the gang is some pakis and they're trafficking white children and prosecuting them would be racist and the politicians are complicit or compromised
oh, wait, or are you writing fiction?

>>23344798
I learned to do the same thing with a comma in grade school, but in older works I more often see a semicolon used in the same pattern.

>>23344921
It's less the action on stage itself and more the experience of entering the hall, seeing the other guests, taking your seat, and what that experience is like. My MC is going for the first time and should be excited but I don't really have anything I can compare to that I've done.

>>23344936
Yeah,but the cops being incompetent imbeciles is standard fare. I just can't buy them being that useless. But I also overthink that element. It's intrigues me how The police become effective or relevant, only when the plot deems it necessary. Take "The Terminator", a whole police precinct gets wiped out, the consequences of that doesn't really come up. I do understand that it's not relevant to the story, beyond showing just how dangerous of a threat The Terminator is. But I'm writing popcorn, so should really care and stick to the standard, "The Calvary arrives, when the action is over" ?

>>23344874
For whatever reason Royal Road's search only searches for book's title and author's name, not for the content or chapter names.

>>23344963
You could always have one or two cops who are exceptions somehow, and then get them killed off, maybe by other cops who are in bed with the gang and get kickbacks or whatever
Or you could have the protagonists be criminals of some kind themselves, like illegal immigrants
Or just say they're black
t. different anon

How does a complete beginner start writing? Should I practice by writing flash stuff? Or just dive right into something longer

>>23345173
I'm probably abnormal, but I started on a long webnovel and write some short stories on the side.
Try both a little and then decide which you like better.
I find short stories a little hard sometimes because I think of concepts that work better as longer stories.
I really struggled to fit one story into under 4000 words, yet another was comfortably just 3100.

>>23345173
Pretty much every author I've heard says not to start with a novel (~400 pages) because you won't have the skill right out of the gate. Write short stories, get feedback and find out what areas you need to improve it and what ones you're good at grow out from there.

>>23338313
>Added those guides and reformatted /wg/ many months ago by adding a thread theme, and writing tips
>OPs to this day are still using the same format
Nice. I haven't stopped by in a while, is that schizo still shilling his book?

>>23345263
>Is that schizo still shilling his book?
F? Haven't seen him in a little while.
Not even gonna use his full name, since it might call him here.

>>23345263
>>23345274
ThatAnimeSnob?

>>23338313
So fucking sick of rereading and reediting my short story for the umpteenth fucking time
im sending it out exactly as it is FUCK IT

>>23345333
sent it in, if this doesn't get published then ill rope myself, fuck all this gay ass fucking writing shit

>>23344891
So get a ticket and go to fucking ballet? Retard

>>23345333
Shelve it for a month, then re-read it.

Would you click on a novel with this as cover art?

>>23345484
no. looks like a dork has made himself up an embarrassing magical girlfriend that's special in 200 different ways

>>23345521
great feedback, thanks

>>23345484
No but I'm probably not your target audience

>>23344874
Well, here is a snipped of the 2nd chapter.
I won't post external links, because it would just get abused.

I'm not saying it's good, but I have certainly seen worse stuff on Royal Road.

>childhood crush of boy is embarrassed by and spurns him publicly
>His teacher consoles and begins to groom him
What are some things she might say to both comfort him and turn him against his old friend?

I was thinking the boy would attempt to justify his love interest's actions at first and she would disagree:

"She didn't really mean it...she was just angry I called her "the light of my heart" in front of her friends"

"You're a sweet boy. But she meant every word. She wanted to hurt you so you'd leave her alone."

I'm not sure how she would console him after that though given that what she said would likely make him feel even worse.

>>23344961
Go see a play or something similar at a local theater. The experience will be very similar, I'd imagine.

>>23345484
Probably not, but I'm not much into urban fantasy. I will say that it looks well done and is professional looking, so there's that.

trying to write visions into a story, the main character is supposed to be a prophetic eunuch chosen from birth by the town so he can interpret the sky and tell the locals when the army of earth will return and idk there are different interpretations of what happens next.
It's about a ladyboy eunuch sacrifice humilation cult dedicated to the virgin mary, the main character is the sky guardian.
They drink a halucinogen juice that is packed with female hormonesy so only castrated prepubescent boys can drink it in sufficient quantity, everyone else just siezes and dies. the main character is in a female-looking body and thats my way of explroing the idea of being an effeminate man and i think i'm doing good with that part (mostly cause im just projecting my own loser emotions but fuck it man, i need to write this) but the prophetic religion stuff isn't so easy for me. I'm a devout believing hardliner catholic (i even talked to jesus once, one on one) and thats the framework i am starting from.
In the story he is supposed to regularly be getting high off weird alien juices, and idk how "detailed" his visions should be? Like dune, he literally sees the future, or more iconographic, like he sees symbols that determine omens, like the virgin mary crying blood, or blue banners in the sky, metal birds, a new star in the sky.
Part of it is also alien birds who speak in the name od God, in his town the bird speaks in the name of the Virgin Mary, or the bird is the virgin mary, hiding behind a screen because they hate being seen by man.
The town the main character is from is a very bsckwards society even relative to the whole planet, which is some 600 years isolated from earth and is pretty low-tech and superstitous, and a big theme is that conflict, between the old and the new, the globalising current of progress and the fortress of tradition and meaning.
Generally the themes i'm seeing in my writings are masculinity, what it means to be a man, the journey, despite the disfiguring, shame and sadistic ritual, to become a man, foreigners, faith, lack of agency and the chance to have agency at a great cost.

Don't care if its a faggy ass story its close to my heart.

>>23344891
>>23344961
i swear to god you people just invent fake problems for yourself. if you don't have anything to write regarding seeing a ballet then don't write a scene about seeing a ballet, write something else. the car broke down and they ate burgers waiting for the tow truck and missed the ballet. is somebody holding a gun to your head making you write ballet scenes?

>>23345806
>appealed
>shouted
>belittled
>uttered
>mocked
>lamented
jesus. what's wrong with said? just say said.

Help me out, /lit/bros. I've sent the manuscript to a competition. The result is due to the end of the year. Can I send it to publishers already or that'll fuck me up?

>>23346591
don't worry, send it out to publishers. getting a book published is not exactly a speedy process

>>23346645
Thanks, anon.

>>23345484
What the fuck is up with that mouth

>>23345484
No, the feeling I get from this is that it's a cool and somewhat sexy picture, but without actual substance put behind it. I don't know if I'm making myself clear. It's like when you see a cool drawing online, but you know that the artist just wanted to draw a cool character and they're never going to elaborate on that again.

Now if you're writing a novel I suppose there's an explanation for the crow, the knotted arm (side note : I don't know if that arm is knotted, rotten, cursed, with dark gemstones embedded in it, or all of the above), and the gaping bellymouth, but it's not immediatly clear with the picture.

Maybe if there was some vague-but-not-too-much title around the legs, like "DIARIES OF AN HUNTRESS" or something on the bottom part that might help

By the way that girl is like six inches above the ground, is this a real couch?

>>23345405
Obviously, but they don't have any near me and it's too expensive anyway.

>>23346247
>is somebody holding a gun to your head making you write ballet scenes?
Lol why would you think that call fir help he diesn(tyt know i can tyope without lookungh

>>23345484
No, and not because of the sexy stomach mouth, but her face isn't cute.

>>23346973
ye, those harry potter glasses are not exactly flattering

>>23345806
>>23346541
This. High school English teachers tell you to use every verb in the dictionary, but published authors tell you just to say said.

>Hey chatgpt, how do you call the thing you use to keep painting straights while you paint ?
>An easel
>Thanks

It's over of me anons, I have used AI, and now my work is tainted by it. I regret falling to its lies and temptations, but it was on the tip of my tongue.

>>23346541
This conversation again... I'd be open to discussing it, but never goes anywhere beyond "muh invisible word".
But in summary, to me speechcraft is all about delivery, in written format it's hard to evoke the intended tone if you constrain yourself to"said", as it tells nothing about the delivery, and readers just left to interpret the tone based on the dialogue itself. And you can argue "yaah, the that's the point, the reader imagines how it was delivered" and that's all good, but I want to be implicit and less round about the tone with a more diverse range of dialogue verb. Maybe I should tone it down, but I do hold disdain for said; to me it's not an "invisible word" but a lost opportunity.
So many awful works I come across are just: Alice said X, Bob said X, repats, and it comes off as monotone, because the author could not be bothered to pack any emotion and the dialogue itself without any spice.

Either way, thank you for taking a look at my story, probably the highlight of my miserable day.

>>23344851
>My protagonists are being targeted by a gang, I've yet to find out why, and I don't know why my Protagonists can't just turn to the police.
The protagonists have gotten ahold of a magical artifact. Douglas Blackthorne is the chief director of the secretive Occult Retention Bureau (ORB), who was appointed to the position by his brother, the sitting President Alistair Blackthorne. Douglas has the single-minded goal of recovering the artifact at all costs to bolster the power of him and his brother, and cement their family's dynastic grip over Washington. However, Douglas and his agency, ORB, aren't permitted to use the army or any federal or local law enforcement organizations, forcing ORB to turn to their underground informant network of drug dealers, murderers, smugglers, human traffickers, and other assorted scum, to track the protagonists down and recover the artifact. However, ORB's authority is just powerful enough for them to compel law enforcement to turn a blind eye to the protagonists' plight as the criminal underworld descends on them.

>>23347075
Different person, but these particular dialogue tags don't do a lot for me. It's very much possible to use a verb to add flavor that isn't present in the dialogue itself, but here the verbs actually seem slightly at odds with the dialogue in such a way that the dialogue wins. I don't know how Lord Straboc's phrases become different by being "uttered" or "lamented". "We need to rebuild it with haste" is hard to interpret as a lament.
I only use special verbs if it really adds something to the sentence that it wouldn't have otherwise. To avoid monotony I add in descriptions and switch up sentence structure a little. You can put dialogue tags in the middle of sentences, (sparingly) at the start, you can leave them out altogether and maybe use descriptions to imply the speaker.
This one almost feels like you're mechanically swapping in different verbs instead of "said" but there are better ways to diversify. Your other sentences have a good amount of variety in structure, you just need to carry that over to dialogue tags.

>>23345806
>>23346541
>>23347075
Different anon, here's my take:

>appealed
Fine, as it's the first one on the page. I'd break up the dialogue from the description of the chair, though.
>...strode towards her chair. Some may...

>shakily shouted
Double goof. Shakily undermines the sentence that follows, which seems to be about how resolute and determined the lord is despite fatigue and injury. Shouted is unnecessary due to the exclamation point and the surrounding descriptions of anger.

>belittled in a motherly way
Again, it's not just the tag, but the additional qualification. The qualification adds little to belittlement itself, and the dialogue alone is plenty belittling given the context. I'd drop the tag entirely.

>finally uttered in shame
Drop the 'finally' or the 'in shame', or even both. The dialogue is doing fine to describe the lord's hesitance and withering rage. If the previous tags are removed then 'uttered' can remain.

>mocked
It's clear she is mocking him at this point. This tag can be removed without any loss in tone.

>lamented
Probably fine on its own, but in combination with all the earlier tags just pushing further into purple prose.

If maintaining directorial control over delivery is so important, I suggest doing more description of body language like with the last line rather than relying upon tags. As it is currently, the tags feel redundant at best, outright harmful to the flow at worst. Every statement is tagged, and almost every tag is qualified. At the risk of letting even one person misinterpret the intended voices the scene has been slowed to a crawl for everyone.
If 'said' is too ugly, then crop the tags entirely. There are only three characters in the scene, and the two speakers and their positions are clear after the initial exchange.

I feel like if you've properly established the mood and tone in the setting it should be obvious if a character is saying a line jokingly, angrily, or if they're embarrassed, etc. Or even just adding a "said curiously" to imply a rise in their voice.

>>23347075
>it comes off as monotone
I don't think it will come off as monotone if it's good dialogue, though. If your dialogue is strong, and the reader is immersed in the world and the scene, then the flow of the conversation and the shifts in characters thoughts and moods should already all be clear enough to make any extra labelling unnecessary. You don't want the reader to feel like the author is pushing his head in between the characters' in order to add his little clarifications and comments.

The more I read and write, the more I think that good writing is about knowing where to put the emphasis, and that's why an 'invisible word' is a useful tool to have when it's the character's own words that should stand out.

This is how clean I want my dialogue to read. Barely a tag in sight.

So are soft magic systems generally determined by the paradigm of the character that is capable/acquired the ability of using magic? That's my current understanding at least, and it's made my cosmology currently structured like this
>Onion skin layering
>Biosphere exists within the Noosphere
>Noosphere (Realm of Thought) exists within the Infosphere or (Realm of Ideas)
>Infosphere exists within and is fueled by the Patasphere (Realm of Possibility or the Source)
And those that can develop the ability to use magic do so by tapping into the highest plane through their Foci, and both their intent and limits of their magic are determined by their own perceptions or Ego. Very few can learn to utilize this magic system and even fewer if any know of the structure of this cosmology but I have the idea to maybe incorporate smaller conceptual spheres for magic similar to how Mage the Ascension has it set up.
It's still in a rough state but I like the premise so far, I think the biggest thing I need to work on is including more limitations because it'll allow for more creative problem solving I feel.

If I have characters conversing, I might use a simple adverb for a single line in that dialogue to add emphasis. Often times it's unnecessary but may be useful to quickly set the conversational tone, which is useful particularly when the conversation is short, it's involves a side character who doesn't appear again. E.g. A young, good looking new guy talks with a coworker we haven't been introduced to yet and we get a sense of how shitty his work place is.
"Hello."
"Hi," he replied standoffishly.
"Nice day today, isn't it?"
"Sure."

If I wrote more dialogue, the coworker's short answers might help the reader see their disinterested/unfriendly nature, but it's not always appropriate to flesh out every single detail which can cause reader's slog.

>>23345823
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise?

>>23347052
>how do you call the thing
esl detected

>>23345823
I suspect a real groomer would go for a "yes, and."
>Perhaps she meant it when she said it, but she is a flighty young lady: I'm sure she'll take you back next week.
>Young women can be so cruel at that age, but they never mean it; they know nothing of the world.
Words that feel like agreement and comfort, but twist what happened into a full breakup or portray it as the fault of her youth.

>>23338313
>I have a great idea for a novel but I'm stuck with starting it because I want it to be realistic to a certain extent but I don't know where to do research.

It's going to be about a family in america, but I don't live in america, where do I get info about where places are in America. For example, lets say it takes place in new york, where would I get like a map of a "district" or whatever so that I can say X cop of the family works at X precinct, etc.

I could create a fictional futuristic city in America if I wanted for the novel and it would fit the story still I guess.

>>23347509
america is a very diverse place. just invent Anytown, America in some midwestern state and have your adventures happen there.
need urban sprawl? Anytown has it
need a sports stadium? The Anytown Amigos are there
need a large mansion for a murder mystery? Anytown can do it
farmland? reservoir? train depot? over on Anytown's west side

>>23347319
You're looking for /wbg/

>5 chapters ready to go
>3-4k words each
>Positive feedback from everyone I've shown it
>Large viewership on other sites
>Finally ready for Royal Road/Scribblehub
>Still don't feel ready

What do? Does anyone here want to do beta swaps? I need someone with a very critical eye.

>>23347574
There's almost never a /wbg/ up so I didn't bother to look this time, guess I'll post over there as well

>>23347311
Very sexy

>>23347580
>already publishing on other sites
>cold feet for RR and scribblehub
nigga please
but 20k words total isn't exactly a lot

>>23347597
I mean, I'm going to upload chapter by chapter. Maybe one or two a week.

>>23347597
Different guy but my entire story is 20k, barely. I feel like it's more than enough but still half of what a publisher looks for. Not sure what to do with it.

>>23347604
hire someone to punch it up first. you need to make sure the manuscript is good before you send it out. if you don't have someone, reply to this post

>>23347631
What do you mean "punch it up"? I read editors usually slash it to pieces and you're left with 1/3 of what you started with, if you're lucky. Never heard of one adding more content.

>>23338573
>>23341378
Initial reception isn't going to blow up unless you're writing a genre RR prefers like LitRPG or you have ads. Most readers on that site wait for larger word and page counts before dropping in. Don't let it stop you from continuing if you are passionate about it.

>>23347643
What's your budget? I can take a look at it for you and improve the plot, characters, dialogue, sentence structure, etc.

>>23347658
Tell us your rates first. You're the one selling here

>>23347658

This is actually good work. Your link?

>>23347693
>>23347703
https://www.fiverr.com/users/matthewg42

It's usually from $200-$1200 or whatever we can agree on. There's no set rate, since we've done everything from textbooks to sci-fi

>>23347725
Stop saying we, you cringe bastard. I can get 50 pounds per 10k words from a fucking Scot whose published. There is no we and it's obvious, sell yourself.

When you get ready to hire an editor how many does someone usually pick? Like I imagine you get a few and make the corrects common to all?

>>23347729
You can't imagine how repetitive it is to constantly say "I" in business emails. Sometimes I use "we" to vary my word choice. Feel free to PM me on Fiverr with any additional questions.

>>23347741
You get an editor, either the one the pubs give you or the one you pay for, and you take everything he says as god's from on high. Poorly, usually. Pretending you didn't hear some parts. There is only one Editor in your life and it's for the story you're working on and where it's headed. Lesser and greater opines come first and are no concern of the Editor.

>>23347745
If you cain't diminish yr use of the Almighty Aye, y're fucked as an editor.

I just realized my secondary character has no flaws. Fuck.

>>23347800
You could also just extend a trait they have into an extreme that makes it into a flaw
Like giving a character that is very studious a perfection complex or OCD, thereby making it to where they're always thinking instead of doing

>>23347800
sounds like your dialogue sucks and it's just other characters agreeing with your mc, or worse, you the author, no matter what

>>23344963
>i don't want the cops in my story to be incompetent
oh, so you're writing a fantasy

>>23347752
Honestly why does anyone need an editor these days with tools like Grammarly and ProWritingAid?

These software will correct all the grammar mistakes, do all the proofreading, etc, and faster too, for a fraction of the cost.

So what is the editor doing that you can't effectively do yourself with those tools?

>>23347895
They definitely don't catch all errors nor do they catch awkward phrasing, poor word choice, flow, plot holes, pacing, etc etc etc

>>23347895
Go write a piece of fiction, with dialogue and slang and idiom, and internal character thoughts. Then go run that shit through Grammerly. You will not be impressed.

>>23347908
>awkward phrasing, poor word choice, flow, plot holes, pacing, etc etc etc
1. You're supposed to catch that yourself since you're the one writing.

2. What makes an editor the arbiter of what is "awkward phrasing" and "flow", I'm sure a lot of different best selling authors differ on those things a lot, and sometimes they write the same genre. I think your story is either interesting and enthralling, or it isn't. That's how some books end up being best sellers and others don't.

Editors were definitely needed in the past, but in this era of AI, they really needed for those who are self publishing.

3. Oh, and if you paste portions of your novel into Chat GPT it can in fact advise you on all the other factors you just mentioned if you ask it. The AI Bot was likely trained on a lot of literature for data too and it understands language really well.

Also, ProWritingAid I think does that too (it uses AI specifically trained on data for writers to analyze your work).

>>23347923
>Then go run that shit through Grammerly. You will not be impressed.
Use an AI tool then (like ProWritingAid), but like I said, all those parts about slang and stuff are supposed to be managed by you, the author.

>>23347895
This shit fucking sucks. AI has done so much to reveal just how garbage at writing a lot of anons are.

>>23347932
>ChatGPT
>AI
ngmi

>>23347820
Maybe that's it. It's my MC's father who is against what he's doing but relents and agrees to help because he thinks it's absurd but what the hell why not, but they come from different backgrounds and have no common ground. The story is about them learning a shared interest.

>>23347936
>ngmi
I can see you don't actually have an argument, and I'm sure you haven't made it or else you wouldn't be posting here so you don't get irony either.

Nobody said use AI to write the story, just use it to fulfill the role of an editor and proofreader, which it can do very well.

>>23347955
No it cannot. It literally cannot give you any even somewhat decent advice on your prose.

>>23347960
>It literally cannot give you any even somewhat decent advice on your prose.
I think you are really underestimating AI, how much it is progressing and how far it's going to progress in the coming years.

Most people writing a novel are going to procrastinate for a year anyways lol. By the time next year AI will be able to do even more amazing things.

I really don't see how it couldn't help with a simple task like prose.

Give me an example. I might paste it into Chat GPT right now and give you the results.

>>23347953
then you need to make him more grumbly, and have him suggest different ways of doing things, sometimes right and sometimes wrong. embrace the friction it causes

>read book
>story is a mess, it's all over the place, and the characters are shallow
>how tf did this ever get published?
>I can do better
>start to write
>turns out I can't

I still have no idea how literal garbage gets picked up by big publishing companies though.

this reddit spacing technophile ain't exactly an einstein.
hey, AI fag, post some of your edited - by AI I assume - polished work

>>23347990
>I still have no idea how literal garbage gets picked up by big publishing companies though.
People think success comes down to talent, but that was in the past. In the modern era it comes down to connections, social media manipulation, and luck.

Just heard from /pol/

No freaking way

>>23348021

>>23347658

Is the gray highlight text that you added? What does it indicate?

>>23348021
What happened

I'm assisting my mother with writing a YA novel. I feel really bad for her
>She and all 3 of her kids, myself included, help to come up with a super imaginative post-apocalypse story
>Editor goes all UHHH NO KEEP IT BASIC and now it's just Mad Max clone number 5634
>Mother is too nervous about it to try and get the editor to reconsider

>>23348082
Just get a new editor then? Fuck that first guy if he's making her re-write the whole thing. She must stay true to her vision.

>>23348076
Retard we know and another retard we know. There’s a massive thread about it

>>23348086
It's a she and she's making her rewrite the whole thing to be more "Understandable"

>>23348097
Gardner?

>>23348099
Well whatever he/she/it is it's not their book, it's your mothers so fire them.

>>23348103
You wanna hear what it's about, or at least the world we built?
Think a weird combination of OG Nier, Roadside Picnic/Stalker, and Metro (The book.)

>>23348097
Fuentes is based
>>23348100
He wants to be mayor or something

>>23347527
Oh shit, like Under The Dome with the Chester Mill town (never read the book, watched the show). I guess I really could just invent some random town. Guess I was just being too literal and trying to be a "perfectionist".

Thanks, I am writing fiction anyways.

>>23348097
Omg. Nobody post it. This guy never gives up

>>23348105
Ok what is it about? I've never read/played any of those you listed.

>>23348174
TLDR:
>Atmosphere done fucked up due to our wacknanigans
>Weather goes absolutely BALLISTIC and gains flat-out supernatural properties. Atmospheric phenomena have become lethal and even outright mutagenic, turning you into a monster in some scenarios. World's a god damn minefield that'll either kill you or turn you into a mindless beast. Eating vegetation, looking at the sun, getting struck by lighting, all of the shit that's focused through the atmosphere can transform you.
>Huge bestiary of mutated humans based on different weather/environmental factors
>People have taken to living underground, such as the mammoth caves in Kentucky (Where our story starts)
>Protagonists realize the mutants are evolving further and so get out of dodge, now must trek to somewhere else to warn people blah blah blah
There's a bunch of other shit we went into details with. Like how the people underground actually have a standard of living, which we felt was more realistic in a scenario like this.
Then the editor is all "NO MAKE IT ABOUT DADDY ISSUES INSTEAD OF THIS UNIQUE WORLD AND SURVIVAL STORY"

>>23348190
>Then the editor is all "NO MAKE IT ABOUT DADDY ISSUES INSTEAD OF THIS UNIQUE WORLD AND SURVIVAL STORY"
kek, sounds like she has loads of them already.

Sounds like Fallout but that's not a bad thing. As long as the lore is good and stands out it should work. I'd rather hear about the weather effects and species than some daddy issues anyway.

>>23348207
She even wanted us to focus on the girl with daddy issues instead of making it an ensemble piece.
Like the kid who's some kind of half-mutated freak and is slowly turning into the first of the ubermensch

>>23348058

indicates a comment

>>23348103
false, editors are like co-authors, Toriyama would have died in a gutter if his editor hadn't reboot the Cell arc every 3 chapters

>>23348221
Sometimes editors can be godsends, like the one who stopped Sailor Mercury from being a robot. Other times they can schizos. Anon's mother regrettably got stuck with the latter.

I'm working on my story now. Creating conflict is hard. I want it to be a fun happy story with low drama.

Still to this day trying to think of a cool epithet for my protagonist

>>23348272
Why? That's boring! Make it start raining and not give them an umbrella. Have them break down somewhere. Send them well off the beaten path and have them discover something otherworldly and miraculous. Safe and slow? No one wants to read that. No one wants to live that. Send them on super cool fun adventure!

I want to write absolute slop and make money from it without it being tied to my real identity. Is that possible in this day and age?
Is Patreon the only option for this?

For anyone wanting a critique/feedback on stuff, there's a thread here too
>>23340717

>>23347974
The problem with AI is that it can't keep a consistent plotline going for the length of a book. It can write a decent (very) short story but beyond that it screws up. You then start stitching prompts together but eventually even that becomes too unwieldy for the AI.
A year won't help there. 5-10 maybe.

>>23348221
>false, editors are like co-authors, Toriyama would have died in a gutter if his editor hadn't reboot the Cell arc every 3 chapters
>>23348250
>Sometimes editors can be godsends, like the one who stopped Sailor Mercury from being a robot. Other times they can schizos. Anon's mother regrettably got stuck with the latter.
At that point it's a choice between:
>I want to SELL A story
OR
>I want to TELL MY story

>>23348421
>The problem with AI is that it can't keep a consistent plotline going for the length of a book. It can write a decent (very) short story but beyond that it screws up.
I'm not suggesting using AI to write your story, but to just do thinks like spell checking, grammar, editing prose (1 section at a time), etc. You can do the spell checking and grammar editing without AI (you can use desktop software).

There are also amazing tools like sudowrite (google it).

Once again, I'm just looking at it from the newbie self publishing route.

You can eliminate the cost of an editor with the help of AI. As for proofreading, do it yourself. In the past, before authors had proofreaders, didn't people just proofread their own books?

>Proofreading dates back to the early days of printing: a contract from 1499 even mentions it, saying that the responsibility for proofreading lies with the author.

I honestly think people need to talk more about marketing, because that's the actual hard part, and that's what will make or break your novel.

How do I write smut about a teenage Latina and her white hill billy stepdad who drinks everyday

>>23347183
>>23347210
Thanks, this actually motivated me to redraft.
It made me realize perhaps I should relax the dialogue tags, I still try to avoid "said" as a personal preference.

>>23348456
make sure she has a sexy name, and an even sexier nickname he gives her
let her feed his alcohol addiction
have her try to steal money from his wallet and have him catch her
favors for favors, and it escalates

>>23348100
He has schizophrenia.

>>23348488
so it wasn't new news on the gardner front, then?

>>23348456
make her a moth girl and talk about her feet
>verification not required

pre string quartet

When is it not appropriate to kill a character? What about having a character raped?

>>23348594
The feet are very important and should be the focal point of the story. Making it a picture book would really help too.

>>23348455
>I honestly think people need to talk more about marketing, because that's the actual hard part, and that's what will make or break your novel.
I saw in a video that the average self publisher on Amazon sells around 240 copies. I don't even know how you would market online since ad-blockers are so common now. What do you do, stand in front of the supermarket handing out fliers?

>>23348665
I've personally never read a book because the faggot author begged me to. The most sensible and modern approach is to ask influencers/popular authors who specialise in crap like your book if they'd be willing to mention or review your work.

>>23338313
Time for spin-off thread
>>23348692

>>23347311
It's just a lazy listing, not a story.

>>23348455
I threw a passage through ChatGPT once and it didn't seem helpful. I have spelling and grammar and basic style figured out well enough, so it just spent a while missing the point, e.g. warning me that a sentence was "judgmental" when I wrote it that way for a reason. I actually could use somebody to tell me when I'm overdoing it but for that I need somebody with a sense of taste (I don't trust ChatGPT to have this) who's capable of arguing (ChatGPT is far too eager to please). I could also use help with structure but these things don't operate well on that level AFAIK.
I haven't tried GPT-4 yet.

>>23348781
Yep, Chat GPT is pretty useless in this regard, because ultimately it can only repeat reviews it has scanned.

>
I actually could use somebody to tell me when I'm overdoing it but for that I need somebody with a sense of taste
try >>23348695

At this point, I automatically know the writer is a woman if the protagonist has an IQ over 10. And no, I am not counting "geniuses" who are just wizards in denial.
I don't know why, but guys seem to prefer brainless heroes. Or maybe what we prefer is action, rather than thought? Or just thatmiddle aged women hate stupid male youths, and so always make them smarter just so they don't have to write the former?

I have started yet another project where I can't for the life of me think of a name for it.

This time I am trying to do a series of pulp stories all with the same setting and some crossover between characters and events story to story.
I am still on the outlines and plotting stage so Haven't gotten that far, but still it's annoying me because my last project didn't have a name ether.

>>23349099
I do not recognize this at all
I will admit to not liking action (but I think the majority of authors I read are male anyway)

Does anyone have any advice for writing noir dialogue? I'm having a real hard time with it. I wanna write something like Inherent Vice where the counterculture speak is just something everyone uses and it's difficult to discern what anyone really means.
Anyone have any advice?

After making about 7th or 8th attempt at this story, I have to finally admit it would work better as a video game than a novel. Instead of one person's linear story, it's more an interconnected collection of multiple people's stories, none of which really stand alone. And it'd be more interesting if you could discover the chapters in your preferred order, at your own pace, instead of me forcefeeding it to the reader page by page. But I'm not making games any day soon.

>>23349545
>After making about 7th or 8th attempt at this story
what's your wordcount?
what's the general gist?
how many POV characters?

>>23348499
The guy wants to buy crystalcafe

>>23349610
best of luck to him, I guess

>>23349610
Those girls are gonna flip their shit. The seething will never end.

>>23349590
It's a story about the last days of a fictional empire, exploring the many small elements that finally brought about the doom together.

I wrote over 100k words of the first draft years ago, but it was all irredeemable shit, and I scrapped everything. As I improved over time, I made other attempts, but couldn't be happy with any of them. Last month, I wrote about 10k words of the newest draft and finally managed to find an approach I like and is pleasant to read. Many things clicked...but the structure just doesn't work.

I hate POV-switching and don't want to do it, but being locked into a single character's perspective makes it impossible to organically tell everything that should be said. Novel is just not the right format for this.

>>23349231
Feel like the name should be the thing that comes later when you set the mood.

>>23349648
I don't see why you think POV switching is okay in a game but not in a novel. A novel could easily do what you want. My suggestion: 2 POV's. High class noble, and low to mid class merchant - or possibly a better choice would be clergy. The noble can witness the decadence and blindness of the ruling class, and be disgusted/angered by it. The commoner will interact with all sorts of people on the ground as either profession.

alternately you could just do 1 POV as the clergy(wo)man, who could have free reign to go pretty much wherever, and interact with whoever

>>23346759
>lack of title
Of course, actual typesetting still has to be done. That's why I wrote "cover art" rather than just "cover".
>low sofa
yeah it's real

>>23348610
Characters die in literally every kind of story for all kinds of reasons so I'm not sure what kind of answer you expect to that
Rape will make you seem like an edgelord so put it in your story if that's what you want
You will repulse the people who think it's overused and are sick of seeing it from GRRM wannabes (and shlocky fantasy writers from every generation before him) and you'll appeal a little more to people who open palm slam Goblin Slayer when they wake up every morning, except they'll probably demand way more of it and then call you a cuck when they realize your story isn't Hyperborean ice wall theory propaganda and you aren't trying to start a race war

>>23349793
>and then call you a cuck when they realize your story isn't Hyperborean ice wall theory propaganda and you aren't trying to start a race war
and they would be correct
we need less faggy bullshit and more Hyperborean ice wall theory propaganda and race wars in literature

>>23349545
You can write multiple stories that can be read in any order.

>>23338956
Just describe it clearly. It’s a cool weird goose — the goose is what’s interesting, not how you describe it

>>23349664
>I don't see why you think POV switching is okay in a game but not in a novel
There isn't supposed to be POV switching in either. I do not do multiple POVs, I hate that. The point is, in a game the audience can approach each of the cast members in a different, more proactive way. Their stories would seem disjointed and clumsy when written back-to-back in a book, but less so as pieces you can pick up and pursue in an interactive environment at your own leisure. Moreover, the player character's story wouldn't be separately written, but created organically by the player's decisions. Things that would take thousands of words to explain in a book are expressed automatically without any extra effort.

>>23349706
The latest draft was something like this, but again, in a realistic novel, it doesn't make sense for one person to be everywhere. It turns too gamey no matter what.

>>23349970
In that case, it becomes a short story collection instead of a novel, a fundamentally inferior format that nobody wants.

>>23350061
>Things that would take thousands of words to explain in a book are expressed automatically without any extra effort.
What do you mean?

>>23350066
I read plenty of short story collections. I'm reading one right now.

>>23350061
You're making excuses. One person can't be everywhere at all times, but they certainly can be in any number of locations over, say, a five year or a decade long period. If anything a game is far more restrictive than any novel.

>>23350082
>What do you mean?
Isn't it obvious? Character movements and locations for one thing are something that take up a lot of pages in a book, but you don't pay any attention to them in visual mediums. Neither is there need to dwell on why the protagonist makes specific choices, because those are the player's choices in a game. And many, many other parts.

>I read plenty of short story collections
You're in a very small minority. Publishers reject them, nobody buys them. Short story collections tell everyone you have ideas, but lack the skill to write a novel.

>>23350126
You fail to consider the nature of locations and restrictions they might impose on visitors.

>>23350162
>Character movements and locations for one thing are something that take up a lot of pages in a book
not really
>Neither is there need to dwell on why the protagonist makes specific choices
so you don't want to write a character, and would instead rather have a block of wood
>You fail to consider the nature of locations and restrictions they might impose on visitors
and how would this be any different in your game?

>>23350178
It ceases to be a conversation if you ignore answers and repeat questions.

>>23350195
>You fail to consider the nature of locations and restrictions they might impose on visitors
and how would this be any different in your game?

>>23350162
>Character movements and locations for one thing are something that take up a lot of pages in a book, but you don't pay any attention to them in visual mediums.
Do you mean travel or do you mean positioning within a scene? I don't get it. It's easy to elide this in writing and meanwhile there are video games that spend a lot of time on it.
>Neither is there need to dwell on why the protagonist makes specific choices, because those are the player's choices in a game.
If you want to give the player five options then you now need to write five outcomes, four of which are ignored at playtime and none of which you can later assume actually took place. And instead of justifying choices you'll have to preempt them, you'll have to obsess over how to make choices feel appealing and meaningful and intentional to players, and giving players options in all the places that they expect them without wasting effort on places they don't. This is really hard and it's really time-consuming and it means the player will only see a fraction of your work.

>>23349545
You could make a Choose Your Own Adventure. That's like a video game, but on paper.

>>23351068
>>23351068
>>23351068