/lit/ - Literature

[/wg/ Writing General No.23364009]

"Eulogy for a Cockroach" edition
Previous:>>23351068

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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.
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Simple guides on writing:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRM
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Thread theme:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUH1nmdmxZk

[Anonymous No.23364066]

>>23362344
H.P. Lovecraft wrote many over-the-top descriptions of otherworldly horrors. Perhaps you'll find them inspirational.

[Anonymous No.23364161]

I'm not done with my story yet but I'd feel bad charging money for it. I've heard it's not a bad idea just to post it on Amazon or whatever for free just to get exposure. Is it a good idea still?

[Anonymous No.23364209]

>>23364161
Reddit has a lot of fiction-oriented subs. See https://reddit.com/r/nosleep/wiki/similarsubreddits for a pretty big list.

[Anonymous No.23364252]

I saw in a video not to use tab to indent my paragraphs with, that I should go into Word's paragraph settings and make it so the first line after I hit enter it auto-indents 0.50" instead because ebook readers get screwed up otherwise. Is this true? Do I need to go back and reformat all my chapters?

[Anonymous No.23364494]

>reading through my draft
>all the main scenes where my two main characters interact is in a restaurant
>like 5 times

I really can't think of a way to change it. It's a road trip. You stop and eat, that's what you do.

[Anonymous No.23364505]

>no thread subject
dead on arrival

[Anonymous No.23364519]

>>23364494
You could switch up the kind of restaurant at least
>Fast food joint
>Quick sandwich on a bench outside
>Dive bar
>Retro 50 dinner
>Fancy restaurant

[Anonymous No.23364614]

>>23364519
Yeah, fancy restaurant is definitely the last one, to contrast to where they first met in a gimmicky diner. I already cut one scene out and just made a footnote that "after a triple espresso at the Denny's..." and moved on from that.

I feel like I'm leaning too hard into the food theme but it's the only thing the characters have in common to bond over (at first) until they learn other interests. Idk, I just hope it's not too boring.

[Anonymous No.23364674]

>>23364505
I was expecting a Turkey joke.

[Anonymous No.23365018]

What is the garment picrel is wearing over her chest called?
I don't want to write "top" that just feels to modern and my only real thought it
>long, shawl-like garment over her chest.
But there has to be a name for something like this?

[Anonymous No.23365045]

Does anyone have something in mind when it comes to start a story in the middle of a police investigation, without having the characters very plainly explain "Well this is this dude who died, let's recapitulate everything we know completely naturally"

I have a few thoughts but no precise idea yet
>The MC has just moved to a new location, and he needs help setting up all the pieces and bits they've collected so far with someone unfamiliar with the case, who naturally asks question because they need to go where to put each stuff
>Flashback/prologue of when they started the case (not a fan)
>MC is driven around, driver is one of those chatty types who asks what's on their minds.

[Anonymous No.23365116]

>>23365018
boob hammock
>captcha phagp

[Anonymous No.23365169]

>>23365018
it's a type of sash

[Anonymous No.23365388]

>>23364494
If it's based after a real route, then what you do is find the actual places you want in the city that would be good settings.

You can be vague ("a McDonald's in Houston") or you can be autistic ("exiting at Studemont Street in Houston and turning right...")

[Anonymous No.23365520]

How to identify when i'm droning on?
>ask for feedback
no dice

[Anonymous No.23365812]

I have two ideas in mind rn.
1 is an Isekai story about a 1950's private eye being reincarnated as a jrpg protagonist and also a little girl.
He's the chosen one and everyone wants him to go kill monsters and do dungeons but he's pre-occupied with the political intrigues of the fantasyworld like the shady dealings of the merchant's guild or the mage guild coup and stuff like that.

The second is a story about an enforcer on a generation ship trying to earn his way into the access to the incredibly rare longevity enchancements.
Sci-fi stuff would work the way magic does in Berserk. Extremely sparse, vulnuerable to brute force, but also incredibly busted.


Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.23365829]

>>23365812
I hate isekai, it's a shit genre that stifles imagination, so the second, it will at least force you to have some original ideas.

[Anonymous No.23365844]

>>23365829
the second is just Berserk + Blame! slop mixed with a sci-fi concept i like though.
I don't have any actually good ideas.

[Anonymous No.23366285]

>>23365045
In the middle of clue hunting?
Stake out, talking? Questioning someone?

[Anonymous No.23366334]

What is the general consensus of showing a (failed) suicide attempt very early on the book? Are there any renown authors who did something like this?

[Anonymous No.23366464]

>>23365812
>He's the chosen one
gay and homosexual
>reincarnated as a little girl
>still calls him he
there's no such thing as mind over matter. you are your body. she's a girl. she's a she.
but you calling her a he is still significantly less homosexual than making her the chosen one

[Anonymous No.23366778]

>>23364505
oh noes, all the lame-brained bots that post stupid questions like "hurr durr is it better to outline or to write by the seat of my pants" as if something as varied as creative writing can be reduced to a binary choice...don't miss them at all

[Anonymous No.23366807]

>>23364009
the dickcords
https://discord.gg/GaTgyEFdWd

[Anonymous No.23366826]

>>23366807
nice try, groomer

[Anonymous No.23366868]

>>23366826
you will submit

[Anonymous No.23366967]

U
WILL
SUBMIT

[Anonymous No.23366983]

>>23365045
Like other anon said, questioning is the easy way to go. Especially if you have multiple investigators face checking with what they know (aka exposition) or, more cliche route, if their witness spells things out for them ('You already talked to Johnny then I'm figurin')

[Anonymous No.23366985]

>>23366868
>>23366967
4channers don't submit. you have us confused with someone else

[Anonymous No.23367023]

>>23366985
>us
>4channers
summer hasn't started yet, faggot.

[Anonymous No.23367100]

>>23364009
Finally hit the first 100k mark. Feels good. Although some of the chapters are non sequential, it's good to know that even if the first draft is rough, it's on paper.

[Anonymous No.23367204]

>>23367100
Good job. How many times did you actually delete whole chapters after having written them because they didn't fit?

[Anonymous No.23367227]

>Get popular on smut sites
>Smut is only a small part of the story though
>Post first couple chapters on scribblehub
>Buried in literal seconds
>Only 60 views in 4 hours

It's over for me isn't it.

[Anonymous No.23367279]

>>23364494
>diner
>sitting outside on a bench eating (deli counter)

Change up the food venue. Different places, different clientele, different products.

[Anonymous No.23367386]

>>23367100
How do you keep track of that many characters? Do they all have their own fleshed out backstories? That's impressive you don't get confused.

[Anonymous No.23367411]

>>23367386
Kek.

[Anonymous No.23367773]

>>23367227
>scribblehub
is this place good enough for anything, do you get any money publishing chapters in public?

[Anonymous No.23367944]

>>23367100
>100 for 100k
checked
how the fuck do you keep track of so many words, i struggle with 10k fuck me.

[Anonymous No.23368093]

>>23367204
Countless amounts of times. An ungodly amount of times. One specific character I have is extremely difficult writing POV chapters for.
>>23367386
Every character I introduce has an arc in some way. That's a big part of my work is that every character I introduce is meaningful. Every chapter follows a single POV, but that character might go and cross paths with another one you were reading about earlier and then the person that character was talking to is now stabbing the new one in the back etc. Interconnectivity is incredibly important because the book takes place in this huge city of my design.
I have a built up mediawiki for my work and most characters have entries in it, but some don't yet. What helps is being disassociative and letting the characters possess me in a way.
>>23367944
The same way you keep track of your 10k, just on a larger scale. It's an economy of scale.

[Anonymous No.23368127]

>>23364494
That's fine. If it's what came naturally, that's how it should be.

[Anonymous No.23368549]

>>23367227
Kono anon spotted
>buried in literal seconds
what did you expect to happen on a free serial site?
>first couple of chapters
Keep posting then. ScribbleHub's audience for smut is decently large. But like any serial site they mostly want long ongoing stories, not one-shots. That's better suited to literotica
>60 views in 4 hours
Not horrible desu. Everyone has to go through the new-author grind, where no one wants to click on you because there's 99% odds you're a shit writer or, barring that, will drop the story a few chapters in. Do YOU click random 50 view stories with 2 chapters posted? Probably not

>>23367773
>is this place good for anything?
What do you mean? It's an even trashier serial site than RoyalRoad, with a focus on smut and lgbt stories
>Do you get any money publishing chapters in public?
Do any sites work like this? Genuine question. ScribbleHub certainly doesn't. Like all the serial sites I know about, you get $ from patreon supporters if you write something good enough that people are willing to pay on a third-party site for advance chapters.

[Anonymous No.23368615]

don't know if i'm ready to write poorly for 5k+ hours before i'm any good and with nothing i write, before or after that, ever being read... while racing against ai progress

[Anonymous No.23368622]

>>23367227
>smut is only a small part of the story though
Smut is one of those things that need to either be a front-and-center selling point, or to not be included at all. Sex scenes are fine, but smut implies heavy indulgence, and those simply don't appear in 'normal stories'. It's either the focus or it doesn't exist.
Which bucket does yours fault into?

[Anonymous No.23368630]

>>23368615
You should be writing because you want to write, not because you want to 'be good' at writing (though that's a fine aspiration over time)
So just go write. Unless it's purely an ego thing for you, in which case, ngmi anyway

[Anonymous No.23368649]

>>23367227
Embrace what you are good at and devote yourself to degenerate filth.

[Anonymous No.23368714]

>16 chapters and 40k words into my story
>barely anything has happened yet
Now this is slow burn

[Anonymous No.23368794]

>>23368549
My metrics aren't as bad as I thought, this is after less than a day since upload. Very annoying that they don't update viewcount consistently.

>>23368622
I guess I started with a slow build to indulgent smut because I knew it was what I was good at writing. Now I want to veer away from it. Maybe when I have more chapters and I upload to royal road I'll edit the sex scenes to be less explicit/fappable.

>>23368649
This is also tempting; if only to see the viewnumber go up

[Anonymous No.23368845]

Every anon here WILL acheese their dreams.

[Anonymous No.23368847]

>>23368794
>Now I want to veer away from it. Maybe when I have more chapters and I upload to royal road I'll edit the sex scenes to be less explicit/fappable.
People clicked in the first place for the smut. Veering away from it just means you're alienating the audience who wanted the smut, and the people searching for normal stories will ignore it because of the smut
You can do whatever you want, but my strong suggestion is to either keep writing the smut story you started, or to scrap it and write something that doesn't feature smut at all.
Because I promise you, you can't turn back from the premise of 'futa drow plowing other women'. How are you going to pivot into something mainstream from that starting point? lmao
There are some very popular and even successful smut stories out there, with 4 digit patreon incomes, even for your particular niche. So it's not like it's a total dead end. You need to figure out what you want, though

[Anonymous No.23369153]

>>23368845
My dream is to one day invite my family in a restaurant, or more probably just at my place, and then tell them I've written a book and it's getting published. It's silly, but you never know.

[Anonymous No.23369231]

>>23369153
I share this fantasy but both my parents have enough experience that if I go down that path the objectively correct move is to ask them for advice

[Anonymous No.23369412]

>>23368845
My dream is to write the final novel. With AI taking over, the world needs one last epic to salute humanity over.

[Anonymous No.23369514]

>>23368714
Then wtf is going on for 40k words?

[Anonymous No.23369516]

>>23364614
>fancy restaurant is definitely the last one, to contrast to where they first met in a gimmicky diner
I don't mean to be rude anon, but that's a somewhat obvious plot development, isn't it?

[Anonymous No.23369576]

>>23369516
Is it? I don't know. It's not a romance, it's an emotionally distanced father/son who meet once a week for a burger and that's the extent of their interaction. He gives the son some cash for Christmas and says go buy whatever. But by the end they have bonded and act more like a real father/son so he ends up treating his son to a nice seafood restaurant for his birthday at the end and gives him a real gift he put some actual thought into.

[Anonymous No.23369714]

>Fell into the worldbuilding hole
mama mia

[Anonymous No.23369743]

>>23369714
Worldbuilding is so gay. I hate fantasyfags like Sanderson who say they love fantasy because then they can do whatever they want and that it's "liberating" when in reality it's the exact opposite because you can't add anything irl that matters like real world countries, places, food, history etc

The reason allusions work is because they're real and referenced for thousands of years of history. I fucking hate fantasy so fucking much because they think they're smug and quirky for making up a battle and then gaslighting you into thinking it's important even though it doesn't fucking exist and what's worse is they are all autistic so they have zero idea on what makes a human being a human being so they glorify stock characters because of this and then expect you to care at all about these cardboard cutouts in a made-up battle with dragons and gnomes and shit

Fuck Fantasy. If I ever write fantasy I'm putting shit like pop tarts in or allusions and quotes from real world roman emperors in just to break immersion because immersion fucking sucks.

[Anonymous No.23369747]

>>23369743
ok

[Anonymous No.23369750]

>>23369743
I dislike fantasy as well, but because of its focus on magic. It's such a cop-out. Instead of whipping up fire to fight a dragon I'd be happy if someone could just write a fantasy story with magic from the point of view of a healer. Just the daily life of a white mage working in a castle or something, nothing too sensational.

[Anonymous No.23369763]

>>23369750
my current project isn't that, but my mc is a healer and one of the misconceptions that happens is no non healers really know how healing magic works, so they say stuff like, well just heal him. and she briefly tries to explain how that's not exactly how it works, and basically how shit's more fucked than they even know, and it causes the others such emotional distress that she shuts up and basically swears not to get into it because they're better off just thinking healer casts heal and it makes the booboo better

[Anonymous No.23369882]

>>23369763
>shit's more fucked than they even know
Like how? Are there demon pacts?

[Anonymous No.23369939]

The thing that is amazing about writing is that it turns you into a god. Anything that happens, you can make that happen. Its a world where everything can be crafted to the writers vision.

I heavily dislike it when people try to limit that artistic freedom to write whatever you please, and it strongly irks me. Does anybody here feel the same way about this particular subject?

[Anonymous No.23369954]

>like coming up with ideas
>like making it so things are foreshadowed and related
>like the editing of what is written
>hate the actual writing part

The writing gets me stuck for days, but when that hurdle is over the rest is pretty fun. Pretty much have to re-write this entire chapter and the next from scratch and each line I'm like "...and then what happens?" because I know points A and Z but trying to connect it in an interesting way that doesn't sound like just fluff filler is hard.

[Anonymous No.23369956]

>>23369882
there are, but the main issue they're dealing with is a disease that's caused basically by parasites. healing wounds is possible, easy even, but fresh wounds are the easiest to heal because the body "remembers" how it should be. the older the wound the more difficult to heal. diseases are tough to heal in general, but the current crisis is more like a hive like parasite species that acts like poison inside the body, which they haven't really figured out yet by that point. so they can heal the damage, but the poison remains

[Anonymous No.23369965]

>>23369750
I only read fantasy and sci fi and webnovels. That is the kind of stuff I base my writings off of. This place is obviously more oriented around litfic though.

[Anonymous No.23369972]

>>23369954
Why not just try to spout out everything that comes to mind in an unfettered stream of consciousness, then edit it afterwards. Well maybe that doesn't lead to quality writings, so people don't do that.

[Anonymous No.23369976]

Writing is hard.

[Anonymous No.23369978]

>>23369939
I don't like to view myself as a god at all with my writing. In fact I view myself as the opposite. I am a vessel to transmit divine knowledge that I am receiving at that moment. I do not want to attach my Self to my work in any way.

[Anonymous No.23369985]

>>23369972
That's basically what I do. Do a draft that sounds like a schizo first grader wrote it then go back and make it into something decent. That I end up having to do so many drafts like this I feel like I'm wasting my time, but I guess I got enough of it. As long as it gets done in the end.

[Anonymous No.23370057]

Do you describe your characters? I don't. It doesn't matter to me if the reader things they have black hair, blond hair, or no hair. Especially for the MC. They can self-insert into him however they like. Unless some characteristic is critical to the plot I ignore it.

[Anonymous No.23370077]

>>23370057
I don't really describe them in great detail either. But I do describe them a little.

[Anonymous No.23370200]

I like alliteration.
>Clyde clenched his corduroy coat's collar.

[Anonymous No.23370341]

I hate having my creative freedoms be limited upon. I can write whatever in the world I want to, no matter what you say or what you tell me to. I don't have to follow any rules, it's fiction. It may not be good, but that won't stop me.

[Anonymous No.23370394]

I'm looking for someone to have a consistent beta exchange with. This would be for web serials or something you have a consistent output of. Hit me up on discord and we can share first chapters to see if we like our stuff.

@konodrowenjoyer

[Anonymous No.23370426]

>>23370341
That's completely fine, anon. Just don't be surprised if no one wants to read it.

[Anonymous No.23370440]

>had revolutionary new idea for a chapter when I'm in the shower
>line by line, I got it all mentally mapped out
>get out and start to type it
>can't remember a thing

[Anonymous No.23370443]

>>23369514
The protagonist comes to a new town and has to find a place to stay. There are a lot of new people to meet, observations to make about the town and the country, future plans to draw, preparations to make, background to establish. Meanwhile, there isn't a lot of action happening yet.

[Anonymous No.23370490]

>Think of an idea I love
>Write feverishly for a weekend
>Look back on it after a couple days and wonder what the fuck was wrong with me
How do I stop this

[Anonymous No.23370524]

>>23370490
Think what was wrong with you and fix it.

[Anonymous No.23370546]

>>23370443
>there isn't a lot of action happening yet.
Then why are people engaged? Some entire novels aren't even 40k words.

[Anonymous No.23370549]

>>23370546
>Some entire novels aren't even 40k words.
They should be, since they would be novellas otherwise.

[Anonymous No.23370566]

>>23370440
Talk out loud to yourself. It's like twice as easy to remember something if you physically hear it.

[Anonymous No.23370574]

>>23370549
What's the cut off point?

[Anonymous No.23370588]

>>23370574
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/word-count-guide

[Anonymous No.23370598]

rain or hail
he done
the best he kin
till they digged his hole

he was a roach

stout as a bridge
rugged as a bear
slicken a weazel

heart was big
as the world aint square
with room for the devil
and his angels too

yes, sir

he was a roach
grinned his grin
done his chores
laid him down.

Sleep well

[Anonymous No.23370607]

Humpty dumpty
Didgeridoo
I write
a complete sentence
and then strike enter
at most random places

And lo!

I have created
poetry
It is art

[Anonymous No.23370628]

>>23370588
That's too many words. What can someone have to say that needs that many?

[Anonymous No.23370647]

>>23370607
reddit

[Anonymous No.23370696]

How to I beef up my dialogue heavy scenes? Right now my page looks like it's for a screenplay.

"__," X said.
"__."
Y poured a cup of coffee.
"__."
"__," Y said, sipping the coffee.
"__."
"__,"X said as he sat in the chair.

Etc.

[Anonymous No.23370702]

>>23370628
oh look it's another "aspiring writer" that doesn't read

[Anonymous No.23370718]

>>23370696
You can observations that aren't conveyed in the dialogue itself, but support the conversation and provide additional information.
>"xxxx," X said.
>Y's hand trembled as he poured coffee. "yyy."
>X watched Y's hand closely. What made him so nervous?
>"xxxx?"

Avoid completely irrelevant filler motions.
>X sat down.
>"xxxx," he said.
>X stood up.
>"xxxx."
>X looked up. X looked down.
>"What the fuck are you doing?" Y asked.

Exception: the motion becomes relevant later in the scene.
>X took a seat.
>"xxxx."
>"yyyy."
>Y slapped X overhead. (Impossible to execute on a taller person, unless he was sitting down, so the positioning needs to be made clear in advance.)

[Anonymous No.23370742]

>>23370702
Usually what is said in 10 words could be rearranged to 8. Across all chapters that's 20k excess words.

[Anonymous No.23370806]

Do you guys set outlines for your books before you write them or do you just vomit whatever comes into your head onto the page? I don't think I'm creative enough to do the latter.

[Anonymous No.23370840]

>>23370806
I had an ending in mind, and some events along the way.
Mostly pantsing my web novel.
My short stories tend to have been made with just a concept and then brain vomit.
My book that I'm writing has a bit more of an outline, but it's on the back burner because I'm nearly done with my web novel. The couple thousand words I've written have shown me what I do and don't like about my first couple chapters.

[Anonymous No.23370841]

>>23370806
My book is split into 5 parts.
So far I know (more or less) what I want to do in each part, but it's a very loose outline.
I'm writing part 1 and I tried to wing it and see how it went, but I ended up rewriting a lot of the first chapters (although in fairness I got to reuse a lot of what I actually wrote in the later versions).
I now have a somewhat detailed summary (about 200 words) per chapter for the first part so I know where to go now. Once I'm done with the first draft of this part, I'll revise it, and start a detailed outline on the second. Then so on and so on until I finish it.
It will probably need revision later but this way I get to actually put words on paper and get all the bad ideas out. Otherwise I risk getting stuck on some inane shit like floor plan of my action scene.

[Anonymous No.23371183]

>>23370806
You cán write the title first and let it set the text, and you cán write the title last and think it up as you progress writing. It's up to you. Try out new ways, play with it.

[Anonymous No.23371184]

>read something i wrote
>shit thats pretty good
>reread a week later
>hate it
Does anyone else experience this? Sorry if it's old hat, i'm new.
I'm pretty sure it's normal, or at the very least a side effect of my low mood, but i have to check; is it? It kills my drive.

[Anonymous No.23371198]

>>23371184
It would be weirder if you didn't hate what you wrote.

[Anonymous No.23371207]

>>23371184
Yeah I'm the same, when I'm in it I think I'm great then I read it back and I'm left shell-shocked at how dogshit it reads.

[Anonymous No.23371226]

>Constantly refreshing emails to see if any of the agents have responded
The worst feeling desu.

[Anonymous No.23371281]

How difficult is it to get published these days?

[Anonymous No.23371303]

>>23371281
It's as difficult as getting any other job worth having. There is a lot of legwork involved. Getting published can be relatively easy, it's getting readers and making money that isn't.

[Anonymous No.23371311]

>>23371198
>>23371207
a relief, thanks.

[Anonymous No.23371977]

>>23364009
I have a bunch of ideas floating in my head of books but how do you decide what one to write?

[Anonymous No.23371998]

>>23371977
Bounce back and forth between all of them when interest starts to wain on one idea or you need time to add plot

[Anonymous No.23372019]

>>23371184
The next time you look at it you'll think "damn how come I can't write anything this good anymore, I've lost my touch." Just stick with it and ignore all distortions

[Anonymous No.23372045]

>>23370806
Not an outline, I just write a couple words about what each chapter might end up being about so I have a very rough skeleton of what is the beginning, middle, and end, then have to fill in the rest as I go along. Usually by draft 3 it looks nothing how I planned it to be anyway.

[Anonymous No.23372089]

>>23371281
Just go into a bookstore and look at all the shit on the shelves. You'll be amazed the garbage that gets published. I remember in elementary school some jackoff came to give a presentation about his book, called "Thanks a Million". You know what that shit was? It was literally the word "thanks" printed one million times. That's it. Now this was pre-internet so it wasn't some print on demand Amazon thing. An actual publisher picked it up and paid to put that trash in stores.

[Anonymous No.23372297]

Should a police officer use Sambo for participating in martial arts competitions?

[Anonymous No.23372530]

My friends, what do you call it when someone makes this type of face? Like they're slightly annoyed but not too bad. How do you describe this?

[Anonymous No.23372613]

>>23372530
Meh?

[Anonymous No.23372630]

>>23364614
>I feel like I'm leaning too hard into the food theme but it's the only thing the characters have in common to bond over (at first) until they learn other interests. Idk, I just hope it's not too boring.
So what is your point, is it a character relationship drama, or adventures roadtripping on America's highways?

[Anonymous No.23372640]

>>23372530
that is an anime only face not a face real people make
but you could call it a wince, perhaps

[Anonymous No.23372643]

>>23372640
No, I get what kind of face he's making.

[Anonymous No.23372648]

>>23372643
so what would you call it?

[Anonymous No.23372660]

Read a very good George Saunders Substack on the myths and realities of 'finding your voice' today. Screenshotted in full for the benefit of the thread.

[Anonymous No.23372666]

>>23372530
perturbed

[Anonymous No.23372672]

>>23372530
cereal guy

[Anonymous No.23372687]

>>23372640
It's a real face, it's when you puff up only one cheek like when your girlfriend says she wants pizza but you really wanted burgers. You gotta go along with it but it's like a "yeah ok, fine" expression.

[Anonymous No.23372690]

>>23372687
begrudging acquiescence

[Anonymous No.23372807]

>>23372687
The countenance of the passive aggressive simp

[Anonymous No.23372840]

Protip: if you want to increase your word count do things like writing "two hundred" instead of "200". Trust me, it pays off in the long run.

[Anonymous No.23372907]

I'm reading book reviews on Amazon and came across this woman spazzing out over the use of name brands in a story.

Is it bad form to mention real places by name? I think if your setting is real life then Taco Bell provides a stronger connection than something like "Burrito Queen".

[Anonymous No.23372923]

>>23372907
actually I agree, it does cheapen it somehow. unless carefully used to create a sense of place.

[Anonymous No.23372941]

>>23372907
For TV and movies, it can result in a defamation lawsuit if they don't like what your portrayal of a brand seems to imply. In some countries the extends to other media and using a real brand can make you effectively unpublishable. If you're guaranteed to have a small audience, and only publish on free websites, then it's probably no big deal.
Just to clarify, I don't think this is a matter of "good or bad writing." It’s just a matter of legal liability.

[Anonymous No.23373217]

>>23372923
What about real world places? Like not cities, but say, Disneyland? If it's a major setting of your story you can't really swap it out for Genericland.

[Anonymous No.23373236]

>>23373217
Yes you can

[Anonymous No.23373252]

>>23373236
It can, but will it be as good? Nobody will care about Boris the Mouse as much as Mickey.

[Anonymous No.23373305]

>>23370806
Ugh...I literally used that question as an example of a stupid one. >>23366778
The answer is...it depends on what works for you. There are no set rules for how to create, only rules like spelling, grammar, punctuation, narrative drive, etc.

[Anonymous No.23373316]

>>23372530
nonplussed

[Anonymous No.23373497]

>>23373217
if it was uttered in an entirely unamused way (e.g. the Netscape Navigator line she quoted in her crit), it would feel off & amateurish.

[Anonymous No.23373815]

My editor criticized my protagonist as being unreasonably mean and cruel for the kind of character he is
>Opens the story by pummeling a minor to the point of incontinence for no reason other than the kid being a skilled martial artist
>Insults other cultures repeatedly and occasionally spouts racial slurs (Funny, considering he's part of the ethnicity he belittles)
>Has an enormous hatred for "Gentle" martial arts like Judo, and tends to straight up insult and even flat-out attack people who use them
>Metaphorically rapes someone with his fists
>Constantly insults everyone around him in a really harsh way. Not even condescending, just straight up "You're a maggot. Kill yourself"
His justification? He's got a missing left hand and a somewhat constrained upbringing.

[Anonymous No.23373984]

>>23373815
You can tell your mom oops I mean "editor" that you deserve no dinner, and to cut your internet for the rest of the month.

[Anonymous No.23373988]

>>23373815
Sounds plausible. I've been watching videos on youtube of an ex-con who tells the craziest shit of what he saw go down in maximum security prison. One dude was ready to kill a man over $40. So your guy beating someone shitless over how they fight is completely realistic.

[Anonymous No.23374004]

>>23372089
You know, in America, there are so fucking many publishers, it takes very little effort to register as a "publisher", and most of them are like one guy in his garage with a PC, it's virtually no different from self-publishing in many cases. You can always find "an actual publisher" to print your book. But is that someone qualified and capable of giving your book the treatment it deserves to sell a single copy and reach foreign markets too, now that's a different matter

[Anonymous No.23374063]

My problem is I write things too literal so it looks like just a laundry list of actions or things in the scene. It's hard to come up with more creative ways to describe things.

[Anonymous No.23374091]

>>23373815
Sounds more like a teenager than a protagonist, i'm with your editor on this, make him a side character, trying to sell him as the protagonist willl backfire on you, imagine if george rr martin made joffrey or ramsey the protagonist, would you like the book/show?

[Anonymous No.23374100]

When will you stop responding to the martial arts autist?

[Anonymous No.23374102]

If I pay an editor and they do the work, do I have to pay them again after I make the changes and they re-read it?

[Anonymous No.23374237]

>>23371184
This is me, only instead of a week later it's just the next day. I go to bed so hyped thinking I just wrote a masterpiece then wake up and feel deflated the rest of the day and want to throw it all in the trash. And if someone else tells me it's good I think they're just being polite and really hated it.

[Anonymous No.23374298]

>>23372530
The "just google it" expression.

[Anonymous No.23374361]

>Just realised I need to fundamentally change the first 7 chapters of my book
IT'S FUCKING OVER

[Anonymous No.23374376]

>>23374361
That's what, 15K words? You'll get over it.

[Anonymous No.23374417]

>>23374376
Yeah true but I was SO CLOSE ANON. I was so close...

[Anonymous No.23374911]

>>23374091
His motivation is to find out the truth about his great grandmother and also get revenge for his hand

[Anonymous No.23374922]

>>23374911
then dial that shit down, don't dump all his character flaws on the reader, create tension, show how he struggles with being a monster--how it was inevitable from his upbringing, family, culture, society, etc and how justified his motivations are, that's how you make readers care

[Anonymous No.23374935]

>>23374063
have you tried reading, to see how other authors do it? if so, maybe you're not cut out to be a writer. it takes a certain level of talent and skill, not just gobs of time on your hands as you waste away in your mommy's basement instead of getting a job and becoming an adult

[Anonymous No.23375058]

>>23374922
The reason why I made him that way was because I was sick of martial arts protagonists being one of two things
>Chill master guy
>Enthusiastic fighter guy
I thought it’d be more interesting for the main character to just be a walking ball of rage that has very explicit biases and hates everyone

[Anonymous No.23375099]

>>23368714
50k words now. It's a strange experience, there's a lot to say and I feel it's all interesting, but at the same time, the characters aren't really progressing anywhere.

[Anonymous No.23375227]

>>23375058
>a walking ball of rage that has very explicit biases and hates everyone
Isn't that just the villain in most martial arts stories? Why would the reader care to read about him if he's so unsympathetic right from the start?

[Anonymous No.23375347]

>>23375227
I dunno, initially he was going to be a lot more chill and stuff, complete with taking care of an adoptive kid
Then I realized that’s boring as fuck and completely at odds with reality

[Anonymous No.23375421]

>>23375347
Well I'm not necessarily saying change his character, just change the order in which you present things. You can have an anti-hero protagonist but you need to introduce him in a way that sympathizes him to the audience before you introduce his flaws. The first impression is important. Literature is linear. Breaking Bad begins with Walter getting shit on for several episodes.

You could begin your story with him losing his hand. Wasn't he once supposed to be the kind of doe-eyed novice that he now goes out of his way to crush for sport? You can create a lot of surprise that way because it runs counter to the typical arc of the underdog sports story. His motives, though twisted, are actually more realistic, making him more complex. If you don't begin by revealing his vulnerability, you'll lose the reader, but intimate knowledge of his weakness and pain will make his rage that much more compelling.

[Anonymous No.23375459]

>>23375421
He’s not the smug kind of asshole.

[Anonymous No.23375475]

>>23364252
Just control-replace all tab characters to get rid of the manual tabs. That might require looking up what the character representation of tab is, but Word should probably have the option for it. Applying auto-indents should be a one-time easy thing, but make sure you're only applying it to opening paragraphs or similar.

[Anonymous No.23375626]

>>23372089
>It was literally the word "thanks" printed one million times.
"A Million Niggers" could be a good meme book, just the word "niggers" printed one million times.

[Anonymous No.23375656]

where do you start-- what inspires your outline/story? characters, themes, worldbuilding?

[Anonymous No.23375657]

/wg/, I want to write again, but after writing caused me a mental breakdown all I can feel when I think about it is shame and anxiety. I dont even really believe I can finish a short story. Is it even possible to bounce back from this aftet 4 years of struggling?

[Anonymous No.23375663]

>>23375657
elaborate. why are you losing your mind over this?

[Anonymous No.23375670]

>>23364252
>>23375475
>make sure you're only applying it to opening paragraphs
Fucked that up. Meant to only auto-indent following paragraphs. Openers shouldn't be indented.

[Anonymous No.23375678]

>>23375656
for me its I start with concepts. my next novel is inspired by prewar miconceptions of space travel like cannon-shell space ships, martian pyramids and the rain forests of venus, mixed with my love of middle eastern fantasy and alchemy

[Anonymous No.23375711]

>>23372907
What about name dropping celebrities? Like "he was watching Seinfeld on the television"?

[Anonymous No.23375712]

>>23375663
basically, my life outside of my writing went to shit, which caused my writing to slow to a crawl because of stress. that itself caused its own stress. realizing that it would take me another three years of writing to finish my second draft at the pace I was going broke me, and I felt crushed with shame at how far Id falken (for context, my first novel took 3 months). it meant I was unable to write without bcoming paralyzed by anxiety, or feeling so exhausted by mental strain I could barely keep my eyes open. when, after an hour of trying to finish a single paragraph, I gave up, I was filled with shame and disappointment in myself.

it took 2 years for me to find a treatment that subdued my depression, but the damage to my sense of agency and self-esteem is done. I dont really believe in myself as a writer anymore, and it feels impossible for me to pick up momentum without getting stuck the second I make any mistake

[Anonymous No.23375727]

>Trying to write the introductory scene of my secondary protagonist
>He's offered basically a freebie magical high by some magic hobo on the street through skin contact (holding hands)
>He grabs the guy's hand and basically resist every pleasurable sensation he should be feeling, just to prove to himself he is in control of his mind
>No matter how I write it, it's just fucking gay

I think I might have to write this over from the bottom up (drat, gay again)

[Anonymous No.23375738]

>>23375727
Make him a cute girl instead

[Anonymous No.23375747]

>>23372907
I have read some atrocious stuff that involves sentences like that, but you do want to create a sense of place.

For example, A Confederacy of Dunces brings up a lot of New Orleans stuff by name. D.H. Holmes was a real department store (it became Dillard's in the late 1990s), Dr. Nut was a real soft drink, and so forth. It can be very handy if you want to sell the book as a "local" title which will get it in local and state libraries, even if you come across as a massive autist. In the end use your best judgement. Don't do pic related, even if it's a paid spot.

[Anonymous No.23375754]

>>23375747
>>23372907

Woops, let me fix that

[Anonymous No.23375766]

>>23375727
Just make it gay and have the character point it out and play it off as a joke

[Anonymous No.23375826]

>>23375727
you could change literally any little thing to degayify this, but you are seemingly hung up on something. maybe let it be gay.

[Anonymous No.23375976]

>>23375754
I just ate but suddenly I'm in the mood for some Joe T. Garcia's™. Classic Tex-Mex and strong margaritas would really hit the spot this Saturday afternoon. With close to 1,200 seats available I won't even need a reservation when I stop by Joe T. Garcia's™ later.

[Anonymous No.23376059]

>>23375754
That writing is so cringe. It reminds me of how I write. Oh god.

[Anonymous No.23376076]

>>23375754
i don't think that any of the last 20 books i've read had dawdled like this. what are they trying to convey? this is chapter 31...

[Anonymous No.23376140]

>>23375421
Let me explain his deal
>Guy is raised in a family of martial artists.
>They’re always very hesitant to speak of great grandmother
>His grandfather, father, and mother tend to be very restrictive of what he and his two siblings are allowed to do when it comes to fighting. No high level competition, for example.
>He eventually finds an incomplete account of great grandma, that being most of her journal.
>He leaves home, traveling according to her notes, to both discover the truth and also fight harder because he was never allowed to do that
>Ends up attracting the wrong attention 6 years afterwards, gets maimed and dismembered by a dude who just wanted to bulldoze a strong guy
>2 years later, goes to get even
Is it reasonable for him to be a huge dick?

[Anonymous No.23376152]

>>23376076
Just some dudes hangin out eating delicious tex-mex.

[Anonymous No.23376160]

>>23376140
these are decisions you have to figure out for yourself. unless you want to credit /wg/ as a coauthor. actually, by now i think we've earned it.

[Anonymous No.23376165]

>>23376160
Darn

[Anonymous No.23376167]

>>23376140
If I got dismembered I would also be quite pissed and would turn into a huge dick.

[Anonymous No.23376176]

>>23376167
I was considering having the story be about him recovering the fighting spirit he lost that day but that's stupid

[Anonymous No.23376182]

>>23376176
That's just the plot of Rocky 3

[Anonymous No.23376184]

>>23376182
I know

[Anonymous No.23376201]

>>23376140
The more important question is, is there any sort of audience for this sort of thing? Do you think there are a lot of people who would experience wish-fulfillment by reading your work? Why should anyone care about your protagonist, or what happens to him?

[Anonymous No.23376227]

>>23374935
The issue is more why should something be described? Like I have a scene inside a motel lobby. Everyone has been in one. Everyone knows what a lobby looks like so there's no reason to spend a paragraph saying where the table is, what donuts are put out, etc. I'm sure if I did an editor would just tell me to cut it because it's filler. So I just say something like "He walked in and noticed the dingy cramped lobby" and leave it at that but then it feels so barebones it's awful.

[Anonymous No.23376335]

>>23376227
It should be described if it's meaningful or interesting. Determining that is a judgment call on the part of the writer. If you're actually unclear on how to make that call, you need to read more, and experience life more.

[Anonymous No.23376358]

>>23376227
I have a scene in a restaurant. My first draft I just said my MC walked in and sat down. Got the point across at the time and I moved on. Now I'm going back and filling in the little details. He pulls open the door, hears the sizzle of steaks cooking in the kitchen, describe what music is playing over the speakers, that sort of stuff. So that one sentence becomes a small paragraph to help set the mood of what kind of restaurant it is.

For a motel you can tell if it's a seedy motel. Is the clerk smoking a cigarette while watching TV? Is it a classy motel? Is the clerk wearing a tie? Describe the donuts by flavor. Maybe say raspberry Danish instead of just "donut". Usually motels have tourist brochures, so maybe you can mention something relevant to the rest of the setting where it takes place.

[Anonymous No.23376360]

>>23376358
One more thing I forgot to mention, I heard it was a good technique to add as much sensory stimuli as possible to help the reader connect. Just saying you 'saw' something is fine, but smell, taste, and sound create a more vivid image. That's why I brought up the "sizzle of steaks" and the type of music.

[Anonymous No.23376451]

>>23372907
Okay but how would you describe a Polaroid picture? That's literally the only name for it. Sometimes you just gotta use brand names.

[Anonymous No.23376464]

A publisher I want to submit to wants to see 50 pages of a manuscript. What does that mean? Page count varies a lot based on layout, font, etc

[Anonymous No.23376486]

>>23376451
an instant photo?

[Anonymous No.23376512]

>>23376358
Here's my before and effort, to illustrate.

>He pulled open the front door and saw his father's hat sticking over the back of a booth. Caden took off his jacket, set his bag on the seat, and slipped in opposite his father.

>The hiss of steaks charring on a griddle greeted Caden when he pulled open the restaurant's door. A rich baritone voice drifted from the ceiling speakers, crooning a ballad of a cowboy clad in a continental suit. He paused before the cash register and scanned the dining room. Behind him, a mural of photographs plastered the wall. Anyone brave – or foolhardy – enough to finish the chef's masterpiece, a two pound burger dubbed The Heifer, was immortalized there. When Caden spotted a blue Dodgers baseball cap sticking over the back of their regular booth he shed his coat, set his camera bag on the seat, and slid in opposite his father.

Still a work in progress though.

[Anonymous No.23376514]

I wrote this a few months ago, and I forgot about it. I was trying out a kind of chaotic, stream of consciousness style.

I really like it, but because i can imagine the scenes im describing, and it's obviously very pesonal. What do you guys think about it?

[Anonymous No.23376522]

>>23376201
Cuz I feel like it

[Anonymous No.23376530]

>>23376522
If it's something you're feeling, how come you have to ask us so many basic questions about it?

[Anonymous No.23376536]

>>23376464
there is a standard manuscript format that describes font/word count per page, etc. look it up

[Anonymous No.23376603]

>>23376536
Thank you, that's exactly what I needed

[Anonymous No.23376637]

>>23376530
No idea

[Anonymous No.23376690]

>>23376637
You are a waste of our collective time.

[Anonymous No.23376694]

>>23376690
I like him. He can stay.

[Anonymous No.23376696]

>>23376694
We have enough comic relief around here as it is.

[Anonymous No.23376705]

I set up a spreadsheet to keep track of my words as I go. I find it interesting.

[Anonymous No.23376778]

You ever feel like your story works better in a visual medium?
I do. Problem is while I'm a passable artist, It'd take me weeks to draw a single panel or frame right

[Anonymous No.23376789]

>>23376705
when I clicked on that I was expecting words written per day. yours isn't quite so useful

[Anonymous No.23376818]

>>23376789
Why would per day matter when I'll just go back and change most of them anyway?

>>23376778
Yes, I wish mine was a movie instead but I can't afford that so I'll just make it a book. I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard Tarantino writes all his screenplays out as books first, that's why the movies end up being more visually distinct.

[Anonymous No.23376824]

>>23376818
because measuring forward progress is more useful than knowing the number of words in, say, chapter 3

[Anonymous No.23376827]

>>23376824
What I do is write chapter 3, sit it on it a day (write chapter 4 in the meantime), then on the third day go back and revise chapter 3 a little while starting on chapter 5, then repeat the revising the next day on chapter 4, etc. So I bounce around all over as new ideas come to me. That's why I'm only up to 17 because I keep going back and re-doing the older ones every few days. So my progress is hard to track in new words per day. But if I see chapter 3 was 1100 words and now it is 1700 then I know I got something done.

[Anonymous No.23376869]

>>23376778
Novel writers only make real money from selling the TV/movie rights, so be sure to write with that in mind.

[Anonymous No.23376878]

>write a fantasy story
>scenes of everyday life in a city
>the MC goes to something similar to the DMV
>pick up tickets
>waits for their number
>worker is slow and irritates the MC

Is this good world building or do people cringe when needing to be reminded of everyday irritations in stories?

[Anonymous No.23376884]

>>23376869
This is true. I read Michael Crichton wrote the story for ER in the 70s but no one was interested in picking it up. Then Jurassic Park got made and suddenly everyone was begging to make ER. Then it became like the biggest TV show of the 90s.

[Anonymous No.23376887]

>>23376878
>>write a fantasy story
>>scenes of everyday life in a city
Don't do that

[Anonymous No.23376894]

>gearing up to write a happy story
>something tragic happens in my life again
What the fuck am I supposed to do? How do I get into the mindspace to write the happy things I'd planned on?

[Anonymous No.23376897]

>>23376878
I guess if you want to piss of your readers, sure. I had a scene where my MC gets fired. It was miserable to write, I hated it. I just know the reader would want to drop the book then too. No one wants to be reminded of the bad times. Unless it's absolutely critical to the plot I'd say skip it, or at least just mention it briefly in a paragraph to get the point across. No reason to simulate the 3 hour wait at DMV in a chapter that feels like it takes 3 hours to get through.

[Anonymous No.23376939]

>>23376897
>>23376887
i dunno, most isekai anime shit and fantasy webnovels now are about mundane everyday things. From registering with the guild to trying to find something to eat.

[Anonymous No.23376942]

>>23376897
>I had a scene where my MC gets fired. It was miserable to write, I hated it. I just know the reader would want to drop the book then too.
which is why you make a scene like that funny, and a prelude to the mc acting like a complete retard or bouncing back

[Anonymous No.23376949]

>>23376878
LOL

[Anonymous No.23376955]

>>23376939
>most isekai anime IS shit
Fixed, and it is for that reason you mentioned. It might work as an episodic comedy series with low stakes, but for a novel you really want shit to happen and for it not to drag its feet.

[Anonymous No.23376998]

>>23376955
I feel like they all fall into the same trap of overpowered haremshit.
Not enough explore the idea of "Other world" enough with a protagonist who's forced to adapt or die. Not even Berserk/Drakengard-level grimdark stuff, just that basic premise is enough to make an engaging narrative.
I'm not asking for the protagonist catching medieval sicknesses or witch hunts or rape demons and shit, I'm talking more "You have no magic, no cheats, nothing but a physically above average body and whatever the fuck you can learn along the way. Good luck jackass, hope you enjoy yourself"

[Anonymous No.23377006]

>>23376878
I wrote a scene where the MC took public transportation and gets annoyed by all the other passengers. From kids picking their noses, niggers farting, and some fat smelly fuck taking a seat next to MC. I thought it was a fun silly scene and I didn't want to cut it.

[Anonymous No.23377021]

>>23376514
It's awful to read from the perspective that it wasn't written to be read by other people but by yourself for yourself in of itself. String of consciousness is a good technique but exclusively using it throughout tires the reader, especially when you're using commas so often to demark pauses in your thoughts. It'd be far more effective if you took some time to formalize dialog and some of the descriptions apart from your thought yarn. Indirect free speech would most definitely be your friend here.
Also, if you're going to present your work like that at least justify the text, it's the neat thing to do.

[Anonymous No.23377039]

>>23376998
I mean, imagine this.
>MC mostly relies on his own cunning and skill, along with whatever he can find rather than any OP powers. He SLOWLY works up his skillset and while he's quite formidable by the end of it all, he's hardly an unstoppable OP monster.
>Every skill is something he organically picks up through effort rather than just being handed it. For example, he SLOWLY works out how to use a magical spell from repeated trial and error, slowly piecing together how it works. This extends to his other skills, such as swordsmanship and bow use.
>Has to understand the economy/cultural values of the world, such as bartering or religious iconography.
It's a premise that has actual merit as an engaging narrative, but is constantly ruined by haremshit and OP protagonists. Hell, if you have to work in a romance you can also do that right by making it a slow burn where he slowly falls for a girl in a relationship built on mutual respect and understanding rather than a one-sided one.

[Anonymous No.23377059]

>>23377039
What you're describing sounds like that VRMMO anime that aired last winter. It was just some boring ass MC who grinded his ass off but thankfully they don't spend a lot of time showing that, but he learns how to build his own weapons, make recipes on his own, etc. and gradually levels up.

Most people hated the fuck out of it and said it was the most boring thing on earth but apparently there are like 38 volumes of the LN in Japan and it is still being published. They just like to read about the daily grind I guess.

[Anonymous No.23377097]

>>23377039
So, Disney's "The Owl House"?

[Anonymous No.23377104]

>>23377097
Fair enough?
Quality of the show aside, Luz isn’t anyone special, she’s just smart and works things out slowly

[Anonymous No.23377112]

>>23377059
Point is, I'm not asking for "Grinding."
I'm asking for him to organically work out his skillset through experiences.

[Anonymous No.23377125]

>>23376869
Real money? I guess if you mean being filthy rich. I feel like most novelists just write books and make a living that way, never selling tv rights etc

[Anonymous No.23377131]

>>23365045
Why even explain? Rather than doing half assed shit like pick which color of maid and butler dialog you want the drapes in you could just clue your readers in as the story moves along without unnecessary, out of place, exposition. That the victim's name was Dr. Harry Martin Wallace Jr. doesn't fucking matter if no one would naturally say his full name. On the other hand his full name can be derived from his profession, his father's first name, his mother's maiden name and the family surname. Why does his mother use her maiden name? She's obviously divorced, no need to say it out loud. Why is he Harry? Because his father is Harry and you've heard him call his son junior. Surname? It's only polite to refer to someone as Mr. Wallace.
It's really not that hard and it can be extrapolated to fit any piece of information. Just remember that not everything is important just because you've thought about it or wrote it down in some outline or character sheet, there's information that would never be brought up naturally in the middle of an investigation and it probably isn't important anymore, if it ever was to begin with.

[Anonymous No.23377136]

>>23377125
>I feel like most novelists just write books
Yes
>and make a living that way
Probably not. There are so many millions of authors out there now it's a needle in a haystack to get noticed. Unless you get picked up by a top 3 publishing house and star on Oprah you're probably going to be surviving off crumbs.

[Anonymous No.23377150]

>>23377136
Okay, but it's not like those nobody novelists are selling their novel's tv rights to great success. Usually it's people who achieved popularity already (GRRM). The whole tv rights thing is a very small percent of an already tiny-percent career.
I guess I'm taking offense at the suggestion to 'write your novel with tv rights in mind.' Your book turning into a block buster is a 1% of a .01% of a .0001% situation.

[Anonymous No.23377160]

>>23377125
>I feel
in other words, source: I pulled it out of my ass
Example: Philip K. Dick, despite writing 44 novels and 125 short stories, struggled financially most of his life. He only saw real money when he sold the rights to "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep", which became the movie "Blade Runner". Sadly, he passed away before he could enjoy his newfound success.

[Anonymous No.23377164]

>>23377150
I'm not the guy who said it but I still try to follow that advice. I picture in my mind how the scene plays out, what everyone is doing, as if it were a movie, then try to transcribe it to text. Not sure if that's what he meant but that's how I interpreted it.

[Anonymous No.23377169]

>Eulogy for a Cockroach
WELLL SOOOOO LOOONNGGGGGG
WISH YOU WEEELLLL
SHOW US HOW YOU WERENT AFRAID TO DIEEE!!

[Anonymous No.23377177]

>>23377160
Wow that sucks. I didn't know he inspired Total Recall too. Did at least his kids inherit the money from the movies?

[Anonymous No.23377213]

>>23376076
A lot of the chapters are very short (like 2-3 pages). To be entirely fair, despite being in actual libraries, it's self-published.

Some of its finer moments:
>Missing punctuation everywhere
>Characters joke about recently arrested character getting prison raped
>basically thinks he's writing novelizations of CSI-tier shows complete with "zoom and enhance"

[Anonymous No.23377237]

>>23377177
Kids?

[Anonymous No.23377360]

>>23377213
>it's self-published.
Yeah I could kinda guess. There's an intangible "something" that just gave it away.

[Anonymous No.23377373]

>>23376530
Nigga, as long as anyone's retarded enough to engage him, he'll keep droning on and on about his crap in every thread. Just fucking stop

[Anonymous No.23377432]

Has anyone here experience with getting an agent?

[Anonymous No.23377671]

>>23375727
Let it be gay. My MC is completely straight, but he had a really gay moment with another character.
The reasoning was that he's empathic, and though he mostly closes that off, the other guy is so strong in his gayness that it bled through and made them really good friends.

[Anonymous No.23377680]

>>23375727
Let it be gay, adds depth, also w***n will love it

[Anonymous No.23378067]

>>23377177
Oh, yeah. His kids are billionaires.

[Anonymous No.23378232]

Is self publishing a bad idea ? Seems like you should try to get traditionally published first before you self published. Get your name out

[Anonymous No.23378283]

>>23378232
Read a few posts back to see what kind of reputation self-published books have, and why

[Anonymous No.23378379]

>>23378232
Tradpubbing these days is reserved for highly intersectional types, you have to do all your own publicity yourself anyway, and tradpubbed books don't sell any better than self-published ones. The "best sellers" list is astroturfed by big money actors paying for straw buyers. Just self-pub.

[Anonymous No.23378396]

>>23377160
I mean i'm not sure you listing one example is you having hard evidence and not also pulling shit out of your ass.
I could easily list assloads of amazon romance, erotica, fantasy, etc authors who, based on their BSR ranks, are definitely making a living wage, and those authors vastly outnumber the ones making a living wage from selling tv rights

[Anonymous No.23378398]

>>23378232
it depends on what you write.

[Anonymous No.23378411]

Why aren't you writing a litrpg and collecting AutismBux right now, anon?

[Anonymous No.23378554]

>>23378396
You want another example? Someone else you may have heard of? Herman Melville had a day job during his entire writing career; "Moby Dick" only sold ~2,500 copies when it was released. It wasn't until his 100th birthday (by which time he was long dead) that his work was reevaluated, and now Moby Dick is part of the literary canon.

[Anonymous No.23378574]

>>23378411
autists don't have any money

[Anonymous No.23378652]

>>23378574
Why do you think this is the case?

[Anonymous No.23378732]

>>23378554
Okay so you realize naming a few rare examples is, if anything, proving my point? Starting to get the feeling talking to you is pointless

[Anonymous No.23378738]

>>23378554
>>23378732
Wait I was annoyed at you providing another example and didn't realize your post has nothing to do with tv rights. Wtf?

[Anonymous No.23378812]

>>23378732
Fine. Be delusional. I don't care. I should have known you were more interested in stroking your arrogant ego than you were in learning something useful.

[Anonymous No.23378847]

>>23378379
Right, so if it's not going to sell either way why sink all the money in editors and advertising yourself? Let a publishing house do it.

[Anonymous No.23378879]

>>23378812
wtf how am i stroking my ego talking about this? are you schizo?

address my points:
>The vast majority of authors make a living wage ("real money", unless you mean mega-rich numbers) through novels, not tv rights. This is easily verifiable by scrolling through amazon best seller rankings and seeing how many individual authors are pulling in decent wages. Meanwhile lucrative tv right deals are significantly rarer. Probably a few dozen a year I would think (neither of us have stats on this)
>tv rights might give the 1 in a million chance to earn ridiculous sums of money, yes, like game of thrones, but why would you suggest a novelist to focus on it, when it's even more vanishingly rare than becoming a novelist at all?

>learning something useful
you're just talking out of your ass because you want to be on tv or some shit dude, stop projecting. You're not 'teaching me something useful'

[Anonymous No.23378901]

>>23378554
This is very encouraging. If I put out my work and everyone hates it it's not because I'm a bad writer, but they're just not smart enough to comprehend my brilliance yet.

[Anonymous No.23378949]

>>23364009
What seperates a slow burn that has eventual payoff if you stick with the book vs a book that has nothing and makes people want to DNF it?

I see everywhere people say they love a good, slow-burn but then they have the attention span of a goldfish and they can't finish anything. What gives? What can I do in my long novel to make sure people read it and to trust me as the author that everything has a place and a reason for existing? There is zero trust in the author anymore.

[Anonymous No.23378962]

>>23378847
Because, unless you already have an audience, the odds of being picked up by a publishing house are near zero.

[Anonymous No.23378966]

>>23378962
Defeatist mentality. It happens all the time. You just suck at writing and are coping by telling others they have no chance

[Anonymous No.23378973]

>>23378962
Then how does anyone ever get started with that logic? Everyone starts from nothing.

[Anonymous No.23378974]

>>23378879
No, the vast majority of authors make no money whatsoever from their writing. Scrolling through the Amazon best-seller ranks won't find the vast majority of authors. This renders your talking points inaccurate and irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.23378980]

>>23378966
No, it's realistic. Source for "happens all the time": you pulled it out of your ass
>>23378973
They get started with self-pubbing. Once they have an audience they can point to, publishers might become interested in them.

[Anonymous No.23378981]

>>23378974
>the vast majority of authors make no money whatsoever from their writing. This invalidates your talking points
My point is .001% of them make living wages, retard, whereas .00000001% make money from tv rights. Are you really this fucking stupid or am I being trolled?

[Anonymous No.23378999]

Can self publishing be different from print on demand?

[Anonymous No.23379011]

>>23378966
>you just suck at writing
Ehhh tradpubbing really is luck to some extent. There's loads of crap that gets published and lots of good books that get ignored
Also depends a lot on what type of content you're creating. Agents are picky trend-following motherfuckers, and that has nothing to do with the quality of your book
But agree that you can't be defeatist about it. That's life. You just gotta trudge through

[Anonymous No.23379018]

>>23378966
>waah waah you're wrong because you hurt muh precious little feelings
>>23378981
source: i pulled it out of my ass

[Anonymous No.23379022]

>>23379018
Actually relieved by this response, now I know you're a troll. I really do get baited too often

[Anonymous No.23379068]

Does getting pubbed by a smaller publishing house still count as trad pub?
E.g. the litrpg publishers who scoop up any and all trending royalroad stories and publish & make audiobooks out of them
Or is tradpub big 5 only

[Anonymous No.23379092]

I don't consider self publishing to be real publishing. It's no different in my eyes than just taping your manuscript to the bulletin board at the laundromat, just on a bigger scale. Anyone can do that, so it has no weight. Maybe I am just stuck in the past but it feels if you didn't get chosen by a professional then you still haven't "made it".

[Anonymous No.23379138]

>>23379092
II agree but then I look back at my work and, given the length, feel as if no matter the quality of the writing, it will never be published because of the length and the fact it might make publishers bankrupt.

Melville was a failed author at his time. I think true art will find its way in time, regardless of it being published "traditionally" or not.

Even tradpublishers publish slop in litfic. Every MFA grad writes the same ennui filled shit as a response to the fear of vulnerability. It's mundane because anything extraordinary isn't serious or good in their eyes. Are you a better or more legit author if you write awful MFA litfic vs writing legit art but on your own website?

[Anonymous No.23379408]

>>23379138
Is yours too long or too short? I struggle with getting enough words and it seems novellas have no place in traditional publishing.

[Anonymous No.23379601]

>>23378981
your math is wrong actually only 1 in 100 billion writers make enough money to survive

[Anonymous No.23379734]

I just started writing as a hobby and I don't aspire to ever be anything but a hobbyist. Gaining a small following of people who enjoy my stuff is all I need.
I have a bunch of ideas and I just started writing. I'm going through the first chapter of the first story I have ever written, it's taken me nearly a month and I'm sure very few people will finish reading through a full book-length story I write (at least a this stage), so it feels meaningless to keep going. The first chapter is already fucking huge as it is, but it is only the first chapter of a longer story, it cannot function as a stand-alone thing.
So I'm planning to just finish the first chapter and treat it as if it were a "pilot". That way, I can see if people gain interest in it while I work on another first chapter for a different story.
The only way to get better at writing is writing (and reading), but I crave views as much as I crave (You)s, and I'm not getting any younger. I was going to ask you guys if this was a good idea, but as I wrote this post I decided it was, so that's what I'm going to do.

[Anonymous No.23379749]

>>23379734
quack

[Anonymous No.23379771]

>>23379734
What genre? Where are you posting it? 1 chapter is almost certainly not enough to garner attention.

[Anonymous No.23379854]

>>23379408
Too long. For me, scope is everything. I love intertwining character POV's and long digressions. The novel ought to be more than just the sum of its parts.

What people fail to realize is the logistics of printing books and the concept of shelf space. If a publisher has to spend a 5x as much on your single epic novel, he might have to charge a minimum of $45 for the hardcover copy of a 1000+ page book and NOBODY is going to buy it, especially from a no-name author and ESPECIALLY if it isn't Epic Fantasy.

My work straddles the line between science fiction and realism in a way that pisses both parties off. The MFA litfic types think that because my work has madeup things like imaginary cities (there's one built in and surrounded by glass with billions of people and the entire city is a giant mall, for example [that city is supposed to be tied in with the Baudrillardian themes of a hyperreal city]) and other weird stuff like women growing from out of cocoons and shit and the Genre slopfags seethe when I actively ignore immersion, focus on prose over action, take long philosophical detours, throw in real world brands like Pop-Tarts and Coca-Cola in with the "fantasy world"

In other words, my shit is incredibly unmarketable to both extremes. Self-publishing is my only avenue. I want to drop a chapter a day (book has 365 or so chapters, each 5k+ words) and hope to monetize the future parts on Patreon. I reckon at least my work can be the world's best and most literary web-novel, even if it means I'm the king of the idiots, it's still something.

[Anonymous No.23379921]

>>23379022
Believe whatever you want. If you're wrong, you'll only screw up your own life. I'm fine with that. I really need to stop trying to help people on this forum. You're beyond help.

[Anonymous No.23379927]

>>23379921
>become a published author with huge fanbase, but forget to focus on tv rights
>fuck I screwed up my life
Yeah I'll be devastated when that happens for sure

[Anonymous No.23379962]

>>23379921
>I really need to stop trying to help people on this forum.
Please do. Your "advice" is retarded, even by /wg/ standards.

[Anonymous No.23379964]

>>23379921
the only approach to getting traditionally published is to follow the path of the current number 1 best selling author. self publish, become popular, publishing companies come to you with wheelbarrels full of cash so they can publish your existing and future books.
trad publishing is stale, tired and safe. the vast majority of their money is made by publishing a handful of uber best selling authors and money laundering via political books, and the few scraps they do throw out are for DEI diversity points, and those books particular books barely sell

[Anonymous No.23379974]

>>23379927
>when that happens
delusional ass
>>23379962
>strawman argument

[Anonymous No.23379978]

>>23379964
It's too expensive to self publish though.

[Anonymous No.23379985]

>>23379978
Too expensive? You upload your book to Amazon, along with a cover, and it becomes available for print-on-demand. Where's the expense?

[Anonymous No.23379986]

>>23379985
Hiring the ghostwriter

[Anonymous No.23379995]

>>23379985
No editor? And POD sucks. You have no control over the quality.

Also good luck selling on Amazon unless you dump a billion in advertising. You'll get lost in the sea of the 10,000 other self-publishers who uploaded their first story that same day.

[Anonymous No.23380003]

>>23379995
The complaint was that self-publishing was too expensive. Amazon print-on-demand is not expensive at all. I've personally had no complaints about the quality of their POD product; I've bought several self-published works I've heard of on this forum. And bringing up the cost of a ghostwriter >>23379986 is the mother of all deflections. It's just silly.

[Anonymous No.23380016]

>>23380003
Still didn't address the editor (the most important part), and graphic designer for the cover (option, but most people need it). And the advertising cost is monumental unless you're happy selling just 10 copies (8 of which are by family members).

[Anonymous No.23380072]

>>23380003
The problem with Amazon POD is the page limit is only like 800 pages and I am splitting my novel into 6 parts and each part is like 1500 pages at least so splitting the parts into more parts is retarded

[Anonymous No.23380096]

Damn, I missed this thread because of the lack of subject
Posted this question in wwoym but I'll ask here all the same to help cure my case of "guess that word"
What's a word to describe being so tired of being worn down that you simply choose to keep along and give up on any sort of expectation for improvement, both personally, and for that of society? "It is what it is" so-to-speak

"Fatalistic" implies one believes it was all inevitable, and "complacent" implies an enjoyment or satisfaction
The closest thing I could think of was 'complicit', but I almost feel that it barely fits

[Anonymous No.23380121]

>>23380016
The cost of the editor comes out of your profits. Have you ever looked at an entertainment-industry contract? They charge you for everything, and then you get a percentage of the profit. They make money even if you don't. You're paying for the editor, graphic designer, and advertising out of your tiny percentage of profits.This is the same reason that bands go indie unless they need nationwide support for a tour or something.
>>23380072
Not a common problem, I'm going to imagine.

[Anonymous No.23380125]

>>23380096
cynical? defeated?

[Anonymous No.23380131]

>>23380096
>What's a word to describe being so tired of being worn down that you simply choose to keep along and give up on any sort of expectation for improvement, both personally, and for that of society? "It is what it is" so-to-speak
I don't know, but it sums up my life right now. Curious to know what it's called other than just 'suicidal'.

[Anonymous No.23380161]

>>23380096
Complicit carries a different meaning. I'm not sure there is a term for what you're looking for. Perhaps 'resigned', as in 'resigned to one's fate'?

[Anonymous No.23380164]

>>23380121
You have to pay the editor before you can even start selling. I've never seen one agree to work for free on the promise you will pay them later based on whatever you earn (if you even decide to sell it and don't just walk away with their work and never pay them).

[Anonymous No.23380274]

>>23380096
resigned

[Anonymous No.23380286]

I don't even care about getting paid for my work. I just want to walk into a real bookstore and see my book on the shelf. How do I just do that?

[Anonymous No.23380532]

>>23380286
https://press.barnesandnoble.com/author-tools-and-tips/bn-press-path-to-publication

POD with B&N sometimes lets you sell the books in stores

[Anonymous No.23380549]

I just came up with an idea for a new chapter and spit out 500 words just to get the idea down. I don't get why people obsess over new words per day. These are find as an outline but I'm just going to have to redo it all later on the next draft.

[Anonymous No.23380575]

>>23378949
My understanding is that slow burn requires something to "burn". There's stuff happening, it just takes time to unwind. Meanwhile, a boring, aimless book is just what it is, garbage. Slow doesn't mean dull and pointless. Don't waste time on things that have nothing to do with the plot and characters. You see this a lot in fantasy, where the author drops everything to follow some literally who pick his nose for 20 pages. Why? It's annoying as hell.

[Anonymous No.23380619]

>>23380575
Interesting. The thing is my work has a shit ton of POV characters and every chapter has an event that they need to overcome, even if it's as small as a personal problem they have with a character or a big plot thing. The problem I have is more with how abstract and convoluted the plot is. It's as if you can interpret a scene in a million different intended ways, but I feel the reader won't get any of them.

An example. I have a chapter sequence between 2 different POV characters. The movement of these separate chapter arcs mirror one another but also contrast heavily. I have a character whose chapters are super heady, cerebral, impressionistic whereas the other character I have is at a reception where she's the hostess and so she's a people pleaser. I find that a lot of the early plot points are so symbolically linked and subtle (like the movement of dialogue contrasting the 2 separate characters [it's almost better to read these 2 chapter arcs as one big thing] and how they interact with other characters, how they internalize things etc. This nuanced and subtle shit is just so much more interesting than "and then the big dragon blew fire over the village etc." and I just cant help but feel whoever reads my stuff is just gonna think A. I'm some schizo or B. that they just don't get it. Picrel.

[Anonymous No.23380637]

>>23376942
It was more a dramatic scene so humor wouldn't work, but your mentioning to make it funny gave me the idea for a new scene where I can turn some conflict into a bit of a slapstick situation and also explain at least three loose ends I didn't know what to do with, so thanks.

[Anonymous No.23380650]

>>23372530
Tawny

[Anonymous No.23380708]

>>23380549
because when people say words per day that includes actual built out scenes, which will require somewhat extensive editing, but the more words put down the better the basis you to edit. if you get some great idea and you need to jot it down to build the scene I wouldn't count that as part of your words per day.

I jotted down about 400 words covering the chapter I'd been working on plus the next three. invaluable, it gets the order of events down and major plot beats I need to hit. absolutely zero usable writing. I didn't count it as part of my words per day, which happens. you still want to make positive progress with your, presumably, usable words per day, even if they're later destined to be edited out of existence. Hopefully not. hopefully you add to it, change some phrasings, shuffle it up, without so much deletion.

[Anonymous No.23380711]

>>23380619
This is too fucking cryptic and convoluted. Half the time, we don't know who she is--girl with fierce eyes-- unless you mention its kai. This is the problem with over-description, it leads to these kinds of misunderstandings, it slows the pace down and does not move the plot forward. You could make these kinds of descriptions with a character that is moving or walking or driving or talking. There's just too much said about nothing and not enough flow. One sentence does not follow from the previous because you are trying to describe everything. You don't have to go on a tangent every time you describe her state of mind.

[Anonymous No.23380735]

>>23380619
>a shit ton of POV characters
Why? Constant POV switching seems an almost mandatory part of modern writing, professional and amateur, but it's hardly ever necessary and adds nothing. All it does is disrupt focus and ruin pacing.

Most authors simply don't have the skill or stamina to juggle large casts and it wears them down before their story is halfway through. There are only one or two genuinely interesting viewpoints (the ones the author likes best) and the rest are contrived filler that go nowhere, and which the reader is happy to skip.

I read Erikson's Gardens of the Moon the other day and it would've been a 10/10 fantasy masterpiece with only one or two focused, well developed POVs. But no. There are like fucking 20. Towards the end, you hop into someone else's head every two paragraphs. Mixed up plot threads everywhere. The author scrambles to tie up the loose ends in the last few chapters and the result is a ludicrous mess. People die random deaths, or give up their ambitions, or just fuck off and vanish without any development, or payoff.
You see this kind of thing a lot. By this point "multiple POVs" has become a reason for me to drop a story on the spot. It's guaranteed garbage.

[Anonymous No.23380740]

Can the next baker please not be a retard and put /wg/ IN THE SUBJECT LINE

[Anonymous No.23380742]

So my battle monks are fighting the elves but the elves are proficient in the spell Silence and have a ton of mana to cast it. The battle monks cast spells too but they're low on mana and the elves just keep casting Silence so the halflings need to come in with their slings and it's all very messy. I've subverted the trope of good elves by aligning them with the orcs who aren't spellcasters either and in my world orcs are actually more like goblins with dragonoid features who can cast Flame Breath and they're allied with the elves. I think it's pretty epic how the battle monks haha

[Anonymous No.23380764]

>>23364494
There's a lot of places to stop on a road trip. Maybe a shitty motel room, maybe a conversation in the car itself, maybe they stretch their legs at a gas station, maybe they have to sleep in their car one night and get to talking.

[Anonymous No.23380802]

>>23372907
I've always been put off specifically when the exact make/model of a car is mentioned, but I'm writing a post-apocalyptic story now and mentioning a real-life something just feels more meaningful, as in:
>he missed the plastic taste of Cheetos
vs.
>he missed the plastic taste of cheese-flavored corn puffs

[Anonymous No.23380818]

>>23380802
>I've always been put off specifically when the exact make/model of a car is mentioned
Any reason why? I purposely mention it because a) I heard the car reflects the owner's personality and gives character. A rugged outdoorsman would drive a Jeep, but a stockbroker would have a Mercedes, and b) I just get tired of saying "the car did this, the car did that". Instead I can call it by name to add variety. "He steered the Camry onto the off-ramp."

[Anonymous No.23380837]

>>23380818
>the car reflects the owner's personality
Jesus fucking christ...

[Anonymous No.23380886]

>>23380837
It really does. Stories have symbolism in them.

[Anonymous No.23380985]

I'm tired of this book not being ready, I want to send it off but it's not right yet. I'm tired of spell checking for fuck sake I'm tiiiiiiiiiiiired

[Anonymous No.23381043]

>>23380985
Spellchecking is for computers, there are far more important things you should look for while editing.

[Anonymous No.23381060]

>>23380650
Huh? Tawny means of orange-brown or yellow-brown color.

[Anonymous No.23381159]

>>23372530
That's just a pouty face, isn't it?

[Anonymous No.23381330]

I am so back.

[Anonymous No.23381371]

>>23380818
>A rugged outdoorsman would drive a Jeep
>a Jeep
lmao, you mean a teenage girl or metrosexual faggot

[Anonymous No.23381414]

Someone should make a new thread

[Anonymous No.23381555]

>>23380711
> Half the time, we don't know who she is--girl with fierce eyes-- unless you mention its kai.
Partly because this is an excerpt from the already existing text. Makes more sense if you read it from the beginning.
> it slows the pace down and does not move the plot forward.
I don't want a fast pace nor do I want a constantly moving plot. I want to emulate psychedelia, especially given that Kai's state of mind is essentially this. This is how she sees the world.
>You could make these kinds of descriptions with a character that is moving or walking or driving or talking.
I mean, I do. She's walking to the bar.
>You don't have to go on a tangent every time you describe her state of mind.
But I want to because that's how she sees the world. Plus, I find it more interesting to go into hyper-detail over everything instead of a semblance of a "plot" that just chugs along to no end. Much cooler, to me, to give this feeling of overwhelming psychedelia.

>>23380735
>All it does is disrupt focus and ruin pacing.
The focus is the scope and interconnectedness, which is why a lot of POV characters are necessary.
>Most authors simply don't have the skill or stamina to juggle large casts and it wears them down before their story is halfway through.
Luckily, this is probably my greatest strength, is maintaining stamina.
>contrived filler that go nowhere
Define nowhere. That was the question I had initially, how much do you trust the author. It seems that you don't have any and require them to spoonfeed you things in a straightforward manner. I like to present all opportunities of thought in such a way to encourage infinite interpretation.
>I read Erikson's Gardens of the Moon the other day and it would've been a 10/10 fantasy masterpiece with only one or two focused, well developed POVs. But no. There are like fucking 20.
This is because he uses inconsequential characters for POV and he doesn't give them ech an arc, meaning nor their own chapter. My work makes it easy. Every chapter is a new POV. It does not change per chapter. Every character introduced has an arc and meaning.
>It's guaranteed garbage.
It's just not been done right and genre fiction does not breed the best writers.

[Anonymous No.23381684]

>>23381555
>n-no, you see...
maybe you should take his feedback into account and make whoever is speaking more clear, and not head hop so much

[Anonymous No.23381689]

>>23381684
There is no head-hopping. I suggest actually learning the definitions of things before using them haphazardly.

[Anonymous No.23381723]

>>23381555
There's a difference btn going on a tangent and describing her state of mind without inserting your own opinions. The story would flow better if her state of mind involved in-universe references and not your own, references that eventually get paid off and don't suffer from the mention first then discard later treatment. The reader should be clear on what her opinions are and where yours come into view. This instead, is a mess of what you want you want to say about your world and what she thinks of her own. Its not delivered very well which is why it comes off as cryptic. You need to study more of woolf and proust to learn how to do it well enough.

[Anonymous No.23381737]

>>23381414
I disagree

[Anonymous No.23381745]

>>23381723
>without inserting your own opinions.
Should there be no authorial objectivity then? Not arguing, just an honest question.

[Anonymous No.23381821]

>character says the name of the novel in dialogue
Kino or nah?

[Anonymous No.23381841]

>>23378949
If you're going to make a payoff be sure to build it up and make it worth it. I once read a book that was meandering bullshit about a detective who seemingly did nothing, a deuteragonist rich woman who meandered between unlikable cunt and actually interesting character who wastes hobos, and her gay terrorist brother ("The Grid" by Harry Hunsicker). The payoff redeemed it somewhat so I was left with a far better impression than otherwise. On the flip side, I've seen some mildly interesting and intriguing books get derailed with a shitty ending which leaves a really bad impression otherwise.

[Anonymous No.23381864]

>>23381555
>It's just not been done right and genre fiction does not breed the best writers.
The excerpt you posted doesn't suggest you're such a bundle of talent who will turn this into gold.

[Anonymous No.23381873]

>>23381745
I am not saying there shouldn't be. The writer can insert his own opinions using the perspective of someone else, or just show how her point of view is in clear contrast to reality. Sort of like a little girl who has dreamt of playing with a bear for years. She has been fantasizing about it, begging her parents to take her to the zoo. She opens a lemonade stand to collect money so that she can buy a gift for the bear--some honey--a reminiscing of the winnie pooh and tigre stories. Once there, behind a cage, the bear suddenly growls at her as she approaches with her gift, shattering her fantasies and introducing her to reality. This is how you insert your opinions, by showing how they affect your characters not by preaching them to us like a mandatory sermon, and her monologues and thoughts should be in-universe, the references should be moving the plot forward towards some conflict and hopefully its resolution. They shouldn't be tangential thoughts that describe the liberal opinions you have about the administration of zoos or some other irrelevant slop.

[Anonymous No.23381901]

How do you know if you have a good enough idea for a story?

[Anonymous No.23381905]

>>23381821
So long as it's not contrived, kino.

[Anonymous No.23381908]

>>23381864
Post writing then. Until then, I'm better than you

[Anonymous No.23381931]

>>23381908
Nuh uh. Fuck you, nigger.

[Anonymous No.23382129]

>>23381931
Brown hands typed this.

[Anonymous No.23382474]

>>23382472
New

[Anonymous No.23382492]

>>23380096
>What's a word to describe being so tired of being worn down that you simply choose to keep along and give up on any sort of expectation for improvement, both personally, and for that of society? "It is what it is" so-to-speak
learned helplessness

>Learned helplessness is the behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. It was initially thought to be caused by the subject's acceptance of their powerlessness, by way of their discontinuing attempts to escape or avoid the aversive stimulus, even when such alternatives are unambiguously presented. Upon exhibiting such behavior, the subject was said to have acquired learned helplessness.

[Anonymous No.23382653]

>>23381371
t. someone who doesn't even own a car

[Anonymous No.23382781]

wow, look at this pile of crap: https://files.catbox.moe/d9sukc.zip