Protips for anyone writing

Is having a story, plot really that important?

If you call yourself writing fiction, yes.

Theres other forms that dont require plot, so consider those if you cant be bothered.

Damn, too bad Beckett didn't have you there to set him straight.

Damn, too bad the literal hundreds of successful and respected authors who've written about all those things didn't have you there to set them straight.

Seriously, where do you think your authority comes from? Is this just bait?

But what about Bekcett's Unnameable? It didn't have a plot. Yet, it is the highest point of late-modernist fiction

You guys are thinking of plot in too basic a fashion. Even in Becketts book theres a guy writing a book, thats the action that makes up the "plot", but at the end of the day what even dictates the plot is the thematic underlining. His themes and interests didn't require him to write some epic, so his guy sat down to write his book. You can say the 'plots" movements are on the emotional and mental level rather than physical.

yeah but in Beckett the character has somewhere he's from, and somewhere he's going. He has his life behind him and his death ahead of him. So nothing "happens" but the character has motion.

>tfw Joyce did all this in Ulysses

op obviously knows that these tropes are in a lot of literature, but op's saying that doing them now is basically cliche.
op isn't wrong, but i also think it's okay to do some of these things.
op doesn't have the authority to make imperatives of his pet peeves.

>dont make youre main character an introvert who isnt understood by the morons around him
But Veeky Forums told me to "write what you know"

Because he is a hack

Here's how the OP should be:
>Don't make your characters talk about literature to show off how well versed you are
Having a shithead constantly making literary references that are completely unnecessary about books he's never read might be fun. (I think Catch 22 did this if I remember correctly)
Showing the protagonist talking to a girl about literature when all she wants to do is fugg might be fun.
The first creates hate for the character, the latter shows how far removed from social norms the protagonist is. These things are good. Pretending you've read the world canon just to show of isn't.

>trying to be an average writer

be the best or dont be at all. i could write more but hopefully you get the idea.

Example for number 2: Bateman rambling about music to hookers who could not care less.

yep, basically. name dropping constantly is woody allen-tier. everyone should feel free to do the things in OP, but they have become so incredibly worn that there is much more interesting material to be had with just a small added touch of creativity. think OP would say that 'writing what you know' doesnt require the plot to center around someone like the author, and that focusing more on universals would take the writer a lot further.

>dont write about writing or reading

O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.

dubs checked, nice shitpost

you forgot the worst meme of all
>the book is about an author who can't finish his book

aha dude. how many short stories by women are there in the paris review and shit about women who had a mildly successful first novel, but NOW DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEMSELVES.

He also did it in Portrait. Really most authors do at least two of those in any given novel.

Thinking you can be the best is worse, it's fucking delusional. I really don't expect much of worth in the work os someone who thinks like this, only pretentiousness. Who are you trying to impress?

>second novel of the author after the first one saw mild success is about a writer dealing fame and success.

Then how come the greatest novels include at least one if not all of those things you mentioned? Explain that to me, OP, if you are so knowledgable about what writers should and should not do.

hamlet goes to university, discusses the aeneid if i'm recalling correctly. the slaughter of priam? 'oh that this too too solid flesh would melt'

Nice try but as a renaissance prince Hamlet probably read the aeneid from start to finish, in latin, before his balls dropped