/writing/ - Writing General

How's that writing project coming along?

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kean.edu/~cpdonova/HowtoWriteaBookAnalysis.pdf
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I really want to write short stories, but i spend too much time thinking about stories and not enough time actually writing them.

Me too.

I have folders outlined for the whole collection but only a few docs

I have this problem too. So much mental clutter preventing me from focusing. I wish I weren't so disorganised.

Stuck at the end. I'm doing some soul-searching about why I would expect someone to read this novel. Why do people read novels at all? Who am I writing for?

For entertainment.

Are you coming to any conclusions of who you are writing the book for?

What was the answer to this when you started writing?

Not bad. ~300 pages, only 4-5 chapters to go.

On rough draft. Still contemplating if making it into a script for a movie would be better. I'm good at explaining visuals and scenes, but I feel my themes would reach more people and be more understandable if they were on a television screen. But then again, I know almost nothing about cinema and filming and I fear having others do the directing (if that would even happen) would completely butcher it all.

I've just started my writing project. Two articles have been written for what I hope to be a regular column at my university.

16 pages in after scrapping about 30 pages before

I just feel like I'm writing a derivative "modern novel 2.0" and it's all ersatz conceited "muh feels" sentimentalist shit

Wrote the first page of my first work today, a huge milestone for me considering how it took me weeks of thinking to even get to that point.

I'm the one with the 300 pages.
It's also a novel. Been trying very hard to avoid cliches, but realized, there are a few after all. Well, maybe I can weaken them a little in the editing

I've had an idea for a short story in my head for the past two weeks but I've been very busy at work and always too fucked to write it in the afternoons. Today I finally got it started and it's surprising because this is the first time that an idea I've had has transferred perfectly onto the page in the exact way I imagined it would.

I'm in the middle of reading Ulysses at the moment so it's very derivative stylistically but I'm currently editting it and I can see where the changes will, my own voice is very recognizable for once which I'm very happy with.

Post one of your older short stories? You sound like you're doing well and I'd love to see the beginnings of a burgeoning writer.

Who gives a fuck m8 tarintino is said to be style over quality and if that happens to be inherent I daresay he would have simply said to himself well fuck it let's just hone my style, I say you should do the same.

You'll notice that many authors have several novels all dealing with the same sort of themes and content. Probably one of the best examples is DFWs Broom of the System compared to IJ, I've only read both once but IJ was simply his first book only improved and in fact Broom was kind of cringey in comparison.

Just write your cringey novel and if it's contrived and conceited and unbearable to look upon just hone the ideas, I'm sure you have something interesting to say you've just got to practice saying it.

You're very right, but my problem at the time was that I was very impressionable in terms of critique and of my perception on storytelling, that it has lingered far to long on my style since then. People really liked it, but I feel like I was pulling too much from personal experience; from the language to the demeanor the story was told, that it kind of rattled me.
I was looking for a contrarian reaction, and got acceptance which wasn't expected.
I wasn't strictly telling a story in a literary style, but kind of word of mouth, like a relative telling you a fucked up story about the family on thanksgiving after too many drinks.
I only wrote it because I thought it had to be written, and now I feel like I wrote too much for some reason I can't explain.
But you know what? Fuck it. It's not like audiences truly delve into the creator's thoughts on his own work, especially if he's an amateur.
I think I'm going to start writing again.
Thank you user

>tarantino

Jej

>write stories nonstop since kindergarten
>haven't been able to since dropping out of college in 2009

pretty much just want to give up on trying to get the magic back lads

i'm going to submit something short to a small magazine next month. wish me luck

How do you get good at writing? I've read a lot of books by different authors, mostly found on Veeky Forums. But I've realized that I just read it for the plot and don't think about anything relating to how it was written. _How_ do you read in order to get better at writing? Also, are there any good books about writing fiction?

A good idea is that you could try practising literary analysis. After reading a book, write a short essay detailing the qualities of the book.

cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/subjects/literature/how-do-you-analyze-a-novel

kean.edu/~cpdonova/HowtoWriteaBookAnalysis.pdf

Bloom says that's a terrible idea.

Learn to write by practising writing. When you start doing that you start to think more about what you're reading as well and how it's constructed.

I went to see Suicide Squad today.

I *REALLY* didn't think a villain could be that badly written, that badly conceived - but boy was I wrong. Modern authors don't know how to write evil characters and/or villains. Modern viewers don't know what evil is, for that matter.

Semi-related because what I saw was so terrible that it actually inspired me to pick up from where I left off on my 20k word fiction.

My mission is now to redeem evil.

Sure, I would love to. Give me just a bit, I'm still at work and am on mobile.

Writing third book right now, my first one was set of stories and its like 100k words (Russian), my second was novel, its like 80k words.

The book i am writing rigth now is 53k words atm, still going.

The problem is i cant just go back and work more on the second book, never tried to seriously publish also. Will have to do it someday. I think i am not too shitty, but i have a long way to go, but, man, people read and buy shitty books like all the time, so i have all the chanes.

I'm struggling at the moment with deciding how best to present my ideas. Recently I've been writing poems and I'm reasonably happy with them but they're just snapshots and I have no way of knowing that the reader interprets them the way I intend. I feel as if each poem risks being read more shallowly than I mean them.
I suppose that it is a matter of practise but it is disheartening.
I feel as if it's impossible to put all the information I want to convey into a story or poem; if I did it would become a philosophical essay instead.
Dry philosophical writing is so much easier. Maybe my mistake is spending time thinking and not enough time coming up with stories/metaphors..

Do you like to plan ahead and get everything structured and tidied -- characters, locations, scenes and all before writing or do you instead like go full stream of consciousness and write whatever comes to mind?

*like to go full

It's a good day if I write one paragraph, but I feel particularly compelled to work on my latest idea and I aim to actually finish it. When, I don't know, but I'll get there.

My goal is to do around 200+ pages. I know I can get 50-100 without stretching things, but I don't know if that's enough. Income isn't my concern but out of the various attributes of a work I feel like length is probably closely tied to marketability; what lengths if any have you all found to be ideal for profitability by today's standards?

I've been getting over this by making my ideas smaller and smaller.

First, I was just writing first chapters for novels which never got started.

Then, I actually managed around 5k words before it lost steam.

Then 10k, and 15k etc...

Lately I managed to hit 35k

Soon I should be able to reach completion (I hope)

Well enough. Working on a screenplay, finally at a draft where me and my writing partner need to figure out an ending that's not retarded. It's hard because while my writing partner is wildly inventive he has pants-on-head retarded plans for this project. I don't want to do a tetralogy on this stupid fucking idea.

The other is a novel, I've got 3 quarters of it drafted at various states of quality, and 3 chapters done to my satisfaction, and I'm on 4, but I'm having trouble developing the middle and working out what the ending for the chapter should be. Not that difficult, gonna sleep on it, get to it tomorrow I guess.

I feel very hesitant on writing. I don't know why, I have weird brain issues and constantly belittle myself. I think I just realize I literally have no talent, or intelligence, and not everyone should be a writer. Not everyone is smart, or has interesting things to say, I think everything I want to say has already been said and everything I experience that I suspect hasn't been expressed before is inexpressible through the art of literature. I constantly wonder what is the point to writing? Lethargy? I really don't know, I feel so ambivalent towards everything, any first big step that might lead me to the first steps out of the door. I am trapped in my own head, I think I know how to escape but I don't have the guts. I don't possess passion, I don't possess emotion, I think by my own doings I have turned myself into a boring zombie. I can't cry, I can't feel anything besides anger, cynicism, and tiredness. And you know what? That's normal. I am normal, therefore I shouldn't write, I have nothing going for me. My daydreams take me to dark places, to odd places, to mysteriously nostalgic places, to places that literally nobody in the world would honestly care about, because without context they mean nothing. So I don't know, I am almost 22, I can't think, I can't write, if I try either I end up tripping over my own words like right now and end up sounding like a John Green-type redditor which really isn't me. Well at least I don't want that to be me, I don't really know how "me" is right now. You think I should have figured out this shit by the time I was 20, but no, I am in the same place I was when I was fucking 18 years old. I am hopeless and this retarded post is me letting out my self doubt anonymously so I don't end up committing suicide. It's also totally obvious from this post what kind of person I am, you can totally guess, you can probably imagine my face perfectly, you can probably perfectly imagine how pathetic and apathetic I was in highschool, you can imagine how I never got belittled into attempting anything worthwhile in my life.

You're on the verge exiting the most significant physical and mental developments of your life (puberty, high school, college/first jobs toward a career, the real adolescence exit-package). Also, you have clinical depression. I'm not much for the disease model of problems like depression, let's face it psychiatry is a religion with a prescription pad, so it's going to be more effective.

But writing will help you with the feeling of being trapped in your own thoughts. You'll be organizing and directing them and externalizing them. You can confront yourself more truthfully by pushing the limits of your dialog with yourself. Don't write to impress people on the Internet, don't write to impress anyone. Confessional/diary type poetry and prose are real genres and you can achieve real resonance by trusting that you have a vision that you can express. The only way to become better at writing is to write when you're bad at it.

No college plans, I can't afford it, and I don't trust it. I still live with my parents, and help them with their shop, I come out of my little hole every once and while. The only friends that I could relate with moved on to other states and life paths. I don't really care about anything at this point. My parents don't really care about me and they have their own problems. I am just hanging out on Veeky Forums and reading books probably until I get kicked out and I crawl up in a gutter and die. I think that's the way I want to die anyways, I don't want my parents to find my body and I leave some lame suicide note like DFW. I want to die without anybody knowing my name, homeless, in a gutter. Like I imagine some faceless Russian burnout dying, like a real man. I really hate most of this world, and I want to stress I am not being a superficial edgy bastard right now. I don't believe in being dishonest. I think by this point I already know my brain is so fucked that it's already over, I passed up my chance to truly take my first steps towards doing anything worthwhile during my highschool years. I passed up my chance to fuck, to write, to care about anything. I can feel the typical edgy fedoralord reaction images already, and you think I am another typical faggot who will probably be fine and dandy in a month or two, but no, it's done. I am not writing so faggy manifesto, I am not writing some last piece of work before I go, it's like Frank Zappa said: It doesn't matter to be remembered. So that's why I don't write, I don't even know why I am here on Veeky Forums anymore, I used to like it but Veeky Forums is the last place where I can relate with anybody, but that's starting to change too.

Cool dubs @ myself.

Here is an older story I wrote that I've left somewhat unedited. Please excuse any grammatical errors or typos that sound out.

I would love any feedback or critique.

Tinyurl dot com slash ElliotOliverDerma

(Type the link in its literal format)

is it even worth writing non genre shit if you have never lived anything worth telling yourself?

I'm writing a short story about a guy who leaves early from a party that is taking place on the twenty-fourth floor. He catches the elevator to the ground floor, but as it descends he becomes increasingly anxious and paranoid and unhappy. A girl his age gets on but he pays no attention to her and she gets off on another floor. A couple get on and he feels rage and jealousy at their happiness. As he approaches the ground floor he freaks out and becomes claustrophic, fearing that the elevator has stalled and that he is entombed in it. But it opens eventually and just as he is approaching the main doors of the building he sees a body hit the ground outside. He approaches the body and feels compelled to turn it over, and the implication is that it it someone from the party he had left and that he mistakes the body as himself, as his own suicide.

The story is about the fact that suicide isn't always something dramatic and sudden, and that some people gradually kill themselves by descending to a point where there is nothing in their life and wherein they are all but dead but for a beating heart. Pulitzer when?

Interesting concept but if the entire story is one man in an elevator with his thoughts you had better have a very refined understanding of your own philosophy or it will become boring dribble fast.

It's immensely hard for me to reach a certain plateau of beauty because all I can do to express them is use bigger words. When I strive for something romantic or beautiful or sympathetic or truthful it turns into a steaming pile of narcotic and over-written purple prose. What the fuck do I do? Did Faulkner fuck my shit up?

I'd say just do it anyway. Some people will like it, some won't. Even if most don't, you stayed true to yourself and that's all you can do unless you want to become a soulless shill.

im writing a story about two childhood friends. One is drafted into the vietnam war, eventually being captured and becoming a POW, and the other is left to stew over his regrets and complex and confusing feelings towards his friend (particularly homosexual feelings). Until 6 years later, his friend comes back, and he has to confront the shell of a person his friend has become.

Thanks, but I'm kinda worried that the combination of sincerity and an array of romantic cliches with self-consciously overstuffed prose will make me look like a true faggot. But whatever, you can only try to write what make you think and go on, I guess.

Making plan is more intresting as for me - a plot should be intresting for writer and it's necessary to anylise carefully if you want to create an interesting story. But I don't know what a method better because I'm not writing, just preparing, so it would be interesting to know HOW anons plan a plot.

>write novel in college
>3 years later feel sad that it is sitting on my hard drive unread
>give it a final edit and toss it up on KDP
>start panicking and rolling around thinking it's bad and horrible and I should die
>to take mind off it, dive full force into second novel
>already leagues better than first

>I think i am not too shitty, but i have a long way to go, but, man, people read and buy shitty books like all the time, so i have all the chanes.

This feeling exactly. I look at the kind of rags that get published and think, "Well, I can't be worse than that." This thought helps me sleep at night.

>visuals and scenes
Then read some scripts. Scripts don't contain much visuals, it's mostly dialog and actions, the setting is described in one-liner. You get descriptions such as "dark room", not book-like ones of whole scenes and surroundings. There's photographers and visual arts designers working for a film too. And besides, unless you're J.K.Rowling or whatever, people will buy your script and the director will fix and change it on the spot and during the shoot, if it doesn't work with the setting or the actors.

>It is like a Jackie Chan movie at high speed

Why are scriptwriters the bottom of the barrel among creative people?

...

Nobody but the film makers are gonna, it's not supposed to be a good read. It's just concise and descriptive.

Currently writing on a short story set in the Battle of Paschendale, Unit is on the way to engage enemy position when a morta strike scrambles them and one gets stuck in mud, about to drown. Unit is under time pressure discussing how they could help him without getting in danger themselves. End up shooting their comrade so he doesn´t have to drown painfully.

Thoughts?

I don't really go here too often. How do you guys feel about self-publishing through stuff like Amazon, Gumshoe and Shellfy?

I've just been getting really drunk the past few days

>counting length in pages
Never gonna make it.

Self publishing should ALWAYS be a last alternative.

Give yourself 3 hours to write a 1500 words short-story or something. Force yourself into it, establish a max words count so you actually complete them, which is harder than fooking starting.

Care to explain?

you can still be knowledgeable about things you haven't experienced as long as you are honestly writing from your unique perspective.

this is a big motivating factor for me, I had a married in relative of a relative explain that she was getting published and when she talked about her book it sounded like she was bored with it and didn't even know what it was about and the few bits she did get across sounded like generic shit.

If her dumb ass can get published then I know I can.

>Want to write
>Can't write when wife is around because she doesn't approve of what I write about
It really is a trap bros...

You can write while drunk, you know. I do it all the time.

I'm an alcoholic.

Problme is I get very beliggerent and yell at my wife. Occupies my time for less writing

There's nothing wrong with stories that focus on ordinary or small things. What matters is the quality of your expression.

i literally love writing fuck yeah cunt

I actually found IJ a lot more "cringy" overall than Broom. IJ viscerally felt like the product of a man who had most of the life sucked out of him but didn't want to admit it. It just reeked of desperation.

>spend six months on a novel
>write outline
>get 5k words in
>shelve it
>new outline
>same themes
>5k words
>shelve it
>realize I just want to write short stories
>slam out a 6k word short story in a week that I adore even on the second read
>head buzzing with all kinds of different ideas for short stories that I'm passionate about
>currently have two that I'm readying for submission
Feels good but I'm a little afraid of what the submission process will be like. Anybody have experiences with short story publishing or advice to share?

Finally got an agents attention for my sci fi series after doing a public reading. Waiting on her next reply. Working on new series now.

Great job m8, may want to break your 6k story up into pieces for submission. I've noticed that most magazines have a 2k limit.

I'm pretty good at writing things and have my own style, but I can never come up with any ideas for what to write about. On the rare occasions when I do write things, it's always very short (as in around 2 pages, sometimes 3) and there's never any kind of plot. I have plenty of eccentric opinions on a variety of topics, but I simply can't incorporate any of them into a plot. How the fuck do you do it ?

Rip shit off. You'll get better at being creative the more you write and rip-offs are a good way to get yourself to start.

I just finished the weird sex scene in my weird sex-themed Beserk ripoff about euthanizing old people. Is getting a boner to your own stuff a good sign or a bad one?

I've been working on a short story the past few days, and am about to start another one. The first one was a literary/magical realism sort of story, the one I'm about to start is straight-up fantasy. I like to write both, and more.

I've got several short stories out for submission that I'm waiting to hear about. Some of them have been in the churn for a while now, so I'm getting a combination of nervous and excited.

I finished my story, but don't know how to find a publisher/agent.

It's my first time.

good stuff lads

Thinking about just chadding out and getting a nice job in finance where I can just read when I get home. Maybe retire young. Im not sure if I can slum out the writers life. Help me

I'm going through exactly what you are.
Tried to off my self once, then i found Pynchon and realized that my writings are perhaps not so worthless at all.
Got my shit together for a few months and applied to a top uni and somehow got in studying lit. Sure, i'm still feeling like crap and with this massive anxiety i have there's no way i'm going to a doc just to get pumped up full of drugs that inhibit my thinking and thoughts making me a walking talking zombie. I'll write my novel first, maybe graduate, maybe off myself - who knows, but in the mean time i'll be drinking and writing and everything else is meaningless. Having no hope drives me further than having a fools hope. If all i can do is fail then, by god, i will fail like a professional.

I just don't feel good about ripping shit off, regardless of whether I'm sharing it with others. My integrity has always been too important to me. But people always say the same thing as you did when it comes to music, and I've been doing well with music without ever copying anyone else.

Sometimes you need to copy, sometimes you don't. But there's nothing wrong with it. Art is art - it passes itself along from person to person, getting warped and twisted into something new in the process. I called my own writing a 'Berserk rip-off', but really when I was sixteen I wrote actual rip-offs. Now whatever I write, even if it takes concepts straight from an existing work, turns out entirely differently in practice.

Sounds interesting. I suppose it could be a good way of finding a plot. I'll give it a try and see what comes of it.

I kind of know the feeling my girlfriend is really supportive but very patronizing and very nosey. I try to tell her to please not take any notice of it and that it's just a stupid, private hobby but she's incapable of any discretion.

She has to tell everyone we meet how I'm a writer and how I'm doing my best to break into the industry and I can only think please shut the fuck up this is fucking humiliating. I just want it to be my own activity but she has to fucking ruin the whole thing.

I want to obviously get better so I continue to write and she continues to treat it like a big deal like every other second mother fucker in the world doesn't harbour some aspiration to write and the way she tells everyone man it makes me feel like such an insufferable pseud, like people think she's saying shit that I've said in private.

Near the end.

Has anyone ever posted their novel? I'm surprised there isn't more self-promotion.

Consider McCarthy the dude could easily be said to rip off Faulkner

Advertising is against global rules though, so if your book is commercially available, you're walking on thin ice. People don't take well to shilling anyway.

And people are generally too scared of crushing criticism and someone trying to profit off their work to share their private pieces.

>tfw want to write
>have pretty good idea
>can't write well

break up
>m-muh pussy

Why? You have complete control over the rights.

Somebody on Veeky Forums claimed that he would steal ideas and story premises from Veeky Forums and then rewrite them and sell the finished pieces to Tor magazine for $500 a pop. I've never been to Veeky Forums but I guess people post fantasy and sf fiction there, and unsurprisingly have no idea how to write.

That's why I'll never post writing here. I know it's vain but it is what it is.

Because once something has been published elsewhere, even online on your blog or whatever, traditional publishers don't want it. If you're the next Hugh Howey they'll cut a deal with you, but he only resorted to self publishing after the real publishers (foolishly in this case) rejected his work.

> I can't write a novel worth shit even though I've read everything therefore no one can

Fuck off.

She sounds like a nightmare user. Get rid.

Reposting a short story I had put here previously. I would appreciate feedback from y'all.

tinyurl dot com slash ElliotOliverDerma

It's largely unedited, but am keen on it for the most part.

Thanks, guys.

>Yes, it ends there.

I finally wrote something with a beginning, middle, and end. It's corny as fuck, and probably total shit but I'm proud of myself for writing a full short story (1-2 pages). I'm going to edit it a bit more before posting it for critique.

Normally I have only been able to write small bits of prose that only had minor aesthetic value.

My gf never asks, but always loves when I share stuff with her. Her greatest compliment is "that didn't make me feel awkward". And by that she means she didn't feel embarrassed for me.

Your gf sounds like she loves you dearly, and is proud of your hobby. Don't be so hard on her user.