How do I write high-concept stuff?

What really gets my goat is how writers and critics, even those with an entirely pop culture orientation, keep talking about originality. I'm beginning to think that the first rule of writing is: "Don't be original." Is this some kind of trade secret these ungenerous fucks are keeping to themselves?

be original within reasonable constraints. no one wants to listen to a crazy person. that's the problem with most "original" people. not all new ideas are good, in fact they're often not new at all just discarded and clearly unwanted (autism-goggles can be a hindrance here).

You say this word "original" but I think you should be more concerned with "accessible." Cliches are one (easy) way to be accessible. But if you don't want to use cliches, you can still be accessible. Like, if your problem is you feel like you're doing really subtle shit, then just do the same shit but make it super obvious. Overexplain it, and then overexplain it again a few more times.

Fluffy? I'm going to have to ask for a definition here, not to break your balls, but because I don't know what you mean.

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/play_in_Peoria

I am a potential Henry Darger, except I'm not innocent of the existence of female pudenda. It's been an uphill struggle just to make things recognisable.

I like describing objects and movements and the tension of waiting, and high concept pitches like "cowboy murder mystery" (gag) seem impossibly distant. I suppose if I keep repeating genre-relevant keywords it might appear to remain within the pablum spectrum.

OK, it's obvious to me now that I am avoiding the degrading task of making my ideas big and loud and crude, and that I am really here for commiseration. If only I didn't need money.

Nice humblebrag faggot

yeah i just think you write like an aging autistic man with delusions of grandeur and a creeping inferiority complex he keeps at bay with obscure reference at 3 dollar words to portray an illusion of class to make up for your lack of real talent.
your so called originality is mostly comprised of autistic ramblings no one could be bothered to decipher i'm sure.
i feel like i hit the needle on the head.
That's all really.

>I'm too original and brilliant to write good fiction
>Veeky Forums is full of pseuds and brainless
>I bet they can help me dumb down my genius

Could you remind me of how you originally used the word fluffy? You know, in that post you deleted out of embarrassment for not knowing what the phrase "play in Peoria" means. Presumably you think not knowing it made you look poor, or something.

Why would being upper or upper middle class make me seem like a better writer?

I'm no great shakes at being a shrink, but after I got shellshock in the trenches I got sent to one, leastways I think he was one. He was a Jew, anyways, and that's half the battle.
He says to me, "Billy, vhy vid de delushions uff grainjuh?"
I says, "But doc, I got inferiority! Those krauts are gonna stave my head in with the bombs!"
He says, "Then vhy with polishink of medals and the poshtchah zo firm unt arrogant? Dis iss not de behaivyah off a patient vit an infer

I've lost interest in my dull little point-making thing, so whatever.

I know, right?

You're an unbearable person you know.
I'm certain you will never be published on the basis that no person could stand to sit in a room with someone like you

Alternatively, I will get filthy rich because my work is so outrageous that people can't help but condemn it publicly and thus boost sales. It's a new dynamic for a new age.

You know, your opening post was somewhat half-and-half, I thought there was something pretentious in comparing your writing to Paradise Lost but I wasn't quite sure. But it's this post that makes me realize you really are a pretentious fuck.

No that won't happen because you are a disgusting pretentious creep but not even an interesting kind, the sorta sad pathetic kind. You're the type to wear a trench-coat i can tell.

Is this that insane meta-concept-troll who also has written about his 5,000 page long diary he wants to publish and living in a cabin in the wilderness and being more attractive and intelligent than everyone else around them, and all those other weird high-concept trolling? I kinda hate you even if you're pretending to be this pretentious, because you're so fucking good at it it drives me nuts. I'm half split between awe and contempt. On one hand, I'm thinking, "Get a life and stop making this board worse," on the other hand I'm just like "Holy shit."

What I'm saying is that bog standard paranormal genre fiction is a werewolf in a barn, while mine is more cosmic.

If I has any interest in reading Lovecraft it's possible that I could have made that comparison instead, but I doubt it - there's not much of a sense of cosmic panorama to his work, as far as I can tell.

But then, I've read Paradise Lost and can actually talk about it as a thing with recognisable attritbutes and style, which is probably counted pretentious in itself. I suppose I'm not supposed to talk about the style of certain works that are too "flashy" or "showy" and instead display literary humility, only making reference to 3rd rate works so that someone who likes using the word pretentious will approve of me.

Yes, yes, there's nothing more pretentious than expecting an intelligent response from people who use the word pretentious. It's really looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Look, let's be real. When you say pretentious, what you mean is uppity. When someone asks you to explain uppitiness, that's super uppity, and your indignation just spirals onward infinitely. Well, you can keep spiraling.

Your life is spiraling into a toilet bowl and you're just yapping your way down.
No one gives a shit, that's why you won't get published.
You have no concept of our current age and live in autistic bubble-world with no clear ties to reality. It's like you throw in references and phrases to convince yourself you're saying something respectable when really it's just haughty garble.
It is what it is.

...

>compares self to one of the greatest poets of the English language
>can't understand why he gets called pretentious

We're just jealous of your talent.

The hilarious part is you think you're getting me mad but I'm really just somewhat sad, unless you're trolling. In fact, even then it's kinda sad, because you probably know the cliched comic by now of "hurr durr, I was just pretending to be retarded"

It's not even trolling, it's just sad. It's like you're repeatedly stabbing yourself while we're just looking at you bemusedly and sadly.

That's pretty much the story of my life. I continually surprise myself.

Ebooks. Hence the reference to keywords.

Convince, garble, yap, and so on: very persuasive psyops, I feel like I'm being argued against by a youtube heavyweight.

Oh shit. Do you mean to tell me that all this rancor was because there was a hat in the OP pic? Jeez, I really shit the bed there. May as well have offered pork rinds to an Israeli veteran.

I don't want to be one of those "so you admit..." guys, but you realise you're only proving my point?

You're so unfamiliar with and daunted by Milton that talking about how he portrays the cosmos, the actual planets and stars and void of space, in a semi-scientific and semi-magical way, is somehow an act of hybris.

So, apparently, to appease the Geek Chorus, I must dredge up some other, less good work of scientifically-informed fiction that portrays the void of space in a fantastical or magical way.

Now that I think about it further... Perhaps my real faux pas was to assume Veeky Forums had actually read "one of the greatest poets of the English language" and thereby cause you embarrassment.

Isn't the actual insult behind the word pretentious the implication of ignorance?

Which one are you?
All this detailed talk of sadness is starting to ramp up the discourse. We're moving from youtube to deviantart.

>I'm the only one who understand Milton
Talking about or making reference to Paradise Lost isn't pretentious, you dunce. Claiming you need to dumb down your works for the rubes in Illinois because it's too much like Milton is pretentious.

Just post a sample of your shit and let us be the judge.

Unfortunately, appealing to intelligent readers means appealing to a vastly smaller market, especially where ebooks are concerned.

It seems you have a generous opinion of mankind's intelligence. It's not a question of little old me versus the planet so much as a Veeky Forumserate minority versus the planet. If you are browsing this board and taking part in discussion regularly, it indicates some very non-average mental tendencies. Not intelligence necessarily, but unusual ways of thinking.

Atmosphere is too brawly for that to serve any purpose, so for now it is my designated chat lounge.

I'll admit it's also a genuine sore spot. I want to write honestly, yet I also want to write for the mass market, so all I could offer are compromises that suit neither Veeky Forums taste nor pleb taste and least of all my own. This is dirty work, only slightly better than writing erotica for a living.

>How do I write high-concept stuff?
Read as much as possible, so that somewhere in there you'll've read something worthwhile. Read garbage, and write about what would make it better. Never settle, but finish often.

>I keep trying to do genre fiction, but then I end up making everything super subtle.
Ok.

>Basically, nothing I do is recognisable or marketable.
Then why write? If it isn't marketable, then why try to make it marketable?

My ideal life is writing novels and never publishing them, only reading them to my children and grandchildren. If they are bad, which they will be, then nothing of value will be lost. If they are good, then it will be funny to see the faces of people in heaven disappointed in me for not publishing.

Also:
Nice work on being brilliant OP. You are so brilliant as to've made an original and marketable work. With such intellect, I only hope to solve these problems.

Who says that works cannot appeal on several levels, you idiot? Christ, the mental competency is off the charts with this one. Stop sucking the cock of others on the board while stroking yours, you silly cunt.

Fuck the atmosphere, you! If you want help, then post work so others can judge, but if you are going to sit idly whining, do us all a favor and find a running bowline so you can coward out of suicide.

>Then why write? If it isn't marketable, then why try to make it marketable?
Money, user. I despise novels.

>Stop sucking the cock of others on the board while stroking yours, you silly cunt.
OK, fine, you caught me, I was most definitely bringing out the sugar. The sugar/complimentary statement is true, though, in the coldest statistical terms.

>Fuck the atmosphere, you! If you want help, then post work so others can judge
I was going to post a 200 word excerpt, but then I realised I would be rising to a perceived challenge, and that is not how I roll.

It's an expression that means: will it appeal to the general public?

> Basically, nothing I do is recognisable or marketable

Are you writing to tell a story that you want to tell or writing to make people fall in love with your writing?

> originality is individuality, and individuality is unrelatable and masturbatory. People want a mirror that shows them an appealing stranger doing things they wish they could do.

We need more original stuff!

Look at some of the weird fiction from the 20th century. By weird, I mean utterly bizarre or alien. Check out Solaris by Stanislav Lem, The Science Fiction Trilogy by CS Lewis, watch the original Twin Peaks and a lot of Twilight Zone. With these stories, you generally have one person that the audience can identify with thrust into a setting and/or plot that makes defies logic, until you, the reader, learn how to deal with them. It's important to have some thin lifeline so the reader can grasp what is going on at first. It's a bit cliche and smarter readers don't always need this but it's necessary for most of them.