>snuck ten copies of my self published memoirs into book store
>come back week later
>all gone
>still havent been paid

>>25319941
They threw them away, bro.

>>25319941
Fake and gay and if real even more gay

>>25319941
Back in the days of independent stores you could almost do this. Books like Ishmael got popular in some new agey bookstores and spread by word of mouth. The guy just made a deal with them to carry his books, it's literally the boomer "walk up to them and shake their hand". Whole ecosystem is dead after the 90s though so no more of that.

Did your first novel's first review invoke, compare the book to, and even assert its superiority over the works of such authors as Thomas Mann, Susan Sontag, James Joyce, Willa Cather, D. H. Lawrence, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Keats, Anton Chekhov, Katherine Mansfield, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Virginia Woolf, William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, and B.S. Johnson? Asking for a friend.

>>25320091
I think the equivalent now is to KDP self-publish, purchase as many author copies as you can afford, and wander your area finding as many of those free library cabinets as you can to stuff 'em into

Another fucking retard in my writers group submitted an AI story.
>One. Two. Three. As if something something hard something.
>One. Two. The kind of softness something something.
It was this rhythm ad nauseum. I just kept circling things and writing "this sounds like AI."

>>25320418
why's he still in your group if he's doing that

>>25320440
He's new. Our writers group has been getting these new fuckheads who show up and submit their AI writing for critique as their own and contribute fuck all to anyone else's work.

And the thing is, as obvious as it may be to me, I don't think I can actually prove it's AI. The best I think I can do is find an AI narrated video on TikTok, show it to him and say, "why did you write your story in this exact same style?"

File: Screenshot_20260603_210138_Opera.jpg (337.4 KB)

It seems my literary work is not literature and thus off-topic (at least according to our lovely mods)

>>25320481
That em-dash is suspicious.

>>25320455
I wonder if anybody intentionally, by hand, has ever written a literary work that sounds as if it had been written by AI. I wouldn't understand why such a writing style would emerge, but it is a possibility.

>>25320481
you didn't get an automatic ban? you're lucky

>>25320486
It exists. It was the "Batman script written by AI" which was in fact written by a human.
>Batman stands next to his Batmobile and his BatComputer. He's sometimes Bruce Wayne and sometimes Batman. Alltimes orphan.

>>25320486
I love em-dashes—I shall not curtail their use

>>25320496
There's a reason that kind of literary style has never caught on.

>>25320500
You are an idiot; a FOOL!

>reread a book i self published years ago
>holy shit this book is complete utter garbage

Only 500 words today, but also did some editing/revising, so some words got removed

do you ever find yourself crying over stories or scenes you think of

>>25320637
Frequently

>>25320525
Your words—insulting as they are—mean little to me. My em-dashing—using that wonderful horizontal line—shall continue.

>>25320650
— — . — —. — — —... . / — .... . / . —. . — . — . —. —.. / .. ... / . —. .. — —. .... — / . — —. —.. / . — — —.... — —.. . — ... .... . ... / .... . — ... — . / . — / . — —. .. — . —. . — —. — — — ... . . —. —. —

File: Fact Pepe.png (154.5 KB)

>>25320637
No because I'm not a bitch but a scene where the MC dies in bed overnight holding hands with his wife, and his much longer-lived wife finds out about it in the morning then immediately howls out of character bitch tears makes me a little emotional.

It's not even a part of the main story, it's an epilogue, so it's a real gut punch that doesn't need to exist, but it thematically follows with the rest of the story.

Critique would be appreciated because I don't want to be a bad writer.

Following from >>25311448
It is done. Only iron is left. Not the kind your weapons are made of, but the kind you smell in the air, the kind you taste on your lips. The kind that comes from the blood pooling at your feet. The dance is finished, and you bathe in the horror of your victory. A severed hand, the limb hanging from a tendon, unzipped skin exposing the bare muscle of the dead man who will forever follow in your dreams. It matters little. The form you practiced as a boy on straw dummies in your village has not prepared you for the desecration of your fellow human, but there is no time to contemplate it. Your clansmen will only know that you danced, and you lived.
Years of training under a whip and several pounds of iron have been spent on making you someone who the clan cannot afford to be expendable. Which makes you acutely aware what little, precious adrenaline you have left in your body is soon going to burn away. Every wasted moment is exhausting a supply of energy that you are quite literally bleeding by the second. You’ve hit the climax of your exhaustion, and you need to run again, soon. Just like you practiced since you were a boy.
Your rattling hands reach to dig out his weapon buried under a patch of red-stained sand and vomit. You need to know where he came from. You hurriedly examine it. A curved iron blade. Polished, untouched by rust, and a tempered edge. You are certain it’s not mountain iron. A long, stained and coated wood shaft. Unmistakably Sparwood. He’s from the west, and that’s all you can tell. If you can make it home, the Mastersmith will know better.
Your hands find the strength to throw it towards your basket pack in the valley and quickly push the corpse over to take his own pack off, scattering the bits and pieces on the ground with what little care your shaking hands can afford. Your head hangs low and you heave breaths in and out. You quickly grab a dense black rock, a firesteel, and a fruit you throw down with the weapon, dismissing the rest.
The growing red patch staining your tunic at the waist is quickly addressed with a sharp pull of your belt, tightening your tunic around the wound and eliciting an involuntary scream and a welling of tears in your eyes. You stutter to the slope and slide down the valley and return you to your dropped cargo. The firesteel and the rock are thrown into the pack, and you kneel down to sift through the sand, looking for something. You need it to be there. It must be here. Somewhere. Your eyes dart back and forth like a rabid animal until you see it.

Second-person perspective might be scrapped but it's easier for me to write scenes like this for now.

Thoughts?

500 words today. I might have figured out the inciting incident of the chapter. Now to think of the complication and climax.

>>25320500
normies have been trained by chatgpt to use em dashes so they are no longer an indicator of AI. now you see them everywhere, in places where it's not plausible that people would be using chatgpt

File: Screenshot 2026-06-03 232123.png (179.9 KB)

How's everyone doing tonight?

>>25320711
I am only going to say that dumping a gigantic block of text as one paragraph is very, very bad. Splitting it all into one line is also very bad.
There's nothing to say about 2nd person because it's a stylistic choice and asking critique on subjective shit is gay and retarded. Most people will hate this though.

I think your writing is wordy and melodramatic but I'm fairly sure that's the intent. It's not bad, but I'll warn you right away that not a whole lot of people will be able to stomach this style and format.

>>25320715
Is that... Is that an EM DASH? AAAAAAAAAAAAA I'M GOING INSANE THE MACHINE ELVES IN MY BRAIN OH THE INEVITABLE HORROR OF ROKO'S BASILISK AAAAAAAAAAAA SAVE ME LOVECRAFT'S CAT!

>>25320711
It's never established what (You) care about, or what you're fighting for. That motivation is probably especially demanded if you're gonna write in second person. Is there anything significant to win? Is the win something I even think I want? The conflict is physically demanding, but there's no given circumstances explicitly or implicitly that there's an internal struggle. It's just "yeah I'm suffering for no reason in particular."

You'll reach for something harder the more you want it. If it's for a gumdrop, you'll try a little. If it's for your newly wed lifelong childhood friend wife at the edge of a cliff, you'll try a lot. What do "I" expect to achieve in all this?

The problem with writing is dialogue. The English language has not enough words to convey what a person has said and how they said it.

"This is an example" said anon,
"no it's not" another anon rebuked,
"I don't see the problem" some other anon stated,
"Why is it a problem" it was asked within the general thread,
"It gets boring quickly" anon exclaimed

Absolutely unreadable drivel.

>>25320790
"Sounds like you're a gay retarded faggot," anon sneered, "I don't have the slightest issue with this you dumb nigger" he added.
Snickering, anon scratched his rotund and hairy belly. Ding. The hot pocket was ready. He took ravenous bite.
"Ow fucking bitch fuck!" Anon yelped as some of the molten cheese mixed with pizza sauce dripped onto his belly, causing him much pain in spite of no injury.
It was too far down to lick off, and so Anon decided to simply leave it be when he decides to have a quick snack. There was no time, after all, as his post was already receiving multiple (You)s.

>>25320715
I think you're starting to misconstrue "brainrot." Although it could technically also be prevalent in the positive feedback loop of arguing on message boards, I'd argue most people understand it to be the death spiral: sensations and concepts being saturated and oversimplified to the point that its original meaning is lost. He and his mom are more victims of demoralizing propaganda (which is, granted, lies of omission. But if we called every simplified lie brainrot, would the term even be useful?) which may or may not have a direct impact on attention span or obsession. Perhaps "death spiral" would be a better description?

>>25320735
Still seething that the AI ruined em-dashes because I used them constantly to simulate my own cadence of speaking.

>>25320790
This strikes you as a serious problem?

>>25320481
don't worry fren, there is nothing they can do to stop us from reading consumptive cur

File: Screenshot 2025-08-12 221637.png (94.6 KB)

Guys I really really really need to put some words down and actually write in something other than an anonymous mongolian basket-weaving forum. Please threaten or persuade me to do so

>>25320644
>>25320687
good to know I'm not the only faggot then

Why does everyone here write about sad boy melodrama stories?

>>25320839
write what you know

>>25320839
Because they haven't discovered that the key is to write sadboy melodrama but with flavors of optimism, cynicism, fantasy, and so on.

>>25320800
>>25320815
It's always the same fucking structure and becomes both boring to read and write. Especially for multi-line dialogue, like you know, real conversations happen?

>>25320851
"But you don't have to use dialogue tags-" Anon said.
"BUT I'M A DUMB RETARDED FAG HURRRRRRRR"
"Okay but-"
"I LOVE DICKS MMMMM DICKSDICKSDICKS" The whining Anon cried out, cutting Anon off.
"Strawmans are my favorite way to win an argument."
"HURRRRRRRRRRRR I'M A HUGE FUCKING RETARD" The second Anon replied, and then promptly shit himself.

>>25320857
That also only works for a while.
And thus spoke anon:
"Without any doubt, you sir, you are a retard and a faggot".

>>25320851
"Hey, buddy, friend, pal," I say, appearing behind you and patting you on the shoulder. "I think you need to kill yourself."
You jump back, dumbfounded and nearly speechless. The only thing that manages to escape your lips is "whuh, what?"
Before you get another blink in, your forehead is caved in by my sexy, masculine fist. You go "bleh" as you ragdoll across the internet void and I follow up with "you stupid chud. No imagination," shaking my head with a turn-away.

The man limped silently in the dark, uncaring about the piercing rain soaking him to the bone. His jacket was already heavy, gaining weight on his shoulders. He flicked a cigarette into the street so far below. Bloody and battered, pain shot through every step. A sweet voice oozed through the rain.
“Hello, handsome…”
The man stopped and turned to look, bathed in pink light. He knew this sight well. He almost considered just ignoring her and walking past.
A gargantuan woman with pink skin, like bubblegum, towered before him. Again, that silky voice spoke. “What a day, hmm?” she asked, but he knew she expected no answer.
So he stood silent in the rain, like a toy compared to her. Her holographic form flickered like TV static, like a channel just out of reach. She leaned forward, as if to get a closer view, but he knew she saw nothing. She had no real optical sensors. He now noticed she had no eyes at all, just black voids.
“You look lonely...”
He really was lonely. He had nothing anymore. His gaze dropped. He stopped craning his neck to look into the eyes of an illusion.
“I can fix that.”
She couldn't.
“You look like a good Joe…”
He wasn't.

>>25320860
Consider the following: jimmies were rustled. Now, some anon halfway across the world, who appears to be of less than menial mental capacity at best, resorts to insults. It did not occur to said anon that his opponent spoke and understood multiple languages, supplying said opponent with an actual frame of reference:
The Anglo-Saxon language was the one of cucks, an amalgamation and a perversion of its Germanic and roman predecessors. Reading this, the anon snorted like a pig: "But the English language has spread around the entire world!". One may reply that this is not in any way indicative of a good language, merely, that the language was so simple anybody could learn it. While certainly there is an eloquence to simplicity, English even fails on this front, as it has more exceptions than one could imagine. Yes! It isn't even read and vocalized as it is written.
Even the dastardly French language, which makes anybody who speaks it sound like a massive faggot, requires more intelligence, allows for more refined thought.
But alas, the anon is not of such a refined volition, but even below the merest of apes, throwing shit towards anybody who disagrees. Verily! It appears this anon is the kind of man who lays with men, it can even be suspected that he does so with many men at the same time and that he pleasures them all with his hands, mouth, feet and ass. Truly a magnificent specimen!

File: 7634324566.jpg (142.2 KB)

First two months of release have been surprisingly good. 37 units so far.

I need soldiers for my dark triad army.
If anybody wants a free PDF email: thedarktriadsociety@gmail.com

Next book is a crime thriller set in LA, coming on Aug 1st.

- NJB

>>25320873
I'm going to be completely honest with you here, man. I tuned out the moment you said "The Anglo-Saxon language was the one of cucks" because I genuinely have no reason to care about that opinion. No matter how flowery or elven a language may be, it is up to the literary skills of the author to make meaning of language. Let's not be foolish pretend the mysteries of life are hidden behind grammar.

Also I don't even think you replied to the right message

>>25320882
>the mysteries of life are hidden behind grammar
They literally are! Have you not learned anything in what ever educational institution you should have visited as a child?
The very essence of the universe unfolds within lessons of grammar!

>>25320883
Well shit, when you say it like that, my mind is completely and irreparably altered! I've been a knuckle-dragging simian afterbirth of a retard this entire time!

>>25320886
I'm glad you understand.

>>25320875
I hope you find your audience, publishedcel. I may not be a part of it--I read some of the sample and decided to pass (I'm a very, *very* hard customer)--you've come much further than most.

>>25320865
I'm assuming this is an adaptation from that one Cyberpunk movie. It's pretty accurate, but it's committing one of the most common writing sins:

He's not clearly trying to *do* anything, he's just *being* something. It doesn't give any insight on what he wants or how he intends to get it. If the cigarette flick wasn't so cliche or common, a reader *might* get the idea he's trying to avoid something, but even that isn't a very clear goal. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any serious obstacle in the way.

Make it clear what he wants, how he intends to get it, why he think he will get it, and why he wants to get it. In the first few lines, his goal should be at least implied so that the reader has a direction to look forward to.

Also, you can simplify "she asked, but he knew she expected no answer" to --> "she asked rhetorically."

>>25320899
>I read some of the sample and decided to pass
Cool just FYI the sample scene (prologue) is deliberately off-tone from the rest of the story. You can read the whole thing in one night. If you do, the prologue makes more sense on second read.

>>25320915
It's not necessarily the tone. I'm a trained actor of 12 years (take that as you will) and it's made me very critical to dialogue and character choices. If they're not hit right on the head and I'm reminded more than once that the author wants characters to *be* something rather than *do* something, I quickly lose trust in their skill to bring characters to life. That's not at all an insult directed towards you, but to 99.9% of all authors. It's also why I hardly ever get past a single chapter...

>>25320925
>I'm a trained actor of 12 years
You have to be 18 to post here, starlet.

i mean yeah, but if youve watched the scene there is no goal. hes broken, he stops to look for no reason. he stops because he has nothing left. i really think the lack of direction and Ks lack of purpose makes it so impactful

>>25320932
You're misconstruing passivity with impossibility. Everybody always wants something, they just don't always know how to get it. The guy still wants to be loved, yeah? The problem is he cannot think of a way to actively pursue it. Instead, he find a lower tier of comfort: a cigarette. When that doesn't work, he flicks it away to think or wait for a way to present itself. Even if we're not consciously aware of it, we're always doing something, and we're doing it for a reason. Otherwise, if we don't want anything, there's no reason to protect ourselves from dying. It's complicated, but it's true. A real nihilist kills themself, or at the very least doesn't try to prevent their death.

>>25320939
in that moment is he really trying to prevent his death? hes injured, and not actively seeking any medical attention, he could be just giving up. and maybe hes lonely not because he wants love, but because he knows he can never have it again.

>>25320943
But *how* does he give up, exactly? He still bothers to take drags from a cigarette, he still bothers to look at the hologram of a giant woman, He *considers* ignoring her, but doesn't. Before un-immediate goals like surviving his injuries seem relevant, he still needs to consider if there will be love waiting for him once he does recover. If not, why live? He's still desperately searching for love in his last breath, even if that love last only moments. And if he does find love in those vital seconds, there was no way for him to predict that was even possible.

>>25320939
>Everybody always wants something
This is an incorrect assumption. Once in my life I felt like I had experienced everything, achieved everything I wanted to achieve. By all accounts one should feel happy about such a situation, but instead I felt absolutely terrible.

>When that doesn't work, he flicks it away to think or wait for a way to present itself
The thing is, the cigarette flick...if you're a smoker it can have many reasons. The more you smoke, the heavier you're addicted, the less they really make you feel good (the early ones give you a buzz, the later ones just keep you from getting to cranky/aggressive/whatever).
So you can end up in a situation where you smoke a cigarette half-way through and throw it away since it's not really doing anything to improve your situation, or because you're simply too depressed to care, or so on.

From >>25320953 I assume he's dying. People like being comforted when they die, and if the only comfort is some gargantuan hologram of a woman, so be it. You conflate doing things with wanting to live. You can still do things after you've given up. They're just gonna be different things.

>my book sold 5 copies within 11 days

Don’t know if this is a good sign or not.

>>25320971
Would 0 copies within 11 days be better?

>>25320970
>This is an incorrect assumption. Once in my life I felt like I had experienced everything, achieved everything I wanted to achieve. By all accounts one should feel happy about such a situation, but instead I felt absolutely terrible.
a.k.a. you thought you consciously knew what you wanted. Congratulations on hitting 16! Aren't you a little young for this site?

>So you can end up in a situation where you smoke a cigarette half-way through and throw it away since it's not really doing anything to improve your situation, or because you're simply too depressed to care, or so on.
That's right, you can be wrong about what you want. Do you think children asking for candy actually understand the ramifications of their request?

>You can still do things after you've given up.
More precisely, you can value something more than your life. But comfort is still a goal he's apparently searching for.

>>25320975
>16
Waaaaay later and due to other reasons. I also know of people who had similar experiences, way older. At least in one instance, the guy hung himself and left a family behind. It seems quite infantile to me to assume that only because somebody experienced that they must be of low age.

>Do you think children asking for candy actually understand the ramifications of their request?
Depends on the child and their maturity really. I cannot generalize the answer to such a question, it'd be retarded to say "yes" or "no" without further data. Furthermore, it's a bit of a trick question: Sugar is one of the most addicting substances on the planet. A child might understand that sugar == fat and sugar == bad teeth, but it might not understand that sugar can lead to addiction. To be fair, a lot of Americans don't understand that either, or so I've heard (and those who do make free trade agreements and put high fructose corn syrup in everything, much to the detriment of Mexico or Nauru or similar countries).

>>25320975
And what stops him from valuing the comfort of the sweet embrace of death over his own life? Depending on his religious beliefs he might come to the conclusion that death is a more comfortable alternative to living.

File: Slow heavy metal.jpg (58.6 KB)

>>25320971
>my book sold
Braggart.

>>25320851
You're supposed to use a varied structure. Example:

Annabella stared out the rain-soaked window, feeling as though she were being watched by something in the darkness.
"So, it's over then?" James asked.
"I don't know," she replied, still fixed on the gloom.
James sighed. "Well, if it's not over, I don't know how much more I can take."
She didn't reply. What was she sensing? Why couldn't she look away?
"Ana?"
"What?"
"You haven't blinked in almost a minute."
She blinked.
"Happy?"
The rain filled the silence that followed.
"How did you know that?" she asked.
"Know what?"
"That I wasn't blinking."
"I can see your reflection in the window."
Her reflection. He could see her reflection in the window. She stared out into darkness.
There was no reflection.

You can drop dialogue tags entirely when it's obvious who is speaking, or have an action take place, followed by dialogue to imply the speaker.

Filmmakers, like artists or set designers, will have a board of pictures ad whatnot that serve as inspiration for mood, atmosphere, etc.

Ive taken to making lists of words that capture the register, tone, style of speech for characters in a similar fashion, even if I dont use the words.

>>25320993
>It seems quite infantile to me to assume that only because somebody experienced that they must be of low age.
I wasn't being serious, anon. The point is that we can be consciously short-sighted and miss the bigger picture, or be wrong about the picture entirely. But that only makes our actions pointless in hindsight. In the moment you were about to "experienced everything, achieved everything I wanted to achieve," you genuinely thought you were getting somewhere. And even after the fact, you lived on to do more things. Before, during, and after your realization, you had a goal: seeking, deliberating, and seeking again. Seeking death is a goal, too.

>Furthermore, it's a bit of a trick question
Yes it is. Regardless, nobody is omniscient and knows exactly what they want, if they can get it, and how they can get it. Yet, we seek it out anyway, because we think we *might* achieve something. That's what happens in your excerpt, even if only a little. Embrace illustrating that somber challenge, don't pretend it doesn't exist.

>And what stops him from valuing the comfort of the sweet embrace of death over his own life? Depending on his religious beliefs he might come to the conclusion that death is a more comfortable alternative to living.

Nothing is stopping him. But if you claim he has these values, you admit he has a goal he's working toward in one way or another. This isn't supposed to be a gotcha, I'm trying to open your mind to the weird way everyone lives their life: figuring something out, thinking we figured it out, realizing we didn't figure it out, trying to figure it out again. You never stop thinking until you actually die. You're never just *being* something, you're always *doing* something, even if it's not the most physically obvious.

>>25321057
Finally somebody with a brain responds.

>>25321069
It's not my excerpt though. I'm a different anon than the original author.

>You never stop thinking until you actually die.
My friend, have you ever met a politician?

>>25321078
>My friend, have you ever met a politician?
don't be facetious, you know what I mean

>>25321081
>facetious
I'm on the internet. I don't post avatars. How can I be facetious without a face?

The AI said I discovered a new field of study.
Not going to share it though. Just going to use it for my fiction writing.

>>25321255
Scatology?

>edited for understanding a little, kinda took a little advice from everybody. my original point with this one wasn't to drive a narrative or form a plot. but just to invoke emotion in the reader, but i think i made it a little better.

The man limped silently in the dark, uncaring about the piercing rain soaking him to the bone. His jacket was already heavy, gaining weight on his shoulders. Music from distant clubs and bars reached him, muffled by the downpour. He flicked a cigarette into the street far below. Bloody and battered, pain shot through every step.

A familiar sweet voice oozed through the rain.

“Hello, handsome…”

The man stopped and turned to look, his figure shifting in the pink light. He knew this sight well. He almost kept walking. He couldn't bear to look.

A gargantuan woman with pink skin, like bubblegum, towered before him. Again, that silky voice spoke.

“What a day, hmm?” she asked, but she expected no answer.

So he stood silent in the rain, like a toy compared to her. Her holographic form flickered like TV static, like a channel just out of reach. She leaned forward, as if to get a closer view, but he knew she saw nothing. She had no real optical sensors. He now noticed she had no eyes at all, just smooth black voids. He stopped craning his neck to look at an illusion.

“You look lonely...” She pointed a finger, almost the size of a man.

He was lonely. He had nothing left.

“I can fix that.”

She couldn't.

“You look like a good Joe…”

He wasn't.

>>25320925
That's what I'm saying. The scene in the prologue is not an accurate representation of the characters, they are "acting" for each other, and you find out why later in the book.

>>25320875
This faggot is also shilling his book on /pol/, people are trying to dox him there. He doesn't even know.

>>25320839
Mine is an insane girl comedy

>>25321255
every thought youve ever had ive already had before you

>>25321337
>people are trying to dox him there
Nigga my entire real name is on the book. Have at it, lmao.

>>25321370
I'm not doing it, but they are trying to send tampons to you by mail.

>>25321371
They complain about DEI and no white writers all day, well here I am. Shit on me like everybody else in this retarded society then, not like it'll be anything new.

>>25321394
>Shit on me like everybody else in this retarded society
You sound exactly like I'd imagine the one who wrote The Dark Triad would sound

>>25321419
Shut up faggot. Sniveling worms like you have no imagination.

>>25321394
No one has to know you're white or male you know. Just use an alias like Queen Bonifa Shaquan Wakanda.

>>25321320
Kino

>>25321424
If you're trying to sound less like I'd imagine the one who wrote The Dark Triad would sound you're doing a poor job

>>25321528
Imagine choking on my dick.

>>25321394
Your "book" is like 28k words.

>>25321651
Old Man and the Sea is 25k.
I have another book coming August 1, and a third coming Dec 1.
Suck my balls brown faggot.

>>25321323
post an image of the sample

>>25321680
It's right there on Amazon.
I know it's impossible to imagine characters not being what they seem in the first scene of a thriller, but that's apparently what threw anon off.

>>25321633
Imagine being this sensitive and wondering why nobody in filmmaking likes having you around

>>25321700
Okay be serious. Filmmaking is probably 90% covert narcissists.

>>25320915
>>25321323
It's weird the kind of rationalizations bad/mediocre writers will come up with to justify how bad/mediocre their books are

>>25321709
I'm not sure what the percentage is but those types don't usually get on well unless they have lots of money to waste.

>>25320925
>If they're not hit right on the head and I'm reminded more than once that the author wants characters to *be* something rather than *do* something
I'm curious for you to elaborate on this because it sounds like something one of those pretentious actor caricatures would say during a rehearsal scene thinking they said something deep and profound when they really just spouted a non sequitur leaving the other characters comically baffled.

Someone keeps responding to my mailing list emails even when there's no CTA. I believe they might be some kind of bot, but I struggle to imagine what kind of scam the maker is running because all we've had are nonsense chats about nothing in particular.

File: Christopher-Marlowe-Portrait.jpg (165.5 KB)

I'm about to send an application to a student theatre group that's looking for writers for their next play, wish me luck bros

>>25321788
Sounds fun, good luck anon

File: bwbwbwbwbw.png (72.2 KB)

the end

>>25321823
is he ok?

>>25321853
not really

Victoria anon, save us from terrible unreadable slop and give us mediocre to bad, but readable, slop instead!

>>25320925
>If they're not hit right on the head and I'm reminded more than once that the author wants characters to *be* something rather than *do* something
How is that a bad thing in writing

>>25321876
unreadable - fair. slop i’d push back on.

>>25320925
I bet you would dislike the dialogue of most cannonical authors
you have a bias formed by a very specialized subset of experience
not to say triad shill isn't a shit writer. I just don't think your claim of expertise is worth much

>>25321674
>disgree
>must be brown
k
>I have another book coming August 1.
"book"
Your "books" are very pulpable.

>>25321823
Lost me at the aliens but “surrounded by darkness enveloped by light” is good.

Excerpt from a story involving far-future America
>The various American censuses, of diverse accuracies, record the population of Yorka as Twenty-Million-Three-Hundred-and-Sixty-Two-Thousand-Six-Hundred-and-Twenty-One. Platsia as Eight-Hundred-and-Twenty-Thousand-Five-Hundred-and-Fourty-Eight. The Platsians certainly numbered at least twenty-five percent more. The dwellers of mountain hollows are harder to count and comprehend than those of the neatly calculated farms and heavily gridded cities of Yorka. Still, this made little difference in the face of such disproportion. Every defeat of the Yorkans at the hands of Platsians laid a grievous burden upon their shoulders; eternal shame and ignominy in their ethnic conscience. To them, their being and ego had been heretofore a great lion, proud and roaring in the wide open fields, able to bring all others into submission, who was, one day, with subtlety and fell swiftness bitten and maimed in his manhood by a weasel whose abode was a dirt-filled burrow.

>Despite the fact that the war was an impasse, the Yorkans could not help but feel as though they had been defeated, and that utterly. The Platsian would not starve, but he was penned into his mountains like a cornered beast. To come nearer to him was to die, yet for the instinct of self-preservation, such a creature would not himself venture any nearer to his tormentor. It was the Battle of Death's Door[???] that brought the conflict into such a state. The Platsians were retreating into their native hillscape when two Yorkan armies flanked them from the North and the South. To the West, in the direction of home, was a mountain pass so common to the Platsians that they had no common name for it, each several clan calling it one thing or the other. To the Yorkans it would come to be known as "Death's Door." Not being ignorant of any opponent, but knowing the landscape, and how to spot the movements of men ahead of time, the Platsians kept their spirits to themselves and made little commotion, sober and staring in the face the fact that they were outnumbered five-to-one and in two directions. They kept westward where they were headed, but made at about three times the speed towards the pass. Their ponies ran beside them, carrying all the suite of war, equal in gait. The two Yorkan commanders, coordinating their movements, and, having sighted their enemy, though just barely for the forest (every Platsian wore bright feathers of all sorts affixed to the side of his helmet in lieu of a uniform), and having seen that they were fleeing, became, both of them at once, enraptured at the prospect of running down the routing enemy.

this is about the limit for how long a single piece of exposition goes on for

>>25321730
It's the difference between a director telling an actor to "be angry" versus "hit the wall until it breaks." For the first command, the actor has to rely on past experiences and expectations of an invisible audience to *convince* them he's angry. It almost always devolves into stock and trade stomping, yelling, balled fists, furrowing of brows, etc. and the actor doesn't know if they've accomplished their task unless they hear applause, or gasps, or a "bravo!" and that is never guaranteed. The other command gives a much clearer direction and tangible goal. It doesn't rely on past "masterpieces" of breaking walls and the actor will know the moment when they've done their job: when the wall is broken. Much like real life, recognizing the success of everyday actions doesn't rely on public opinion of what they *think* something looks like; it's physically and undeniably apparent.

This does apply for interpersonal conflict too, though. Your visualization of success may not be a wall, but the person you're trying to impress, scare, seduce, overwhelm, ignore, etc. is how you measure your success. Their reaction (or lack thereof) observably determines whether you're getting closer to what you want. Again, it's not based on the opinion of what the ever-critical audience *thinks* a something is, it's dependent on the reaction of the other character(s) on stage.

You know what a character's goal is when they prioritize its success over anything else. A rich person giving away a million dollars may want to "look generous," but a street peddler giving their last few pennies to the church donation box is much more undeniably generous. So when an actor tries to punch a wall until it breaks, they're forgoing a lot of common goals of protecting their hand and not destroying valuable property. They're prioritizing and committing to a violent goal above all else, and any observer cannot deny that with opinion alone.

>>25322068
Impressive! You don't disappoint. Now we've got an entire monologue worth of stuff that sounds like something one of those pretentious actor caricatures would say during a rehearsal scene thinking they said something deep and profound when they really just spouted non sequiturs leaving the other characters comically baffled.
I'm serious, none of this stuff applies to writing like you seem to think it does. As a writer you are *both* making a character "be" stuff *and* "do" stuff. There is no equivalent of telling an actor to feel an emotion vs. perform an action. It seems more like you're trying to rationalize the irrationally finicky nature of your personal taste.

>>25322097
ever heard of method acting?

>>25322103
I've only ever read the first book in Stanislavski's trilogy, but I've also read Michael Checkov and Lee Strausberg.

>>25321788
Remember to slip in plenty of chud dog whistles that they won't notice until they put promotional footage up on social media an notice an uptick in negative engagement

>>25321989
>not to say triad shill isn't a shit writer.
not only that. he's boorish and boooring

>>25322097
>no, of course describing a story and performing an story have nothing to do with each other!
Is this really the kind of person I tried to reason with?

>>25321898
Because people find characters *trying* to do something compelling. Would you want to read about a story where nobody tries anything?

500 words today, but also edited and removed 100, so net +400. Up to 63 pages, though my software says only 60 minutes of screen time. Idk how that's calculated.

>>25321989
I don't think the study of why and how people choose to do things is very specialized. It's not often analyzed with an extreme level of precision, I'd say, but it's absolutely relevant when it comes to storytelling and portraying characters. Again, take that experience as you will.

Canonical authors have the advantage of ethos to overcome my pessimistic first impressions, and at that point the plot is likely good enough to keep me reading. But that being said, I haven't leisurely read canon in a long while. I'm strongly subscribed to Artaud's "No More Masterpieces" in the sense that it's the author's fault if their audience doesn't understand their work. We should only lean on the art of the dead for historical significance (or if the writers of today are truly utter garbage) and instead be creating new great works unreliant on the past.

Can you give an example of the dialogue you're talking about?

>>25322350
>strawmanning
Your logic is flawed; you come undone. Swallow your pride

>>25322422
Yeah, see, you don't want to try and combine and amend ideas, you just want to be right by saying I'm wrong. Your strongest argument is "It doesn't exist because you didn't give me an example I agree with." Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. This was never about pride or ego, it's a difference of perspective that you're trying to invalidate by saying "I don't get it." Calling something a non-sequitur doesn't make it a non-sequitur, nor does calling something straw manning make it straw manning. You're not explaining anything and just haphazardly throwing out "nope that doesn't work" because you don't even want to consider it. You literally say "none of this stuff applies to writing like you seem to think it does" and immediately jump onto the "I won you lost" war. If you want to win an argument, go to your high school debate club and earn your gold stars.

>As a writer you are *both* making a character "be" stuff *and* "do" stuff.

That's what I'm FUCKING saying you retard. But oftentimes, a writer cannot describe the purpose action beyond "I want this character to look like they have this attribute/carry this emotion in this moment" instead of tying those actions to their preexisting goals. When they forget their character's greater goals when creating these moments, they will devolve into stereotypical drivel like a backhand-to-forehead faint so they look distressed. That's almost never natural or in-character and that stock-and trade garbage is what makes me lose faith in the author's effort.

Emotions are byproducts of success and failure, not a source of them. Authors forget their characters' goals because they get showy and as a result those characters lose nuance.

Fiction is meant to mimic reality. Trying to separate them based on concepts you refuse to understand makes you more pretentious than anyone. If you disagree, that's fine. But it's a whole other level of conceitedness to say this parallel doesn't even exist.

>>25322482
So now your problem is that the characters don't have goals? What happened to "the author wants characters to *be* something rather than *do* something," a nonsense statement?

>>25322494
Their goals are not easily recognized because an author makes their character "be" sad in a way that doesn't make sense with their goals. When a character is forced to betray their laid-out motivations because the author doesn't know how to portray them authentically, the reader gets confused about what the character actually wants.

Imagine a kid is portrayed to REALLY want some ice cream above all else. He sees the ice cream truck, chases it, but trips on the sidewalk and skids his knee. The reader's natural assumption is "well surely the kid will keep chasing it, right? It's still very close by." But the author instead decides he wants the kid to sob for ten minutes about how he scrapes his knee. The reader goes "what the fuck? I thought you really wanted ice cream." That narrative whiplash can be apparent in both live-action performance AND in literature. It confuses the audience about what the characters really want and if the author even knows how to truly depict that. That's typically called incompetence.

>>25322513
I see! This isn't your own nonsense you’re spouting. It's actually established and practically institutionalized nonsense. Your obsession with firm and unwavering goals seems to come from sophomore-level formulaic writing tropes. Giving a character a goal is an easy way to get them to do interesting stuff, and a lot of writers like to come up with bullshit rules as to how these goals should be realized. But humans aren't goal-realization machines, nor need be characters.
Then there's that insane example. So many mental hoops to assert that depicting a child crying after falling is a sign of an incompetent writer. What amazing nonsense!

>>25322534
>But humans aren't goal-realization machines--
aaaand end of discussion. Just say you don't like to think about why people want things and call it there. If you prefer the misty veil of "there's no way to know why people want things" then I can't force you to think otherwise. But again, your ideology is that of a college liberal whose main strategy is to misunderstand or ignore things in the name of winning an argument. Maybe you should try sophomore year again? Cheers.

>>25322548
You're pretentious for a retard

500 words for roughly an hour of writing. Not that bad since I had no idea what to write about when I started today. I need to begin earlier but with family it's hard to find time.

>>25321674
>bros I'm EXACTLY like Hemmingway!
Nah I think you're a faggot. And you'll die like Melville.

>>25322557
coming from someone who says "there are no rules" that doesn't mean anything

>>25322560
Many people write 0 words. Keep it up anon

>>25322534
theatre is defined by simplistic character dramas and linear narratives. the granularity and breadth of human experience isn't really their domain
it's never worth trying to discuss a medium with a lifelong specialist of another medium. they're always extremely biased and unyielding

>>25322620
>it's never worth trying to discuss a medium with a lifelong specialist of another medium.
and nobody ever understood another person ever again. I'm forgetting that I'm on a website for the socially derelict

>>25322638
in order for there to be fruitful discussion, there needs to be a willingness to observe and engage with other people's ideas
which you've failed to do. don't feel too bad. as mentioned, long term artists of a given niche usually end up like that

>>25322645
Please tell me what ideas I have failed to observe and engage with

>>25322649
How about you tell me one idea you observed and engaged with.

>>25322652
>say I avoided something
>what did I avoid?
>what didn't you avoid?
What can be claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence

>>25322659
You're deflecting to avoid the fact that you observed and engaged with none of the ideas presented.

>>25322663
You did it first, nigga. I gave you a chance to elaborate and you chose not to. You're still choosing not to, because you yet again just want to win an argument.

>>25322351
yes I would

File: maxresdefault.jpg (105.0 KB)

What's cooler? Nuns with guns, or Nuns in mechas?

>>25322568
>write some cool shit
>try to share it with anons
>DUDE YOUR SHIT ISN'T AT LEAST 30,000 WORDS I'M SPERGING
what causes this autism?

>longer is better
fucking Shakespeare never wrote anything over 30k words kek

strawman

>>25321715
it's weird you would make this baseless assertion without reading a single fucking word. nobody reads in /wg/ it's apparently just a bunch of shit-slinging jeets who gossip like women about people who actually write.

>>25322794
i have been ATTACKED here several times for suggesting anon actually read if they want to write well

>>25322773
It has nothing to do with you writing 30k words. It has to do with you writing 30k words and thinking each and one of them is a Godsend, gracing us unworthy, a gift of heavens.

We just think you're a shill faggot.

>>25321674
>>25322875
This. It's that you are comparing yourself to The Old Man and the Sea.
>The Derp Tardad: By Dickolas Jackoff Bore

>>25322110
I think it would be better if you went outside and made some friends.

File: RANKING.jpg (933.2 KB)

>>25319930
I asked ChatGPT to analyze each and every excerpt of writing posted in this and previous thread and rank it, then told it to create ladder of the excerpts ranked from the worst to the best and explain strengths and weaknesses of each excerpt, together with picking out the best line in it. Here is the ladder.

I have deleted the conversation and the files I put in so the AI does not steal them for training.

Prompt used for each excerpt:
>Read the excerpt from the novel in this file carefully, then analyze it in depth and evaluate it objectively, honestly, and bluntly — on a scale of 1 to 10. Base your analysis and evaluation on quotes from the text. Focus on both the individual parts and the whole. Do not focus on typos and grammatical errors — focus on other aspects instead. Keep in mind that this is an excerpt from the middle and is not meant to stand alone (logically, there will be passages that are not explained).

>>25323037
>so the AI does not steal them for training.
You naive fresh snowflake. Chabidi does not need your permission. Moreover, you deleting it is meaningless since these threads will be scraped.

>>25323037
I appreciate the effort but I'm not going to take advice from the "average everything engine" that seriously

>>25322875
Not to mention, the book itself is complete shit. It suffers from movie camera writing

>>25323234
>movie camera writing
?

Why is it that publishers never want to publish anything under 60k words when readers hate middle builds in novels with a passion?

>>25323236
If this is not self explanatory then I don't know what to tell you.

>>25323254
Publishers want the next LOTR but readers just want cool shit to read. Readers also don't want any niggers, lesbians, or trannies but the publishers insist that the readers do want them.

>>25323255
It's the hallmark of autism to be incapable of comprehending that others do not share your personal experiences and knowledge.

>>25323279
Words have meanings and you are free to comprehend them.

>>25323254
>Why is it that publishers never want to publish anything under 60k words
From a production standpoint, the greater the paper to cover ratio, the better the profits.

>>25323280
>invent concept that no one else has ever heard of
>refuse to elaborate on said concept when prompted
Talking to you is kind of pointless, huh.

>>25323236
The writing is like a movie camera.

>>25323257
Publisers need to make money from the global elite

>>25323037
Was there only eight?

>>25323306
I only included excerpts that had at least some length or content so that the AI has something to analyze, also becouse these came as screenshots (I could feed them to AI as they were).
There were some people who posted like one or two paragraphs as a 4chan post and those I did not include (for the reasons above).
Interestingly I tried to do it second time, to make sure it rates the writing and not the concept (specified to rate prose crafting, narrator's voice, word choice and subtext over telling). The rating stayed the same. The one that received 1 positive comment and very 2 negative ones in the previous thread was considered the best and the AI refused to budge.
Tried with Grok and that one did put the one which ChatGPT ranked lowest highest, yet still Grok kept the one with the weird names that was previously ranked as the best by ChatGPT in second place. However Grok gave all of the excerpts lower ranking (the highest was 7).
I would tend to believe ChatGPT over Grok (but as >>25323108 said above both should be taken huge grain of salt), becouse Grok is not as capable to read large amount (which 7 is) of long texts (which the excerpts were) and not misread and hallucinate. It especially has problem with reading text from screenshots.

>>25323319
Think Claude is supposed to be best for writing.

File: claude.jpg (1.1 MB)

>>25323333
Okay, I did the same stuff, Claude has pretty rough limit on free messages, so no table yet, so far... (rankings out of 10)
Tiger story - 4.5, Ron story - 5.5, Mick and Amanda - 6.5, White space - 6, Weird names story - 8.5, Beary - 7.5, Doomscrolling - 5, The second person narration story - 7. Claude kept gave the top 3 spots to the same stories as Jeety-pee. Hated the tyger story even more.
Sharing the conversation: https://claude.ai/share/d0ea12cc-8230-490c-b50d-ce8470b24ef4

I get more free messages in 5 hours, so will get back to it if you want. I have yet to ask it to re-read all the excerpts and check for mistakes it made and to create ranking table.

>>25322875
>thinking each and one of them is a Godsend, gracing us unworthy, a gift of heavens.
cool headcanon, sweaty. i never said any of that shit, but I've sold 40 books in two months and have great reviews, so... suck my big German cock?

>>25323385
Why are you so resistant to criticism?

>>25323418
He already told you: he is german.

File: RapeChad.png (322.5 KB)

>>25323385
Nafri mutt 2nd gen, huh?

>>25323418
>criticism
nobody in here has even read the fucking book lmao

>>25323430
>>25323430
We read the first few pages and that's enough to know your skill and when to stop. Amazon previews is more than enough.

>>25323502
post a screenshot of the "bad writing" (you won't).
i don't even believe you read the full preview. you're a gossipy well-poisoning faggot that is far worse for this board than a "shill" who shares his book honestly and for free.

>>25323509
I did. I even red marked it for you once.

>>25323520
Aren't you the Consumptive Cur fag?

>>25323535
No. I'm a bigger fag

>>25323541
ok well i remember your big complaint being about a completely normal dialogue tag, so yeah, thanks for the hard-hitting "criticism" of the 5 pages you "read" bro. this place is a joke.

>>25323547
Because the dialogue tag made no sense in the context and was boring to read. I also said your beginning reads literally like a movie. You even had some nameless paperboy that's irrelevant to the plot throw newspapers. Then you had a wake up scene with two people and overly explains their thoughts and reasons behind what they're doing. It's all hallmarks of amateur and terrible writing. You weren't trying to write a novel, you were trying to write a movie.

>>25323547
When the first five pages results in us dropping your book, the issue is you. Guess who the common denominator is here?

>>25323385
40 book in 2 months creates this kind of ego? Wild

File: claude.jpg (657.8 KB)

>>25323375
The results are in - the table is in pic related. I asked Claude afterwards which author out of the excerpts is the most well-read and it completely jerked off the author of excerpt 4 (the one he considered to be the best). If anyone wants link to the extended chat, I will create it, otherwise will delete the chat in 24 hours.

>>25323878
>Eastern European historical fiction
Oh fuck off Victoria

>>25323385
nice try, nicholas. we all know you're a tranny

>>25323926
so even AI agrees that victoria is the best

where are good tutorial on getting idea for story

>>25324088
It's a book about screenplays, but "Writing Screenplays That Sell" has a whole section on how to find and develop ideas.

Anybody else post stuff they don't believe in, here on 4chan, on other boards, to try and find a new character to write about?

500 words today
My dialog sucks
I have no voice

I wrote some really dark microfiction in... almost a fugue state, based on a dream I had. I was thinking about submitting it to a short story compilation thing I know of. Should I do it?

>>25319941
Have you tried putting them into Little Free Libraries? Find them in your area: https://littlefreelibrary.org/map/

Does anyone here know if there are any grammatical rules about the use of dashes with compound words? It seems English is very messy and undefined here and their use appears to depend on the preferences of the author. I was checking out McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper and some compound words that caught my eye
>lanterneyed
>wraithlike
>up-draft
>whip-end
>wrought-iron
So is there any reason why he wrote lanterneyed (to describe a cougar, iirc) instead of lantern-eyed? Or why he wrote wraithlike instead of wraith-like?

>>25320790
action tags, innit

>>25320790
include body language and facial expressions and mundane dialogue becomes interesting. this is where people with autism realize they have autism tho

>>25320827
write! go, do it!

>>25321365
yeah but you thought about it wrong, that's why you're still a failure at life

>>25324317
There are no rules in English. Shakespeare famously just made up new words which obeyed rules for English lexemes*. Perhaps there is a rule that a compound word cant be three words in one. That's the only rule. English doesn't do compounds in German.
For example, in my current story, I've used "saber-in-scabbard" as an adjective.
You can also consider readability and whether readers would understand what is happening if you did or didn't use dashes.

>>25324317
I just create new words like Shakespeare. I've coined 'silver-rust' eyes.

>>25324364
i think these are typically considered metaphors, and it's super common in contemporary lit as well. like in every book ive read
that being said, it's not bad advice

>>25322694
nuns in whorehouses, ministering to the sexually deficient

>>25323291
NTA but so? "The camera" is a perfectly valid narrative voice. It certainly eases the transition to selling the TV/movie rights.

>>25324381
also nta but this is amateur-hour thinking

>>25324381
but who was phone?

>>25324088
read, talk to people, live life?

>>25324381
if you want to write a screenplay, you should write a screenplay

>>25324088
read stuff and actually think about it. let your mind wander and fantasize. be observant in general. use this for brainstorming. eventually start building one of these ideas

>>25324340
ive thought of that too

>>25324303
Yes.

File: Hollywood slush pile.jpg (201.0 KB)

>>25324411
It's impossible to get one's screenplays noticed.