How's your novel coming along /lit/??

>>7977889
Thank you for reminding me anon, I've been chasing this sexy ass chick for 4 weeks now she got me all distracted. I will definitely start writing again but it's really hard when you really really like someone fuck. How did F. Scott Fitzgerald do it?? I need to stay focused on completing this novel.

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Who here /wakeup/ the next day and realise that the sudden flash of inspiration that made you write 5 pages at 2am actually turned out to be complete shit?

>>7977912
Wow you need professional help desu.

>>7977912
I hate to break it to you, but what people call love is just a chemical reaction that compells animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades; leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did it, your parents are gonna do it, break the cycle, Morty, rise above! Focus on literature.

>>7977948
Thanks senpai. Will try to overcome my biological prison.

>>7977922
only concepts matter. distill the vision

I've got the idea down, basically it's a guy that's obsessed with showing other people his shit. I'm hoping it escalates when Jon Tord gets an opportunity to have his shit on international television. I'm hoping for a subplot about his atheist friend finding god as part of our hero's convoluted plan to bring an evening mass to a stinking halt.

>>7977961
Explain pls.

>>7977985
you will forever be throwing away shit writing, but it's the idea that woke you up in the early morning. save that. fuck writing. all the pros write like shit anyhow, you praise them for their brevity.

>>7978000
So fucking true. You deserve an award anon.

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>>7978000

>>7978036
Top civilized rationalized deputized KEK.

I'm some 3k words in of pure novel material, without counting the skeleton, drafts, excerpts, ideas written down. It was harder to write the skeleton, now just filling it once I have the basic draft is quite easy. Even as lazy as I am, I can easily do 3-5k words a week which isn't much, but it's quite enough.
All in all I'm happy with what I've achieved so far.

Still trying to get the story going.
It will be just a short story.

it's better to start with short stories

>>7978221
What kind of story are you currently writing? If it's science fiction you'll need to do at least 2-3 years of research.

After years of hard work I have finally completed the sixth and final installment of my debut memoir. There is still some editing to do on the final three installments though the first three are ready for publication. As my attempts to publish it via conventional means have resulted in rejection and misunderstanding thus far I have decided instead to post my work on this board in the hope that its users will be capable of appreciating its genius.

>>7978653
>my debut memoir

Dude you're fucking 19, you need to get some life experiences first before you write a memoir. If want it to be interesting wait another 40 years before you start writing anything about yourself.

>>7978679
I am, twenty-four years of age. Life experience cannot be measured by a quantity of novel external experiences. Already in my twenty-four years I have experienced a wider range of emotions and a more intense interior life than many if not most individuals currently alive, my heightened intellect and profound analysis of the world in which I have been forced to exist having allowed me to articulate the underlying truths of our shared experience in a way that is entertaining and enlightening in equal measure.

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>>7977889
It's going fine Mom.
I swear to God I'm not a failure.

>>7978697
I know, I know son. Now go back to your writing cage!!!

>>7978129
Is your skeleton spooky?

>>7978704
>tfw no writing cage

My parents suck. It's like they don't know that establishing discipline in a child is the path to true freedom.

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>>7978723
>tfw not Asian
Damn you Mom and Dad. The SAT/writing/MCAT/study dungeon isn't just a meme!

>>7977889
Finished a 80k novel last year and sent it to a contest in my country (I'll probably lose but at least I'll have tried)

Writing the second one now. 30k already.

Just sit down and write, anons. You have no idea how much you'll improve if you focus in your work and write on a daily basis.

It's getting published soon

>>7978726
>tfw academic parents
>tfw they always encouraged me to articulate myself as best as I could
>tfw mastered grammar by the age of eight
>tfw was read to every night until the age of five
>tfw father always gave me interesting novellas to read to get started
>tfw both parents encouraged me to take extensive notes on the books I made
>tfw amazing memory as a result
>tfw now 21 years old and waiting for my agent to find a publisher for my first novel
>tfw short stories already published in several well-respected magazines

It's so awesome to have parents that care so much about you.

>>7978739
>tfw it was all a dream

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>>7977889
>tfw crank out short stories like southerners crank out incest babies
>tfw only 200 words into one novel
>tfw only 400 words into another novel

>>7978739
Who's your agent kid?

>>7978902
Bill Clegg

>>7978857
Not quite haha

>>7978917
Oh, you're American. Unlucky.

Best of luck though, hope it finds a publisher.

>>7978925
Oh it will haha

>>7978931
I dunno buddy, would reserve the confidence for the moment. I know plenty of authors signed by agents who are unable to place their book. It happens.

You'll notice agents typically only list authors publicly once they've secured a publisher. Lots stuck in limbo.

>>7978939
Dude I'm 21 and well on my way to literary success. Bill's one of the best agents in the country and his book just won a major award. I get that you're jealous or angry or something but trust me man I'm gonna make it. K? K/

>>7978956
Is this trolling? It feels like trolling.

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>>7978956
Memetown kek.

>>7978957
Nope. I'll post my book here when it comes out I guess. I met Garth Risk Hallberg recently at an event-type thing at my college and he knows about /lit/ after he googled his book and found a link to one of the threads here. I've only been here a few months after a friend told me about you guys making Tao Lin famous sort of hoping the same thing will happen to me haha

>>7978739
>mastered grammar by the age of eight
>was read to every night until the age of five
Um that's pretty unexceptional m8 everyone understands and masters grammar before that age, and if you're a native english speaker you have almost no moods, very few tenses, no declensions, and a very straightforward syntax, so no biggie here. And every decent parent reads stories to their children. I started reading properly when I was four and a half and I don't feel speshul about it.

>>7978968
You're trolling.

But if not, I do wish you success. I assure you I'm not speaking out of envy when I suggest you remain humble. I am significantly closer to literally success than you are.

>>7978972
I'm talking about the obscurer grammatical rules that most people have no interest in or understanding of. And my parents weren't just reading me "stories" actually. They read me the kind of books people here struggle to comprehend, and made sure each night that I was comprehending what I heard, asking me questions about a particular passage or a piece of dialogue to make sure I understood the subtler aspects of what the author was trying to communicate, whether I understood every words, and so on. I wasn't just passively lying there being bored to sleep like you were. I don't care when you first started reading. I started reading earlier than you.

>>7978978
Except I'm not. And you're mad and lying. Stop.

>>7978991
Obscurer grammatical rules? Like not ending a sentence with a preposition?

I'm not mad, or lying. I actually think YOU are lying. This is so weird.

>>7978991
Have fun bragging or being a showoff on the internet, it's a little pointless. You're lucky to have had a good literary education but it's not in any way exceptional and it doesn't make you an exceptional person. I started reading books considered to be "for adult readers" when I was twelve and started reading books in English around that time, and in Spanish a few years later (I'm French). I'm thankful for my upbringing but having been exposed to a great amount of cultural works doesn't make one exceptional, hard work can do that though, but your lack of humility could make you less objective about the value of what you produce... Well on the other hand I'm too pessimistic to put enough effort in my writing so it's not any better

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>>7978968
>haha

haha

>>7978991

awful b8 m8 wouldn't r8 8/8

Distilling long, primordial chains of thoughts conceived in half-dreams and half baked daydreams into a coherent narrative. Central theme is resentment and how one struggles with it. There will be a victory on the paper but not one behind the paper.

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>>7978694
this fucking bait

>>7978739
Nothing personal, but I really loathe and hate you, with a cluster-fucking passion.

Pretty good actually! I finished the first (shit) draft yesterday, going to start rewriting next week, want to give it time to cool. I know I have a few loose plot lines and characters who wind up in limbo, but that's because I didn't plan most of it at all. Hope the second draft clears most of that up.

>>7979288
There is no month "20", you silly goof.

Someone tell me how to discipline myself pls

>>7979325
Anon, listen to me because this is important.

Habit first and foremost. Just start writing every day.

And then, take modafinil. With those two things you simply can't fail unless you're completely retarded.

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>>7979346
leave this place, degenerate

>>7977889
began writing novel #2 mid-February. i'm now 35k words deep and just finished the first act, which was a bit lengthier than i thought it would be. was aiming for 25-30k words for each act or chapter, and three acts/chapters overall. still aiming for less than 100k but wouldn't be surprised if it comes in at that. my first novel, which i am presently shopping, came in at 114k after edits. i figure novel #2 can be spruced down in subsequent drafts to 80-90k.

>>7979352
I don't understand.

>>7979103
IM HAPPY
HAPPY PEOPLE LAUGH!

>>7978739
What's your first novel about, anon?

>>7979352
Top arrogant Kek!!

>>7977889
finished
but now I have 3 chapters of 5 different novels because I couldn't pick a concept I liked most
I did end up picking one. Hopefully I'll stick with it
I really want to write a sequel to my first one but If it's not getting published I don't want to put in the effort right now

>>7978645
A story about a lone public servant in some office.
I can't re-read my own work if it's not sticking to the ground by both of it's feet.
The embarrasement I get from reading them would make me depressed.

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> start writing out the autistic story that has been going on in my head for years, ever since I was young
> get to 320,000 words over the last few years
> read about Henry Darger, get even more driven to finish this
> despite having written 550 pages of shit I am not even 5% complete, and that's assuming I cut out huge parts of the story besides.
> tfw the story is still going so there is almost no way I can keep up with it
> tfw a couple major characters are probably going to die soon and I feel like I will need to actually write out their death scenes to come to terms with their deaths
> tfw character you've had since literally seventh grade dies heroically in battle as you wander around college campus at night by streetlamp
> tfw you will never finish that novel

Outlining is my only hope. I wanted to make a pixel art comic/movie thing but I suck at pixel art and it is so tedious. Might do it anyway and just skip over a ton of everything.

It's hard remembering half of what happened in elementary school so I have huge time gaps I will have to fill in.

The worst part is that no one will ever like this. I am creating it for myself and only for myself. I will leave it behind when I die and never be rewarded for what I create. Which I am okay with. It just feels weird.

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>>7980024
I'm just gonna wait for the finish book sir honesty. Kek.

>>7980053

You'll be waiting a good seventy years.

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>>7980182
In the meantime I'll start reading this.

I don't know if my concept is good enough.
Also I don't know if i'm such a good writer to execute that concept in a perfect way.

>>7980249

That's terrifying. It's also probably a small fraction of wikipedia. Which is more terrifying.

>>7977889
I've been slaving over the first chapter (which could be read alone as a short story) for months.

I felt pretty good about writing two and 1/2 pages for a brisk dream sequence. It's the only way I can show my main character's backstory without breaking his personality.

>>7977889
Haven't written a sentence in fucking weeks. I only have like 10 pages. Just gas me now.

>>7978264
>>7978892
I wish I could. It's either be ambitious or be nothing.

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>>7980484
English Wikipedia in 2013 without images.

>>7980024
so you're basing your magnum opus on a story you thought up while in elementary school and you're presently having difficulties with it because you can't remember a lot of it? uh...

>>7980497
well, how many chapters are you planning and how long is the first chapter? i'm splitting my story into 3 chapters and have concluded the first chapter at 35,000 words. it took me 2 1/2 months.

advice - don't focus too much on the first chapter, you'll go back to it plenty of times throughout subsequent drafts.

I was struck by a sudden flash of inspiration when I visited Hong Kong for the first time on Monday. Now I'm 8,000 words into a half-formed idea that I feel I need to get out if only for my own sake. In the last year I've finished two other novels, one I'll send to publishers when I'm back home and the other I'm thinking of just giving away for free online (since it's about 4chan and vaporwave and other shit no normal person would want to read about). I basically write about nothing but neon-drenched Asian cities with scifi and Marxist philosophy bolted on top.

Is it okay if the title of my novel is the same title as another fairly famous work (The Fall by Albert Camus)?

>>7977948
Thanks Rick

>>7980813
tell me about vaporwave. the wikipedia page isn't very detailed.

>>7980762
I envision 20-30 chapters.. chapter one is about 7k for reference. I'm definitely a perfectionist. Particularly with the first chapter- I feel like that's what anybody that might publish my story would read.

>>7980849
Depending on who you ask, it's either an entire musical genre spawned from the PS1 boot noise, or a radical deconstruction of consumerism and capitalism.

Or just really good music to use in Vines.

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I'm writing genre fiction.

About 27K words in, after chopping off 6K words when I realized the story was going in the wrong direction. I'm fairly satisfied with it so far, even though the concept is sort of stupid. I like the story, but it's sort of juvenile. I don't know.

Is it bad that I'm populating certain characters with actors I enjoy in my head? I think it's a bad habit I picked up when screenwriting.

>>7980849
>>7980874
I've always interpreted it as a kind of soundtrack to the idea of accelerationism. This article really influenced what I thought of the genre: http://www.dummymag.com/features/adam-harper-vaporwave. But really I just used it as the basis for a trippy scifi novel about a city made of eighties/nineties Japanese nerd culture tropes.

>>7980891
the only harm i could see in it is being disappointed if it were to be turned into a film and getting c-list actors.

>>7980908
If this book turns into a film I am going to be fucking ecstatic, even if it's populated by actors I hate.

Then again, it's possible that they could ruin it when translating it to film. Hm. I guess I'd just ask to be a co-writer on the screenplay and only sell to studios I trust?

Whatever, it's way too early to think of that shit. Time to go back to writing a scene where doctors have an argument about if a dragon's brain structure is likely to be closer to that of a lizard or a bird.

>>7980891
If you can get money from writing it doesn't matter. Do whatever it takes to get your work out.

>>7980921
what the fuck that sounds rad. i hope that goes well for you. good luck friend!

>>7980928
Good luck to you as well.

>>7980925
Well, I'm still just writing now. Hopefully my book's premise is in the sweet spot of "weird enough to be interesting, not too weird to put off potential buyers" and I can get published.

This shit's gonna need heavy editing first, but I have good resources for that. Then I guess I find an agent and go from there? I've never really tried this before.

>>7977922
Ilost account of how many times that happened.

>>7977889
I finished my third novel two weeks ago, after finishing the second in October. I queried for agents for a while and then started thing about swallowing a bullet and stopped. I'm probably going to give birth to another unwanted thing before the end of this year.
That's pretty much it.

>>7980754

No I am basing it off of a story I started in elementary school and have been continuing ever since as a sort of habit.

The difficulty is not remembering it; most of the plot I remember. I have 40-something pages of outline. It's the massive volume of what I have to cover. Thirteen years of internal storytelling.

>>7981040
>thirteen years of internal storytelling
My first full length book came from this exact sort of thing. The truth is, you probably won't be able to cover all that content because of how elaborate you can get in your head. That sort of detail is a major pain in the ass to get on paper. If you can find your outline, cut out anything that takes away from the main plot or seems unnecessary so you can get your main ideas on paper in the form of an actual story. After that, add on the details, but try to simplify things a bit more as to not make it harder for you to write, and for the reader to understand.

>>7981055

That's a good idea. I'm trying to cut out everything I can... timeskip as much as possible. The plot is unbelievably huge and it isn't really going anywhere. Honestly it will never be finished but at best I can write some fragments of it and maybe someday someone will read it.

Or I will leave off parts of the story for a while. There were huge gaps of time where I did almost nothign with it because of depression, or of distraction. I mean the story in my head, not the writing. But other than that it will probably keep going out of need to entertain myself.

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>>7977889
Who here /notebooksfullofrandomideasandoutlinesforstoriesbutnoactualstories/?

>>7981004
> I'm probably going to give birth to another unwanted thing before the end of this year.

>writing a novel in one year

You know, maybe if you actually cared about your product, others would care about it to.

>>7977912

F. Scott Fitzgerald loved him some Alabama pussy. The only problem is, that pussy wasn't giving it up because he was a broke yankee. He wrote This Side of Paradise, became a celebrity, went down to Bama, got that piece of pussy, and pimped her psycho ass out for years to come.

>>7981213
Ah /lit/
One second we've got poem critiques, the next something like this appears
God I love it here.

>>7981205
>product

First book will be on Amazon and smashwords next week. Gonna release the next volumes in the series every 90-120 days for the next three years

I've got a sizable chunk of my short story done, the problem is that I still don't know how to write an introduction that isn't blunt, heavyhanded garbage.

First 'chapter' of a book 'done'. But not really.

Notably, the only introduction that I've written and didn't cringe while reading it over. Though I'll probably cringe about it in a month and have to rewrite it.

Anyone else sharing this feel

>>7980866
well, yes, the first chapter should indeed be strong introduction to your style and subject matter. however, what i was getting at and possibly failed at doing so, was that focusing many months on the first chapter so early in the novel writing process can be somewhat of a waste of time. i'd suggest focusing on writing the body of the novel, a good bulk of it, and then going back and seeing where you are with the first one. when writing, characters and sequences often verge from original intentions, so there's little wisdom in attempting to hone an initial chapter when the rest of the work has yet to be written. needless to say, if it works for you, though, feel free to ignore the advice, just trying to be helpful.

>>7981205
>yfw plenty of great novels have been written in less than a year by Nabokov and Faulkner

>>7977889
3 chapters, like 10 pages. With 19 pages of notes. It's about this sex cult I was born and raised in. The idea is waay more fleshed out but I'm only telling friends about it.

>>7977948
People only say this when they're 28 and have never gotten close to having sex.

>>7981741
>Notably, the only introduction that I've written and didn't cringe while reading it over. Though I'll probably cringe about it in a month and have to rewrite it.
Eugh, occurances like that are exactly why I try to avoid writing introductions and beginnings like the plague.

>>7982655
i've heard editors hate prologues too. not that any of us are near publication levels.

>>7977889
Pretty good, just got done with the second draft about a week ago and am looking to fine tune it some more. It's not a very long one, just about 65k words, but it's pretty easy to read.

>>7982836
an agent once told me the reason most literary agents dislike prologues is because many, if not all, are written to mask a weak first chapter.

>>7977889
I've been slow lately. Only wrote two paragraphs in the past three weeks. Gotta get my shit together but at least those two paragraphs were pretty good. All together I have 45 pages, double spaced, and I'll be omitting a decent amount of material once I get back to revising it.

Also, is double spaced pages a good way to translate to a page in a novel? Obviously font size and margins are important but when I look at the page on my computer it looks fairly similar to one in a book

CHECK THIS BIG MUHFUGGIN
DICK
WHITE
BOI

>>7982947
usually it's anywhere from 350-400 words per page in a novel, if that helps. i suggest focusing on word count instead of page count. publishers seek 90k word count debut novels more often than not.

i write in single space and edit the same way. it works for me. whatever works for you, mate.

>>7982947
I can't believe that you're proud of that "accomplishment" you can always do better. Now get TO IT anon!

>>7982983
>>7982994
Thanks dudes. Maybe I'll start a thread another time about what it's about if anyone cares. Don't come on /lit/ too often

>>7983084
to be honest, those threads tend to get tedious and the OPs work always shat on. by all means, give it a go if you really want to but don't expect much as other threads with good intentions often devolve into shit-slinging contests. good luck with the writing, though.

>>7983249
Yeah I figured. Thanks dude, I'm gonna go write a bit now. Good luck with your work too

>>7980726
Short stories arent less ambitious, they serve a different purpose than novels.

>>7977889
I'm not writing one but my uncle is. He gave me the first 100 pages of his second draft a few years ago and I really enjoyed it, and he's trying to get it self-published.

The story is essentially about a guy who starts a news media empire in the 90s dedicated entirely to positive news, and his professional and personal struggle to keep it alive in the face of tremendous opposition from other corporate news conglomerates

>>7983777
>political realism in 2016

>>7978892
>crank out short stories like southerners crank out incest babies

so one short story a year?

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>>7983801

>>7977948
HAHAHAHAHA. Wubba Luba Dub Dub

>>7978978
>>7978939
yeah well im closer to literary success than both of you combined

>>7977980
Sounds interesting, or at the very least original. I think we can all relate to knowing or even being that guy that has something they're obsessed with sharing.

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>Write about 1K words
>Go back and read story
>Realize that you're doing something shitty
>Delete 4K words and start over

I fucking hate writing actually.

>>7984152
Top fucking KEK my educated senpai!!

>>7978892
>crank out incest babies
this is my fetish in erotica

how do I write an intro that isn't a pile of shit and instantly make readers that aren't me quit reading?

should I start with some vague characters speaking before eventually revealing their names and actions? should I write a sort of assessment on the in-world environment before transitioning to a characters actions?

>>7985010
>vague characters
this tends to be confusing rather than mysterious
>assessment on the in-world environment
why not just jump into the action right away?

>>7985027
>why not just jump into the action right away?
but isn't that sort more like trying to tell a joke with nothing else but the punchline, or a porno with nothing else but the porn stars pretending to orgasm? i was quite sure that there has to be *some* form of set-up before the action begines (or continues), unless i'm wrong somewhere.

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>>7978694
Nham, dis is gud pasta

>>7985042
no, it's not. readers do not need everything spelled out for them. a little mystery and confusion goes a long way to keep a reader interested, if the tale is well-written. examples, The Sound and the Fury. readers often reread those first confusing paragraphs/pages when further details are added in subsequent pages. a slow reveal can actually enhance a reader's experience.

>>7981684
Post link?