HOW THE FUCK DO YOU WRITE???? I always start, then after 400

welcome to the w a t e r kiddo

Reddit writing prompts! They're fun and get you in the flow. Make anonymous reddit accounts and just whip some off. Get in the habit of writing this way. It helps you figure out a flow pace and find your voice.

you keep writing. simple, but difficult. if you wait for inspiration you will never achieve what you'd like to. do it.

>>9900475
The problem many writers have is that they don't having some valuable to write, but just a desire to write.

I take a photo of myself doing something embarrassing that I wouldn't want anyone to see and put it in a sealed envelope. The envelope is then given to a trusted third party with the instructions to post it to my mother if I don't present them with evidence I've met my goals by a certain day.

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It's hard when you're new. I've moved past that kind of beginners block and I don't really have any advice for you except for the obvious and condescending KEEP WRITING. and read, too. reading is important. study, find what you like, find why you like it, find how the effect was achieved. listen to the music of the words.

Write in your head, think about it when you're not doing it. My best prose comes to me when I'm out doing something. I catch an interesting thought and begin to play with the ways I could word it.

If you want more specific advice post some excerpts in the /lit/ critique threads, or even here in this one. Look at the function of each word, each sentence, each sound. Ask what you want from a sentence or paragraph, ask how you could better represent that.

>>9900503
Amazing. Shame and deadlines. Both exceptional motivators.

>>9900500
I guess that applies to me I guess. I want to write about loss of masculinity in the western world and its consecuences it has.

>>9900511
sounds like you want to soapbox more than write. you need to learn research not writing to do that.

>>9900507
this is good. This is good advice, I just got a lot of good advice from various people on 4chan. A miracle.

>>9900515
soapbox?

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>>9900539
ya you know,

>>9900549
i have no idea what youre on about.

>>9900481
>Reddit writing prompts!
Decided to google it
>They're fun
"All those assassination attempts on Hitler didn't fail at the last minute due to "bad luck"; he was repeatedly rescued by time travellers who have seen the alternative."

"They said not to stare into the Sun. They said it'll blind you. They lied."

"Hogwarts is trying to keep up with muggle technology. They've installed, PCs, WiFi routers and similar technology. You're the IT guy of Hogwarts."

Just fuck off.

>>9900568
>"Hogwarts is trying to keep up with muggle technology. They've installed, PCs, WiFi routers and similar technology. You're the IT guy of Hogwarts."
This is already a mildly famous blog.
http://thesetupwizard.tumblr.com/

>>9900568
Oh boy

>>9900475
Write the first draft just to get it all out on paper, anon. Doesn't fucking matter if the prose is poor, just make sure it's your outline fleshed out (make sure you have an outline though; the amount of people i know who want to write for a career but never have outlines is staggering).

After the first draft, you re-draft it. That's when you start re-arranging the events or paragraphs so the outline is cleaner, while also tidying up poor choices of dialogue or character behaviour, whatever.

Keep doing that until you're comfortable with it. Then onto the third, fourth, fifth, preferably a tenth draft. If you don't have an editor, you gotta do this shit yourself.

>>9900568
Whatever dude. You can sit re writing the same eight sentences for four months, torturing yourself over your inability to finally, just finally write something that really sings for once in your life, something like what your literary heroes, at whose altars you've worshipped in quiet hours for the bulk of your young adult life, might write...

Or you can get into the habit of writing by knocking three of those off in two hours and get reasonably positive feed back on your attempts. God forbid, you'll have to condescend to writing a personality and a plot for somewhat cartoonish types like "super villain", "hero", and "mad scientist"!

>>9900503
That's so unusual and I don't quite believe you really do this but I would imagine this would work no matter what.

>>9900507
Really good post, anon. I do this myself, something seemingly insignificant can trigger a thought that can develop into an idea or outline.

You think up a story and then you just shit it out. Like verbal diarrhea.

>>9900597
I'm OP and I didnt write that. The rest of your post does apply to me though, I like Kerouac, DBC pierre and some Salinger (if I onl pick "modern" writers). I want to write like them and it takes a long time and a lot of reflection for my writing to sort of resemble them. Another question: How about themes, motives etc.. Do you pick them beforehand? I feel like todays succesfull writers like a Rowling or a RR Martin dont have any literary value apart from entertainment. Do you have to write for the story itselve or for the message? I presume that writing for the story itselve has the biggest chance of being published.

>>9900597
>Or you can get into the habit of writing
More like get into the habit of shit writing. Reading Harry Potter as a child prepares you to reading Stephen King, as Bloom stated, and doing Reddit writing prompts as a beginner writer can only prepare you to write like J.K. Rowling.

>>9900595
This

Every first draft is shitty, but you can't improve it until it's done.

>>9900623
You wait and pick the good ones. There are fun sci fi premises, and shit about, say, "demons and angels" could be a good set up for practicing dialogical exchanges about, I don't know, theophilosophy. I've written a bunch on there and some of the characters I generated for shitty prompts I ended up really liking and pulled them out into other more serious stuff.

>>9900622
If you have a theme in mind seek out prompts that might light you graft it in there. If you want to talk about a young man overcoming apathy in a society where all his actions are meaningless, you can explore that theme within the confines of some dystopian sci fi prompt.

Try it out man. It's fun and low pressure and if you write worth a damn you'll get good feedback, which makes you want to write more. It's definitely helped me hone some of my skills and realize what a good scene "feels" like to me, in my own style.

Check out /r/lalalobsters for some of the shit I wrote a few months ago. Some of it is mad cheesey but some I kinda like.

>>9900649
>/r/lalalobsters
kek'd
>>9900623
This is me. I don't want to be too much of a dick, but I just clicked on a random story of yours (the one about being 21 and choosing a super power) and you have literally copied what that wand guy from Harry Potter says in the first book. Point proven, I guess.

>>9900567
soapbox is a little derby race thing

>>9900692
Haha I dunno man. It helped me get out of a writing rut and I've been getting a lot more work done on the stuff I'm more serious about since then. I wrote like 100 of those in two months. It really broke me out of my paralysis about writing.

And that was an intentional allusion aha! its not like the happy potter books inform my style intensely at some subconscious level or something.

But yeah. For those people who can just rattle off their more literary stuff without freezing up, more power to you. It's just a tool that's helped me so I thought I'd share.

>>9900475
Fake it 'till you make it;
Ball 'till you fall.

>>9900475
honestly I just have ittle bursts of inpiration occasionally and right it down asap
usually not related to anything, just interesting ideas.
as for more focused writing honestly I use things that I've experienced and expand upon them

>>9900475
if your stories run out of steam op, try focusing on plotting your ideas first
know the ending of the story before you write the first line

>>9900753
That's why I couldn't read Book of Disquiet.

Everybody's first draft sucks. Thats why you edit your novel until it's not something you'd be embarrassed to publish. Just keep writing bro.

Wow I actually learned quite a lot after making this thread. Apart from the soapbox guy, I have no clue what the fuck he is on about.

>>9900475
All writing is bad during the first draft. Never once has there been a writer whose writing didn't improve after revision and editing, usually by one's peer.

>>9900475
Look it's cliche, but it's true: a master has failed more times than the apprentice has even tried.
Don't be afraid of your writing being shit, finish it, start again, the next attempt will be better.
Go back after a while if you think there is something worth salvaging within your poor first attempt.

>>9900475
You start by reading a fucking book for a change.

>>9900475

You actually think up something meaningful to say and then your overpowering desire to get the message across makes the perceived quality of the words on the page secondary.

>>9900475
Finish something, regardless of how shit it is. That is the first step.

Spent my whole summer using the work ethic JUST WRITE. Basically haven't improved at all. Going to divest 100% of my writing energy into learning how to write in the voice of my favourite authors, so that my work and theirs would be near-impossible to tell apart. Once I've reached this level for 5-6 authors I hope to have a much greater toolbox of words, styles, and aesthetics to choose from. If this doesn't work I'll quit writing since I clearly won't have what it takes.

>>9902199

Why did it take you this long to figure out "Steal" is the only way to be a good writer?

>>9900475
I just write. Been nearly a year, and my 8th book is soon to be finished. Who gives a shit if YOU tihnk it's shit, you think your opinion is worth anything? Get unbiased readers to read it and THEN tell you it's shit if it is so, now you're talking.

Also, inspiration and motivation are temporary; it is determination that will have you see it through to the end, if you have it that is.

>>9900475
Your story is the easiest to write becsuse you've experienced it. Start writing a journal. This will help immensely

>>9900539
Preach

>>9900503
Way to rip off Nathan 4 You to make internet strangers think you're creative...

>>9900475
Read "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott. This taught me how you start to write and keep at it.

Steal from other people until you adopt their prose as your own.

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>>9900475
>400

I can barely get in 2 sentences before I lose the will to write again

>>9901231
are you a non-native english speaker? because otherwise I find it really hard to believe you haven't ever heard "soapbox" used in that context

>>9903397
>Get unbiased readers to read it
oh anon you are too funny

Just make shit up to keep yourself entertained. That's probably the whole secret to getting this shit done. Drop all insecurities and worries about what you're doing with plot and character progression. Just keep yourself interested. Write something that you want to read.

>>9900568

It's not about producing something GOOD right off the bat. It's about getting into a habit.

>>9904176
I've got a reader in America, Germany, and Australia. Never spoke to any of them before they read my stuff. I'd call that unbiased.

>>9900623
>King, Rowling
>both rich and famous
>somehow /lit/ thinks its a bad thing

I dont know why i keep coming back to this site...

>>9900481

My ex did this and I thought it was stupid but it's probably not. Although, I think you could probably get as much from seeing something in real life and going from there. Like there's this house I passed by on the bus one time which had a name plate on the side of it that said 'Dunworkin'. No idea what it's about but I had a passing feeling it might be some old guy who retired and bought the house and put the plate on because he's 'done working'. BOOM. Writing prompt right there.

>>9903526
>Anonymous

>>9905003
Try them out dude.