Writing Thread

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>>38488338
I have been solo writing and doing art for a weebshit VN since like 2013-2014. It probably won't get anywhere but I can only hope for a small portion of the fame that Katawa Shoujo had.
I originally was going to do like a 90's anime / PC98 type style but then VA-11 Hall-A kind of stole it.

>>38488400
Any theme or subject in particular? I admittedly am not as deep into a lot of anime as most bots

>inb4 normie

That's actually cool that you're doing both the writing and the art - I can handle the former but I'm shit at visual art.

As for audiences and fame and whatnot - that's nothing we can control. All about creating the story we can be satisfied with. That's all we really can control in the end.

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>>38488449
I am admittedly not that much into anime either but it stuck and I'm going with it.
The visual novels I have read have been so emotionally moving and affect me way more than any purely text thing I've read, there's some sort of whole new layer to them. I really just want people who read my attempt at one to experience that emotional response that keeps you up at night for months and create over 3000 consecutive threads on 4chan (/ksg/). It's just a basic slice of life love story and I'm really focusing on making the characters as high quality as I can.
I am really out of practice and a huge slacker if you haven't noticed from my writing already though.

Every so often, I try again. But I can't put together a decent plot. I just end up writing sketches of scenes with no context or purpose.

>>38488645

Practice can always be picked up, and you clearly have a vision - imagining characters, theme, and the feelings you want to evoke through your words is always a great start. Love stories are iconic throughout history for a reason, and well-done ones stand out as particularly moving and memorable.

Shit, romance and love are admittedly topics that I need work on. I focus heavily on dreams and goals - people's hopes, their coping mechanisms for life, their struggles through times of strife, and the regret of those who have forsaken their passions and dreams for alternative paths (typically a theme in my antagonists and supporting characters.) I've yet to write a truly good love story; it's something I would at least like to incorporate in future stories. I'm always just concerned about execution, being something of a perfectionist.

But hey, ultimately, like all writers, I (we) take the first step by putting words on the page. Step One is the most important.

>>38488905

A scene can be the start of an entire novel, an entire series, really. Any scenes in particular inspire you to write? Plots don't necessarily have to be Memento; even simpler plots can bloom with strong characters and feelings and ideas in play.

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>>38488338
I wanted to write sci-fi movie script but my writing skills are garbage so I cancelled it

>>38488936
I often read a book, and come away thinking, 'that's so cool, I should try writing something like that.' It never works out.

I've thought about just starting a blog to write about things I find interesting, but so far that's too daunting.

>>38488949

Writing skills are developed, dude - they're not granted at birth. I was a shit writer when I started writing fiction in '05 at age 15. 12 years later and 12 years of sticking with it and I've developed my craft to at least feel confident in it, but there have been so many times in that span where I've felt like garbage. I've felt crises of confidence all the time, some just in writing, and some that seep in from the outside and infiltrate this thing I love to do.

It really is just about sticking with it and continuing to write, as cliche as that sounds. More writing makes better writing, and better writing bolsters confidence. It's a virtuous cycle, and I have no doubt that if you stick with your scripts, you could write something great.

>>38488986

Hey, that's how tons of writers get started. Kurt Vonnegut admitted to "cheerfully ripping off Brave New World" in writing Player Piano. Inspirations can from everywhere - and reading other books is a great place to find something you want to pursue and explore.

In the end, it's about summoning up the idea in your head and just having a go. A blog's a great idea; if that's too much, too soon, you could try something like WattPad or FictionPress that will give you exposure to some readers, at the least. Hearing feedback is always nice, and a subtle reward for the effort that is good writing.

I can understand that it's a tough process. Hell, I've been stuck and in a block a ton of times. It certainly is tough to clear, and a big hurdle.

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>>38488913
Thanks for the encouraging words. We're all gonna make it.
I wish more of these threads would pop up but they're always slow like this one and die off. I may swallow my pride and register to some author website somewhere, but 4chan is a nice place to talk about this sort of thing with anonymity and real discussion.

>>38489921

Every now and then the creative threads pop up here - it's nice to have a place to talk about such ideas without judging and whatnot. Creativity is ultimately a passion rooted in vulnerability: Writing is putting your ideas, your thoughts and dreams and imagination out there for others to see and critique.

It can be frightening and anxious. It can also be so rewarding, which is so much about what makes the arts such a good hobby for robots. We can still achieve, no matter who and what we are.

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>Used to be voracious writer
>Could write for hours on end
>Always playing out scenes in my head, spend hours in my imagination
>Actually won a few writing competitions during college, got some money for them
>Get older
>Imagination doesn't run as wild as it used to
>Find I have a hard time focusing on things in my head, I'm more focused on what's in the real world
>Career
>Life
>Family
>gf
>Writing slowly tapers off
>Be 25
>Can barely write a paragraph now

I want to go back

>>38490116

Hell man, winning writing competitions in school is a testament to the talent you've cultivated. It's a gift you've seen.

The fact of the all-esteemed "growing up" is that we often lose sight of what we love for what we need. Passion is displaced in exchange for stability. But there's no reason we can't see who we wanted to be through the blinders of realism and pragmatism.

A paragraph is fine. A paragraph becomes two, becomes three, becomes a page, a scene, a chapter. A chapter becomes an arc, becomes a story, becomes a character overcoming hurdles and obstacles to achbieve (or not achieve) what they seek, and a story becomes reality.

A gf, a family, a career - these are not incompatible with putting even a little into something you've definitely shown an aptitude for. The real world, indeed, is a huge network of stories that can inspire so much, imagination bountiful or waning. It's your take on things that makes a story. It's not the imaginative edge that makes a story, but the small, subtle things. The way you write a character, the way he or she thinks, the way a turn of words evokes a feeling. That's what makes a beloved story, what separates it from just another novel.

Even if you can only muster a paragraph in one sitting, that's proof you still have the fire in you.

>>38490257
I know it's a process of just getting back into it, but I think my inability to write is only symptom. The fire is dying. I just need to stoke it.

For as much as I've written, it's ALWAYS been about me hashing. I'd love to feel like the words are flowing out of my fingers and onto the page, but it's never ever been like that. I've always cobbled shit together, and I ran out of time to do that.

Just gotta find time to get back into it.

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I've written over 330,000 words about my autistic childhood fantasy but most of my writing is shut and I'm not even close to finished with the story. I have tons more plot to cover. I'd estimate I'm 5% done. I keep losing my patience trying to write certain scenes that just don't adapt well to writing. Also it's horribly autistic and cliche so no one will ever but it, I won't publish it, just leave it behind when I die along with hundreds of shitty drawings.

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>>38490552

Yeah, I hear you about the time constraint. As someone with a full-time job and a hellacious commute, summoning the energy and commitment of hours to just bang out words can be a mother.

If I can point out something - for all those who say that words just "flow" from them, a majority are bullshitting. The best stories come from strong editing that refines and shines the rough drafts. It's not so much great words flowing from anywhere, but that cobbling that you say that builds great stories over time, in many cases. Bit by bit, little segment by segment, brick by brick the wall rises, the story forms. The process really can be tough, tedious.

I don't think you really have an inability to write, though. I think you do very much have that ability. But there is something that plagues all us writers - a commitment, a need to produce the very best work we can write. I've certainly felt it. At the end of the day, all we have to do is realize that most stories, hell almost every story, is not written in one draft. It's words over time, layers and layers of writing and re-writing and editing like sedimentary layes of epochs of history. I think you have that in you, as much as in any writer with a vision, even if the temporal realities of the world stand in the way.

>>38490615

That's actually impressive - 330,000 words is well beyond novel-length. Writing being shit is a personal point of view bias, and something I've thought of myself of my own writing - and I'm sure a great many writers think the same of their own writing. If it's your dream, your vision, then by all means, see your dream born, brought to life on the page.

It doesn't matter if it's autistic, or of a genre not well thought of in the halls of Harvard and Cambridge and the New Yorker. Fuck em. It's your story.

Perhaps cutting down some things could help? Reducing the scope, making it more manageable, and writing scene by scene could allow you to take an easier path to producing all that writing. 330,000 words is a lot, after all. Hell, that's more than George RR Martin writes in a year. Or more than a year. And he writes the most popular fantasy behind the most popular TV show.

>>38490699
>Perhaps cutting down some things could help?
I've been trying. As a result things feel emptier and writing is becoming impossible. It's hard to explain. Maybe I've just lost the motivation.

>>38490783

No, I hear you. Forcing your writing results in less than ideal results. When it doesn't feel right, when it becomes something you look at as an obligation and not as something you want to do, it becomes impossible to put words on a page.

We have to remember, ultimately, the joy in writing. The birth of our stories, the creation of our characters and watching them become fully-fledged people who can get away from our original intentions. The emotions, the story arcs, the things that elude the technical part of writing and putting words on the page.

Writing is an art of creation, and one that requires heart. lf you're having a hard time finding confidence in your writing or seeing the "why" in it, I understand. I can't give you guidance on how to find a spark, only that writing itself is an art that gives the more you put in it. There's a joy in simple creation, even if it deviates from what you're currently intent on writing. Dabbling in a short story, for instance, allows creation without judgment, without anything but just mindlessly chunking imagination and creativity on the page to remember what it feels like to just write.

I know, easier said than done. This is not an easy hobby or passion, by any regard. Motivation is never easy to recapture. But know that you have put a lot out there, and I at least think you have a fire in you. 330,000 words don't come out of nowhere.

Writing scripts for a superhero comic with some occult plot points with my friend. We'll probably start looking for artists in a few months.
Really proud of the characters I developed for it.