so what's the premise of your opus magnum that you'll write once your writing skills are good enough?
If your premise isn't to finish philosophy and political philosophy in favour of materialism and globalism then you are wrong
A strange journey across the deep future of the world in which everything has a double meaning, in which all learning to this point is included, and in which all things are directed, subtly but persistently, towards God.
I'll Pierre Menard Borges' Ficciones.
>>7698770
The ephemeral beauty of crossdressing.
I try to not think of a magnum opus since I'll probably just move onto other stuff after I finish this project
>>7698777
bring us to our knees
Right now it could be considered genre-fiction because I don't know what message I want to convey when I write it.
In the broadest and most dumb-downed way I can explain it is that it takes place in a world twice as big as Earth and 90% of the human population has gone to shit. Tech advancement halted during a medieval age even though there have been humans on the planet for millions of years. Main character is a bandit with really loose morals, becomes a knight of the church and stuff happens. The stakes get mind numbingly serious as the story goes on, so it's not just about adventuring.
I'm not going for some type of bs ending though. I want it to be something my reader's will be satisfied with, or left thinking. Idk why, but what comes to mind when I think of "a shitty ending" is mass effect 3, which has nothing to do with literature. Anymore explanation and I'd be writing a novela at this point.
I'll probably start writing it when I'm 23 or something.
Pic unrelated
>>7699255
Also, yes I'm aware a novella is probably longer than what a 4chan post would allow.current age is 18 ;^]
>>7698770
A young person, with a strange key hanging in a necklace, journeys across the continent to search which chest or door can be opened by that key.
I'm aiming for wanderlust/noblebright themes.
>Mfw the more ı write the more conscious ı become of my prefences and the less ı feel my current projects to be close to a magnum opus, i.e. "the horizon is an imaginary line which moves away each time you approach it".
![880[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Lingswi.jpg "880[1].jpg")
>>7698777
>towards God
The only premise is that I have lived a life worth writing about. My six-part memoir will demonstrate the quality of my writing skills. I am currently in something of a "lull" while writing the fifth installment.
The story takes place in Berlin, as ideological conflicts and economical crisis hit a peak (2030 or something). A man seeks god and finds her.
A fedora artist is kidnapped by terrorists and they dialogue about aestheticization of violence.
>>7698770
It's a semiautobiographical account of my young adult life, transposed to be a rough synthesis of The Cave and Fight Club.
I can't even write a shitpost even they are so grand I don't want any of you plebs stealing my genius
>>7699730
This one is going into my next piece... thanks, sucker
>>7699482
I would honestly read this.
>>7699787
The problem is I suck at dialogues. Been writing seriously only for five months.
>>7699410
>26
>i have lived a life worth writing about
>>7699792
Just work on it, Anon. You'll get there eventually.
A traveler in an inn tells a story of a semi-mythical, Robin Hoodesque character that he claims saved his life to a group of children. Another traveler overhears and speaks alone with him afterwards; she has a similar story, and they both confirm that even though the man's feats were seemingly impossible they were all true.
I'm unsure of how to fill in the middle, but eventually the story shifts to the man himself. He reaches a river with a ferryman -- the Acheron and Charon. His reason for wandering so long is revealed to be an ancient Greek coin he needed to find to pay Charon's fare. After boarding the ferry, his armor changes from a medieval knight's to a hoplite's. He explains that he was cursed by this unremovable armor over a thousand years ago to be immortal, and all he wanted was to be able to conclude his story. The main theme will be of the necessity of risk, danger, and death itself for a fulfilling life.
To close the book, as Charon nears the opposite shore, the adventurer lets his hand trail in the river and his gauntlet falls into the water.
200 pages describing a woman masturbating herself to sleep, as a symbol of all that is beautiful in existence.
I'm going to make it work.
>>7699482
What the other guy said.
For some reason, I picture it as sort of a Chuck Palahniuk-y kind of thing. Kind of like a mixture between "Choke" and "Survivor" or something?
When you release it, make a post about it on /lit/. I want to check it out, mang.
>>7699932
Maybe the innkeeper and the traveler just act as a prologue of sorts?
And if this were a movie, this is where the screen would cut to black, with the title in huge, bold letters would pop out. And then it would cut away to the main character, walking out of the woods and coming upon the river or something.
Also, that ending, man. Unironic BRAVO.
If I saw that in a movie theater, I'd stand up and applaud. Not even meeming.
I ain't even gonna steal this shit, mang. This is your baby, and I don't want to corrupt it with my grubby little paws. Please finish this.
>>7699934
200 pages seems kind of long.
I'd go for "Highschool required-reading novel" length. So, like, 84 to about 128 pages. I could see it becoming an instant classic, and 40 years in the future, concerned parents will want to ban it from every classroom in America because MUH SECKSHOOALITTY.
>>7699851
The 18th century writer he's alluding to had already done precisely that, by age 26.
My Second series will be the big one:
(Title of series) II
Premise:
In 2086, a UFO appears instantaneously just outside Earth's atmosphere. It crash lands in Central Park Manhattan. upon being surrounded, the airlock opens and and a man steps out of the ship with long unkept beard and hair (like a castaway). The man falls to his knees, screams in agony and collapses dead on the spot.
2131: due to the reverse engineering of the technology on the ship, the earth no longer has an energy crisis and mankind now has the resources to explore space and utilize discovered wormholes to search out other planets capable of being colonized. Long distance probes return from the wormholes reporting extensive coverage of 9 habitable and accommodating planets for colonization.
2144: after studying the information from the probes, an initiative is created to send 9 shuttles through the wormholes to start colonization.
2156: the shuttles are ready to leave:
The main story follows brothers Joseph and Adrian Thompson and four other selected gifted and trained young adults (ages 21-25) as they battle against 3 other groups in contests of wits and science to be selected as the engineering group who will be responsible for manning the "RIG" a floating repair and monitoring station that will ultimately follow each of the shuttles to their destinations and ensure each arrives safely at their destination.
the genre is hard science fiction and the story is not teen or YA. The candidates have to be young so that they're still physically capable of performing their grueling duties across the 20 year mission.
Plot twists involve:
The backgrounds and skeletons in the closets of the other candidates, the rumored "militarized" ship to follow, and the intentions and motivations of the candidates older mentor who is being "put out to pasture" and will ultimately be their superior for the duration of their travels.
Tldr:
interstellar
MEETS
Hard scifi of The Martian
MEETS
the character process of Walter white to Heisenberg, (from Breaking Bad)
MEETS
The armor of DEAD SPACE
MEETS
The desolate environments of Dune
MEETS
The man vs nature vs nemesis of Moby Dick
MEETS
"wheel of time" scale project
Should be 10-12 volumes. Going over notes now with unbiased but trustworthy outside help to get things in line. (I'm 50 pages into it already)
>>7701724
Bait
>>7701797
Actually no. 18 full pages of notes
>>7699289
depending on your skill, could be really good. could also be young adult trash
Rewrite the romance of the three kingdoms but replace every major character with lolis。
A novel based off of the premise of the anime "Strike Witches" that seriously and in extreme detail examines the idea of little girls fighting aliens in their panties.
>>7701797
The whole thing came in February of last year when I had a 103 temperature fever from having the flu and pneumonia at the ame time. It came via "I know Kung fu" matrix download while I was sweating and seeing dead relatives standing over me.
>>7701946
You are a disgusting genre pleb
>>7701724
from a pure pitch-critique standpoint, too many meets.
three, absolute maximum. six is disgusting
>>7698770
Continue the Hermetic Tradition.
>>7701966
That's what you have to do when nothing else quite matches up.
Only 3? Hard scifi meets wheel of time meets Walter white to Heisenberg
>>7701724
>Martian
>hard scifi
Jesus christ
>>7701724
I probably will only read like 2 of your books but I want to see all your shit in the stores very soon.
I'm guessing you already considered Amazon publishing, but how will you go about publishing all your stuff?
>>7699934
I like your mindset. You might just make it.
>>7701724
>begins with an interesting premise
>flash forward eighty years to derivative, hackneyed YA bullshit
You've completely missed the point of your own story!
>>7702000
Nice trips. Using every ebook outlet available. Amazon,kobo, Apple,smash words, etc. plus I'm doing the Lexington comic toy convention next year. With my schedule of putting out the first book in the next 60 days and releasing a subsequent book every 6 months for the next five years for my first series, it's bound to garner interest. Typing up my press release for the Lexington Herald Leader tomorrow. I have a friend who's a famous erotica writer so I might try and ask her to retweet my stuff. She really liked the first book
>>7702008
You didn't read the part where the trip takes 20 years of their lives
(Middle age not YA)
>>7702022
Cool, looks like you're all set. Good luck with the next project!
>>7702031
Yah, the age of the characters doesn't denote the maturity of the story. Or is 'As I Lay Dying' for kids because the characters are mostly in their teens/twenties?
>>7702032
Thnx. Keep your fingers crossed
My writing skills are good enough already, I hope.
It's about a college campus where an insidious force quietly distorts the education and people to its own purposes. Set in a world where people's ideas can manifest themselves discretely in reality; a lesbian college professor's wife gets pregnant through force of will (or does she?); a young girl's pendant gives her beauty - but she can't see it in herself. She joins an anarchist group that is trying to discover the source of the corruption, and is thrown into a dark surrealist nightmare of violence, corporate control and sexual fear. What is reality in the face of immovable belief? You'll find out if I ever finish this thing, it's currently a complete mess of a draft
>>7702022
>60 days
oh shit gaskun that's awesome! how can /lit/ help your launch?
>>7699296
>those i's
>>7702056
I appreciate and am grateful for your enthusiasm. Over the past year I've managed to contact and convince a small group of /lit/izens to became beta readers for the current series. Feedback has been phenomenal and my work has improved because of their corrections. As much as I'd like to have the help of 4chans reach and influence to help me along, that should could go south real quick with asshats purposefully torpedoing my shit. I wish it weren't so.
>>7702211
Svm ıd-ıota, nosco.
This big fantasy thing that's a Mish mash of Harry potter and Naruto
With a qt 3.14 Azula expy that gets knocked up by the protagonist, hiding the baby and trading asking every once in a while to try and tempt the hero to the dark side a la Talia al Ghul
Eventually he kills the Voldemort/Orochimaru mashup, fights an even stronger demon by slowly adopting dark magic and a more violent no nonsense attitude, and forging an empire
Finally after a series of surprising defeats, starting with a large army faction falling to a simple farm boy and his village
Then to a renegade knight, some time later
He finds out they are the same person and confronts the radical opposing his empire
After being bested he flees to perform a ceremony to unlock his true power and crush the opposition left over from the previous rulers army lead by the new radical
At the final confrontation he realizes the boy is actually his son with the Azula expy who has risen up and become a hero, and he had unknowingly become the villians of the story by giving into temptation and darkness
He's slain, but dies peacefully knowing his son has grown into a better man than he could have been and will lead the empire into greatness
It's gonna be called Ghost Hunter Paradox 3
It starts off with a failing ghost hunter who is at risk of losing his job, and then it's up to him, to find the final job. The BIG ONE, and when he does its not gonna be pretty. It's one man against the world. Against ghost. But more importantly against the existence of modern man. Because the ghost hunter has a girlfriend who helps him find his footing, but how can she help him when shes not sure if she's human or a synthetic android programmed with a fixed setting. The battle for love takes flight when they must abandon their call because the intergalactic police are on their tails. Will they escape. Will they remain together, is their child the first step towards organic machines. Maybe, maybe not. Gotta read, gotta find out
>>7701934
would seriously read
an autismo drone pilot with psoriasis becomes newly homeless and decides to join a commune headed by stefan molyneux, who's convinced that the universe is a simulation. most of the book will describe staring contests molyneux holds to develop intimacy among members. flakeboy falls in unrequited love with a roseanne barr lookalike and is eventually kicked out for getting in a fistfight with a guy who mistakes him for a reptoid.
>>7699415
doing a Berlin novel is like doing a NY novel, you shouldn't do it. There's better towns in Germany for that kind of setting.
>>7698779
Underrated
I'm going to hide a small camera on my body and record one completely normal day of my life, and then describe it with maximum possible precision. Like: "I took a full step forward with my left foot. While this was happening, the woman wearing the red shirt and blue pants on the sidewalk to my left veered slightly to the right". Might have to cut it off to cover less than a full day, as I don't intend to sacrifice detail for readability or length. I'll keep everything purely physical, no insight or figurative language whatsoever. Those are the even-numbered chapters.
For odd-numbered chapters, I will be recording myself speaking about a variety of topics in little 15 to 30 minute bursts. These recordings will be transcribed, once again, with total accuracy. Every hesitation and every stutter.
I'd structure the order of chapters so that the mental vibe of the odd chapters loosely correlates with the physical vibe of the even chapters.
>>7702398
I actually kinda dig it.
>>7702251
>>7702022
>self-publishing
XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
i think i want to write some short fiction about trivialization of violence on a very small scale. i dont know who my characters will be or where anything will happen. i am 21 and lack the confidence to type a word of prose though. ill never be ready
i know the op is facetious but i'm blog posting i guess.
>>7702398
that sounds conceptually cool
boring though. better sex that shit up.
>>7702415
because nothing good ever came from self publishing...
fuck the haters, do your thing
>>7702474
With it being confirmed that publishers will outright fuck you over if you dont present the kind of stuff they want, self-publishing is looking all the more attractive.
Really, all you need to do is have your shit together as a writer, the rest will take care of itself.
>>7702474
>the martian is good xdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
The only worse than self-publishing a novel is reading one.
>>7698770
A sad and lonely God keeps remaking the universe and until humanity finally develops into a a people with free will who still choose to love him.
>>7702398
Some guy already did that. Kenneth Goldstein, I think.
>>7699932
>tfw there are peple conceiving of stories like this and all I can think of is retarded-ass genre fiction with dragons and shit
>>7702484
I don't have anything against self-publishing, but gasfag and his 11 volumes of autistic genreshit are a joke.
>>7702789
The main plot was meh, but I got suckered into the bar scene and the ending scene.
And, to be fair, if the beginning and end are great, then the rest of the movie/book/show/whatever shouldn't be all that bad either.
>>7702801
Though the sad part is, he and his 11 volumes of autistic genreshit have a better chance at being successful than anyone writing anything worth a damn.
>>7702807
I wouldn't want to read defeatist bullshit either
In a surreal sort of dream-world, an underwater city is guarded by Mishipizhiw (a Native American mythological creature). He goes on a quest to the underworld so he may find the power to permanently defeat the monsters which regularly assault his home.
>>7699410
I wish you were a tripfag so I could filter you.
>>7702378
There's nothing wrong with a NY novel so long as it's not about being an NY novel. If it's just a story that happens to take place in the city it's fine. If it's a story that's about the city, especially by someone who's never lived here, it's shit.
I already wrote and self-published it. It's about how a guy who dies in the prologue ends up posthumously influencing the lives of 31 other people (most get 1 chapter a piece, three of them get three sets of three chapters from a third person perspective). There's more to it than that but explaining it wouldn't do it justice.
>>7702474
Does anyone with taste seriously thing the Martian is good?
>>7702234
who are you?
>>7702810
Being chipper about your poorly written, TV meme-addled, scifi shite doesn't make it good, gassy.
>>7702843
>self-published it
you've already said enough
>>7698779
Ayyyy, I'm currently writing a paper on this story
>>7702908
Why are we pretending big publishers are the gold standard when they pump out the very same plebshit you guys hate so much?
>>7702907
I did, but it was clearly the kind of thing that no one would want to touch as a debut novel, so tossing it up on Amazon under a pseudonym seemed better than letting it collect dust.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016605O6C
I'm working on something more marketable to "legitimately" publish under my real name, but it's going to take a while.
>>7702915
because literally anybody can self-publish a novel. there is no standard of quality and throwing a piece of garbage into the pile of garbage that is amazon means nothing.
self-published "authors" are the same as bored moms with an entry level camera thinking that they are photographers on facebook/instagram.
>>7702939
those same bored moms are getting book and movie deals though
Face it bud, these days its a fucking free for all. If you're a writer worthy of the name you'll make sure your work is the best it can be anyways, so how you publish it is just a matter of preference.
>>7702846
I'm a guy who just went for a walk, at three in the morning, wearing nothing but a hat and underpants.
>>7702951
no, they aren't
and if the whole reason you're writing is to sell books or get movie deals, then you're already a lost cause
>>7702958
>Twilight
>50 Shades
>Hunger Games
Big publishers arent the Big Bad Gatekeepers of Quality Literature, they put out the exact same amount of bullshit self-publishing does. And you'd be surprised how many "masterworks" were panned by publishers and critics only to be hailed as masterpieces later.
>>7702958
>if your writing isn't seen as profitable enough to be publishable you're a lost cause
>if you're writing for profit you're a lost cause
Do you have any idea how schizophrenic that sounds?
>>7702967
the argument isn't that all published books are good, it's that nearly all self-published books are terrible.
i just don't respect self-publishing.
a confused man walks outside
>>7702980
Self-publishing gave us William Blake, so its all good with me.
The work itself over the method.
>>7702972
there are a lot of published authors that are writing to make money and i think that that's bullshit too, that part of the argument isn't about published/self-published
my point is, write because that's what you want to do and if it isn't accepted, don't take the easy way out and just throw it up online
>>7702980
How many self-published books have you even read? And of course you don't respect it, the publishing industry has done a great job of smearing its reputation. What you need to remember about traditional publishing is that 99% of what gets put out is accepted because it sounds profitable to an editor or because there was nepotism involved. The remaining 1% is stuff that would've typically had no chance but an editor or agent was passionate enough to take a gamble on and convince a publisher to back them on it.
>>7703004
When we have publishers only looking for works that support their politics, how is self-publishing the easy way out as opposed to cutting out the middleman?
>>7703004
Why does writing because that's what you want to do preclude sharing your writing just because it wasn't deemed profitable enough to publish?
>>7703014
It's not even politics so much as profit margins. Politics come into it because what's socially acceptable is what's profitable.
Can't believe how many people are defending self-publishing in here haha.
>>7703026
>tfw pretty sure my shits good enough to get formally publishe
>tfw will probably still self--publish some works to save time
>>7703026
I can't believe anyone would still defend traditional publishing in this day and age. Especially when something like The Martian goes from being considered unpublishable, to being self-published, to being a bestseller, to being acquired by a real publisher, to being a major property with a massive movie.
Was it shit the whole time? Of course. But it's a prime example of how the publishing industry cares about nothing but money and will change its mind about what's "legit" and what isn't at the drop of a hat if it smells cash.
I promise to get this done in 2 years or I will commit suicide in a way convenient to society. It's a story about a guy in a war in space. The war never ends as it stretches across the whole universe. I guess it has sort of a 1984 lack of freedom thing going on for one side of the combatants and a mob-rule plot twist thing going on for the other side. It's meant to question the value of life when you have a trillion people in space just constantly killing each other. Feel free to ask questions/shit on it.
>>7703059
how inspired are you by 40k
how has this effort not devolved into a complete clusterfuck of warring factions
>>7703059
Is there more to it than that or is that it? It sounds really underwhelming for something you'd kill yourself over.
>>7703061
Thats the plotwist for the other combatants. No inspiration from warhammer, my biggest experience of warhammer is I saw it on GOG.
>>7703068
Nah I'm really happy, but dead lazy so if I don't set goal with clear consequences I'd never get anything done.
>>7703069
you might find 40k pretty helpful for inspiration. I recommend Horus Heresy
>>7703074
I still say that for those kinds of stakes to even begin making sense you'd have to be writing the next Ulysses or something.
>>7703075
Alright I'll look into that, the rest of the franchise looking into?
>>7703082
Sure it is, but my main experience is mostly from the Horus Heresy books and those are pretty great.
Also Ciaphus Cain, those stories are hilarious.
>>7703040
but the martian isn't a good book, which adds to the pile of terrible books that are self-published.
if this is about making money, then fine, go off and try to do that. but we are talking magnum opus here, there should be more to your writing than financial gain in general, but especially so here.
>>7703080
Don't worry I only gave a very brief description of it. If I didn't think it aas gonna rock peoples socks I wouldn't contemplate suicide over it. I think the questions and answers in the book really relate to what I want to discuss with people. If the entire group who reads the book say its utter garbage I won't really care as I had a chance to impart how I feel into them. So no need to worry person you won't see me in the obituaries anytime soon!
>>7703094
The magnum opus idea is retarded, you guys are expecting to hit meme status out the door and that's just not going to happen. Just focus on telling good, meaningful stories.
Reminder that Moby Dick was considered bullshit in Melville's lifetime.
>>7703094
You're missing the point, which is that it's still terrible even now that it's "officially" published and that was only done because it became profitable enough to publish.
You thinking of self-publishing as less respectable because most self-published books suck makes about as much sense as saying The Martian was a good book because it ended up getting "officially" published eventually and sold lots of copies and got a movie deal.
>>7703105
Oh, let them be pretentious and use fancy words to describe their aspirations. None of them will make it big, but why rain on their parade?
>>7703112
What I'm saying isnt the hard and fast rule, but I think its a mistake for amateurs to focus so much on manifesting some huge monolithic work, as opposed to using everything they do write as an opportunity to advance their technique. Let there be no end point.
Even Gene Wolfe dosent consider Book of the New Sun to be his best work, hell he straight up says some parts were just filler. IRRC "Peace" is his own personal favorite.
I've had this story in my head for almost a decade but have always felt that my writing skills aren't developed enough to write the actual novel. I don't expect it to be an outstanding work of fiction, but it is my dream to one day be able to publish it, regardless of whether or not it ended up being a success...
It's the story of a goddess that is trapped by her brother within one of the worlds she has created. This leaves her without her former powers, yet still immortal. She remains locked for eons in this world, slowly going mad at seeing her celestial children cry out for her just over the edge of the night sky.
She asks the demigods of this world, which are also her children, to help her find a way to escape but they all refuse her.
Eventually, she finds a way to kill herself but certain steps must be taken so she becomes a king's oracle, winning over his trust and forming a band of 7 "champions" that will do what she herself cannot.
The story focuses on the "champions" as they get to explore the world and meet every demigod, killing them all in the process as they have become little more than fragments of their former selves, completely insane after having lived for so long and by the aftermath of a war that took place between them. These heroes are unknowingly working towards fulfilling the god/oracle's wishes.
One of them, who works as a secondary protagonist/antagonist during the story, was the former prince of the oracle's kingdom, but died alongside his wife during a battle and was brought back to life as an immortal demigod, so he also seeks the means to either bring his wife back to life or end his own.
Funny that I would get the urge to post this here when I haven't even told my closest friends about this story.
>>7703122
As long as they're trying to write anything and actually doing it, that's already better than most wannabes. Whether they keep at it long enough to produce anything of value is another story entirely.
The plot is literally just the myths of the titans, its more about the way i write it desu
>>7703130
Did you come up with that as a kid? I don't think it's good but you should just write it now to get it out of your system instead of pining over it for years.
>>7703140
>>7703130
They grand scale story is interesting but I'm not sure where the plot is going with the lesser characters. It has potential as a fantasy series but it needs some heavy refining, definitely not something to be packed into one book.
Like you can just pick any set of characters, write stories abut them, and use that to pick up your writing chops. Knock out a handful off those and by that time you'll probably know where you really want to go with it.
>>7702251
I wanna write this
I wanna read this
I love you
>>7703110
>write a book
>"i hope that this is good enough to get self-published"
>make 10 cents on Amazon
>now nobody will ever take anything i write seriously
self-publishing sure is a good thing
>>7703122
Asimov didn't consider Nightfall to be his best short story, and yet it's his single best developed story with the highest impact on science fiction. The I, Robot stories and associated Laws have to be combined together to overtake Nightfall. Years later he declined to include Nightfall in later 'best of' editions of his selected stories. I believe Gene Wolfe feels the same about BotNS overshadowing his other works. BotNS is Wolfe writing at the grandest scale and most baroque; it's him at the height of his literary powers, and his best application of the unreliable narrator. He probably does consider it his best or greatest work, but Peace is where he accomplished what he originally set out to do in literature, which he did with finesse, but if he sincerely he believes that Peace is his best work, then he's as much of a fool as Thomas Mann was about what he considered his personal best. Similarly, PKD is best known for Three Stigmata or Ubik, but A Scanner Darkly is his most finely written novel. So ultimately I believe Wolfe was speaking in hyperbole to assist his total output.
Wolfe did not say that parts of BotNS were filler; he originally set out to write a trilogy, but the last book was as long as two books, so he redistributed the sizes of the volumes and ended up with a quadrilogy. His editor wanted it to be shorter, but this was the only way Wolfe would have it published.
>>7698779
I'll Menard your Menarding of Borges' Ficciones.
>>7703149
That's why you use a pseudonym. And odds are you won't be taken seriously anyway. Also, if all you care about is being taken seriously as a writer then you're fucked right off the bat because no one's taken seriously at first.
>>7703152
He outright said those short stories in Citadel of the Autarch were filler in one of his interviews, and was honestly surprised people liked them so much.
>>7703165
Okay, I believe you, but I still want a link to that interview.
>>7703144
I do plan to write it as a whole series of books since the story itself follows the adventures of each of the characters, it's just that I have trouble starting the first book.
I've gone as far as to write several short stories that are basically hand picked chapters, such as when the champions walk into a mining city in search of refuge and medicine only to find that the lord has gone sick and delusional, that he is sacrificing his people to one of the demigods and that they are forced to intervene to save one of their companions.
>>7703167
Its proving pretty hard to find it, but its in one of these
http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=WolfeWiki.Interviews
he may have worded it differently than i put it, its been a while
Ahh I will steal ideas from this thread. Thank you /lit/
>>7703168
Just think more about your characters and what they're trying to accomplish, what the end point of each story is. Flesh out the setting as you go and you'll find raw material to generate conflicts with.
>>7703207
t b h you can do much better if you want to steal ideas from somewhere, most shit ITT is just raw material that will look different by the time its fully matured. You can give three different people the same idea an each one will come out different.
A reflection on the enlightenment, modernity, ideology, somewhat american identity and ethics through a work that mirrors the trial dialogues of Socrates as Thomas Jefferson is tried for treason by a victorious British Empire in a reactionary court.
>>7703189
"Instead of cutting it, I embellished it more. The storytelling contest, for example, was embellishment."
Seems here he says that he was expanding content, rather than adding filler. So turns out I was the less wrong between us two, and now you've lost my trust.
>>7703234
If there's any filler, it's those creepy descriptions of Jolenta.
>>7698776
>materialist philosophy
>>7703234
embellishment more or less implies filler, but its true that it wasnt /pure/ filler according to GW
>now you've lost my trust
Good thing we're anonymous!!!
A novel about a homeless man, a documentary he is in, and the destruction of san francisco
>>7703240
Is this like a Hotline Miami novelization?
>>7703237
When Wolfe tells a story, it's to provide background lore for an otherwise hidden aspect of the story. I thought you would have realized that after reading Peace.
I know, it is good we're anonymous. Otherwise I might have to dislike someone whose interests are too similar to mine that I'd have remorse for disliking them. Just don't fuck up again, my friend!
>>7703242
Why would it be that
>>7703240
I remember you posted a little of that on a crit thread. do you live in SF?
>>7703277
Just look up the word embellishment ;)
>>7703283
Sure do, nearly everything that happens in the book will correspond to real places and events that have happened for the past year or so
>>7702924
>vapid philosophy 101 level statement
Oh what the fuck. If thats true, why did you say it? Own up to your own writing goddamnit, this is pathetic.
>>7703286
You're the one who needs to look up embellishment. Embellishment means decoration to make more appetizing, and the side stories in CotA develops the mythology of BotNS's world which were hinted at but not depicted in scenes. What embellishment doesn't mean is adding wasteful filler to fill a gap, as you implied. You might as well argue that Severian's entire apprenticeship was filler.
>>7703296
I already agreed it wasnt pure filler though, but embellishment implies going beyond the mere functional, which, under a certain perspective can be seen as filler.
>>7698770
>A powerless man living amongst powerful people (like an opposite of Superman), ditches his life to solve the world's problems and becomes more powerful as he completes his quest. Along the way are many trials and tribulations which shall allude to ancient mythology and events in my own life.
You guys like it? I don't want to get too detailed on here
>>7699932
fucking noice
>>7702236
>>mish mash of harry potter and naruto
underage b&
triggered
People awaken on a shore of an island, unsure how they got there.
They build a lighthouse, to attract ships to save them, but no ship ever even so much as crosses the horizon. The people become obsessed with the lighthouse, to the point of a mania, until a group of people decides to knock the lighthouse over. They want to stop people from focusing on something that might never come, wasting away their life in the meantime.
After the lighthouse is knocked over, the people lay their focus on the island, but are just as obsessed and manic as before.
>>7698770
That all intelligent species self-destruct long before achieving technology adequate for interstellar travel by any means, fast or slow. And that it always happens in one of two ways.
Those of a warlike disposition, such as the human species, go out in hideous agonies of competition over natural resources, after breeding like rats to population levels that permanently condemn billions to poverty.
Those of a peaceful disposition make themselves so comfortable with the technologies of creature comforts and pleasingly beautiful amusements that, like someone retired to luxury, and cultivated beyond the need for more, slowly fades away in ceaseless pleasant dreams.
>>7703294
Who says I'm the one saying it? Do you assume every narrator is the writer talking to you directly? It's called writing in character.
Well, I hope I shouldn't peak so early as to have this be my 'magnum opus,' but an idea's been brewing in my head for an examination, in either poetry, prose, or a mix, of the life of Phlebas, the drowned Phoenician sailor who comprises the primary symbol of The Waste Land. The image of his death is so ambiguously allusive and sublime that I am led to believe that an image of his life must contain a great secret. Of course you could have the theme of the Eternal Wanderings of Man expressed in the travels of Phlebas, but that's ground (or as it were ocean) already well-covered by the Modernists. Instead, I'm thinking it could almost be a sort of anti-Ulysses, although obviously I don't imagine I could equal even a page of that bool. Whereas Ulysses explores all that is good in the day and life of an innocuous modern man, my Life of Phlebas could explore all that is good in the travails and inevitable succumbing of an obscure sailor from unfathomably long ago: Ulysses's primary mode is an embrace of life, and The Waste Land's primary mode is scorn at death-in-life, whereas what I'm thinking of is an embrace of life-in-death (in a secular sense) as well as of all that is obscure. This would of course have to be reflected in a style to match the sublime ebb and flow of the nighttime waves, which is maybe not something I'll ever be able to do. Still, the idea intrigues me.
>>7705331
>a sort of anti-Ulysses
You mean like Finnegans Wake?
>>7705368
Not in the least. Finnegans Wake is the negative of Ulysses, but, given the incredibly multifaceted natures of both those books, it's only one negative among a potentially infinite set of possible books.
>>7698770
After a series of short story collections my novella will be about one thing:
Espionage amongst bird breeders
>>7698770
A book of short stories with people who interact with each other and it feels completely natural. Anything else is mere pretense.
>>7699255
hey, I space engine too.
I've got a few ideas.
1) An avant-garde high modernist novel written in stream-of-consciousness style, narrated entirely from the perspective of a fifteen year-old masturbation addict. The book will be about 500 pages long and set exclusively within the fifteen minutes it takes for the narrator to jack-off on a Thursday afternoon after school.
2) An avant-garde high modernist novel written in stream-of-consciousness style, narrated entirely from the perspective of a locomotive engineer. The book will be about 700 pages long and set exclusively within the two minutes after the narrator realizes he's missed his stop on the bus back home one Thursday afternoon after work.
3) An avant-garde high modernist novel written in stream-of-consciousness style, narrated entirely from the perspective of a pair of boat shoes. The book will be about 300 pages long and set exclusively within the thirty seconds it takes for the owner to tie the shoes after he puts them on one Thursday afternoon after college.
Do you think any of them will sell?
>>7705331
Beckett devoted his entire career to inverting Joyce. It's been done.
>>7705430
The first one might, the others are too dry.
>>7705430
>avant-garde high modernist novel written in stream-of-consciousness style
>Do you think any of them will sell?
No, but you should write one anyway. Either the whacking off one or the shoe one. The train one sounds gay.
>>7698770
The novel I want to lead up to at this point is a story about a young man with romantic notions of life, who destroys them all to live in denial.
It's based on my experience in college. That blurb probably sounds very lame right now, but that's my end goal, complexity and nuance TBA.
>>7705440
Perhaps I shouldn't have said it would be an anti-Ulysses. But again, what should be realized is that Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are such enormous works that two people can set out to do the opposite and come up with two incredibly different, but not necessarily unequal, works.
>>7705430
Would read idea 3
>>7703229
The sequel should be an alt history genre book about the British empire and its colonial wars in north america.
>>7705430
>narrated entirely from the perspective of a locomotive engineer.
>The book will be about [REDACTED] pages long and [REDACTED] the narrator realizes he's missed his stop on the bus back home one Thursday afternoon after work.
I'm taking this if you don't mind, thanks
>>7703370
>Not realising space aliens have been confirmed in other galaxies by comparing visible light and IR ratios
pleb
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21648607-search-extraterrestrials-goes-intergalactic-infra-digging
>>7702676
I like this
>>7698770
Picture in OP needs a "YOU DON'T SAY" caption.
Answering the question. Basically expand on Dante.
A deconstruction of the monomyth set in a fantasy realm. It will begin in the standard way. A young guy, stuck in a boring cycle of life that he desperately wants to leave from a poor dirt farmer family finds an artifact, his mother, who was once an adventurer recognizes it, and recognizes her son's restlessness so she sends him on a quest to take it to a mage's guild to sell it. He finds he has a natural power, a power which emerges among one hero of the realm during dark times to fight a recurring cycle of a dark menace. But he picks up wisdom to go with his power, he sees history as a huge cycle of suffering. In the end, the dark menace of the time looms over the realms, the citizenry beg him to save them, as heroes have always done.
He faces choices, to do his implicit duty, or end the cycle. He chooses the latter, he approaches the menace and lets it destroy him. The people are left to defend themselves and fail horribly, all is destroyed. The cycle is broken. The hero, banished to the void, has a conversation with the entity who cursed the land. He gently explains to the hero that he was wise, but stupid. That he had philosophized himself into a corner and destroyed everything he had loved through his inaction. He is shown scenes of his family and friends being destroyed and he cries, but through the tears, he says it is for the best, for though they suffered, their children, and children's children will not.
The entity laughs, and the hero wakes up in his bed, the day he found the artifact. He resolves to do the same thing, to end the cycle.
a simple novel about a late 20s-early 30s guy with a young family who gets laid off from a well paying union job he had been hanging onto the last couple years knowing it couldn't last much longer, and trying to figure out what he can do afterward.
>>7702398
Have you read 'a' by Andy Warhol?
