lit, where do I start if I want to learn how to write? Broad strokes, from the bottom, how to write. Aiming for science fiction.
I've tried to write three books now, I stopped writing the first one because what I wanted to do was too complicated, and I needed more experience with a simpler story. The second book I started writing also turned out to be too complicated for me to write, even though it only had three characters and was mostly monologue and one-on-one dialog. The third book I've just given up on because I've reduced my scope to two people walking down a road and I still have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know how to write, which hurts because now I'm up to my neck in unwritten ideas and characters and events and all sorts of miscellaneous thoughts I just want to get out on paper.
>>7732671
see, your problem anon, just like 99% of the rest of the world is that you're probably thinking about the end goal right now, where you're a published author and you get showered with praise and pussy.
ain't gon be like that son
my advice to you. If you have any narcissistic, wishy-washy dreams like this about success from writing, get them the fuck out of your system. Get a real job, and start writing seriously every day, using it as a way to excise whatever thoughts and ideas you have pent up inside of your head. Good writers aren't "taught" in their MFA programs. They just produce little memey faggots like tao-lin and his cuck-crew. Let yourself sink into life. If you never stop writing, in the worst case you won't "make it" in any conventional sense, but you will have lived a good, valuable life. Good luck bruv.
i think Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense by James Bell is the book you should read. i got mine from bookzz.org
Sounds like you're not really planning anything out OP, if you're beginning books and then abandoning them as too complicated. You're not going to write a novel (at least not one worth writing) by just stringing sentences together and trusting in your instinct that it's going in the right direction. Start with a skeletal structure of your themes/plot/whatever the point of your book is. Fill in chapter by chapter how you intend to build it. Then think about drafting the actual prose, but be aware that things will change and there will be editing and re-editing. That's how writing works.
Even a practised hack like GRRM, who was very successful at just stringing events together for a long time - and did actually have a plan - eventually came unstuck and sank into a mire of writer's block because his plan wasn't robust enough and he relied too much on improvisation to get him where he was going.
seems to me that you're an "idea guy" with no real grasp on the medium. go read the /lit/ top 100 and then come back.
protip: dont hold onto those ideas. write them and get them out, even though they'll be shit. then you move on and write something else
>>7732671
Just fucking do it, is how. First of all, don't try to write a full length book right off the bat. You'll just keep getting overwhelmed and quitting. Start out with short stories. Once you've gotten comfortable with those, then try writing something longer. Not necessarily a full novel, but maybe a novella.
When you're actually able to write at least 500 words in one sitting at will, then you're ready to try writing a novel. My tips at that point are
1. Write a detailed outline beforehand. Break it down chapter by chapter if possible
2. Don't try to get it just right on a first draft. Focus on getting the idea out in whatever words come to you and fix it later
3. Once you think you've finished your final draft, proofread it. It's almost 100% sure to have typos. Proofreading isn't the same as regular reading. Just scan the text for errors
>>7732704
whats with all the GRRM hate on 4chan?
>>7732681
I can't lie, I've always dreamed of being able to live off writing, but the reason I want to write and want to write for a living is to tell stories.
Like I said, I have a lot of ideas I wish I could put on paper, and I've tried to do that since I was 14 or so (I used to write fanfiction, I've gone back and read it and it's awful. I'm very glad I never tried to put it anywhere), but every time I've tried to sit down and channel my thoughts, everything starts to fall apart.
And for some life context; I'm 20, work in IT, took one create writing class, and I'm planning on becoming an electrical engineer. Writing is my endgame, not my means of getting there.
>>7732704
Re-editing became a constant process with my second 'book', but I thought it was a sign that I was in over my head and needed to try something else. Maybe I'll try to go back and outline my plot more clearly. Thanks.
>>7732699
Thanks anon, I'll give it a read.
Writing is pretty easy. Here let me show you.
Cracked holes in thermoplastic shielding mar pristine white reflective shell. It spread out all around her, smooth and monstrous in every visible direction. She pauses, gently resting three points of contact against brilliantly blinding surface, while practiced hands mechanically reload another fill canister.
Old Fillers joked that falling in any direction you would never live to see a final edge. She didn't believe them, "You can't fall in dark, even hatchlings know how to float!" "What if your line snaps? Or is cut?" they would mock, grinning eyes and mouths hidden behind unkempt graying hair billowing out in all directions. "Then I would climb." she hears her cycle 6 self defiantly pout.
Thirty cycles ago. She stopped believing in her work on cycle 13, when she saw his line snap and he fell. She still remembers agony and terror, watching metallic silken strands unravel. Jagged edges of a recent impact hole plucking them apart, taking and giving slowly. Darkness swallowed him as he shrank away out of view. A distant glint, a final shimmering speck spinning out of control then nothing. He didn't say a thing, they both knew in that moment, not much of a goodbye.
She worked in hatching for a while, but young reminded her only of falling little lost things, tiny fingers grasping beyond her reach. Eventually she went back, carefree and floating, taught line in tow, dancing across edges and filling tirelessly. Cycles started running end to end, melting together like so many holes, each one sealed, forgotten and replaced by another, putting distance between present and past painful memories. Others would fall, some she could save, and cycles continued revolving.
There was no history, at least no accessible one, which first mentioned origin or purpose. In cycles past, songs tell us a great cataclysm befalling core systems. Many were banished to outer edge, or perhaps fled disaster. Settlers worked on hatching and later as outside fillers repairing shell shielding. Hatch and repair. Those were truths known by all of us, to survive, you must hatch and repair.
She's back inside, after another monotonous repair cycle, retiring alone to single quarters. Countless doors slide open, until at last familiar empty room. Slow movement catches her eye and she waits. A small black sphere dull in appearance, spins lazily away. She floats wearily towards it and in a motion pockets it. This was a sign long coming, a meeting was scheduled with those outside, those without line. She had prepared for this moment since cycle 13, when he fell and all she was fell with him, when his line snapped and her line ceased to matter, events would simply spin in motion now, line be dammed, "I will climb." she whispers softly to nobody.
Line. Line is nourishment and sustenance. With line we are all one, without it we all die. Protect your line, hatch and repair.
>hard mode didn't use 'the'
>sci-fi is over-saturated
>>7733082
I got exactly 0 out of this.
OP, write as you talk and if you talk like a timid ladyboy i don't want to read you. Some people on this forum write like action hero cliches, because they have never read a book -- this is not good either.
>>7732671
Books like >>7732699
help a whole lot.
Start writing every day, scenes, conversations between characters, etc
Also read more, get a word a day dictionary app and expand your vocabulary, re-write other peoples short stories then alter them.
One of my favorite past times as a teenager was to take a fantasy novel and try to "add" a chapter of character interaction in there, while it was always shitty because I was a teenager it helps to build appreciation for story structure.
Take criticism seriously, just don't take it to heart.
http://pastebin.com/h0iddX7m
I took everything into this thread seriously, and tried something new, and I think it worked. I actually like what I've written here, and would appreciate some feedback.
>>7733082
Neat.
>>7733346
If I wrote like I talked even I wouldn't want to read that pastebin. I talk like an xbox twelve year old on speed.
>>7732699
What book should I look into for non-fiction writing (writing in general)?
>>7732723
I mean I don't hate him, I just think he's a good case study in the way that a writer can get bogged down through insufficient planning. As for the more general phenomenon of GRRM hate on /lit/, I guess that's just because he's popular and not highbrow. /lit/ doesn't like that.
>>7733082
Fuckery
>>7733663
I'm going to be pretty negative about this'. Don't take it personally, you have a perfectly salvageable prose style and I by all means encourage you to keep writing. /lit/ may not be the best place for you to seek critique, though, because pop sci fi just isn't /lit/'s bag.
I don't like that it starts with exposition, or that the third word of the exposition is in quotation marks.
I don't like 'even the most humanized AI wouldn't do so much as not hold open a door', this is a super awkward construction.
Likewise phrases like 'definitions of human life built on definitions of life...' - clunky.
Try to fit your metaphors to the point of view. Laester seems to be some sort of disembodied AI so 'coins in a holey pocket' doesn't fit in his (its? Why is it a he? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?) frame of reference. Disregard this if in fact Laester is some variety of ex-human I guess; but this leads me on to the fact that Laester's nature and personal circumstances are very opaque from this beginning. That's okay if you're looking to build some mystery, but it seems like you're establishing him as a character and then shooting straight off on some plot thread about a bitch with an unreadable mind, and it sort of leaves the reader behind because we don't even know wtf Laester is. I think you skim over a lot of ground too quickly in this extract.
It's a personal thing, maybe, but I don't like 'Laester'. Creative misspellings of existing names are a sci fi/fantasy trope that I would love to see die.
You use 'principle' and 'principal' interchangeably, and you are guilty of 'it's/its' errors, abuse of semicolons etc. You need to work a bit on your fundamentals.
>>7734159
I wish more people were as honest with me, I'd be in a better mental state if I got this kind of feedback regularly.
My fundamentals are terrible, I used to nitpick people about their there they're etc. but I stopped when I realized how much of a hypocritical prick I was.
The 'x wouldn't do so much as y' is screwed into my subconscious somewhere, because every time I start writing it shows up uninvited, and the rest of the sentence being how it is doesn't help. I am fond of repetitious sentences though, hence 'definitions in definitions' and other awkward sentences. I'll try to use it less often.
Laestear (leh-steir, Not a misspelling of 'Lester', by the way, supposed to be a portmanteau of a few other words, but maybe considering the confusion I'll change it around some) is supposed to be a mystery figure. So I'm keeping his weird phraseologies. Should be more apparent in draft 2, along with a few other things.
Honestly, from the bottom of my member, thank you for the critique. I think I'll keep posting on lit despite what you tell me, because I enjoy an adverse audience.
>>7732704
To be fair on the man what he ended up writing for the first three books was much better than that abomination of a plan he had.
>le evil Jaime Lannister becomes king by killing everyone.
>>7733663
I pretty much agree with what >>7734159 said.
Brutally honest. After I read "Since the 'liberation' of Artificial Intelligence," I rolled my eyes.
Don't use quotes unless you are physically forced to. Try a more creative way of saying the same thing.
And I would suggest not writing about A.I. unless you know a lot about it. You can use A.I. characters in a sci-fi, but I have the feeling you want to say deep things about A.I. and how it relates to humanity without really understanding what A.I. is.
And honestly I can tell you have a just novice level understanding about A.I. which would make me not want to read this book if I had picked it up in the book store and read the first few pages.
The thing that gives away that you don't know much about A.I. is actually in that first sentence. A.I. is already among us. It didn't need liberation. Not even in quotation marks.
It's weak A.I. and not strong A.I., but it's A.I. none the less. The sentence gives away that you might not be aware of even this basic distinction and anyone who likes sci-fi about A.I. will pick up on that.
Maybe you do and that's why you put the liberation in quotation marks but then you could have avoided the quotation marks by saying "liberation of strong near human-like A.I.". But I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.
