What are you writing, /lit/?
I've been writing a short story since winter of 2013. It's turned into a novella. They're tricky bastards to reign in.
>>7758060
Same. Though only been working on it a few months.
There are so many ways to write it. I'm unsure which to use. I thought about using all if them and turning it into a novel, but I don't know if I would have enough material for it.
>>7758077
>I thought about using all if them and turning it into a novel, but I don't know if I would have enough material for it.
Yeah, this thought has crossed my mind to.
In writing this short-story, I've grown as a writer, and because of this growth any sort of finished product is delayed by constant rewriting. However, I'm much more pleased with what the story is now that what it originally was when I began.
I don't want to get into too much detail, but it's sort of a first-person slice-of-life story set 30 years in the future. It's a pretty optimistic view, where a lot of our social and economic problems are behind us. I just like the opportunity to do world-building.
>>7758038
The longest sentence in the English language. I'm packing so much symbolism in it that niggas are going to spend ages figuring it out.
I'm thinking of starting something in prison. I've got a few ideas for it.
>>7758177
Are you pulling out all the commas and semicolons you can?
>tfw memoir-kun killed himself
>>7758091
That's great to hear. Can you tell us about your subject at all? Mine is heavily inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem. I've been thinking about "and hit a world at every plunge" for a long time.
>>7758038
fucking roastie whore
My magical diary desu
>>7758280
No. To show the flowing nature of time (I can explain why I'm showing it, if you want), there is no punctuation; and, to show that the main character lived for just a brief period of time, and that the clock hands turned before him and will turn after him, the sentence has no definite beginning or end. I don't expect anyone to like it. I'm just using it to it kick off my literary career.
>>7758177
fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/zone
>One of the truly original books of the decade, and written as a single, hypnotic, propulsive, physically irresistible sentence
>>7758304
What ED poem?
>Can you tell us about your subject at all?
I'm hating this "no warosu" stuff. I typed out a good explanation for it a little while back in some thread.
As I write and grow as an individual, the story's subject, at least in my mind, alternates quite a bit; however there are ideas I feel remain in all of the variations of it. The main one is this:
There is a characteristic of man that compels us to seek pleasures of carnality. These vain, purposeless pleasures are often what pulls us to the lowest nadirs in our lives. Escaping these nadirs is a task of the will. The inertia that keeps us from abandoning the temporary pleasures of carnality is a fickle thing. Fickle in the sense that when scrutinized its power is often either unrecognized or diminished. It is only when we distinguish this inertia--and to an extant our foolishness--,that we may fully apply ourselves to what will benefit the heart and strengthen the soul.
Carnality has a certain sex-sound to it; I don't mean that, really.
It's more about the destruction that vanity, not
carnality, brings to an individual.
May change next week, who knows
>>7758635
According to reviews it's not technically a single sentence. Thank you, though, for mentioning this. I plan on getting it.
>>7758658
You're welcome. It took me twenty minutes to find the name of the book. Apparently there's another book, I believe it's a translated book, listed under the longest English sentences Wikipedia page; you might gain tricks/tips from that. Good luck, dude.
writing a short story for a uni class atm. struggling to vomit out a shitty first draft that I can then edit, but the concept is good.
>>7758694
Thank you, friend.
I'm working on 3 short stories but I don't know where to go with any of them.
One of them is about a president from a liberal democratic country and a chairman from a oppressive authoritarian country putting aside their differences, getting drunk, and having a good old time one evening after a world summit.
Another is an exploration of how one views the opposite sex before you have sex and after by having thee stories; one of a paleolithic man sculpting a fertility statue of the female form that comes to drive men to kill and desire it for centuries; one of an office worker finally hooking up with his hot co-worker; and one of a lioness hunting down and killing a wildebeest before finally becoming bored with the corpse.
Then the last one is about a teenagers first hunting expedition in a world where all humans live in an apartment complex in the middle of a forest. In this world people hunt for possessions, not food, so they are going to hunt a beast that is made of fucking wires and cables and shit with the face of a flat screen television and it bleeds white and black static like on an empty tv channel. No idea where I'm going with this one I just love the concept.
I'm like 2-3 pages into each and I don't know exactly what to do with them. So I'll just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks, I guess.
>>7758856
>a president from a liberal democratic country and a chairman from a oppressive authoritarian country putting aside their differences, getting drunk, and having a good old time
noyce
>>7758038
A noir-ish short story about a a man that moves to a depressingly grey city in a search for inspiration and ends up going astray amidst his dreams and the waking world.
A dystopian novel based on the Burkean maxim, "Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed".
A novel based off a dream I had where I was a schoolgirl who had been seduced by an older man into being his "second wife". Seemed enough of a wonderfully Freudian moment to explore a little in prose.
i'm currently a third of my way into my second novel after finishing up the first one a month or so ago. i've been querying agencies and have received very positive feedback for novel #1, but nothing certain yet.
>>7758060
>>7758077
mind if i ask what's taking you guys so long to finish up a short story? i mean, 3 years is quite a long time to spend on one idea. while i no longer write short stories, my rule of thumb, taken from Bradbury, was to spend one week on a short story, two if life stuff gets in the way. have you guys read Stephen King's On Writing? i suggest you do, if just to familiarize yourself with the craft a bit more and maybe kick your asses into gear and begin writing more or at a steadier pace.
>>7759121
a bit abstract, no? while i get not wanting to divulge info on this forum, themes don't really make a short story, given you only have a few thousand words to pull it through. care to tell us more about the story?
>>7759572
No need to be rude mate.
>>7759594
my apologies if i came off that way, i really did not mean to. however, a little tough love might help you out. you got to face reality, mate. 3 years on a short story is way too long and may be hindering your growth as a writer.
falling in love with a story is okay but constantly rewriting it for years and years clogs your creativity. think of all the other stories you could have written in that time. finish it, put it away, write another one, then get back to it and see if all that time was worth spending on it.
i'm just trying to help here. any writer worth his salt will tell you the same thing.
>>7759619
I'm not trying to write like Stephen King and Ray Bradbury. I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm not trying to use phrases like "worth their salt". You're not helping anyone.
>>7759626
okay, seemed i touched a nerve here. i won't bother with any more advice.
however, i will ask a question to anyone else bothering to read this thread:
do you think 3 years is a long, short, or adequate length of time to write a short story?
all answers welcome.
A big novel about many things and contemporary issues, many human characters and conspiracies, Jewry and redpilling, meaning and unmeaning, cynicism, people in nature and politics, synchronicity, fate and faith, truth and trust and finding God, and many many things in one big little package.
I'm about 40k words in and I might be done in 4 years (It's gonna be around 400k words).
>>7758856
top tier ideas all of em. They sound like fun
>>7759655
sounds like a novelization of Schenectady, New York.
why do you say it will take you 4 years to write? are you going by your current rate and outline? just curious.
Science Fiction with a rather mystical quality. Not everything is spelled out and the emphasis is on very vivid events and working by implication rather than a strictly linear plot.
inb4 Gene Wolfe. I like him but John Hawkes is my bigger inspiration
>>7759683
>sounds like a novelization of Schenectady, New York.
Never watched it nor do I even know what it's about.
It's a big novel.
I'm in the beginning-middle, but I really need to go back to the beginning of it all and re-write a shitton because looking back on it, it's a lot of shit that I wrote.
At this rate, it will take 4 years. No outlines. Just draft after draft.
And I'm not publishing because if I do I'll get sued for copyright infringement (some characters are from other media) and the Jews would shut it down like that.
>>7759761
finish it first then edit, trust me
>>7759766
That's what I plan to do, but by then, I'll want to edit more and more.
>>7759761
okay, so if you don't have an outline, how do you know it will take 400k words to tell your story? have you arbitrarily chosen that number? four years is quite a commitment. is this your first attempt at writing long form narrative? and why are you using characters from other media to tell your story? wouldn't original characters not only have greater impact on the reader as well as eliminate any copyright infringement issues.
i also agree with other anon who advised finishing a draft before going back and editing. first drafts are always shit.
>>7759844
>how do you know it will take 400k words to tell your story?
I have the whole story outline I want to tell in my head and that was the estimate I came up with. A shaky estimate.
>is this your first attempt at writing long form narrative?
Yes.
>and why are you using characters from other media to tell your story? wouldn't original characters not only have greater impact on the reader as well as eliminate any copyright infringement issues.
Most of the characters are original, but being that it is so big of a story, I'm always seeing these 'splits' that cause other media to cross over into this universe and it did in fact start out asfan fiction, but so did 50 Shades of Grey and other shitty lit.
The least I can do is change the names of the few characters and locations and organizations that would be hard to fit into the story (like if I used Gotham City for example and I substituted it with New York or Chicago).
>>7759863
not trying to be flippant here, but i suggest writing down that outline you have in your head. it might bring to light issues you've yet to stumble upon while working on it.
400k is a pretty large first novel. i both admire and feel sorry for you, if that makes any sense. i personally went the smaller route. many writers would suggest doing so just to familiarize yourself with the process. it definitely makes smoother going the second time around.
anyways, good luck with the novel.
>>7759907
Y-you too.
http://pastebin.com/uxeZTvgD
>>7759863
I don't think you know what 400k words is.
>>7759981
About 950 to 1000 pages depending on font, spacing and font size.
>>7758038
An essay about an essay
>>7758038
My first novel.
I've recently completed the first draft of my first novel that I'm actually going to try and publish. It's 300k words, and has an extremely complicated plot that is only partially fiction. I started writing it while on the road to recovery from a drug addiction, and each one of the characters is based on a combination of people I know who have issues in some way or other. I'm slightly worried that it may be too long to get published as a first novel, though.
>>7760060
In manuscript format, it's a lot longer than that, trust me. Getting on for 1700-1800 pages if formatted correctly.
>>7761529
congrats on finishing the first draft of a 300k word novel, that's a feat unto itself. two things, though:
1- when you say parts of it are only partially fiction, do you mean they are written as non-fiction? i mean, a novel is fiction, whether based on real events or entirely imaginary.
2- you're right on having concerns about the length of the novel if you're seeking commercial publication. most agents will outright refuse to read it if you're a previously unpublished writer. seems a vast majority of the agencies i've researched are seeking YA novels or upmarket fiction (i believe they just made that term up and really means quirky cross-genre lit). however, don't let that dismay you. all you need is that one good agent or publishing house to strike gold.
again, congrats on finishing the first draft. now comes the next draft, which will undoubtedly make what you already have a better read. don't fear editing out parts that don't work in the overall narrative. a rule of thumb when it comes to editing is if you have more words in the second draft, you did it wrong. mind you, there are always exceptions.
>>7758291
Really?
>>7758038
I'm writing a screenplay.
>>7761667
Parts of it seem as if they are written as fiction, and they tie in with the main story, but are actually real things that have happened to me and people that I know. An example would be the backstory of Alan, whose dad used to go out and gamble all of their money away, until he took a loan out from some shady bloke. He had people knocking at all times of day or night, asking for money, had people break in and steal shit to try and recoup some of their losses. Then, one day, he went missing. Nobody knew where he went, and nobody knows to this day.
Alan always blamed himself for his dad's disappearance, and it's one of the factors that led to him becoming an alcoholic (which is how he meets the book's main character).
This is entirely true, as it happened to my granddad. All I've done is change the names. There are countless more examples spread throughout the book, and I'd actually go as far as to say it's more non-fiction than fiction (except the character's stories, as well as the characters themselves, are based on more than one person).
I'm writting a low fantasy novel about a former solider who is torn between his desire to live a normal life, and his honor, which compels him to seek revenge on those who wronged him in the past. He finds that he is unable to let go of the past, and his search for vengeance begins to bring him more and more grief as his selfish actions make him enemies with his former friends. In the end, the only one left on his side dies defending him, and he himself is mortaly wounded. As he bleeds out he comes to realize how much he regrets, and before dying, makes amends with his former friends. There is more to it then this, but that's the gist. I was also thinking of going nonlinear with it.
>>7761737
>former solider
>>7761700
okay, so it's more memoir than fiction. however, there aren't many 300K word memoirs out there, mate. if the story you're telling can be split into 3 separate pieces, i'd suggest doing so. instead of one mammoth book, you have a trilogy, like Lord of the Rings, that is more market viable.
another suggestion. you should probably focus on making clear whether it's fiction or memoir. the less clear it is, the less chance of publication or finding an audience in today's market. just a suggestion. good luck finishing it, though.
>>7761757
I'm going to publish it as being entirely fictional. A lot of the things that happen aren't the sort of things you'd like people to know about you.
The problem with splitting it is that there's so many separate story arcs going on at once, I'd be unable to split it properly due to so many unanswered questions. I've sectioned it into 3 parts, but it only really makes sense when read together (as the first section is meta). If it comes to it, I could potentially sell it in 3 volumes, but I'd rather sell it as just the one.
>>7761757
>instead of one mammoth book, you have a trilogy, like Lord of the Rings
>>>/reddit/
>>7761773
okay, cool. whatever works for the story, man. you can always tighten up the first volume to get your name out there and then revise it later. look, a 300k word novel is a hard sell today if you do not have an established brand. out of the top of my head only Stephen King and Neal Stephenson write such long novels and those aren't considered their best work. not to dissuade you any. keep on trucking, i say.
>>7759572
>mind if i ask
I think you're right. If I'm not done by the end of this month, I'm gonna call it a day on the story and move on already. Thanks, man, really.
A science-fiction story about a Utopian society where people are able to live forever through technology. Everyone is bored. So much time has gone by that people forgot that death was a thing. All of a sudden, somebody dies by accident. Every gets excited by this new idea that they all kill themselves.
A novel about man who is divided in 3 ways, ever since he was a child he wished to be grander than the sun, as he gets older he wishes to find inner peace (buddha type deal). He also has been self educated to the point of constant contempt for others, this isolates him from others even though he wishes for companion ship
The goal is to wrap these three divisions together, instead of focusing on one or a complete different idea for him to turn to.
a utopian future where rich humans have implanted chips in them to make them smart and stronger the poor humans are close to extintion until a boy is born who is the next step in human evolusion
>>7758038
A tale about human trafficing, greed, downfall and a suffering protag that cant decide, what is really real.
>>7763523
i'd suggest putting it down for a while, work on other stuff, then get back to it in a few weeks or months time. everyone works at their own pace, man, but there's slow and there's molasses. tough love, man. now get to work.
