ITT: Tell us about that story idea you've been thinking about writing and we'll discuss whether or not it is shit and why.
>>7868678
I have an idea where there's a good guy from a peaceful village and with a love interest but then a bad guy comes and threatens his way of life so the good guy goes on a journey at the end of which he fights the bad guy and defeats him and then he goes back home and settles down with his love interest
>>7868685
Oh I forgot, the good guy also has a mentor/father figure that the bad guy kills at the beginning
One of the last practitioners of ancient Greek religion is cursed by Hephaestus for promoting an iPhone in the god's name for a gag Apple ad. (Heph prefers Android, obviously.) Now he can only express emotional pain in the form of jokes. The worse the pain, the funnier the jokes tend to be. Book follows his new career as a comedian as he spirals into ever-deeper despair.
>>7868678
I'm thinking about writing a meandering and soulless novel full of wacky shit, and making it really bad so I can market it as post-modern.
I can only seem to write gay erotica. I'm not entirely sure why, I'm not even gay.
Almost done my first book and I think this is my next venture.
My creative process sucks.
>>7868707
I keep wanting to write a decent BDSM novel because Fifty Shades is bullshit.
Need some good leather play.
>>7868678
>ITT: Give your story ideas. Some might be good, and I'm having a hard time theorizing and brainstorming. If they're impressive enough, I might 'borrow' them.
>>7868678
A cheap rip-off of Frankenstein, but with magic and a twist of Eldritch horror. I'm writing it solely because I'd want to read it.
>>7868880
No, I just used it as an excuse to get feedback for mine and it didn't work.
Almost as bad, right?
I was thinking of writing a YA novel.
> new mutation creates syndrome where sufferers
1. have reverse circadian rhythms - so are nocturnal
2. are the carriers for a virus that sterilises most of of the population apart from themselves
3. Possess great hearing: enabling them communicate by speaking at volumes normies can't hear
> much friction ensues
> All normie adults sterile
> Normie teens have great trouble conceiving, must be v relaxed during conception / strict hormone regime / health and fitness routine.
> Normies hauled up in weird enclaves run by a few adults who supervise the fertile teens / try to ensure they conceive as babies are needed to ensure the survival of normie race.
>>7868692
This would be great with a different premise. You could even stick with the ancient Greek surreal template if you make your choice of god more appropriate for the punishment.
In the future, mankind uses a mixture of the internet ~10.0 and transhuman brain modifications to experience all of the thoughts, feelings and senses of everyone on Earth simultaneously. Society warps radically as we seduce our collective selves and have an orgy until the entropy death of our universe.
>>7868895
This would actually be interesting except for the fact that it's kind of creepy to just have a bunch of adults standing around going 'FUCK ALREADY!'
Now, if we change that to maybe a more scientific thing where the teens are treated as lab experiments and we go a kind of "Splice" feeling with the story? Yeah, I'd read that. A teen goes through his weird feelings for a female, not really sure if he loves her, only know each other by code words. They're like lab rats with human bodies. Just breeding stock.
>>7868909
Yeah I'd write it so the teen angst element would be the narrator rebelling against being treated as a resource. Was thinking also it could be gen 4/5 and the scientism could have devolved into a more cultish doctrine i.e eat these hormones and pray to the Sperm King.
>>7868692
so it's about robin williams
>>7868919
Probably.
You'd have to keep it away from being a copy of... Fuck, I think there was a book called "Fire-us"?
I remember a friend of mine trying to get me to read a children's lit book about a bunch of kids who are survivors of a virus and whatever kinda shenanigans they get into.
>>7868889
I said 'I' not 'you'.
A man in hospital recounts 3 important times in his life, seeing his dad cheat on his mother, his time in the vietnam war, and the time he met his final partner aged 54 and how each time tested him
>>7868678
I want to basically write a series of a short books dealing with a /pol/ish guy who finds himself in a series of deeper and deeper happenings.
Also sort of want to write a deconstruction of YA Fiction. That or simply a parody
>>7869005
Good question, its the first real idea for a story I've ever had so i've not thought it through properly yet. In my head i've got him as a religious type thrust into situations that question his values and I thought it would be an interesting conflict to see
>>7869013
Well, who is he relaying his story to and what is he trying to tell them with these stories?
Is he conveying regret? Satisfaction? A word of warning? Who's listening to this?
>>7869012
parodies are easy, a deconstruction or subversion would be better and interesting to read if done well
>>7869019
I've had two ideas for that, either that the man is comatose and we're hearing friends and relatives talk about these events as almost celebrations without realising the effect they had on the man. So for the first story, the guy's father takes him to a bar for the first time, and his father is meeting a woman he plans to sleep with presuming his child is too young to understand. That sort of thing. The second idea is that the man in hospital is telling the stories to his grandchildren maybe, as sort of a warning of the changing times.Which works best do you think?
The future is trending towards intra-social conflict, not unity. Be prepared to be hated by everyone around you. Be prepared for a cultural environment of self-loathing. Be prepared for more enemies and less friends.
>>7869033
What's the protagonist like? What's his story? The setup sounds pretty badass
something about where a boring lonely protag is given the chance to go on a dating game, where he has 5 different girls to choose from, which range from girls he knows in real life to those he hasn't met before. he is aided by a host. then he turns out to be a piece of shit in the end. someone dies. i call it "OP's dream".
One internal idea out of several for my next story:
*an idea that takes place in the mind of an upscale cemetery caretaker walking through a 'graveyard', this person imagines being surrounded by threads that reach down from the sky and connect to every grave. It's late, very dark and moderately foggy. Also each grave is exposed and all the bodies look to be of healthy people. People that shouldn't be dead. He's curious about the threads so he walks to a set and lightly strums a thread nearest to him. Immediately, the arm of the body it's connected to twitches. Frightened, and unsure of his own eyes, he does it again, with the same results.
Soon he can move on and then see an attractive woman or family member or important person in their life and begin playing with their strings more intricately. He makes them move, talk and say nice things, be good to him and other things.*
Eventually he'll begin to the leave the cemetery. As he's leaving he'll look back on the yard and sigh. His eyes will blink and the threads will be gone. After another moment, he'll blink again and they'll return. He'll sigh again, close his eyes tightly for a while, and upon opening them he will slowly reach for the cemetery gate.
The concept itself isn't overly complex, but plays an important layering theme in the story.
>>7869028
I think I'd be more interested to hear him telling these stories maybe to a nurse... If the man's family thinks of these stories as cheerful while he thinks of them as agony, then why not have them be this careless, shitty family who puts on this happy face like everything is fine, and they never actually care about him, only visiting him in the hospital to make it look like they do.
>>7869054
That's a good angle, I like the opportunities it brings to try and explore the relationship with his family to a stranger. Thanks for your input. I originally had this as a screenplay in my head, do you think it would work better as a novel?
>>7869038
One of the protags is a trans girl. In my research, I find some of them to be creatures of profound self loathing. The other is a super christian girl who's dad is a secret gay.
>>7869071
Do they ever meet?
The four most wanted people are best friends and are trying to escape basically every division of the police force, the government and the uber-government, a secret service.
Hilarity Ensues
Definitely not philosophical, or even remotely intelligent, but I think it'll be fun to write
>>7869106
Doesn't need to be either of those things if its fun as fuck to read
>>7869079
Yeah, they're childhood friends, and spend most of the book together.
>>7869118
Are they subject to the hatred you talk about in any special way?
>>7869106
Thanks for the encouragement, that's always been my philosophy with any fictional medium.
>>7869154
Christian girl is taught to hate gays and love her family, and her dad is gay. The tranny of course hates the body she's born into. They meet some artists in Denver who are getting forced into 'social justice' culture at the behest of their well-connected, mysterious dealer- and of course, social justice and identity politics are a wonderful source of intra-social tension. Then the tranny has a social anxiety breakdown and goes off on her own to live with some other mtf roommates in Portland, who show her a level of self loathing somewhere below the floor of rock-bottom.
Eventually, though, I argue for the necessity of this social manipulation. The machine that keeps the world from destroying itself works so much better if we keep our hatred for one another at a gentle boil, out in the open, where the real crazies can be monitored. Large groups of people caring for each other is gonna fuck with the game plan.
>>7868678
It's the near future. Everyone is on legal drugs and nobody really has to work anymore. Culture is largely dead and everyone is so disconnected from one another that there is no conflict and no sense of belonging.
In this zany time a whacky funster experiments with sobriety and discovers a long forgotten humanity through wanton violence.
>>7868678
Man is diagnosed with a rare and weird illness: the more time he spends near people, the more they turn into him.
>>7868692
I love everything about this.
>>7868692
It's a story about meme pages on Facebook
A supercomputer-like being in space that assimilates other organic beings
it periodically condenses its worst aspects (greed, vengeance, desire, etc.) and detaches them
they are contained on certain penal planets and Earth is one of them
A man is chased through his life by a multi-dimensional time distorting alien that randomly takes him forward or backwards in time to when he was younger or when he was older making him experience multiple permutations of his own life, in the end he finally manages to kill it butITS HIMSELF FROM ANOTHER dun dun dun
>>7868959
Thanks I'll have a look at that, about the read The Origin Of The Family so will be influenced by that
Anybody here writing plays? What's your play like?
>>7869647
Like the sins from FMA?
>>7868678
A tragi-comic historical quixotic magical realist novel tracing the life of an Italian "Master of Disguise" and his picaresque travels throughout Renaissance Europe as he searches for the love of his life, a married Contessa who he saw crowned May Queen as a boy. All of his disguises are gambits to try and win her love, but they are so effective that she doesn't know who he really is.Becomes tragic near the end when because of a life of so many masks he cannot find his own and when he finally confesses his love she's confused and has no idea who he is. Main themes would be identity, unrequited love, death, and etc. Inspired by Don Quixote, picaresque novels, Count of Monte Cristo, Dickens.
Only problem I can see is the amount of research it'd take to make the setting fully realized and the style would be ornate/baroque. But I think I could do it.
Would /lit/ read?
There's a story in my family about a retarded (i'm thinking about rewriting it to be 22q13 deletion syndrome) girl who was treated like a dog (kept in a small shack, given the same level of respect, etc.). I'm thinking about reworking in it in the vein of Sound and the Fury, but I really doubt it has enough substance to be anything more than a cheap rip-off or a shitty piece of nonsense. The situation itself is pretty funny, though.
>>7868692
Holy shit. It's been a long time since someone's come up with an actually good plot.
Congrats, man. I'd definitely buy it, read it, and then leave it on top of my coffee table for others to flip through.
>>7869986
if you write it I wont fucking hate you
>Write sown a story idea
>Flesh it out with important characters and scenes, the direction it needs to go, etc
>Everything set to write
>Something deep inside me prevents me from writing more than a page or so without feeling totally awkward and wanting to cry
I'm so frustrated I want to die. Writing and reading are the onky things I care about, but I can't control my emotions enough to git gud at writing. I almost wish I had someone to write something with to see how they do it. Might make it easier for me. None of my friends read or write though.
>>7868678
stoopid
>>7870083
You're going for a kind of humorous tone? Cuz that'd be awesome.
>>7869986
I don't know if I'd read it but it sounds fucking bananas and I know a lot of people who would love that kind of idea. It sounds like a keeper, anon.
My current idea is about a teenage runaway who ends up stumbling across an Innsmouth/Nightvale/Twin Peaks town deep in the mountains, where she is adopted by a blind old woman who collects "interesting" people and houses them for her own amusement. It's kind of a spooky slice of life erotica thing.
A General with an immortal body who joins different sides of wars all over the planet in order to reunite with his Adjutant, whose immortal soul is constantly reincarnated.
The entire world thinks of the General as a fickle, horrible man because he bears no loyalty to anyone he fights for, but his skill is unparalleled and it's well known that no one he fights for ever fails in battle. Course, they don't know that he only joins in those wars to find his Adjutant. He never knows where the Adjutant will show up, only that his soul is drawn to suffering and bloodshed.
Meanwhile the Adjutant constantly kills himself once he's over the age of, say, 30 or so because he believes himself too old and unattractive for the immortal General. Book would follow the General trying to convince the Adjutant during one of his lifetimes to live out his life with the General, and perhaps even form a suicide pact. Throw in a ton of political intrigue, war, battles, sprinkle on a tiny tiny tiny bit of philosophy.
Problem is I can't keep it in my pants so they'll end up fucking at some point. I don't know how to keep that from happening.
>>7870448
Yeah, I think a lot of us sort of wish we had somebody to collaborate with. Or, if not collaborate, then at least share writing and ideas. Then again, meeting people is torture, so I never actually go through with it whenever I have the idea.
Autonomous region in a fascist country gets taken over by the fascist dictatorship, after an initial period of insurgency and scattered terrorist acts, the dictator implements a policy in the region mandating forced integration of all the citizens and bans their language, demanding that they all speak the language of the mainland. The father of the seconday protagonist (so far unnamed) is mistaken for the leader of a terrorist cell, is beaten and taken away by the fascists, the son witnesses all of this. He then decides to take a vow of silence in protest of the fascist government. The main protagonist is the newly hired Minister of Cultural Integration at the region's capital, hears of the boy and his vow, decides to nip it in the bud. I don't really know where to go from there but what ultimately happens is the Minister decides the boy isn't a threat, arguing that his vow has done more harm than good since his language has been effectively wiped out in the years since he took the vow. I'm having a really hard time making it not sound like a boring retelling of a country's political history, ie more pathos than logos
>>7870509
Why would you keep that from happening? I'm pretty sure gratuitous sex scenes are borderline required to publish fiction
>>7870541
Because it would be two dudes and that's a little harder to publish. I think anyone who reads the book for the war fiction side of it would be turned off by the fact that they get it on.
... Nevermind, the entire premise is just one gigantic ball of sexual tension. It's required, isn't it?
Question is would someone read it?
>>7870549
>Because it would be two dudes and that's a little harder to publish.
What year do you think it is famalamadingdongdum
Two dudes is probably better than a dude and a dudess, publicity wise
Still not as good as two dudes and a dudess in a dystopian battle-world ruled by vaguely sinister bourgeoisie but that can't be helped
>>7870509
They're both men right
Hot
There is a ban on books. People who are against this ban are in a cult. To initiate themselves in this cult, they must write down their favorite passage from a book and eat it. After doing this, they protest by creating graffiti with passages from books.
>>7870568
.... Does that mean my story about a masochist who ends up becoming the abused sex partner of a hedonistic vampire will actually do well?
Because everything I write ends in sex but I can't seem to write female characters that aren't one of two female characters over and over again.
>>7870575
If there's a ban on books, then where do they get the books?
>>7870568
anything cisgendered is totally gauche if not openly transphobic now, famerican express.
>>7870579
I have the exact opposite problem. I just can't write men at all, so I make my erotica about lesbians most of the time.
>>7870583
As a trans man I hate this kind of mindset.
>>7870585
I've got a great idea. You read my stories, I'll read yours, and we try to make something straight.
>>7870509
>that's gay
i don't like gay stuff
>>7870509
I don't think you have to make them fuck, even if the sexual tension is really obvious. Think about women in the art films of the 50s and 60s (namely in France and Italy) and how the eroticism was very prevalent (or even a driving factor of the character/story), but the directors often held back from actually showing any nudity. It is a combination of the mystery and being driven to the edge of the potential sexual experiences that make the tension all that more effective. It would almost be lazy or self-indulgent to give in to that impulse and in the end would be less rewarding for both you the writer and your potential readers.
>>7870594
Here's a good question for the thread.
You read an amazing book, has a great concept, everything's perfect, it' your favorite. But the main characters are gay and it's really fucking obvious and there's sexual overtones throughout the whole thing, though they don't interrupt the story.
Do you like that book even though it's super gay?
>>7870582
Black market.
>>7870579
>.... Does that mean my story about a masochist who ends up becoming the abused sex partner of a hedonistic vampire will actually do well?
I mean, I don't think it would be the next 50 Shades of Twilight but I think it would definitely get onto the shelves, for better or for worse.
Really, immortal war-torn homolust has a very wide range of potential audiences, from yaoi fangirls to Oscar Wilde wannabe aesthetes to Gilgamesh x Enkidu shipping academics to Joe Fantasy who likes politics and odd relationships because of Game of Thrones.
Sure you might trigger some /pol/tards but so what
>>7870598
>You read an amazing book, has a great concept, everything's perfect, it' your favorite.
but none of that would be true because
>the main characters are gay
You guys ever feel like everything you write sounds like something bullshit a pseudo intellectual cunt who gets praised all the time and becomes a billionaire would write when he's really just a dickhead so you don't take it any further but then realise they make money so you could as well if you sold out?
Am I actually smarter than everyone else or just full of myself?
Or is the average IQ just like 100 now?
>>7870598
>being a homophobe
>on /lit/
shiggy
>>7870604
So you wouldn't read a book that appeals to everything else you like about books because they're faggots?
>>7870606
He was a very handsome man.
If I could just go on a date with Oscar Wilde and Nicola Tesla at the same time...
... They'd probably find an excuse to go to their cars and leave me with the bill.
>>7870607
but it's not everything i like because it's about faggots.
like, if you're allergic to peanuts and there's an item on the menu that uses peanuts in the sauce, do you eat that item or pick something else?
>>7870612
Well, you won't die from reading about a gay couple.
>>7870611
>after years of work, you perfect a time machine to bring together your favorite historical figures
>after brief interest in your marvel of scientific achievement, you can tell you're losing their interest
>standing in the corner as various past patricians interact with scintillating dialogue, there is only one thought that crosses your mind
>...my feet hurt
My dream
My nightmare
>>7870549
Honestly, I would just make it more of a teacher-student dynamic, and have the Adjutant eventually beat the general after a bunch of lives. Brotherhood and competition like that are more compelling than any sort of homosexual thing, but that's just my preference. I'm sure many people would read your version, though.
>>7870616
oh the solution is simple...
travel to the future, augment your brain so you';re super smart and clever, then go back! bam! interesting!
>>7870616
>>7870616
Actually they lived in the same time period. Wilde was born in 1854, Tesla in 1856. They were the same age... and very fucking handsome. Fuck, I'd go back in time just to pay them to fuck.
And then they'd look at me weird, and I'd slowly back out of the room while trying to avoid eye contact and tucking my hundred dollar bill back in my pocket.
... Course I'd probably stay in the hall and keep my ear to the door just in case Wilde decided to make a move.
>>7870605
I'm going to guess that you're using thesaurus heavy, historical, formal prose which a lot of beginning writers affect. If so, this is actually a bad habit which you need to outgrow
>>7870627
Yeah but Tesla was american and Wilde was British
how am I gonna bring them across all them TIMEZONES without a TIME MACHINE smart guy
>>7868685
I'm not investing.
>>7868692
How reliant is this gonna be on actually funny jokes? The less, the more I'll invest.
>>7869005
>>7869003
I'm with this guy. Eh.
>>7869047
What is this supposed to be? Necro-erotic short story? Interested in investing, but need more details.
>>7869106
I'll think about investing if they are actually innocent.
>>7869291
Not gonna lie. Made me laugh. Is this supposed to be a comedy?
