/lit/ - Literature

>>16401

over the period of three or four weeks. its a collection of essays on how to perserve America, even using gaslighting, violence, ethical solipsism and ego unions.

>>16401

i wrote some on a blog I handled I should put those in another pdf but I'll link you. (it hasn't been updated in awhile)

https://disintegrationsystem.blogspot.com/

>>16321

I think a number of your essays are too unsubstantiated to be called essays, and too meandering too. They're closer to reflections than to essays.

>>16469

>In my first essays I explained the methods on how to achieve a government that

would be of great essence to the people of this country

Translation:

>Hey come dey hifalutin, yo!

While I hold in high regard Nabokov's ideals, caution in one's word choice still matters. Inviting a reader to chase after meaning only works when the reward justifies such. Here I am using the Goldendict aplication attached to a relatively recent version of Wordnet.

essence ~ noun. A toiletry that emits and diffuses a fragrant odor.

With all due respect to writerly license, I'm getting the impression of an ESL crossover. Or, a Mille Bornes addict. With toungue firmly in ironic cheek, I get the sense this really is the most proper definition, in spite of the writer's intention. Yes, there are other definitions that capture the essence of the idea he was trying for. It's still a godforsaken poor choice of a word to express merit.

>And all the rest of the introduction.

Reflections? Maybe. Essays? No. I would call this a manifesto.

Ain't gonna waste no more time wading though this. Do me a favor. Suggest one essay you think worth reviewing. I will give it a go. Otherwise, no.

>>16472

>essence ~ noun. A toiletry that emits and diffuses a fragrant odor.

Nah, he's using it to mean "importance", "something of vital necessity" (<—my words).

>>16473

The next paragraph states the same, although I spiral around the subject, approaching it indirectly. To be direct and clear:

>he's using it to mean "importance", "something of vital necessity"

Yes, I understand. His unusual word choice obscures meaning for a general reader and is a red flag to the more discerning.

Fappy fan-fiction does not write itself, and so, as such, I find myself rather busy. I will waste no more time on this nonsense. My offer remains, if someone may suggest a piece of the whole that stands on its own, and is not a complete waste of time for a general reader.

>>16471

Fair enough.

>>16472

No one is forcing you to read it. And I plan not to do any favors for you unless you do one for me: if all you do is plan to criticize my work, don't bother reading it.

>>16474

And Tbh literally criticism, and any kind of critical theory has only pre-desposed use, and that is to be used against itself as I suggested in my previous "reflections" as you call it.

Essence is used as in "essence preceedes existence" if you knew what I meant in the usage of such wordplay this is not a manifesto for a toilet but since people such as yourselves infest earth, you might as well lace up that shoe and wear it

>>16401

>>16403

Yeah you wrote this in one go… >>16311

>>16481

Also the last most chapter is still WIP.

>>16478

Get your jelly beans back in your jar. By being as sensitive and defensive of your work as you've been, you dissuade others from reading it, besides the few of us who have skimmed sections. What's more,

I am still working on Nth Sentience and the recent shootings make it look like we are going to lose Cloudflare's protections. If 8ch starts having problems, you guys wanna move our literature to lainchan? Aryan robot guy and I are writing scifi anyway, should be a decent fit.

>>16486

I opened up 08chan in the first time in like forever. Didn't lainchan split in two a while back?

Plus, in the meantime I outlined some weird ass crossover fanfic of Nth sentience and aryan robot's story. For no reason specifically.

>>16472

>>16474

>>16476

>>16477

>>16478

First off, allow me to thank the participants of the late discussion. This has been the most lively one the board has witnessed in a very long time. Kudos to one and all.

Second, heated banter on an image-board is the norm. It's a feature, not a vice. Such is the nature of the beast. The piece was attacked by one poster, and the writer defended, as both are entitled to do. At this point the two have fallen into a gruesomely funny pattern of willfully misreading each other's words. All great fun, but it hints the usefulness of the discussion is done. Done, as if. There was no attempt at discussion from the start. Read on.

Third, let us critique the original attacker with some perspective on satire from two accomplished American writers. In his autobiography, Steven King details his own methodology on how best to deploy satire. He relates a painful sequence of events whereby his first grand attempt at writing such was also his last. In a word, "don't." King makes a good point. Such a writing form is a slippery pit at the bottom of which lies a tar-pool of pure harm for harm's sake. However, King's is not the last word on the subject as America's most grandiloquent of satirists would attest. To King he might reply how satire is one of humanity's most original, and most deeply powerful of tools for seeing the world clearly. Still, Gore Vidal would meet with King halfway. Vidal would agree to defining a precision instrument as being the one most likely to be inartfully slashed around.

I stand by my criticism, but not form in which it was delivered. An unhelpful critic makes not a proper critic. That is not an apology, but is as close to one as one is ever apt to see on an image-board.

>>16483

>What's more,

Note: this is a third party poster and one most sober. I agree with the what poster says earlier, but I'd like to take this amusing glitch in particular as a metaphor for where we now stand. Chan banter and personal attacks are all that are likely to remain past this point. So I'll be keeping my rot shut on this subject and moving along.

Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing. ~Gore Vidal

>>16504

You are getting there. I might have paid money to read this, once upon a time. Nothing jumped out at me to cause any annoyance. I would also say this is a good example of how to interleave background world building with story such as to keep the reader's interest.

Some topics are kept isolated by memory erasure. While world governance is of a highly democratic nature, this speaks volumes. It hints at something greater inherent in the limitations of mere participation in such an ideal. The pending reconstruction project of the memorial site plays with this theme as well.

One item missing, it might be interesting to explore what impressions are allowed to remain from his work in civics. Not a complaint, but it demonstrates a build up of readerly interest.

I would rate this as publishable in a collection or magazine format.

As they say across the lands of chans: more?

>>16509

Thanks for the critique.

>it might be interesting to explore what impressions are allowed to remain from his work in civics

Ah, I meant for it to come across as everything was forgotten, not just the sensitive stuff. I'll have to either change that or make it more clear I guess. The idea was to have an exaggeration of tedious service labor, where it seems like nothing worth remembering is accomplished. Maybe I was drawing a little bit too much from personal experience and not drawing enough from the scifi potential.

>As they say across the lands of chans: more?

I've got four unfinished short stories and an unfinished novel sitting thoughout my hard drives. Nothing more worth sharing as of right now.

>I might have paid money to read this, once upon a time.

>I would also say this is a good example

>I would rate this as publishable in a collection or magazine format.

Holy fuck this feels like high praise for a rough draft. Thanks. That's actually really encouraging.

Do you guys have any preferred methods or strategies for organizing your writing and notes related to it? I have the habit of jotting down ideas, anecdotes, scenes, moments, and really anything of the sort that I think might be related to a particular writing project on one long running page for each project respectively. Inevitably, I end up with an absolute mess of thoughts. So, while I may have a fairly good idea of what I would like to write for a particular story and what I would like to include in it, I am still all over the place.

I'm aware that you can't plan for everything and I am familiar with some methods of organization/planning for other genres beyond creative writing, but I feel like my current methods of outlining are failing me at the moment. I've read a few blog articles (e.g. [BO edit. Linked site is throwing a PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR. Link removed pending someone fixing their shit.]), but I still feel like I am ineffectually scrambling in the mud. Perhaps I just need to put more time into the process of organizing, but I don't know. Any thoughts, even if it's just your preferred methods, would help.

Is anyone else having trouble with images and files on this site? Also I wrote this short while 8ch was down. If it's too long, I'll put a paste, but it's just under 750 words.

_____

"Cyborgs never did anyone wrong. Human just like you and I, all that matters is the brain, no?" Zico said.

Psh. Rye scoffed.

In the past, like a gift from heaven and the dawn before darkness, Rye, shortly after being evicted from Guardian, picked up a job from Katze. In truth, this was work in the black market, but his early jobs were mere delivery in and around the slums. The basic income as an outlier from the universal strangling poverty slowly healed the wounds from looking eye-to-eye with his block mothers' second faces. The attentive care they gave in his earlier years, even admiring the obsidian hair as unique— they pushed him out to the tumultuous scorned corner of the world at the age of thirteen.

An eager face cleaned of dried tears, Rye, still thirteen years at the time, ran on foot with a satchel from the main sector of the slums to the eastern district, Nier Darts. At normal hours, Nier Darts was a dangerous place to walk alone, but the early morning at 5:30 AM— except for the rubble, grime, and bare wires of crumbling infrastructure— the streets were clear. Treading the edge of danger like rising starlight at the horizon, and later making his wage became a common routine that fulfilled his sense of adventure.

At the residential block, dim lighting of unreliable reserve power flickered. Rye ran to apartment in the complex where his delivery was addressed to. He rang the door bell, and waited for it to be answered. The footsteps behind the door drew close and the door opened.

"Delivery!" Rye said as he turned from his bag and to the one who answered the door. "For Mr. Gle—"

The man answering had no face. Looking down upon the boy, two eyeballs socketed in a bare metallic skull— red veins and fleshy sides of the spheres were visible. A broad toothy grin that lacked the natural coverage of lips.

The immediate response from Rye was a shriek, and he sprinted back down the apartment complex's halls.

Rye heard from the distance, "Box!"

Behind him he saw the faceless man chasing after him. The light that flickered from above popped him in and out of sight. Darkness then visibility, the faceless man approached in ambiguous increments.

Stumbling in terror, Rye threw the parcel down the hall before getting back up, running again, and daring not to look back.

The faceless man picked up his package from the floor.

5:15 AM

Glen soaked a towel under a sink, wrung out the excess water, and walked out of the bathroom.

"Fucker," he said under his breath. "Son of a bitch."

He crashed on his bed and covered his face with a damp towel.

A bar fight from the other day gone wrong, he and his friends ended up in a free-for-all street brawl. The fuckers from western Ceres picked a fight, and general, half-brained violence erupted. The majority of the participants didn't recognize who was from where, and the last thing Glen expected was someone to throw acid.

He took a direct hit to the face. He lost his original skin a long time back as well as his original skull. To the credit of prosthetics, the synthetic skin that coated his current face guarded his still-organic eyes. Nonetheless, acid rendered his entire face model unusable.

"Ugh," he groaned as he pressed the towel against his face.

There was a particular idleness that gnawed on his consciousness. Lacking eyelids and being inable to blink left him largely inable to do much. To soothe his burning nerves, Glen reached for the nightstand and finished the anodyne ale he poured himself earlier.

The doorbell rang.

Glen shot up and eagerly went for the door. The towel slipped off his face and fell to the floor.

When he answered the door, he looked down to the delivery boy with the package.

"Shit," he thought to himself. "Is it the ale or does this kid have black hair?"

"Delivery! For Mr. Gle—" the boy said before looking back and growing a disturbed stare.

Fuck… the towel. Shit. Shit. Just don't—

The boy shrieked and ran away.

"Hey! Kid! Come on! The box!" Glen ran after.

The boy stumbled and hastily threw the parcel before running away. Picking up what the boy left behind, Glen opened the packaging, saw his face model and a round container of unoxidized synthetic skin.

"About time this came in," Glen said.

>>16523

>Some sexi Cyborg shenanigans mayhaps?

If you're talking about >>16517

It's something goofy I wrote around Halloween.

Off topic question, what happened to cyberpunk? The /cyber/ board I mean. While we have a potential alternative for /fanfic/, where did /cyber/ drop anchor?

>>16517

>Rye ran to [an/the] apartment

>Rye threw the parcel down the hall before getting back up, running again, and daring not to look back.

>

>The faceless man picked up his package from the floor.

Logical POV error, as the story appears being told from Rye's perspective. He would not have seen the faceless man pick up the package as the action is described.

Ah. Then you switch POV. OK, drop that last sentence and yer good.

Overall the piece has an improving rough draft quality to it. I am willing to read more.

>>16513

There is a continuum of basic writing technique writers fall under, ranging from outliners to discovery writing. You would be considered an outliner. The advantages of this methodology should be obvious to yourself without further explanation.

A typical criticism of this technique from a discovery writer is you spend more time writing about the writing instead of, you know, writing. It's also too easy to fall into world builder's disease where you build an encyclopedia instead of a story.

A typical counter argument is the discovery writer spends more time in revision hell and dead ends instead of moving toward the finale.

A third option is a mix of the two methods, a hybrid writer. This is my method. I'll make some character sketches and story notes at the beginning and then jump in. I may update the notes a bit, but, as time goes on, the notes cease to be updated to the point they may be badly out of sync with the finished story. This marks me as leaning more toward discovery than outlining as my overall method.

Anyway, my tool of choice for keeping notes is though a personal Mediawiki installation. One page for general story notes and a plot outline, and separate pages for more centrally specific items such as characters, etc. I can't generate enough energy or commitment for anything more organized.

>>16530

I definitely am more of an outliner. Usually I will go ahead and try and string together a loose chapter outline (and even the larger story arc) before diving into the meat of a work. I ought to remember that at the end of the day you just need to sit down and write, especially since that is a great way to discover things and simply work it out as you noted.

>One page for general story notes and a plot outline, and separate pages for more centrally specific items such as characters, etc. I can't generate enough energy or commitment for anything more organized.

Perhaps I should split my notes into more sections; if I did so, it would probably make them more managable. Of course, that would just be even more outlining and it might be better to just ignore 'em and start writing.

>>16532

>I definitely am more of an outliner.

>I ought to remember that at the end of the day you just need to sit down and write

Caution is advised here. Writers at the opposite ends of the continuum have great difficulty understanding how the other end gets their job done. As noted, I lean more towards discovery than what I perceive as over-organization. Makes it a bit difficult for me to accurately represent the benefits of the other side. I'm reflecting my mindset and personal bias here, not what is right, nor which is better.

Under a pseudonym (Edgar Box) I wrote three mystery books in 1952—I was very broke. Halfway through the last one I forgot who the murderer was and had to find a substitute. ~Gore Vidal

Writing yourself into these sorts of dead ends along with some outright logical idiocy goes hand in hand with discovery. There are benefits to being an outliner.

However, I do stand by my warning about world builder's disease. That's usually more of an issue with inexperience than method. Among my personal observations of other writers I have noticed it poses a much greater degree of danger to outliners.

Anyway, above all else, keep writing.

How do I into writing? I have trouble with creating stories, but worldbuilding and characters come along just fine. Frankly, I have no idea how to start, maybe I'm not cut out to be a writer and I've just idolized the whole concept. Any tips would be helpful though, I've found that writing out various dreams I've had has been a good way to start, but those often have no characters or are in first person.

>>16542

Well what are your character's motivations? "Utopia" implies that this society is a pretty good place to live. What makes it such a utopia? Why would a utopia need bounty hunters? And what kind of man must your bounty hunter be to suddenly get into conflict with the government, and ultimately give up his pursuit of profit to destroy this utopia? What sort of men do the rebellion leaders have to be to have organized a campaign to destroy a literal utopia? Just a thought here, but what if your character had some inter-personal conflicts with fellow members of the rebellion. Perhaps he criticises a leader whose motives are less than pure, or perhaps he receives criticism from a rank-and-file grunt whose motives are totally pure? Setting up the battles and shit is all well and good, but the story is going to be told from the perspective of a character, and a character must navigate, learn about, and cope with the world through personal interactions with other characters. You can drive the story along by introducing smaller-scale conflicts, which may end up coinciding with, aggravating, or helping to relieve the big large-scale conflict of the civil war. Maybe the bounty hunter is initially driven to join the rebellion to spite his dad or something, or maybe because someone he personally hates is in the government, or maybe somebody in the government - doesn't have to be a high-up bigshot, a civil servant with rubberstamp authority could fuck your mc over just as well - personally hates him or what he represents.

TL;DR your setting sounds like a breeding ground for moral grey areas so you should consider using that, and also your plot could be driven along by writing more more internal and personal conflict.

>>16534

>Anyway, above all else, keep writing.

That's definitely the goal; I just have to find the time for it.Thanks for the advice, anon.

A little tangential to writing: how do you guys or writefags find an audience for your work? A basic web search is going to yield something along the lines of social media, blogging and platforms, but something about that doesn't seem right to me.

I don't mean it from a business perspective. I think I'm wedged in an odd scenario where: I'm writing fanfiction; however, the fandom isn't something I can join (plus their interest is too narrowed down for my work).

I think I'd enjoy a writers' community like here or /fanfic/, and the basic trade of feedback is enough for me, but the problem is that activity on both is stranglingly slow (just like my connection to this website).

>>16535

It sounds like you just need to design scenarios for your characters and world. If you think about how to demonstrate the world, characters, and setting, without explicitly telling it like a Wiki article or a history book would, you could come up with basic short stories, and then move up from there.

>>16546

Catfish people into reading it. By the time they figure out it's fanfic, maybe you'll have interested them in your writing.

>>16546

I'm more or less interested in the world itself and how these creatures live and how various things in the world came to be or function, it's a psuedo-fantasy esque concept and I'm trying to avoid conflicts or scenarios that could eventually lead into other races genociding each other, but it seems impossible to avoid. The concept is basically following multiple intelligent species from their earliest form of civilization to when they become capable of living on other planets or achieve a higher plane or state of existence, so the idea is to convey how it's possible they all managed to live in their own ways without genocide or getting assimilated.

I guess I'm struggling because I've presented this world to a couple of people, but so far none of them have told me what they're interested in, so I don't know what to delve into and expand upon.

>>16601

You don't need to go large scale civilization style conflicts. You can probably start off with something easy like a daily life in an ordinary fictional fantasy intelligent species' life, but you'd need a human character to provide a frame of reference.

Like this hentai comic I read was about some alien species that immigrated to Earth, and the primary conflict in the story was that the alien main character that works as a college professor couldn't go a day without fucking multple humans regardless of gender, age, or how many at a given time.

>>16533

quality shitpost

Do people like poetry? I enjoy using rhyme/meter, but those don't seem to be too popular these days. Don't really know if my stuff's shit or not, so feedback's appreciated.

A passing breeze disturbs the sea,

The boundless field of deepest blue,

Which breaks a bit but stills anew,

And, truth be told, disquiets me.

For in that ocean, would there be

The swallowing abyss soon due,

The choking shock that chills me through,

The breathless death that snuffs my plea?

But time works strangely under there;

Perhaps I’d have a peaceful dream,

Which overcomes my frail despair,

That wrapped in roiling currents fair,

I’d let my thoughts leave in a stream

And live my life all without air.

>>16487

Dude writing Nth Sentience here. It's kinda surreal winding up on a carbon copy of the board I thought was nuked but here we are.

I have plans to restructure my novel in a way that I'll actually get some sections complete. Mainly, typing up loose ends in the framework behind the plot, culling plotlines that lead to nowhere, and developing my characters before throwing them all at the reader at once. Instead of starting the book with that weird cultist party at Valdoris manor, I'm writing a short story for each major character. Following the basic world-building in these short stories will keep the full novel internally consistent and hopefully avoid "wide but not deep" lore bloat. In Nth Sentience, I introduce concepts like animal-brain computers, exoskeltal limbs, and a means of time travel, but I hardly address how a society including these things would actually function, besides dismissively putting them in a "only the 1% elites have access to these things therefore I don't have to consider how they effect the rest of society" trap.

The short-story approach is partially inspired by the work of Cordwainer Smith, who set a series of short stories in his "Instrumentality of Mankind" universe. The scope of each story is small enough to be manageable in 20-40 pages but they are consistent enough to be grouped into one body of work. I've also found it to be very difficult to get people to read a novel draft (even if it's not the whole thing) due to the length.

Also hello again aryan robot guy. I hope to have some time later today to revisit your work. Whenever I read it the world feels oddly familiar even if I sometimes can't understand what's happening.

>>16533

I updated this short with an extra chapter and a little more editing.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23078542/chapters/55206544

How many writefags do we still have around here? I'm thinking anyone with with something complete or more than a few hundred words to share should make a thread for their work.

(That's being generous as some OPs people tried to start either don't share anything at all, or just share one paragraph.)

Let me write you all a story.

Fuck you.

>>15218

>>16721

?

>>16790

(same guy)

My only explanation is that I got sidetracked and wanted to write a novella instead of a short story, then remembered what my original intentions were. Since that later post, I've written a short story in the same setting, though it hasn't been posted here.

I suppose this sort of thing makes sense for a thread that's two years old. Perhaps I should skim my previous posts for inspiration…

also, thank you for pointing this out, it will encourage my memory to work better

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-DUykbknlQntxq5ZpZCjM_OQnTiohQeC3RY6s9pjK0w/edit

Idea for a book I’m going to write. Is it any good? Tips?