>>217 >high register I don't know this term. Looking it up >Register refers to the style of the language you use, higher register means more formal, more elaborated language. (language) the style of language, grammar, and words used for particular situations: People chatting at a party will usually be talking in (an) informal register. Oh okay. Yeah. Good point. >no they didn't Shit. Well. Huh. Okay then this section will need a rewrite. I think I can salvage most of it. I like this scene.

>>216 >I forget the ancient word. Pfennig? Penny. English doesn't have the 'pf' cluster.

>>219 Seems mundane. I don't want people picturing lincoln. I suppose I could just refer to it as a brass coin.

>>220 You could always make up a new currency to fit with the setting.

>>221 Oh. Right. Of course. Then I'm using the Holser. Named after a fictional king who united these lands some time in the misty past. Vax Holser was my favorite character from Feintuch

I'll poorly write a dumb request First come first serve

/tg/ here: I'd like to write a roleplaying setting that combines everything from all the different genres and subgenres of speculative fiction together. The story I got so far is this: In the beginning, one universe in a multiverse expanded from a singularity and eventually gave rise to the first mind. Because this universe had magic as a natural phenomenon, the mental activities of the minds within any universe could contribute to the warping of reality itself with the sum of their psychic influence, with only the opposition of the activity of other minds to limit them. Since the first mind was alone, it had absolute omnipotence at it's disposal, and soon after, omniscience and omnipresence, this was the birth of the one oldest God, truly almighty, and of a nature beyond all comprehension, neither male nor female, one in which all things, possible and impossible, resided. Omnipotence is a dangerous thing, and soon, for unknown reasons, this led to the first God tearing itself into two halves, each representing polar opposites of reality, one created within the other. This was the asexual creation of two other Gods, A Female God born pregnant with a Male God inside her, these were the Twin Gods of Yin and Yang. The Female God was Yin, she represented that which was negative (zero as a maximum, cold, quiet, still, etc.), static/orderly, and the immaterial/mental/supernatural, her elements were those of the Inorganic (Metal), Solid (Earth), Liquid (Water), and Darkness (Void). The Male God she gave birth to was Yang, and represented all her opposites, the positive (zero as a minimum, hot, loud, fast, etc.), dynamic/chaotic, and the substantial/physical/mundane, his elements were those of the Biological (Wood), Plasmic (Fire), Gaseous (Air), and Light (Aether). These two Gods, each representing all the opposite extremes of nature, longed for each other, seeing balance, they attempted to reunite, with the God of Yang trying to return to the womb of The Goddess of Yin, but as they were so strongly opposed, their very nature had prevented complete reunification, it was their opposing natures that caused the Yang God to be expelled from the Yin goddess in the first place. However, due to sharing one point of commonality, the God of Yang was able to partially enter The Goddess of Yin, and discharge a part of himself into her, she eagerly accepted that part of him into herself, and tried to hold it within her, this process was very pleasurable for the both of them. However, the Yin Goddess could not keep that part of the Yang God within her, and soon after it was violently expelled from her the same way it had come in. The discharge was a mixture of Yang and Yin, given the form of a new God. Yang and Yin repeated this process many times, giving birth to a great many Gods, who made up the first pantheon of the old Gods. As you may have figured, this was the advent of sexual reproduction. Next part will focus on the birth of the second pantheon from the first pantheon's gods and godessess turning to each other after being refused by their opposite sexed parent, the first rebellion where the second pantheon forms three factions, one of which kills and devours their opposite sexed grandparents after killing and devouring the faction of their siblings that tried to stop them, the faction that tried to stop them and got killed and devoured for doing so, and the third faction who remained neutral, the creation of the Heavens, where the rebels became the True Gods of the high heavens, and the neutral gods became the Angels of the low heavens. Then the Second rebellion where the first pantheon had also split into three factions upon seeing what had been done to their parents, one turning against their siblings to protect their children, and being killed and devoured for doing so, one faction turning on their children and killing and devouring their siblings for trying to stop them, and one faction which remained neutral, the defeat of the first pantheon by their children, and the creation of the Hells to imprison the parents their children could not bring themselves to kill, the rebellious ones becoming the Devils of the deep hells, and the neutral ones becoming the Demons of the shallow hells. Last will be the third rebellion, the betrayal of Gods and Angels who opened up the prison of Hell and becoming the Gods of death known as psychopomps/shinegami, The redemption of Devils and Demons who unexpectedly fought in the name of the kingdom of Heaven and became the Gods of animism known as the totems/kami, The stalemate and truce between heaven and hell, and the creation of the middle world, the world of spirits with the reborn Yang as the Lord of Spirits (aka "great spirit"), and the world of souls with the reborn Yin as the Lady of Souls (aka "death herself"), and then the rebirth of the multiverse, where the Gods and Devils play games with mortals and monsters, as the spirit world fills with spirits and the soul world fills with souls. The last part are notes on the afterlife, where after dying, a soul spends time in the world of souls (limbo/purgatory) before being claimed by a psychopomp, brought to be judged and divided, with the high soul heading to a place just outside heaven, and the low soul heading to a place just outside hell, in heaven and hell, the soul remains for a while, until it dies a second death, as the souls are dissolved back into their soulstuff which is then used to create a new soul reincarnated into a new body, the escape being karmic harmony and spiritual enlightenment, where the soul instead remains intact and ascends to the spirit world as an ancestral spirit, until dying the third death, and ceasing to be or becoming one with everything depending upon how one sees it, which is the ultimate goal, returning to the one for the great reunification of everything back into the one, but this time with the wisdom to hold itself together, which the one had lacked from inexperience, and may have split in order to set in motion this process of self-advancement.

>>250 Sounds interesting, if very elaborate. What's the difference between spirits and souls? I wouldn't say that that synopsis combines all different genres, seems like it lends itself to regular fantasy. Though it would be interesting to have stories set in an advanced future in such a mythologically rich setting.

Now I wanna play mage: the ascension.

>>251 I'm using the definitions you'd find in "werewolf: the apocalypse" here. Spirits are the things you worship in animism and shamanism, a very small god with a very specific purview, like a wolf spirit, or a cat spirit, or a tree spirit, or a rock spirit, they are essentially living platonic representations of the concept that they represent. Souls are the spiritual remnants of dead things, composed of ectoplasm, a soul without a body is a ghost, as in various religions like egyptian myth and taoism, the soul is made of various parts, each of which represent some aspect of the organism that it once inhabited, after death, these are separated from each other and sent to the appropriate heaven or hell, where they are given a proper treatment so that they can be broken down for use in reincarnation, this "breaking down" is why one cannot vividly remember their past lives under normal circumstances. Beings can escape the cycle of death and rebirth by practicing a religious spiritual alchemy to convert their soul into a spirit, this means finding harmony and enlightenment, but even this stage of ascension is not the end. After becoming a spirit, one must go on another journey to reach the final end of becoming one with everything, which is returning themselves to the One God at the beginning of all things, from which everything comes, and of which everything is a part. Thus this religion is a combination of: Monotheism (the one) Dualism (the two opposing forces) Polytheism (the pantheons) Animism (the spirits) Pantheism (everything is a piece of god, and will return to it) Apatheism (the gods and devils are both a bunch of dicks and don't really give a fuck about your insignificant ass one way or another, and the purpose or religion is a taking a personal journey for internal refinement rather than worshiping the divine/infernal for their favor) With elements of: Paganism (Gods and Devils are just as flawed as humans, possibly moreso given their level of power and immortality, they spend more time focusing on each other than on the mortal world, and even the dead aren't paid attention to, dealing with them is left to the lowest level of the bureaucracy) Abrahamism (angels in heaven, demons in hell, war between them, reality is the compromise) Taoism (celestial bureaucracy, many heavens and hells) Buddhism (reincarnation, and the goal of spiritual alchemy is to escape it, and then strive for the cessation of existence) Shintoism (spirits and the worship of them, including ancestral spirits watching over their families) There is death, judgement, a personalized heaven/hell, a dissolving of the soul into the lifestream, then reincarnation, ascension from the cycle to a higher state of being, a "second journey" in the spirit world, then cessation of existence (aka "Nirvana", the state of being, not the grunge-rock band). One last thing, the Gods/Angels/Totems and Devils/Demons/Psychopomps are in opposition to one another, but neither side is "good" or "evil", more "order" and "chaos", pretty much in the D&D sense. Gods, Angels, and Psychopomps are more towards order, while the Devils, Demons, and Totems are more towards chaos. order is "lawful", "stasis", and "altruism" not "good", lawful can mean tyranny, stasis can mean stagnation, and altruism can mean collectivism. chaos is "chaotic", "change", and "selfishness", not "evil", chaotic can mean freedom, change can mean improvement, and selfishness can mean individuality. It makes sense that Totems are aligned with chaos and psychopomps with order when you take into account that they each originated from the other side, who defected from heaven or hell in the "war of traitors". As for how the spirit of a non-living thing can reach enlightenment if it's not being reincarnated, this can be solved in two ways, one is that they already have enlightenment as their natural state, and second is that each has an elemental spirit tied to them that is capable of making the journey on the behalf of the thing they are anchored to, and there are even tech spirits for manufactured things, though something like a robot or AI would have to make the mortal journey to enlightenment before they can make the spiritual journey, as they were designed to perfectly mimic the functions of a living being. >>252 Just using it's concepts as a jumping-off point of inspiration. BTW, of all the WoD lines, the one that best works with "mage" is "changeling" as they both have the common element of the minds of normal humans having a real effect on the player characters, and an internal war among the player's "race" of monsters for what these normal people believe in. The mages want humans to believe in magic, the changelings want humans to believe in faeries. Both were huge dicks to humans in the past (see dark ages: mage and dark ages: fae for a guide to the kind of shit they used to pull on mortals), which resulted in a "sympathetic antagonist" faction of their "race" deciding to try and get the humans to stop empowering magic/faeries with belief and instead focus on science and technology (the technocracy faction of anti-magic mages who promote reason, and the autumn faction of changelings who promote anti-faerie banality). Both have alternate worlds that are less "real" than the "real" world, where their "true" natures as supernatural beings is less threatened by the beliefs of doubting normals (mages have the realms of the umbra, changelings have the realms of the dreaming). Both have objectively evil alternate factions who want to destroy reality for a reset (the nephandi mages that suck souls, and winter faction of changelings that eat babies), and those who've gone crazy and wish to destroy the boundaries between the "real" world and the other world (the marauder mages, who forcibly impose their paradigm on the world and create a ton of paradox, like a curse that turns a town into a wasteland, and the bedlam changelings, who forcibly enchant a bunch of mortals and bring a ton of chimera into the world, like a dragon that eats a bunch of people). You could say the tradition mages are like the summer court of the seelie changelings, very orderly and powerful but stifling, and the craft mages are like the spring court of the unseelie changelings, very chaotic and weak but versitile.

Anytime I sit down to write something It takes a couple hours to get just a few paragraph out, and I feel super pretentious the entire time. I've self diagnosed myself as editing in my head as I find that I'll go prolong periods of time not writing anything interrupted by spurts of activity where I write about one paragraph each time; adding to that, I also rarely go back to make edits of diction or grammar, and the most granular I find my edits to be are moving around or deleting paragraphs. I have no idea how to stop it as I've always written this way since as far back as I remember. I'm also too embarrassed to share what I write, under a name, with anyone as I always include my autistic interest and the rate at which I write and my goals for length means I'll be dead before I finished anything even if I solely focus on one story.

>>254 I find the same thing happens with me, where I get hung up on getting the words and phrasing perfect over actually telling the story. It helps me to do a super rough draft first, by which I mean just ideas, dot points, doodles, but few full sentences. Wait til the end of the scene to string them together into paragraphs. Sometimes I'll write random lines out of order too and use them as a template. Share a few paragraphs of your writing here if you want.

>>254 I have the opposite problem. Everything is basically an outline til I finish. Then I go back and make fixes, and thats my rough draft. Then I show it around get feedback and use that to make a final draft.

>>256 Isn't that the way it's meant to go? You write the rough draft then build the final draft on top of it?

>>257 I think so. I don't know if theres only one way of doing things though. I haven't actually done this since high school. Like 20 years ago.

>>258 Yeah I haven't written much in a while either. Maybe making a post-by-post writing thread would be a good idea. Just haven't thought of a topic.

>>259 I keep thinking of David Feintuch. He isn't the best writer, but I like his first 4 books in the seafort saga. He wasn't a writer, and one day back in the 90's he discovered the internet. So he goes on an early BB or something and discovers a proto /lit/ basically. And he makes threads about horatio hornblower and napoleonic ships. And one day someone made the very thread you are thinking of. The first 4 were all written exactly the way we are writing here. With everyone giving him feedback. And they were so good. The others he wrote by himself are god fucking awful. I need to study his works to see if those threads are around still somewhere. I'd love to see what they were doing different. But I suspect nothing.

>>255 I've sort of tried that by making notes about the world and a 10000 foot outline, but I usually end up falling down a hole by spending hours researching something super esoteric for my world building. I think I just have to bite the bullet and practice timed essay-length writing prompts to build my speed and overcome my fear of trashing an hour's work. Anyway, here's something I started a year ago with probably something like 25 hours of time on it spread out over two months (I seem to have a pretty bad work ethic too). The "autistic interest" is furry stuff; there's TF in here but nothing lewd I promise. I actually find myself liking the non-lewd or really light stuff more anyway. I felt a yawn coming on as I cracked my eyes to the familiar site of my living room as seen, sideways, from one end of my couch. Feeling it be a bit too soon to start moving around again, I let my eyes wonder, enjoying the sense of seeing I only got after waking up from a successful nap. There was something peculiar about what I saw; everything felt a bit farther away and larger than what I was accustom to, and casting my gaze upward, I was entranced by the starbursts that developed around the lights on the ceiling, for they too were different from what I had come to expect, having had a quarter of my life filled with the occasional glance towards them. The vertical arms that appear when I cut my eyes at them were still there, but they were nearly drown out by the new horizontal ones that grew more defined as I stared. Realizing I was going blind, I forced myself to look away with a growing unease as the new sights started to get processed while my brain spooled up from sleep mode. Something was definitely wrong, and no information was coming back to me that could be used to console myself. The metaphorical DEFCON watch in my mind stepped up a level as I decided I needed get up right now. With what should have been a mundane motion to push aside the comforter and sit up turned into an awkward flail. Growing entangled in the pile of cloth above me, I started to panic and put my whole body into escaping: kicking my legs, twisting my body, and digging my hands into anything I could make purchase on. My efforts were rewarded as I wrestled free from the tangled mess and fell unceremoniously off the couch and onto my back. Bringing an arm up to rub the back of my head, I froze and attempted a what the hell, but all that I heard was a gargled series of high pitch cries. What I saw wasn't the hand I remember falling asleep with, and despite not believing in the cliche, the back of this hand wasn't like any hand I was use to seeing. I wouldn't even call it a hand if it weren't attached to my body... or whatever body my mind seemed to be controlling at the moment. A hand with subtle wrinkles around the base of each digit and speckled with follicles where covert hairs sprouted was replaced with the paw of an animal; the dark brown fur, substitute for the hair that was, obscured the skin below hiding any wrinkle one would wish to see as a modicum of connection to a body now lost. Stubby fingers extruded from the main body ending in sharp talons, and brown fleshy pads poked through the fur on the palmar side. Making the most of what I had, I maneuvered the body to lay on its stomach and looked around my apartment. Nothing was out of place, and the strangest thing was most certainly whatever had afflicted me at the moment. Maybe this is a dream, I thought to myself. It seems too lucid for any dream I'm use to; moreover, my dreams always deteriorate once I attempt to step outside their rules. With a strategy in place to end my nightmare, I willed the universe to bend around me. I tried anything: materializing things from thin air, attempting to fly, and changing myself back to who I was, all things I've tried in earnest during past dreams that caused "reality" to fold in on itself, but nothing broke through the veil of dreamland nor did anything become of my wishes. I was still lying prone on the floor in the body of some creature, sobering up to the thought that I may not, in fact, be dreaming. I made to stand expecting some form of resistance given the struggle with the comforter, but as all the textiles were left behind up on the couch, including my clothes that I somehow struggled out of, I was met with none. Taking tentative steps, I focused on the foreign yet intuitive mechanics of this body's gait and discovered that I had a near complete sense of kinesthesia for it. Flowing up from the footfalls, my focus traveled along muscles and bones as I mapped out the body's general shape. It was quadrupedal with a sizable tail, long enough to drag along the ground if not held aloft, the hind legs had significant strength (I'm confident they could propel this body several times its length into the air), the spine was flexible enough to bring its head to tail and then some, and atop the head were a pair of ears which could be manipulate to face forward or back. Focusing on my sight again, I steered the body towards my bathroom hoping to make use of the full size mirror attached to the door; luckily, the door was open, and there was enough light coming in from the living room to make out what I saw as I stood before the now towering pane of glass. Staring back was the creature I felt in body: a vermilion coat with speckles of ash and soot, as if borne to the aftermath of a destructive fire, covered most of the creature; the dark brown fur of the hand-turned-paw was matched to the hind legs and on the backsides of the ears along with an accent running from the inner corners of the eyes to halfway down the muzzle; a black nose marked the start of white fur which ran along the underside of the jaw, down the throat, and terminating some point past the stomach, out of view, only to reappear on the very tip of a tail slowly meandering in the rear; and finally, coloring a set of eyes with slit pupils was a familiar shade of brown. All this to say, I was staring at a red fox. This was the closest I've ever been to a red fox. The closest anyone has been to a red fox. One could not come closer, save for some other definition of closeness; one which I probably wouldn't be capable arguing against given the muzzle that sat between my eyes. Sitting back and drawing a deep breath before letting out a long sigh, I looked down and brought a paw up to make of it again now that the effects of adrenaline were wearing off. I didn't panic this time, but the sight was still somewhat surreal with the only grounding truth being the mimicked movement in the mirror as I flexed the wrist to and fro. The fox in the reflection perked its ears as I was struck with a way to test if I was hallucinating. Getting to my feet, I trotted back out to my couch and stood to root through the blanket for my pants. With some difficulty and having to resort to using my mouth, I managed to retrieve my cell phone out of its pocket. Clattering to the floor accompanied by the rhythm of my mental curses, my phone slid away from me coming to a stop next to a note I hadn't noticed before: >137 Glade run road. >0 0 31 8 * 5486 E Cir. >0 0 */14 * * here, there, South 1200m East oak near lake, 600m down road drainage pipe, TBD... Perplexed both by the contents and the origin of this note but still dead set on proving my hypothesis, I awkwardly grasped it between two digits and placed it on the coffee table before returning to my phone. Traversing the touch screen was difficult. Having claws on the tips of my fingers was preventing me from making touches, so I was forced to use the edge of a palm and had to deal with the common miss-click. After several minutes of frustration, I managed to get to what I was looking for, and moving to stand directly over top of the phone. I saw my ears fold back at me.

>>260 >The first 4 were all written exactly the way we are writing here. With everyone giving him feedback. And they were so good. The others he wrote by himself are god fucking awful Ha. I'll try to come up with some ideas, we could have a bunch of ongoing stories. I'll give you some feedback on your writing sample in a bit.

I mean I hope that one of you is david, and if I can just make the right thread, and keep it active, then one day I'll get some more hyper religious Horatio Hornblower in space. Because David's dead, and his descendants will never release his last fully finished, fully polished book. Or maybe something unexpected. Something I needed to read but never knew was even possible.

>>261 I think you have a good concept but the elaborate prose is really holding it back. Yes, you're capable of writing lovely sentences but you need to let the story flow a bit better -- you're slowing it right down by shying away from short sentences. It's not a bad thing to write simply in a lot of cases. Especially here, it would help readers get into the narrator's head if you used more of a flow-of-consciousness style. E.g. >Sitting back and drawing a deep breath before letting out a long sigh, I sat back. Drew a deep breath and let it out again. >I didn't panic this time, It wasn't especially clear from the writing that the narrator was panicking. The problem is that your sentences are lengthy and complex, which is good for some situations but not when you're writing strong emotional moments. Reads more like a biology textbook than a terrible realisation. So use shorter, punchier sentences. On the same note, it feels like we're watching from afar rather than being inside the character's mind. Of course this criticism isn't valid if your intention was to be detached and dream-like. An example with a suggested alternative: >The fox in the reflection perked its ears as I was struck with a way to test if I was hallucinating "Jesus... I've gone fucking insane", I whispered to the fox in the reflection. Or just anything that showcases the protagonist's shock better. Maybe he doesn't say anything, just stares blankly at the animal in the mirror. >had to deal with the common miss-click True, but it kind of detracts from the tension to bring up such a trivial annoyance. Maybe write that he was infuriated because he had to try half a dozen times to type each letter and he felt his ears going back (or however foxes display rage). Maybe that's too cheesy. You could simply say something like "...I was forced to use the edge of my palm to clumsily enter the letters." It is tempting to delve into detail, but I think you would benefit from cutting out the fluff some. E.g. >With what should have been a mundane motion to push aside the comforter and sit up turned into an awkward flail. Growing entangled in the pile of cloth above me, I started to panic and put my whole body into escaping: kicking my legs, twisting my body, and digging my hands into anything I could make purchase on. My efforts were rewarded as I wrestled free from the tangled mess and fell unceremoniously off the couch and onto my back. Yeah this is nice descriptive writing but it adds nothing to the story. Just filler before you get to the meat. IMO it would suffice to just say his limbs were unwieldy/heavy and he fell over the edge. If you were trying to make the point that he fell into an animalistic panic, make that clearer. Something like "I writhed and tore at the sheets in a blind terror that I'd never known before". >The metaphorical DEFCON watch in my mind stepped up a level as I decided I needed get up right now. Obviously it's not a literal alarm going off in his head. No need to spell it out for the reader. Just say "inner" or "internal" DEFCON. As an aside, it doesn't make sense to have to DEFCON line if the guy's deciding to get up by his own will. Maybe "as I knew I had to get up right now" or "and I needed to get up right now". >despite not believing in the cliche, the back of this hand wasn't like any hand I was use to seeing I know what you're getting at here but it's a strange way of putting it. Try "In defiance of the old cliché...". >A hand with subtle wrinkles around the base of each digit and speckled with follicles where covert hairs sprouted was replaced with the paw of an animal; the dark brown fur, substitute for the hair that was, obscured the skin below hiding any wrinkle one would wish to see as a modicum of connection to a body now lost. This is good but very wordy. Try something like "My own hand -- subtly wrinkled, speckled with follicles, sprouting with soft "covert" is misplaced here hairs -- was no longer there. Attached to my arm was the paw of an animal..." etc. And finally, a handful of nitpicks. "Lay" is transitive, "lie" is intransitive. You lay a book on a table, but you lie on the bed. Can get confusing since lay is also the past tense of lie. borne = carried, born = birthed miss-click should be misclick. Miss = not hit, mis- = do something wrongly (prefix) >brown fleshy pads poked through the fur on the palmar side If "palmar" is a word, it's not one I've ever seen before. I would say "palmwards" but I'm prone to slightly whimsical words. You could just say "palm side". >Flowing up from the footfalls A footfall is just a footstep you hear. You meant to say "awkward steps/gait" or something. >I was entranced by the starbursts that developed around the lights on the ceiling Sounds a bit static to use simple past "developed" here. Try "were developing" or "had begun to develop" -- these verb forms have a more certain point in time so they paint a clearer image of what's going on. Odd word choices: >successful nap refreshing/satisfying nap >cracked my eyes cracked my eyes open >cut my eyes at them squinted at them

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>vertical arms rays/beams >make purchase on find purchase on There's no other way around these, you just need to read widely and make note of the exact phrases. Also, check your past participles -- the correct forms are "used to", "drowned" and "accustomed". Read your writing aloud and add a comma whenever you take a breath. This would help with the comprehension of your longer sentences. What's your mother tongue, by the way? Do you usually translate or write straight into English? All that being said, it is nice writing. The main thing you should work on is having simpler sentences.

>>264 >Reads more like a biology textbook than a terrible realisation. That makes sense. I guess my technical writing has completely consumed my writing style, but I find writing a bunch of simple sentences causes everything to fly by and merely splitting my compound sentences and removing the conjunction to be too stilted. I could delete my semicolons in these cases, though. > it feels like we're watching from afar rather than being inside the character's mind. That's a little bit of what I'm going for. I tried to write in such a way that the text was describing the protagonist's thought process and with only the knowledge that he had at the time, sort of as if the character was retelling his experience as he watches himself back in the third person from an indeterminate time in the future. >As an aside, it doesn't make sense to have to DEFCON line if the guy's deciding to get up by his own will. My intention with using "DEFCON" here was to describe the character's increase in awareness from a sense of danger, putting him on edge even though nothing is actively happening at the moment. Something akin to going from DEFCON 5 to 4 or 4 to 3, you're not directly in danger, but there's something you should be aware of. >borne = carried, born = birthed I was under the impression they were the same verb, "to bear," but "born" is used in cases of literal child birth and "borne" everywhere else. >A footfall is just a footstep you hear. You meant to say "awkward steps/gait" or something. I was trying to make a metaphor between the sound waves and the character's perception sweeping over his body there. >"drowned" and "accustomed". I might be susceptible to dropping "ed" on words that end in a nasal. I'll have to watch out for those. > Read your writing aloud and add a comma whenever you take a breath. This would help with the comprehension of your longer sentences. I'm kind of hesitant to do this as I've always seen commas as a marker for syntax than pauses in speech. I'd rather rewrite something if it comes off as too garden-pathy. >What's your mother tongue, by the way? Do you usually translate or write straight into English? I'm a native speaker of American English probably closes to the Midland dialect, so I have the cot-caught merger, "off of" is a valid preposition, some verbs have picked up a "strong verb" past tense ("dove," "snuck," etc.), and "me" and "my" are both valid before gerunds and sometimes have distinct meanings ("He hates me/my cooking.") to name a few of my idiosyncrasies. I'll try to apply your advice to that passage and hopefully come back with something better.

>>265 >causes everything to fly by Not a bad thing. I personally hate pynchon or any author who makes me read 20 pages to get two seconds of action, but I also really like turn of the century pulps.

>>265 >That makes sense. I guess my technical writing has completely consumed my writing style, but I find writing a bunch of simple sentences causes everything to fly by and merely splitting my compound sentences and removing the conjunction to be too stilted. I could delete my semicolons in these cases, though. >That's a little bit of what I'm going for. I tried to write in such a way that the text was describing the protagonist's thought process and with only the knowledge that he had at the time, sort of as if the character was retelling his experience as he watches himself back in the third person from an indeterminate time in the future. Sure. Yeah in that case it works better with the sentence length and distant vantage point, but I would definitely tone up the dream-like stuff so it's less dry. The "Focusing on my sight again" paragraph is a good example of what I mean. >I was under the impression they were the same verb, "to bear," but "born" is used in cases of literal child birth and "borne" everywhere else. Technically yes, but you used the wrong one. >I was trying to make a metaphor between the sound waves and the character's perception sweeping over his body there. Just reads a little strange since footfalls are usually something you hear from afar. If that was your aim, consider drawing more attention to the word so it doesn't stick out so much. Even just "the sound of my footfalls". >I'm kind of hesitant to do this as I've always seen commas as a marker for syntax than pauses in speech. I'd rather rewrite something if it comes off as too garden-pathy. They serve as both. It just makes it easier to read rather than one unbroken barrage of words. E.g. >Clattering to the floor accompanied by the rhythm of my mental curses, my phone slid away from me coming to a stop next to a note I hadn't noticed before If you read the second part of this sentence aloud, it sounds unnatural and rushed. If you add a comma after "me", which is where your voice naturally pauses, it sounds and reads more flowing. What's "garden-pathy"? >I'm a native speaker of American English Oh whoops. My apologies. You probably have a few word variations where you live, because a few phrases you used gave me the impression that you weren't a native speaker.

>>267 >What's "garden-pathy"? A garden-path sentence is one where the syntax is different from what a reader would parse on the first read through. The parse is ungrammatical (which differentiates a garden-path sentence from an ambiguous one), so the reader has to go back and reread the sentence to get its true syntax. The popular example is: >The old man the boats. As one reads this example, the words "the old man" are parsed as a noun phrase, but as one reads the rest of the sentence "the boats," another noun phrase, the resulting sentence doesn't make sense. One has to go back and conclude that the correct parse is "[the old] man [the boats]" where "man" is a verb. As it is, I have an example from the passage I wrote. Where I have >... and finally, coloring a set of eyes with slit pupils was a familiar shade of brown. I originally wrote >... and finally, a familiar shade of brown colored a set of eyes with slit pupils. When I came back to the sentence a month later, I realized that "colored" really wanted to pair up with "brown" instead of acting as a verb. >a few phrases you used gave me the impression that you weren't a native speaker. I've been known to be pretty liberal about what words belong to idioms, and most of my extended vocabulary is full of technical jargon, so I'm not too surprised.

>>272 >A garden-path sentence is one where the syntax is different from what a reader would parse on the first read through. Oh yeah. Never knew there was a word for that. As for the writing threads, I think I'll start with a fantasy setting since I find that easiest to write without putting too much thought in. Still have to do some worldbuilding first though.

>>272 That's a thing? And it was intentional this whole time? Well now I just need to know who is responsible for this to vent my spleen. Anon I find two of those in a book I throw it in the trash. Personally.

I had an ambition of stimulating human progress through writing by reconstructing history entirely. The basic gist originally was starting from the very beginning by studying how universes were made and trying to alter details from there for different results. That took a left turn due to the limitations of knowledge of our own universe so I then tried for using a human equivalent sort of entity and having it interact with others of its own kind with a world that was intended to have certain basic parameters governed by dice rolls. I'm not sure why I stopped, but it was brute forcing through creating civilization based on thought alone, from the very basics of language, to warfare and strategy, I do still wonder how a limited point of view and understanding of our world would paint a picture of reality, and if such a picture could be applicable. Was it too naive, or did it require more minds to be feasable?

>>330 > I do still wonder how a limited point of view and understanding of our world would paint a picture of reality You yourself are an example of this, but if you want a novel point of view try looking up videos of the machine learning algorithms deep dreaming. An algorithm that was trained to recognize images of things like dogs, people, plants, and buildings will have a very limited understanding of our universe, and allowing it to deep dream will show you just how distorted a functional understanding (in terms of being able to categorize things) can be. Deep dreams work by feeding in a random image into an AI, getting the continuous output from the AI on what it thinks it is (e.g there's a 32.87% chance the image contains a dog), modifying the image to maximize those values, and repeating the process with the image. The videos on the subject also tend to "zoom" the images in so the AI doesn't settle on a single image. What you get out is a series of images which approaches the distilled understanding of the values you chose to maximize in the AI

For a board entirely dedicated to /writ/ing and /s/torytelling as a whole, visit >>>/s/

>>349 Yes, Anyone wanting to write more kiddy fucking fanfics please use his board for God's sake.

>>352 >>rules >2. Romance > Smut >/s/ is a SFW board. Romance is allowed and even encouraged if you’re capable of writing it, but this is not the place for smut. If you can't tell the difference between the two, don't try to write it at all. And posts by the BO saying explicitly that smut isn't allowed. Is writing smut allowed on this board? I think this one allows it

>>375 That's actually a good point. Yeah smuts allowed here.

I have a lot of downtime at work. I was previously using it to read a lot, but yesterday I forgot my book, so I started writing on my laptop instead. I didn't go in with a plan. Just wrote whatever came to mind. The first thing I wrote started because I remember hearing that it could be a useful emotional exercise to write a letter to someone and never mail it. It started as a venting rant at my high school crush that friendzoned me far too long ago for it to be okay for me to still think about her. But details about my work that are far too personal and would identify me far too much to mention here reminded me of her. So I started writing. A few hours later I had eleven pages. Looking it over, at about five pages in, it started turning into hardcore, extremely degenerate smut. But it wraps around to emotional in the last paragraph or two. That night I found a thread on this site that got me writing far too much to fit in the character limit, or even several posts of character limits, I guess because I was already in the writing mood. So I had to start writing in an actual word processor just to fit it all. Three and a half pages were directly on the original topic. Sincere advice. Then I started getting a little more narrative with it. Until the end of Page 6 it remained relatively realistic, normal, sincere, but in retrospect, even this section was just the beginning of it turning into hardcore, degenerate smut. By Page 9, it became more degenerate than the first work, even. This one ended up with 17 pages in total. I'm pretty proud of writing 28 pages in a day. I used to love writing, but college crushed that love right out of me. This is the first time in years I've just let a stream of consciousness happen and written whatever crossed my mind just to get it out. But I don't know if I like what I write now. I'm more skilled than I used to be, but I'm ashamed of just how fucked up I've become. All my emotions were sincere, but I wish they weren't. Maybe it was a good emotional exercise after all. I've articulated things I never knew I could articulate. I can't communicate them properly, but at least I've articulated them. I was gonna post it all here. That's what this post was introducing. But now I'm writing this and realizing some of it might be bad OPSEC and if any of it got traced to me it would be bad. Maybe I could edit it, but still, it's pretty fucking degenerate, in two different and two highly illegal ways. And I wish I could just communicate my fantasies freely, but I don't know if I can, even here, even though I've been on this site and its predecessors for 15 years, even before that girl friendzoned me and I started getting so degenerate. So I guess my point is >Yeah smut's allowed here. But just how smutty are we talking? Just how much degeneracy is allowed in this smut?

>>558 As degen as you want anon. Fucking go crazy bro.

>>559 Fine. But let me be clear. This is an autistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact. This is a psychological exercise, and to be perfectly honest, I think it's been useful because reading it back just now, after a few days, has made me feel disgusted with myself for several wildly different and contradictory reasons, which anyone autistic enough to read it will probably understand. Except for feds and women. I do not expect them to understand. Not sure how to post something this long here. It would take dozens of posts. So here's a pdf file.