Seeking advice on writing more "normally" -

[ScamL Likely]

I started writing semi-regularly four years ago. It's been fun, but the kinds of things I like to write (https://kiwifarms.net/threads/weird-terrible-books.61916/page-4#post-5517226) are more or less unpublishable through traditional means and would probably get me banned from every self-publishing platform if/when reported (already happened with Amazon fairly recently after four years without issues). While I'm still currently writing a book that follows in the spirit of the previous three and would prefer to only write such things if it were possible, it seems like there's no choice but to do at least one more "normal"/"accessible" book for every avant-garde vanity project. The only problem is I seem to be physically incapable of writing anything that even vaguely passes for "normal"/"accessible".

Every time I come up with a relatively straightforward premise, I can't help but twist it until it's no longer recognizable before I actually get motivated to commit to it as a long-term project. For instance, the book I'm currently writing was originally meant to be a fairly straightforward parody of Ethan Ralph and Andy Warski's abortive Miami trip from earlier this year, but once I actually went further than dipping my toes into outlining and writing it, I realized that just writing about them would've bored the shit out of me so I ended up turning it into a convoluted pseudo-visionary/metaphysical thing that's more about the nonsensical musings of a nameless faux-hippie third person narrator talking about them and another unnamed figure narrating a series of hallucinatory segments allegorically relating to the mundane events within each chapter. I like what it's turned into and plan on finishing it (currently about 25% done with the initial draft) but recognize that I'm repeating my usual pattern of not being able to give a shit about writing the kinds of stories that'd be seen as sane, coherent, or socially acceptable to any degree.

So the question is how do I motivate myself to at least intermittently manage stick to a premise that'll result in something at least vaguely resembling a normal book?

Discuss/mock

 

[Yellow Yam Scam]

dude. i mean this in the most genuine way possible: just write what you want. more "normal" media is the last thing the world needs.

 

[Marco Fucko]

So you basically wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

In terms of motivation, tell yourself that the best or most remembered stories are simple, for better or worse. A Clockwork Orange is about free will, American Psycho is a comparison of Yuppies to Sociopaths.

Try to be as economical with your story as you can. If a character doing something will tell you about their character then you don't need to spend as much text describing their basic psychology or personality. You don't need all these layers where shit gets explained, a character does something, and there's also abstract allegory going on outside of that.

So, basically, think of one huge point you'd like to make that and try to be efficient as possible in making that point.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Amazon is much more likely to ban you for writing about Ethan Ralph and Andy Warski than it is to ban you for poking fun at Hunter S. Thompson. Or at least thats my opinion.

 

[Some JERK]

If you're writing for yourself write whatever you want. If you're writing to publish and create something that people will like, then you have to connect with the reader. The reader needs to be able to put themselves into your story, either by sympathizing with the protagonist, hating the antagonist, or being a witness to something that they see as representative of their own experiences. If you get too esoteric then people aren't going to care because they have no idea what's going on. If they don't know what's happening then they're not going to care what happens next.

 

[dreamworks face]

You can have metaphysical stuff or politics in a story, but the key is to make it allegorical - tell a story and make the lesson be what you're trying to get across. Your characters stare at the camera and make John Galt speeches. "Show, don't tell" is very applicable here.

 

[ScamL Likely]

dude. i mean this in the most genuine way possible: just write what you want. more "normal" media is the last thing the world needs.

I completely agree but on a spectrum from "writing for myself" to "writing things people actually read/things that won't get me banned in Current Year" I'd like to expand my repertoire to the point where I'm able to write something closer to the other end even if it's somewhat unsatisfying for me. The idea is to be read more by producing more accessible works alongside separate ones similar to what I've already been writing.

So you basically wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

In terms of motivation, tell yourself that the best or most remembered stories are simple, for better or worse. A Clockwork Orange is about free will, American Psycho is a comparison of Yuppies to Sociopaths.

Try to be as economical with your story as you can. If a character doing something will tell you about their character then you don't need to spend as much text describing their basic psychology or personality. You don't need all these layers where shit gets explained, a character does something, and there's also abstract allegory going on outside of that.

So, basically, think of one huge point you'd like to make that and try to be efficient as possible in making that point.

The ongoing book? I haven't actually read anything by Thompson, but from what I've heard about his style the objective/thought process behind what I'm doing with this one is fairly different from his "gonzo" stuff even if the description I gave sounds like it might be similar.

On an intellectual level, I understand what the aspects of popular fiction are. My issue is more that writing that way just bores me on a subconscious, instinctual level to the point that I can't sustain it long enough to write anything longer than a page or two at most. Even the general ideas of writing to "tell a story" or "make a point" leave me cold while entirely contrarian goals such as "confusing/annoying/disgusting the reader" and "spewing nonsense/obfuscating any meaning there is to be had as much as possible" excite me.

In other words, I guess what I'm really looking for is some sort of mental trick that'd allow me to temporarily get around my own contrarianism long enough for me to write a novel that I wouldn't be able to normally write.

Amazon is much more likely to ban you for writing about Ethan Ralph and Andy Warski than it is to ban you for poking fun at Hunter S. Thompson. Or at least thats my opinion.

Names/personalities/&c. were always going to be changed into really wacky ones that were cartoon caricatures of theirs at best. The core events are mostly recognizable up to a point but there were still major deviations from what actually happened even in the preliminary version of the draft. It'd still be just as much of a target in its current form though, for various reasons. I'm going to have to come up with a system of codewords to get around any potential ToS bullshit regarding offensive speech, but that's just par for the course these days I suppose.

You can have metaphysical stuff or politics in a story, but the key is to make it allegorical - tell a story and make the lesson be what you're trying to get across. Your characters stare at the camera and make John Galt speeches. "Show, don't tell" is very applicable here.

Out of curiosity, which book/segment is this assessment based on?

 

[dreamworks face]

Out of curiosity, which book/segment is this assessment based on?

Predominantly Some People Who Were Naked. Third Rail does it some too.

I wouldn't take my opinion too seriously because I spent maybe ten-fifteen minutes skimming what you posted, not seriously reading. I liked Cinderella's Concrete Shoes the most of the three for whatever it's worth.

 

[JULAY]

1. Don't be autistic

2. See #1

 

[Steelersfan22]

As long as you don't go too far with your writing (turner diaries, biography of Malcom x, if I did it etc.) write whatever the fuck you want. don't let old media tell you what to do.

 

[Some JERK]

On an intellectual level, I understand what the aspects of popular fiction are. My issue is more that writing that way just bores me on a subconscious, instinctual level to the point that I can't sustain it long enough to write anything longer than a page or two at most. Even the general ideas of writing to "tell a story" or "make a point" leave me cold while entirely contrarian goals such as "confusing/annoying/disgusting the reader" and "spewing nonsense/obfuscating any meaning there is to be had as much as possible" excite me.

Then maybe you're just a bad writer.

 

[crocodilian]

Creative writing is an exercise in sharing your thoughts and personal experiences. Everything else, from the fictitious setting you super-impose these elements over to "appealing to an audience", is just fluff after the fact. If you have something interesting to say, or you've had interesting personal experiences to share, the reader will be interested. If you haven't, they won't. Embellishing over something you don't know or don't have any experience with will fail to enamor readers (and will probably get you chewed out by people who are familiar with whatever you're writing about.) Just be sincere.

You want to write about a pair of reprehensible morons going on a cross-country road trip? Think back on any road trips you may have taken and what happened during them. Think about how that atmosphere felt and how you can guide the reader into such a head-space. If it's possible, take time off and go on an actual road trip to refresh your memory or gain new experiences. The same goes for any other elements of your story that feel important. Just don't take that idea too far, like taking meth or murdering somebody; there's easier, more legal "proxy" experiences.

Make a plot outline before starting. It's ideal to write a very large, detailed summary of just what's going on, cataloging every thought, then arranging it as necessary. You don't have to convey every single detail you write in this summary to the audience; if you put the effort in to create something intricate and believable, they will sense that. 'More going on under the surface', 'show don't tell', and various platitudes like that are the stuff that intrigues people.

Fleshed-outed characters, a believable world, a plot that has a sense of flow, and so-on can be developed with time. Few novels (and virtually no good ones) are released after a single draft. Even less are written in an alacritous time frame. You will write whatever you want to write, look it over and decide if anything feels out of place, unbelievable, boring, etcetera after the fact. If you have any friends who you trust will be a good influence (i.e. nobody on Kiwifarms), have them look over parts.

Basically,

just write what you want. more "normal" media is the last thing the world needs.

And for the record, Amazon does sell controversial stuff like The Turner Diaries. They even allow comments saying stuff like "I don't understand the kvetching, it's just some guy's idea about conspiracy theories and how they can be fixed."

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

I started writing semi-regularly four years ago. It's been fun, but the kinds of things I like to write (https://kiwifarms.net/threads/weird-terrible-books.61916/page-4#post-5517226) are more or less unpublishable through traditional means and would probably get me banned from every self-publishing platform if/when reported (already happened with Amazon fairly recently after four years without issues). While I'm still currently writing a book that follows in the spirit of the previous three and would prefer to only write such things if it were possible, it seems like there's no choice but to do at least one more "normal"/"accessible" book for every avant-garde vanity project. The only problem is I seem to be physically incapable of writing anything that even vaguely passes for "normal"/"accessible".

All those sound quirky but they're not bad ideas. At the end of the day, you write for yourself because you've got a premise and you want to see whether it works out or not. Sometimes other people like it, sometimes they hate it but you can't really control that. Nor, really can you pick premises that are even going to work on their own terms.

Or you could go to the other extreme and try to reverse engineer what makes a popular book popular and write another one which tries to hit the same bullet points. I'm not at all convinced you'll even like the result yourself. And if you don't like it, I can't really see anyone else liking it either.

If you look at successful writers it's pretty clear that they're starting with a premise they think will work and then just letting the machinery run in their writing centers to let it develop organically. The difference between a successful writer and an unsuccessful one is that they're better at picking premises which most people agree are interesting, and probably better at turning them into a story that people like.

Still, the thing is that successful writers, i.e. people who sell millions of books or are critically acclaimed or whatever, are like 0.000001% of all writers and there's a fair chance that they didn't get to that state solely by merit. The odds are low that any of us here are going to be that. So write what you want and just resign yourself you're not going to make a living out of it.

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

You want to write about a pair of reprehensible morons going on a cross-country road trip? Think back on any road trips you may have taken and what happened during them. Think about how that atmosphere felt and how you can guide the reader into such a head-space. If it's possible, take time off and go on an actual road trip to refresh your memory or gain new experiences. The same goes for any other elements of your story that feel important. Just don't take that idea too far, like taking meth or murdering somebody; there's easier, more legal "proxy" experiences.

Make a plot outline before starting. It's idea to write a very large, detailed summary of just what's going on, cataloging every thought, then arranging it as necessary. You don't have to convey every single detail you write in this summary to the audience; if you put the effort into create something intricate and believable they will sense that. 'More going on under the surface', 'show don't tell', and various platitudes like that are the stuff that intrigues people.

Flesh-outed characters, a believable world, a plot that has a sense of flow, and so-on can be fleshed out with time. Few novels (and virtually no good ones) are released after a single draft. Even less are written in an alacritous time frame. You will write whatever you want to write, look it over and decide if anything feels out of place, unbelievable, boring, etcetera after the fact. If you have any friends who you trust will be a good influence (i.e. nobody on Kiwifarms), have them look over parts.

And Fear and loathing was about a road trip and event that spoke to something deeper about the American Dream.

So what does Andy and Ralph [or your versions of them] speak to the cross culture point your at here. Of people who stare at the dark places in the internet and laugh?

 

[Marco Fucko]

On an intellectual level, I understand what the aspects of popular fiction are. My issue is more that writing that way just bores me on a subconscious, instinctual level to the point that I can't sustain it long enough to write anything longer than a page or two at most. Even the general ideas of writing to "tell a story" or "make a point" leave me cold while entirely contrarian goals such as "confusing/annoying/disgusting the reader" and "spewing nonsense/obfuscating any meaning there is to be had as much as possible" excite me.

I dunno man, that's De Sade territory and he got imprisoned multiple times. I suppose there might be an online community out there that's into that, but by and large, especially in the current cultural climate, having a story be gross or uncouth just for that reason is going to attract a lot of negative attention.

As for excitement, I say run it out. Write all the shit you feel like you want to write, privately. You might just get bored of it and circle back to normalcy.

 

[Cyber Bowling]

I skimmed through the first 10-20 pages of two of the stories you linked in the previous thread. Based on that admittedly limited review/what you posted here, I think your mindset is the bigger issue. You can write "weird" books that are high quality and well regarded. Fear and Loathing is my go to example, but I'm sure more well-read posters could list plenty of other examples.

I think the issue is, you're too focused on the "weird" part. Breaking the traditional writing rules can lead to very interesting final products, but only if you have a good reason for breaking said rules. To use broader examples, a common example of breaking the rules that can lead to strong final products is telling a story out of order. But, you need to structure around the story being told in this fashion. Simply telling a non-chronological story doesn't create a good piece because it is weird or unique.

All that being said, I honestly never got the impression you were even breaking any common literary rules. Again, I have a very limited view of your works overall, but it felt like you were trying to go for an overly "quirky" writing style more than anything else. In the selections I read, it mostly came down to having a narrator with a blunt "tell it like it is" attitude. Personally, I like that style. And to give credit where it is due, you had some pretty solid descriptions using that narrator and it helped to set the tone for the setting. I think it is interesting and that is the closest I came to being hooked.

I think what ultimately lost it for me in my limited reading was not having the narrator attached to any particular character. If it was tied to a character, I'd be interested to see where said character went throughout the story. It could even work if the narrator was more directly interacting with the characters and able to experience growth and change, otherwise, it just comes off as sassy commentary, which can be entertaining, but not particularly exciting to read about, especially if the book isn't supposed to be a comedy.

Basically, I'd say focus more on substance over style. It sounds like you have some interesting ideas, but you're getting so caught up on not being normal with your presentation that those ideas get lost and you're ultimately left with a weaker final product. It isn't even a final product that looks particularly strange or unique either, just...bland. I'll be honest, I was a little disappointed because the way you were describing your writing I was expecting it to be something that barely resembled a book. I was hoping it might fall under "so bad it's good" category, but it was ultimately fairly tame in that regard.

I think you might also benefit from a different medium. Instead of novels, write a screenplay. Screenplays are significantly harder to get read/accepted, but it sounds like your novels are running across that same issue as it is, so why not give it a shot? Based on what I've read, it seems like you'd enjoy getting to write weirder scene descriptions or dialogue heavy pieces.

As far as publishing goes, I have no idea why Amazon pulled your stuff. Amazon or other self-publishing platforms don't pull things for being "weird". Or hell, for even being particularly bad. One of our cows, Onison, has several self-published books which are basically his self-insert character performing school shootings/underage rape and tons of other red flag subjects. He also doesn't follow traditional writing rules, though that has less to do with creativity and more to do with him having the writing abilities of a 3rd grader, and his stuff is still there. You mentioned in the other thread that someone was actively trolling you on Amazon to get your stuff pulled, so I'd deal with that before anything else. Not trying to defend the platform or anything, I just don't want you thinking, or to be more bluntly, using the excuse that your books are weird as the reason you aren't succeeding.

As others have said, if you're just writing for yourself, fuck it, go nuts and do whatever you enjoy. If you also want your stuff to be read, I'd say same advice applies, but I'd also recommend investing some time to find a writing group, whether local or online where you can share your stuff. I can't name any off the top of my head, but I'm sure the internet must have no shortage of them. If you want to make a career as a writer, well, I'm not sure what to recommend. If it were as easy as following a few simple steps, everyone would be novelists. Even if you were writing more "normal" stories, that doesn't automatically equate success, since you're competing against a sea of other writers who are also trying to write normal/new variations of existing popular stories hoping to get noticed and cash in.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Read garbage and copy it.

"Normality is a paved road, it is pleasent to walk on but no flowers grow from it." Van Gogh.

 

[ScamL Likely]

I appreciate the input, much thunkening, &c.

 

[Strine]

I can't believe it hasn't been mentioned yet, but bear in mind the greatest novelist of the 20th century - Joyce - wrote numerous novels that are so avant-garde that normies don't even try to read them. Finnegans Wake is his least "readable" work. Does that mean it's a shit book? Well...

There's a chapter in FW where the conceit is that two fairy washerwomen are gossiping across a river. They're gossiping about ALP, a protagonist of the novel who is a personified Gaelic river goddess. They talk about her in thick country Irish accents, which Joyce writes phonetically. So far so good. So, while discussing ALP the river goddess, they start making puns on the name of rivers - rivers from all around the world, that Joyce looked up in maps. They do this without ever losing the phonetic fidelity to their specific Irish accent. This sounds impressive on its own, but in fact their dialogue contains over six hundred names of rivers - all while carrying on a coherent conversation, never for a moment losing their accent; every single river name a "working" pun even though the names come from hundreds of different languages. Over the course of the chapter, the river magically begins to widen, and eventually they're too far apart to hear each other (if it wasn't obvious, Finnegans Wake is quasi-mythological) and the chapter ends. This is an incredible feat of writing, and nobody who knew this could think Joyce was anything short of a literary genius, and that's just one chapter of many.

But is it easy to read? God, no. Even without looking up the river puns, trying to pick through a century-old version of a provincial Irish accent, written phonetically, is very difficult. The popular rubbish that normies read on the train is a great deal easier to read, but the creativity, brainpower and research that went into Joyce's writing created works with huge artistic potency, that true aesthetes can appreciate even if they only recognised a few of the river names, or haven't read the book at all. To quote Nabokov, another author of immense gifts, an author's most important reader is the fellow he sees in the shaving mirror every morning. "Easy to read" is neither here nor there - it doesn't reflect on the quality of a work or its author. Art being accessible to everybody was a Romanticist meme that only came about in the 19th century and was cast off by many serious artists in the 20th century anyway - you may have noticed art and music from the 1800s onwards is much more accessible to the general public than Classical or Baroque art from not so long before it.

I say do your own thing, if you're happy with it and you know it's good. Art should never be altered for its audience; only for its artist.

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

I appreciate the input, much thunkening, &c.

Also if you base something on the Miami trip

>what if Tonka showed up
you can write that
>What if Tonka was the guy spreading stories of ethan and warski being a pedo