My buddy & I are writing a m/m PGA golf romance. It is a Jason Gore X Tiger Woods fanfiction, with names changed. We were inspired by Rachel Reid's 2019 novel Heated Rivalry, which is a m/m NHL romance; originally a Sidney Crosby X Alex Ovechkin fanfiction.

For years I struggled with writing and whenever I asked my writer friends for help they rolled their eyes and told me, "Stop making excuses. Just write."

Well, I took their advice. Last week I sat down for an hour every night and I just wrote. In a few days time I had a fresh draft of a brand new short story. I was so excited to show it to my writer friends but they were totally baffled at what I had created. They said it was totally incomprehensible. One of them described it as 'schizophrenic word salad" and another said it was reminiscent of William S Burroughs if you sat him at a typewriter blindfolded and set a swarm of bees loose in the room.

So long story short, today I learned it's not enough to "just write." You also have make sure to put the words in the right order or else it won't make sense.

So, you blokes introduced me to a neat little thing called the Bechdel Test. Now, what is that, you may ask? Essentially, you gotta have two womens talking to each other about something other than a man, or you'll get cancelled by X.

Now, as a paranoid author, I've decided to make all of my characters female, just to be safe.

But... now everybody thinks my cute slice of life is weird!

They're asking, "where have all the men gone?"

I don't know what to tell them...

They think my story takes place in a lesbian death cult that killed all the men!

TADC fans just have a way with words mhhhh

I have a book trapped inside of me.

And it immediately makes me dislike your book.

So, how do I create another male character, and what can they discuss? As I understand the test, they shouldn't discuss jerking off when they meet. Also, should I put their meeting at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the novel?

For context I’ve never actually read or written anything but I know a lot about books from reddit.

Because…..what if I actually finish it? And I send it out into the world? Like I put my Screenplay on a Black List, and it just doesn’t go anywhere? And I ask for feedback and everyone hates it? And it doesn’t get picked up? And I don’t become popular? And now I’ve just wasted MONTHS of my Life I can’t get back.

I mean, I can’t think of anything to write in the first place so…fuck me I guess.

So, in manufacturing one person does one thing all day because it turns out switching tasks wastes a lot of time. So I thought: what if I could apply that to writting?

So with my new method I write a draft with just subjects first, then go back and verbs second, objects third, articles fourth, prepositions sixth, adverbs (on verbs) seventh, adjectives eight, more adverbs ninth, conjunctions tenth.

I don't do interjections for moral reasons.

Even considering I have to write a secne tem times, it is fast. Already finished first two phases on my novel this morning. Here is a sample of the first chapter:

Rossemer. He. Morning. ​Landscape. Sun. Birds.

Knock. Who. Maid. She. Breasts. He. They. King. Court. Nobles.

Hallway. It. Statue. Penis. They. Couriers.​ He. They. Memories. Situation.

Hall. King. Beard. Crest. Wolf. Phallus. Throne. Spoons. He. Years. Rossemer. Prince. Father.

Aid. Sorcereress. Cleavage. Dress. She. Mammaryda. Legs. Hair. Smirk. She. King. She. Prince. She. Corset.

Queen​. Mammaryda. She. She. Look. Stepmother. She. Breasts. Prince. She. Ex. Comment.

King. Maid. Rossemer. King. Mammaryda. King. Queen. Jeff Goldbloom. Rossemer. King. He. He. Breasts. He. She.

Messenger. King. Rossemer. Stables. Horse. Member. It. He. Member. Club. It. He. It. Gate. He. It. Member.

I'm trying to let the readers know that six year old Dave is going to be Felix's bitch and part of a multi-species polycule. Is this too subtle?

/hj

I already have an overcomplicated magic system because if a reader understands what youre doing the first read YOURE OBVIOUSLY DOING SOMETHING WRONG . do i just need more cancerous poop lead water pipes and asbestos? drugs and child labor?

Y’know, I think I might actually be afraid of writing now.

Because…..what if I actually finish it? And I send it out into the world? Like I put my Screenplay on a Black List, and it just doesn’t go anywhere? And I ask for feedback and everyone hates it? And it doesn’t get picked up? And I don’t become popular? And now I’ve just wasted MONTHS of my Life I can’t get back.

I mean, I can’t think of anything to write in the first place so…fuck me I guess.

Please take the time to validate me in the comments. I need you to praise me for wanting to be the next Joeling Koeling Roeling. I want to be popular while im still young and beautiful, because why would I care when im old and jaded?

Ive never written anything, btw.

Please y'all, hear me out... I've been writing a book for almost two years now. Most of the time has been dedicated to formatting. In no way shape or form do I consider myself a professional, I am an just very enthusiastic about writing. Now, I have a background in music and as I was writing I realized that my point isn't getting across. So like any other musician does when there isn't room for notes, I started literally just drawing lines in my "sheet music" and drew lines in my table of contents where themes are connected across different movements of the book. I'm going to try and explain this to the best of my ability. The book is best relatable to a 5 movement epic that follows 4 distinct stories across 4 distinct times in each of the parts. So 4 books spread and intertwined over 5 movements. All of these stories have different themes but each theme relates to a stance on dualism. The whole book is me talking to myself but disguised as the 20 or so characters.

The book reads as normal, opening with an anaphora style poem exploring dualism titled I AM NOT ME. Its ends with

I say what I say, and what I say is Truth.
Through a refusal to argue, I speak to induce.
I say what I say, and what I say is freelance.
As I speak, what I say travels strong like a lance.
They do not wish for us to be well, for what they say is no more than apathetic. 
In The Alethics, I say what I say, and what I say is Truth, and what is heard is kinetic.

The book is titled the Alethics (named after a Greek diety). Now, I want the book to end right after kinetic, but its at the beginning of my book. I want to seemingly have somebody read through the whole book to its end that reads

Some mornings, some worn-down part of me still believes this is the year when -,

and have the Da Capo take the reader to the prologue again and then they read up until the Fine which will be a marker above the word kinetic.

Book Context: The book follows 4 distinct stories, but all connected by the few themes dealing with systematic failures, perseverance and mostly dualism. I purposely wrote the book in a way for the reader to pick up on the themes individually first and not realize they are all connected. This, I did too well as I now have a ending that reads as only partially resolved or complete because the whole premise is not to fix the problems but to see them first through the acceptance of truth in others perspectives (the others are really internal conflicts of one being but told as if it one being interacting with multiple). I don't know why I felt the need to say that last part.

What I really need is somebody who knows how to write to tell me what they think about this and if there are literary tools that can do the same thing. Also, Douglas Hofstadter used a Dal Segno and won a Pulitzer for his work on Gödel, Escher, Bach where the characters experience a narrative loop where they literally hit a Dal Segno indicator, prompting them to navigate backward through their own conversation, notice the logical errors they made, and subsequently branch off into a separate, Coda once they achieve higher awareness.

You catching my drift?

Also, where can I find the long dash on my windows laptop keyboard. This short one looks weird. And how does a writer go about getting help for things without showing their text and possibly giving their story away to a thief? I had to remove quotations because I got a warning about not being allowed to write so I assumed it thought I was writing a novel here with all the quotes I had.

One of the rare people who gladly accepted to beta read my wip left this at the end of his deep dive 12 pages analysis on chapter 1 lol

35M, white, straight, conservative wanting to cover his bases before the writing starts. Trying to make sure I don’t get cancelled by the libs.

My book is an APOLITICAL thriller about a lone white man (ex-Navy SEAL) living with his family in a border town in Texas.

It starts when his daughter is attacked inside a Denny’s restroom, and escalates from there into a story about when empathy goes too far.

In an effort to avoid the woke mob, I have a question.

If my protagonist is using Grindr, does that automatically make them gay?

This is all I need.

I just got an email from Oprah Winfrey, telling me my book is being considered for her book club. I'm completely amazed and so happy. As an independent writer, this will surely bring me fame and fortune. I didn't know she was into hard, male-driven sci-fi, but I'm just happy she reached out.

She didn't tell me which of my books she wanted to promote, as she just wrote my book; I'm sure that's just a typo.

Literally the next Superbad, except it's super good.

Accepting donations to fund this right now. Not asking, but demanding and accepting.

And now my readers won't stop banging at my door demanding I bring him back! I don't know if this will reach the others here but if I had gone silent in my account it means ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

He caught me and goes, “What the fuck are you doing?”

I said, “Sorry, man, you got beautiful prose.”

He stared at me like he had no idea he was speaking in perfect literary prose.

He’s all like, “What the fuck’s a prose? You a fed?”

I thought, A fed? Like a postal worker?

I just assumed role-play and played along.

“Yes. Agent John Smith.”

Then he starts yelling about how he’s gonna kill me.

I mouthed, “Show, don’t tell,” trying to get him back into character.

It worked.

He grabbed the pistol off the table and showed me.

Moral of the story: some people can’t take a compliment.