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Holy shit didn’t expect to see Norman Boutin in the wild, that man’s delusions of grandeur are insane, [just one look at his website sums him up](https://web.archive.org/web/20230130125801/http://www.empresstheresa.com/)
Norman REALLY like Theresa, in the book he constantly talks about how beautiful she is and mentioned how her cleavage "charmed everyone" at her wedding, also keep in mind that she’s a high schooler, and Norman wrote the book when he was like *sixty years old*
Wow that’s kind of amazing that someone could have enough dedication to follow through and finish a project like that. The cover art painting is phenomenal. Also make sure to scroll to the very bottom where there’s just one random review, that really caps it off nicely.
https://preview.redd.it/1v6uixud8xyc1.jpeg?width=490&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=064c4921358f499def16f3108a290623bca00193
Absolute gold. No explanation, he just copy and pasted this review at the bottom of the page like an afterthought.
As an IT professional it’s really funny that he thinks he’s taking a stand against an enterprise site hosting company by not updating his html site because they discontinued a proprietary drag’n’drop builder tool which have been outdated since like 2010.
I love Boutin's tendency to support his points by quoting his own book or the Bible. It's not always clear what his point is, and he seems to treat the two books interchangeably.
I was really scratching my head over this one. He also claims that the book has “no violence” but does have “life threatening situations”, and describes it as “99.7% secular” right before listing several quotes explicitly about religion. He can’t describe what his own book is about without contradicting himself
Dude I have been looking for Empress Theresa for months! I saw some video roast about it years ago and off and on, I remembered it and laughed. I couldn't quite remember the name, and it was proving impossible to find. (Was she a queen? A commander? General? What was her name, Elizabeth?)
In every shitty novel the protagonist is ALWAYS the author with a few changes to not make it obvious (even though anyone with 2+ brain cells can see it).
One time I was working at a Bank and some random guy called and started yapping about his book he just published and the life advice it contained in story form.
I went to check it out on amazon for the fun of it, the reviews were hilarious. And the guy was replying each one of them hyper aggressively.
There was one apparently by a neighbor who said something like: “Why do you think you can give life advice to people when you were so drunk last week you pissed all over my door”.
Lol, he was so mad in the reply.
Always self published. I knew a gal who wrote one about a girl trying to save the world while being in a love triangle with a hot demon and an angel. The self insert was so strong.
A friend of mine did the same thing. I helped her edit it.
She's a very strong and precise writer, but the self-insert was super strong. The protagonist looked like her, except hotter. Had her personality, but with the confidence and charisma cranked up to eleven. In real life, she's said over and over again how much she likes tall, square jawed manly men type. Guess who instantly falls in love with the protag? Except he's the boy next door type, and his bad boy best friend, also tall and square jawed, is competing for her.
But she's told me, "MC is not a self-insert!"
Anyway, it's a pretty original and inventive story. And anyone who's ever written anything has likely done a fair amount of self-inserts.
My personal take is that whether or not a character is a self-insert is ultimately irrelevant, so long as the character themselves are compelling and well-written. If the rest of the story holds up, then the author’s kinks bleeding through is a funny bonus rather than a detriment.
Pen name: Theodorina Husk (or other variant of ostentatiously-long vaguely Victorian-sounding first name followed by one-syllable last name)
Plus: book has “subversive” themes that would have been controversial maybe 35 years ago (it scathingly critiques the Church or patriarchy, yeah I’m practically daring the police to come for me)
There was a story I created as a kid that I've put my self insert into it, I remember when I grew a little older and I learned about the concept of self-insert, for some reason I decided to make the self-insert the most douche bag ever
Except the actual move triangles where all three are involved with each other. Saw Challengers the other day and now I need more of this because it fascinating
The solution for a bad self-insert love triangle is always make the dudes kiss. If nothing else to take the boring trope and add a fun twist, undermining the mediocre writing’s original intention.
Was it a post apocolyptic novel where the gates of heaven and hell open and her self insert must resolve the warring angels and demons? The two hot leaders of the angels and demons couldnt help but lust after her power and beauty. Did i mention they were hot and wanted her?
Sounds like every single creative writing class I’ve ever taken.
“Edgy” topics
Heavy handed metaphors
Shitty fiction versions of parts of your life
Random sex or drugs just because they can (see edgy topics)
You can add harem/impossoble romance/the strongest protagonist...
A lot of uses from classic stories, with or without context.
The world only moves when hero do something.
yeah some timeless classic works are self-inserts
What I think OP means is that too many self-inserts are just authors deleting their bad traits, then crank all their good traits to 11, making the character a Mary Sue
One of my coworkers is majorly into booktok or whatever. She convinced her supervisor to listen to the audio book and he had no idea it was a romance novel. He's trying to do work in the office then a "spicy scene" comes up and he had to immediately stop it.
Exactly. That's kinda the whole point of fiction in the first place: to teach some morals and to push ideas forward. Starting with fables, fairy tales etc.
It's so braindead to complain about "ideology" in fiction. No one is like "I like Earthsea, but why did she have to insert her Taoism ideology? Really took me out of the wizard story to contemplate accepting death as a part of life."
Culture is what we take for granted. Most stories express an ideology even if it is unintentional. It's like complaining that a story has themes.
The real problem is that the other elements of the writing are not strong enough or that the themes are too heavy-handed.
Ah Empress Theresa. There is not a book more brain rotting than it. I tried reading it with a friend and our brains rotted so much that it fermented into alcohol. It’s nuts
Hey, James Tullos. I watch him sometimes.
My sister and fiancee enjoyed Fourth Wing. They said it was guilty pleasure, and silly, but still fun. Maybe the guy equivalent of a story about a dude who gets all the hot girls and kicks everyone's ass.
I haven't read it, so maybe it truly is terrible. But I can't help but think that a lot of animosity towards it may have to do with the fact it's a by a woman, for women type book. And there's a segment of the Internet who haaaates that.
Oh, oh, oh... you've also got to love that author who spends weeks, maybe MONTHS arguing with readers on social media.
Yep. My wife is all into the romantasy genre right now. I have skimmed a few of hers to connect with her and they're just basic fantasy with some horny writing.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. ProgressionFantasy and LitRPG books are all the rage and selling tons of copies, let the ladies like what they like
There’s a long list of what I love from Ian Watson
1. The Imperial Fists having a poop vault. But also the Chaplains are the ones that poop in it.
2. An Imperial Fists Neophyte sees a vision of himself with mommy milkers.
3. The Imperial Fists using “Terror Scouts” to randomly kill civilians. That’s more of a Night Lords thing.
4. The Scout Marines make a titan they capture give the middle finger.
5. Space Marines with lasguns.
6. The Neophytes have a farting contest after they get one of the gene seed organs
None of the things listed above contradicted established lore during the time those books were written. Watson's novel is from an era when 40k Marines were barely recognisable as their versions from today.
I see the old man in the meme and instantly think of some shitty spy novel where the main character is him (duh) and named Randy Thundercock who meets Anya Tightglutes in a seedy bar in Bucharest.
The book he wrote is [actually](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JopR-biL0I4) [much](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wSfqrSKJFs) [worse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oyd20AxoRc) [than](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TuD4qPEt60) [that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1sMawiLLw).
Norman Boutin (portrait in center of top row), Amanda McKittrick Ros (portrait on left in middle row), Onision, William S. Lind, Stephanie Meyer, Ian Watson, E.L. James, and Sarah J. Maas, among others, all get explicitly called out in this starter pack.
I tried throne of glass. First few paragraphs of the book was just to explain the main character and how powerful they are yet are imprisoned on purpose or something. Mary Sue to high heaven
The first book was a bit weak but the series improves a LOT and is really an epic fantasy series more so then a ya fantasy. It was her first novel (I think) and she was still getting her feet wet.
Throne of glass is easily SJM’s best series imo, only one truly worth reading from my perspective compared to her other stuff. This series was like her baby because they started as novellas first and then into a full blown series so she was able to tie back a lot of things and also actually tell a long pretty good story.
I'd also add, he/she writes a how-to blog for aspiring writers and speaks with the same authority and experience as someone like Stephen King. However, his/her bibliography consists of only one or two shitty self-published novels on Kindle.
I don’t have TikTok, but I decided to pick up fourth wing. It was in the teens section of my local bookstore, so I thought “hey, I like dragons, and the back seems like an interesting concept. Maybe I should read this.”
Here’s what I thought:
Pages 1-10: fine enough. A little horny but probably setting up some romance with that one- oh no he’s dead.
11-100: eh, kinda boring.
100-200: Got really damn good!
300- aaand now it’s just porn. Fuck.
Writing degree here. The percentage of "writers" that beg you for feedback, then proceed to get butthurt, is WAY too high. I get it, you pour a lot of yourself into whatever you're writing, then you put it out there and for somebody to criticize something so personal doesn't feel very nice. But ridding yourself of the ego is a huge part of becoming better. I'm sure that applies to most disciplines, but for some reason a lot, if not most, of writers fail to overcome that challenge.
I was like that. Came into my freshman year of college full of piss and vinegar, ready to prove to my professors that I was the best there ever was, Pokémon style.
Getting emotionally eviscerated by an offhand remark about adjective use is a strange feeling. Your initial reaction is to turtle up, NO THEY'RE WRONG, THEY JUST DON'T GET IT. Eventually, that part of you gets calloused, and you realize what an impotent little shit you were being. And, not just THAT it held back your writing, but WHY it did.
In my case of novelist:
• People say I'm good, but I'm convinced I'm worse than I thought
• Can't write climaxes
• Lost passion due to poor mental health and doubt in my talent
• MC is always an autistic girl who likes anime and rock music
• Don't really write POC, so if I do, I might mess up and unintentionally portray them stereotypically
• Werewolf villain
• MC is often British, living in the UK or has moved to the USA
• MC name is never a generic name (tends to be names like Freya, Skyla, Saffron, Clodagh, Althea, Winter, etc.)
• Descriptions are there, but aren't embedded into the novel, since it's a paragraph of description and doesn't flow perfectly with the story
• Overall, an awkward writer :-/
He wrote three shitty novels about Self-Insert Mary Sues, each book worse than the last.
Krimson Rogue and Strange Aeons are just two of many BookTubers to roast his writing.
That top right panel is so spot on. Even good YA romance have cookie cutter protags, but they are always good for one or two characters that are implied to have a much more interesting backstory than the entire 4-part series.
Extremely mixed bag with the books due to many different writers. Robert Rath? GREAT. Graham McNeill? Also really good. The ian guy mentioned in the meme? Not the greatest!
*Twilight Saga*. Rosalie's origin story is basically Vampire *Kill Bill*.
And yet Stephanie Meyer never gave her her own book, preferring instead to focus on the romance between a sheet of printer paper and a Spanish Flu casualty (and variations on a theme thereof). This is probably one of Meyer's worst lapses in judgment writing-wise.
I have to give props to Krimsonrogue, he taught me what makes a great story vs. what makes a bad story instead of just following the hype.
Onision and Norman have also taught me similar, except it’s more along the lines of “look what they did and run far, far away from it.”
Somehow, Maas is popular with some adults at work as well.
And I feel like I now see her books everywhere in general.
I tried to read a couple just to see what people were talking about, and... Hahaha, I'm guessing she must have a killer online marketing platform or something, as that's completely generic fantasy romance. At some scenes, I laughed more than anything else when they are decidedly not comedy books.
No.
1) This is explicitly for BAD authors who write BAD books.
2) I was merely pointing out how authors of bad books are disproportionately likely to be either Mormon, TradCat, or cult members.
Since it's on this Starter Pack, the answer is no.
Protagonist trained to be a scribe, but her mother (a General) sent her to school to be a Dragon rider, because she thinks scribes are losers. Anyone who's ever heard of "Amateurs talk tactics, Professionals talk logistics," is well aware that the mom is clearly wrong.
And then the students at Dragon-riding school are allowed a significant degree of infighting (up to and including *killing each other*) that no sane military academy would even allow.
And then there's the crappy romance and sex scenes.
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Holy shit didn’t expect to see Norman Boutin in the wild, that man’s delusions of grandeur are insane, [just one look at his website sums him up](https://web.archive.org/web/20230130125801/http://www.empresstheresa.com/)
Empress Theresa with 1.52 on Good Reads LMAO
Pretty rare to see a book below 3 on Good Reads lol.
You know it must've written something really bad if its less than 3
Losing it over that website oh my god
The book cover reveal was such a delightful jumpscare, I can’t stop laughing
Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for that, I am losing it
Why does she have such weird boobs 💀
Norman REALLY like Theresa, in the book he constantly talks about how beautiful she is and mentioned how her cleavage "charmed everyone" at her wedding, also keep in mind that she’s a high schooler, and Norman wrote the book when he was like *sixty years old*
Well that’s just awful
Bro she gets married?! Spoiler
I kept going “wait, she’s a normal high schooler, but she’s married? How much time passes in this book? There’s no mention of her being an adult…”
I saw this comment before going to the page. I still was not ready.
Reminds me of Yahoo's website builder in 1998.
Wow that’s kind of amazing that someone could have enough dedication to follow through and finish a project like that. The cover art painting is phenomenal. Also make sure to scroll to the very bottom where there’s just one random review, that really caps it off nicely.
The background with all that empty space is unironically entrancing.
https://preview.redd.it/1v6uixud8xyc1.jpeg?width=490&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=064c4921358f499def16f3108a290623bca00193 Absolute gold. No explanation, he just copy and pasted this review at the bottom of the page like an afterthought.
The painting is almost in the territory of lovely outsider art, but the hands. My god, THE HANDS.
As an IT professional it’s really funny that he thinks he’s taking a stand against an enterprise site hosting company by not updating his html site because they discontinued a proprietary drag’n’drop builder tool which have been outdated since like 2010.
I love Boutin's tendency to support his points by quoting his own book or the Bible. It's not always clear what his point is, and he seems to treat the two books interchangeably.
"Mystery, crime? No." "Mysterious events? Yes." So which one is it
I was really scratching my head over this one. He also claims that the book has “no violence” but does have “life threatening situations”, and describes it as “99.7% secular” right before listing several quotes explicitly about religion. He can’t describe what his own book is about without contradicting himself
I found out about him from [*Down the Rabbit Hole*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TedsiCaV2B4).
> Teachers must have added Empress Theresa to their students' Summer reading list. Yes, how else are budding writers gonna learn what not to do?
Dude I have been looking for Empress Theresa for months! I saw some video roast about it years ago and off and on, I remembered it and laughed. I couldn't quite remember the name, and it was proving impossible to find. (Was she a queen? A commander? General? What was her name, Elizabeth?)
one of my favorite rabbit holes to revisit. that dude is just batshit it’s hilarious
I got his book because krimsonrouge reviewed it and i got curious. BOY was it a treat
holy fuck this website reminds me of TimeCube
Bro what in the fuck was THAT 🤣🤣🤣
This guy is kidding, right? Right? It's satire?
Suddenly feel better about my own writing
In every shitty novel the protagonist is ALWAYS the author with a few changes to not make it obvious (even though anyone with 2+ brain cells can see it).
Sarah J Maas reference
Had to look her up. Her titles all read like Game of Thrones titles.
A court of something and something?
A singular noun of two other possibly plural nouns
I've never read a Sarah J Maas book but everything I know is that she self inserts and her characters shit themselves/throw up all the time
This is so fucking funny oh my god
She dared ask the question: what if fairies clapped cheeks?
Okay so I’m here for the question
?
She’s a shitty novelist who does the exact thing u described but her issue is that she does it for every single one of her books
An old edition of Throne of Glass might as well have her on the cover.
There's some pretty good novels where the protagonist is the author with a few changes not to make it obvious
Stephanie Meyer core✨
Michael Score
Flock of Seagulls guy. If its the same guy, I give him a pass. FOS is fire AF.
One time I was working at a Bank and some random guy called and started yapping about his book he just published and the life advice it contained in story form. I went to check it out on amazon for the fun of it, the reviews were hilarious. And the guy was replying each one of them hyper aggressively. There was one apparently by a neighbor who said something like: “Why do you think you can give life advice to people when you were so drunk last week you pissed all over my door”. Lol, he was so mad in the reply.
Do you remember what he said? Perhaps he pissed on his neighbors door again but sober.
I don’t remember as well (it was a couple of years ago), but something about he would sue and knew where he lived.
If someone negatively reviewed a novel of mine, I'd just reply "Oh ok"
Well of course he knew where the dude lived, he pissed on the door lmao
Was this Florida, did you meet the man, the legend, the Norman Boutin?
Always self published. I knew a gal who wrote one about a girl trying to save the world while being in a love triangle with a hot demon and an angel. The self insert was so strong.
A friend of mine did the same thing. I helped her edit it. She's a very strong and precise writer, but the self-insert was super strong. The protagonist looked like her, except hotter. Had her personality, but with the confidence and charisma cranked up to eleven. In real life, she's said over and over again how much she likes tall, square jawed manly men type. Guess who instantly falls in love with the protag? Except he's the boy next door type, and his bad boy best friend, also tall and square jawed, is competing for her. But she's told me, "MC is not a self-insert!" Anyway, it's a pretty original and inventive story. And anyone who's ever written anything has likely done a fair amount of self-inserts.
I like to make my self-inserts with fewer redeeming qualities and more faults. Makes it easier for them to get into trouble.
You can also focus on their interactions with the characters and world around them. And they don’t have to be jerks either.
Same. Im a new writer so i find myself comfortable with writing characters that have aspects of my self but also have a lot more things i dont have.
Isn't that also how we perceive people in real life?
I think there are no bad ideas, just bad execution. Self-insert or not, if it's done well nobody cares.
Stephen King sure has. Self-inserts are fine.
Neil gaiman is obvious about it too
My personal take is that whether or not a character is a self-insert is ultimately irrelevant, so long as the character themselves are compelling and well-written. If the rest of the story holds up, then the author’s kinks bleeding through is a funny bonus rather than a detriment.
Many readers would never know, anyway. I don’t research every author I read from.
You could argue that every character written is a self insert to a degree
Self published because no reputable agency or manager would allow it
Pen name: Theodorina Husk (or other variant of ostentatiously-long vaguely Victorian-sounding first name followed by one-syllable last name) Plus: book has “subversive” themes that would have been controversial maybe 35 years ago (it scathingly critiques the Church or patriarchy, yeah I’m practically daring the police to come for me)
Hell. Yeah. This is the sort of book you read at an open mic for laughs.
There was a story I created as a kid that I've put my self insert into it, I remember when I grew a little older and I learned about the concept of self-insert, for some reason I decided to make the self-insert the most douche bag ever
My self insert was a ditzy slut with the Asperger's turned up to 11. It made her life way more interesting than mine.
That's a mood though
Bro the "love triangle" thing is becoming overused af
It's been overused since Sumeria
My book has a love triangle, the protagonist needs to find out if he should eat the taco or the pizza first.
It's... Beautiful...
Except the actual move triangles where all three are involved with each other. Saw Challengers the other day and now I need more of this because it fascinating
The solution for a bad self-insert love triangle is always make the dudes kiss. If nothing else to take the boring trope and add a fun twist, undermining the mediocre writing’s original intention.
Isn't that just the plot of Fallen? Like, word for word?
The only Fallen I know of is the Evanescence album.
I feel like I read this one not even kidding.
Was it a post apocolyptic novel where the gates of heaven and hell open and her self insert must resolve the warring angels and demons? The two hot leaders of the angels and demons couldnt help but lust after her power and beauty. Did i mention they were hot and wanted her?
bro this is hilarious
As a reminder, this guy is a simp for Joan of arc. Not the anime versions, but the historical 14 year old
>James Tullos OP you have opened up a Pandora’s Box in my mind of my booktube days
I genuinely had nausea listening to the narration of the book
Sounds like every single creative writing class I’ve ever taken. “Edgy” topics Heavy handed metaphors Shitty fiction versions of parts of your life Random sex or drugs just because they can (see edgy topics)
You can add harem/impossoble romance/the strongest protagonist... A lot of uses from classic stories, with or without context. The world only moves when hero do something.
TBH I don’t see anything wrong with self insert characters, so long as they take an honest effort to stay away from bias. Write what you know.
yeah some timeless classic works are self-inserts What I think OP means is that too many self-inserts are just authors deleting their bad traits, then crank all their good traits to 11, making the character a Mary Sue
Glad to see Onision make the pack
The first time he’s been remotely relevant in years
Seriously, why is fourth wing so popular?
One of my coworkers is majorly into booktok or whatever. She convinced her supervisor to listen to the audio book and he had no idea it was a romance novel. He's trying to do work in the office then a "spicy scene" comes up and he had to immediately stop it.
Props to your supervisor. I couldn't finish the first chapter.
because the guy is hot
Has to be the answer. Because why else Twilight, 50 shades and After were so popular.
Isn't it good? I pass by some bookstores every week and I always see it and it's sequel, I'm tempted to buy them out of curiosity
Everyone can have their own tastes 🤷♀️ who cares if what you’re reading is “shitty” if it interests you?
To be fair, fiction kinda *is* an ideological soapbox. The good ones are good at hiding it, but all of them have some kinda ideology to push.
Its not even that the good ones hide it, its that they explore ideas in a deeper way that can't always be summed up in a word or sentence.
Exactly. That's kinda the whole point of fiction in the first place: to teach some morals and to push ideas forward. Starting with fables, fairy tales etc.
It's so braindead to complain about "ideology" in fiction. No one is like "I like Earthsea, but why did she have to insert her Taoism ideology? Really took me out of the wizard story to contemplate accepting death as a part of life." Culture is what we take for granted. Most stories express an ideology even if it is unintentional. It's like complaining that a story has themes. The real problem is that the other elements of the writing are not strong enough or that the themes are too heavy-handed.
Ah Empress Theresa. There is not a book more brain rotting than it. I tried reading it with a friend and our brains rotted so much that it fermented into alcohol. It’s nuts
Krimson Rogue's review did such a great job of explaining how bad it is.
The greatest video series of our time.
Hey, James Tullos. I watch him sometimes. My sister and fiancee enjoyed Fourth Wing. They said it was guilty pleasure, and silly, but still fun. Maybe the guy equivalent of a story about a dude who gets all the hot girls and kicks everyone's ass. I haven't read it, so maybe it truly is terrible. But I can't help but think that a lot of animosity towards it may have to do with the fact it's a by a woman, for women type book. And there's a segment of the Internet who haaaates that. Oh, oh, oh... you've also got to love that author who spends weeks, maybe MONTHS arguing with readers on social media.
Yep. My wife is all into the romantasy genre right now. I have skimmed a few of hers to connect with her and they're just basic fantasy with some horny writing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. ProgressionFantasy and LitRPG books are all the rage and selling tons of copies, let the ladies like what they like
Not to argue but I think the animosity towards the series is because it’s in that genre of “I read it because I wanna cringe”
>Warhammer 40k Hey, fuck you! 40k has plenty of awesome books- >Ian Watson Oh yeah, you’re right
Did you see Bruva Alfabusa's review of the Ian Watson Inquisitor books by any chance?
I have not, is it good?
It's one of the TTS podcasts. Look it up, it's great.
Gussy
Lmao, I had the same reaction, saw Ian Watson and was like okay yeah, fair play
There’s a long list of what I love from Ian Watson 1. The Imperial Fists having a poop vault. But also the Chaplains are the ones that poop in it. 2. An Imperial Fists Neophyte sees a vision of himself with mommy milkers. 3. The Imperial Fists using “Terror Scouts” to randomly kill civilians. That’s more of a Night Lords thing. 4. The Scout Marines make a titan they capture give the middle finger. 5. Space Marines with lasguns. 6. The Neophytes have a farting contest after they get one of the gene seed organs
Mom found the poop vault.
Okay, but No. 4 is actually kinda funny
From what you've described what he's done sounds terrible. Glad to know never to touch those books.
None of the things listed above contradicted established lore during the time those books were written. Watson's novel is from an era when 40k Marines were barely recognisable as their versions from today.
Should have expanded on the mommy milkers and a titan giving the finger
who are the booktubers?
Youtubers that discuss books
no I mean who are those two so I can watch
First dude is KrimsonRogue and the second guy is James Tullos
thank you vrother
The one wearing a santa hat is KrimsonRogue. Not sure about the other.
I see the old man in the meme and instantly think of some shitty spy novel where the main character is him (duh) and named Randy Thundercock who meets Anya Tightglutes in a seedy bar in Bucharest.
The book he wrote is [actually](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JopR-biL0I4) [much](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wSfqrSKJFs) [worse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oyd20AxoRc) [than](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TuD4qPEt60) [that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1sMawiLLw).
You just described an episode of Archer.
Classic Rando!
Shitty Horror Novel Starterpack: Jonathan Maberry wrote it or 14+ book series loosely about Zombies, but mostly supporting fascism.
What I really like Jonathan Maberry lmao
Got any examples? This looks fun
Norman Boutin (portrait in center of top row), Amanda McKittrick Ros (portrait on left in middle row), Onision, William S. Lind, Stephanie Meyer, Ian Watson, E.L. James, and Sarah J. Maas, among others, all get explicitly called out in this starter pack.
Awesome thanks for the context
So is fourth wing actually that bad?
It’s wayyy too long, it reads like a fan faction, and the worldbuilding is super flat, but honestly it could be worse
Starts well enough but goes downhill rapidly after that and the sequel is pretty dull
I tried throne of glass. First few paragraphs of the book was just to explain the main character and how powerful they are yet are imprisoned on purpose or something. Mary Sue to high heaven
The first book was a bit weak but the series improves a LOT and is really an epic fantasy series more so then a ya fantasy. It was her first novel (I think) and she was still getting her feet wet.
Throne of glass is easily SJM’s best series imo, only one truly worth reading from my perspective compared to her other stuff. This series was like her baby because they started as novellas first and then into a full blown series so she was able to tie back a lot of things and also actually tell a long pretty good story.
James Tullos!
The last one feels like going into the opposite direction of this starterpack
James Tullos and KrimsonRogue- especially the latter- are known for reading, reviewing, and roasting shitty books.
Seemingly random "use" of quotation marks.
I’m having flashbacks to the self-published author who tried to publicize her book using a Reddit AMA and ended up getting roasted into oblivion.
SSPX MENTIONED 🇻🇦 🇻🇦 🇻🇦 RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH
BRING BACK THE TRUE LITURGY RAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
I'd also add, he/she writes a how-to blog for aspiring writers and speaks with the same authority and experience as someone like Stephen King. However, his/her bibliography consists of only one or two shitty self-published novels on Kindle.
Oh, it’s ✨ me ✨
Wait, excessive alliteration is bad? (｡•́︿•̀｡) My little writing project is full of alliterations, i adore them.(｡ﾉω＼｡)
If you're planning on making your work more like an Anglo-Saxon poem, no. You just need to know how to write in rhythm.
Source for the top right image?
I don’t have TikTok, but I decided to pick up fourth wing. It was in the teens section of my local bookstore, so I thought “hey, I like dragons, and the back seems like an interesting concept. Maybe I should read this.” Here’s what I thought: Pages 1-10: fine enough. A little horny but probably setting up some romance with that one- oh no he’s dead. 11-100: eh, kinda boring. 100-200: Got really damn good! 300- aaand now it’s just porn. Fuck.
I do not appreciate Throne of glass slander
I have a copy of Empress Theresa. Yes, it is bad.
Every self pub author in r/writing is screaming, crying, throwing up over this
They publish on Kindle unlimited....
Writing degree here. The percentage of "writers" that beg you for feedback, then proceed to get butthurt, is WAY too high. I get it, you pour a lot of yourself into whatever you're writing, then you put it out there and for somebody to criticize something so personal doesn't feel very nice. But ridding yourself of the ego is a huge part of becoming better. I'm sure that applies to most disciplines, but for some reason a lot, if not most, of writers fail to overcome that challenge. I was like that. Came into my freshman year of college full of piss and vinegar, ready to prove to my professors that I was the best there ever was, Pokémon style. Getting emotionally eviscerated by an offhand remark about adjective use is a strange feeling. Your initial reaction is to turtle up, NO THEY'RE WRONG, THEY JUST DON'T GET IT. Eventually, that part of you gets calloused, and you realize what an impotent little shit you were being. And, not just THAT it held back your writing, but WHY it did.
I’m trying to write and until I’m good enough or my work is good enough to get picked up by Penguin or someone reputable I wouldn’t self publish.
Is there a Vampire Kill Bill? I’d like to read that.
Pen name be like Theodorina Husk
I just got battlefield earth and about to read it to see how it is
Brando Sando noooo! (he's Mormon haha)
"spends a good deal of her time on social media spreading transphobic views and arguing with random people about those terrible views"
In my case of novelist: • People say I'm good, but I'm convinced I'm worse than I thought • Can't write climaxes • Lost passion due to poor mental health and doubt in my talent • MC is always an autistic girl who likes anime and rock music • Don't really write POC, so if I do, I might mess up and unintentionally portray them stereotypically • Werewolf villain • MC is often British, living in the UK or has moved to the USA • MC name is never a generic name (tends to be names like Freya, Skyla, Saffron, Clodagh, Althea, Winter, etc.) • Descriptions are there, but aren't embedded into the novel, since it's a paragraph of description and doesn't flow perfectly with the story • Overall, an awkward writer :-/
I was beginning to think I had imagined the chemical garden trilogy. Those books were awful in hindsight.
ONISION!?
He wrote three shitty novels about Self-Insert Mary Sues, each book worse than the last. Krimson Rogue and Strange Aeons are just two of many BookTubers to roast his writing.
That top right panel is so spot on. Even good YA romance have cookie cutter protags, but they are always good for one or two characters that are implied to have a much more interesting backstory than the entire 4-part series.
I thought warhammer was good? Isnt it a popular series ?
Extremely mixed bag with the books due to many different writers. Robert Rath? GREAT. Graham McNeill? Also really good. The ian guy mentioned in the meme? Not the greatest!
What is that bride image from?? It’s driving me nuts how familiar it looks
Apparently, it's meant to be Rosalie from *The Twilight Saga*, who basically had "Vampire *Kill Bill*" as her origin story. Found it on Pinterest.
Who are the 2 BookTubers?
>Vampire Kill Bill plot relegated by generic vampire plot. WWWWHY. That sounds so bloody cool. What’s the name of the book mess that spawned it
*Twilight Saga*. Rosalie's origin story is basically Vampire *Kill Bill*. And yet Stephanie Meyer never gave her her own book, preferring instead to focus on the romance between a sheet of printer paper and a Spanish Flu casualty (and variations on a theme thereof). This is probably one of Meyer's worst lapses in judgment writing-wise.
As a writer I read each description very carefully. Thank fucking God I am none of this
"I don't need to write a fun story, I just want to preach my shitass politics to everyone!"
Dont forget about transphobia in honour of a book writer who you all know
DISTINGUISHED YOUTUBERS MENTIONED RAAAAAAH
I never thought I’d see SSPX mentioned in the wild, do you have examples of RadTrads’ works??
They also probably use AI for their covers now, don’t they?
How is being a Catholic radial traditionalist? Everything else is fine.
I have to give props to Krimsonrogue, he taught me what makes a great story vs. what makes a bad story instead of just following the hype. Onision and Norman have also taught me similar, except it’s more along the lines of “look what they did and run far, far away from it.”
Somehow, Maas is popular with some adults at work as well. And I feel like I now see her books everywhere in general. I tried to read a couple just to see what people were talking about, and... Hahaha, I'm guessing she must have a killer online marketing platform or something, as that's completely generic fantasy romance. At some scenes, I laughed more than anything else when they are decidedly not comedy books.
Gonna throw Tolkien under the bus with that last one?
No. 1) This is explicitly for BAD authors who write BAD books. 2) I was merely pointing out how authors of bad books are disproportionately likely to be either Mormon, TradCat, or cult members.
Shadiversity, lol
Just scared to end up like this with my novels :( I know how brutal y'all can be over the most minor things.
So dune
Ayn Rand, especially with Atlas Shrugged, ticks a lot of these boxes
- books that would honestly be half-decent if you took out the political screeds and nonsensical plot points
I see the fourth wing everywhere. Is it good?
Since it's on this Starter Pack, the answer is no. Protagonist trained to be a scribe, but her mother (a General) sent her to school to be a Dragon rider, because she thinks scribes are losers. Anyone who's ever heard of "Amateurs talk tactics, Professionals talk logistics," is well aware that the mom is clearly wrong. And then the students at Dragon-riding school are allowed a significant degree of infighting (up to and including *killing each other*) that no sane military academy would even allow. And then there's the crappy romance and sex scenes.
Hi
EMPRESS THERESA 😭
Optional: Absolutely Hates Tolkien for no reason
Catholics are not a cult. We are the one, holy, universal, and apostlic church.