Thread 24582040

$20,000 edition

Previous >>24576779

>What is Web Novel General?
A general for readers and authors involved or interested in the growing phenomenon of 'web novels', serialized English fiction posted to websites such as: Royalroad, Webnovel, Scribblehub, Wattpad, Archive of Our Own, Spacebattles, HFY, various personal author websites, and more

>Why read web novels?
Not for prose or tight editing or deep themes, frankly. As a whole, web novels are infamous for content sprawl and pacing issues. If you enjoy having millions of words to sink your teeth into to get to know the world and characters, though, you may be interested. Keeping up with other readers on a weekly basis to discuss the story's events unfolding is another perk, in the same way discussing an ongoing TV show might be.

>Why write web novels?
Ease of access & potential for Patreon earnings. Many successful authors gain an audience on their website of choice and funnel their readers into a Patreon. See https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators/writing for an idea of what some are earning.
Also, once an author has earned a fanbase, transitioning into an Amazon self-publishing career is several orders of magnitude easier than starting 'dry'.

> Advice for Noobs!
Running your story like the business it is:
https://www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/116847

On writing webserials:
https://alexanderwales.com/how-to-write-a-web-serial/

Sanderson's Writing lectures 2025:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEUh_y1IFZY&list=PLSH_xM-KC3ZvzkfVo_Dls0B5GiE2oMcLY

Is daily quest anon dead?

/wng/ Daily quest

>Reply to post to start the timer
>write your slop
>Report back in 24 hours

Word goal of the day:
>1100 words
Quote of the day:
>The difference between art and industry is fashion sense

fake social activity or writing?

>>24582052
start timer
>>24582091
both

Sad fact of the matter is that the biggest waste of time in the entire industry is review for review. Reading 50k words of slopperoni peepee of some fuck’s AI generated cover with not a single interesting or original idea just to be forced to give a five star review they do not fucking deserve is mind boggling. 181 pages takes minimum two hours to read. Two hours that could be spent working a job and making the fifty bucks you need to buy an ad and get far more views. Or even just two hours of writing your own story, which is much more valuable

>>24582118
Never understood the review swap thing, I thought the real deal was getting shout outs.

what's the OP 20,000 dollar angle. Call me curious.

>>24582175
speedrunning RS eligibility

>>24582175
what do you mean? it's a reference to the last few threads.

>>24582154
It is from bigger authors, maybe not so much from you fellow timmies. Thing is though there hasn't been a author on the forum who has done it in years (like MelasDeltas). Only the cabals like Immersive Ink do it amongst themselves on their botnet.

>>24582175
https://graphtreon.com/creator/ArcaneCadence

>>24582198
I'm going to join the cabal. I'm going to do every despicable thing. Whatever it takes.

This joker sure is getting mentioned a lot...
hm.......

>>24582219
Anon's are unhealthy obsessed with Arcane because he is making a ton of money with a generic isekai.

>>24582218
that'll just get you on RS, but plenty of (most) shitty cabal fictions get on RS and stifle at like 500 followers then drop off.
Worry about writing something addictive and engaging, and run an ad. easy as that

>>24582219
burger flipper anons are getting radicalized by income inequality and melting down internally

kinda crazy ArcaneCadence is a /wg/ regular

>>24582244
I told you to stop.

MORE.
I REQUIRE MORE PATRONS.

>>24582277
IN THE DEPTHS OF THE INDONESIAN GONG FARMER FORUMS ARCANE CADENCE SLEEPS

Hello, anons.
I am EsotericRhythm and I am currently backlogging my upcoming litrpg web serial "Fresh Start as an Ultimate Rank Ultra-Sage".

NEW FFF-CLASS UNLUCKY ANTAGONIST CHAPTER IS OUT!!!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/119783/fff-class-unlucky-antagonist-villains-origin-story/chapter/2466616/masseur-part-three

>check my esl friend's fic on AO3
>4 chapters in and it has 0 comments and 15 views
>he keeps posting updates and very optimistic author's notes
I envy him.

>>24582353
that's like 90% of ao3 by weight. being obsessed with "making it" and patreonbux/metrics seems like it's more common on royalroad

New Black Sun chappie, for those who partake

Fresh off the presses for my discovery chads out there.

>>24582425
This reminded me of an exchange I saw a few days ago.

>>24582353
yeah, that's me. I just don't do the messaging, blogging, notes. I just put the chapters up.

>>24582218
someone popped up a new disc cabal for non-litrpg works and invited me to it. The owner launched a story and did shout-out swaps and I participated. I've gotten 21 unique clicks since monday from it.

Review swapping does nothing but make your rating number go up, which case help your ego and make you appear higher on searches.

>>24582052
Reporting in for, overdose mode begins now.
>The difference between art and industry is fashion sense
Some of us make it just grotesque enough to bring out the horror within.

I decided my pen name will be Lemonpants. The whole world shall know the name of Lemonpants from this day onward.

i'm new to writing and webnovels. my word processor is open (chatgpt). now, what do i write?

>>24582564
Whatever you want ;)

>>24582564
Tell the Clanker to write a hot elf wife with fat titties giving me a handjob while an artist is drawing us having hot sex in ghilbi style

It's truly motivating to have a new reader that never commented before post 'love it' on the latest chapter.

And to have a new patron supporter. Things like this serve a little motivator to keep going.

My fiction is over 1k pages so anyone who reaches latest chapter must like it to some degree.

>>24582564
my fetish. non-litrpg.

>>24582425
The real chad move is masquerading as the worldbuilder while actually being the discoverer.

>>24582425
>conlangs
>maps
>infodumping
>long long ago
All shit.

>outlines
>wiki/obsidian
>prepping character backstories
All genuinely useful. Otherwise yeah, I agree.

>>24582687
thanks for the meme review bro we were all waiting

I still have no idea how to start my story

>>24582718
If you're completely at a lose, just copy structure from an opening from media you already like. It will get you through the initial hurdle of starting, and you can make it more of your own work on rewrites once you have a better sense of your story.

>>24582701
You're welcome! You should post your story and I'll give that a review too!

>>24582718
>A chapter before the happening
>Chapter opens with the happening
>Happening just happened
Pick one.
>But the readers won't understand!
If it's interesting enough you can explain later, the worst would be for them to be bored.

>>24582718
>I still have no idea how to start my story
step one.
you have to have a favorite author. Preferably a favorite author who wrote 180-250 page paperbacks.
step two.
pick out said author's seminal early work, that you particularly like.
step three.
read it several times. Straight through. When you finish? Read again. After several reads in a row, you should have a commanding grasp of the book.
step four.
make an outline. Just a rough one, consisting of single sentences. Describing what will go on in each chapter.
step five.
this is the framework, upon which your favorite author built your favorite book, anon. Observe what he did, and when he did it. Practice making your OWN outline identical to this one? It just has different *stuff* in it. But the functional formula the outline creates is the same.
step six.
adopt the style and tone of this author. write your story with a feel for how that writer did it. You have to ape/imitate some writer's sense of style and tone? Might as well make it your favorite.
>
If you read your favorite short paperback several times in a row and do this? You will be playing with the same fire your favorite author used, to create what you perceive as their seminal work.

>>24582730
>ou're welcome! You should post your story and I'll give that a review too!
https://moonquillnovels.com/book/merrys-present

>>24582755
You gonna make it one day Tina

>>24582750
sounds lame and gay

I'll stop using AI Audiobooks when male narrators can do female voices. I'm $60 dollars down buying audible books that ambush me with most skin curling wannabe-troon voice I've ever heard in my fife.

thoughts on the legend of william oh?

>>24582718
If someone doesn't die in the first word it's too slow

>>24582821
Got bored after 30 chapters, it wasn't bad though.

The closer I get to finishing the outline draft, the more overwhelmed and crushed I feel knowing I have to start actually writing the first draft. And the closer I reach the ending(less than 10%), the more nerve racking it is making sure the story is cohesive enough to write with. I swore off the first draft for the last 2 months until I finished the outline and had a backlog, but part of me wants to pull the trigger and start writing it out of the gate.

>>24582818
Stephen Fry and Jim Dale doing the Harry Potter books with awful female accents fucking ruined them.

Inversely, finding an amateur female on Youtube to read through the Harry Potter books captured the young male voices well and of course the female voices.

>>24582687
>obsidian
why does everyone itt have to shill this specific name brand notes app.

>>24582928
For me, it's Scrivener.

>>24582821
All i heard about it was the "chuck norris facts" snippets made up by his orphan friend so i thought it was gonna be about some bullshit op insane cheat power guy but people kept recommending it. I was pretty surprised when I read it and he starts as just some level 1 newbie chump and the quotes at the top of each chapter were actually bullshit the friend was making up to hype him up at the tavern in town.

That said it's pretty good, and it's fun watching him climb up the tower, find new magic items, and come up with new bullshit synergies to abuse as he swaps between them. I love the kobold BFF party member too.

Feels like it really goes off the rails when he unlocks the perk to craft custom items and sets off to make his own tailored item set, which after an adventure leads to making some bullshit cheat unique-item set that harnesses the power of ancient ouroboros to give crazy set bonuses. I really wish instead he spent more time theorycrafting and figuring out which two items to bodge together and combine their perks in a broken/abusable way instead of just shoving a macguffin in his crafting barrel and getting a tailored set out of it

>>24582854
tomorrow morning I will take the leap and write the first draft. At least I will have a definite outline that's like 80% finished and an actual concluding ending to work with. This time for sure(tm) bros.

Wrote 8k words this week so far.
Yet, it still feels like I'm not doing enough. It depresses me even for some reason.

>>24582718
Your main character has just been shot/stabbed/beaten to the brink of death and as they start to slip away their life flashes before their eyes.

How many chapters do you guys release at the time of releasing a work? Three including the prologue?
I'm thinking of straight up just going by chapter by chapter, writing a new one each time I upload a new chapter.

>>24582995
you should read up on how to properly launch your story. same amount of effort (writing x chapters overall) but potential for massively more success if you do it right and get onto rs

>>24582995
Goddamn do we have to post this shit each thread?
20k to be eligible for RS
21 days until your fic is no longer boosted for being new
24 hours until you get no longer treated as Recent on your category update page.

Meaning:
Backlog 33k words.
Drop 1100 minimum (but any multiple of 275 i.e one page works cause big page counts= good) words every 23 hours.
This gives lets you stack the deck as much as humanly possible so by day 22 you should have a healthy supply of readers to dump chapters on daily.
Then by day 30 switch to twice a week.

>>24583044
This sounds like necromancy

>>24583044
We should have a
>steps for a successful release on RR
>pastebin tips
But a lot of people don't read the general and will ask anyway because we already have links explaining in further detail publishing tips

>>24583066
Yeah nobody ever reads the OP.
>>24583050
It is.

>>24583050
i started disengaging from forums and large botnets when I realize for the second time the futility seeing the same repeated questions every single day forever.

>>24583077
maybe there wouldn't be so many dumbfuck questions if retards stopped spoonfeeding newfags??

Just tell me what to write and I’ll write it.

>>24582344
My most sincere recommendation to you for when you write "This is poorly written."

"This is poorly written," the reader seethed in silence. There is a comma at the end of the quote, no matter what type of sentence is inside of it, because the sentence does not end there. Do not use a period, followed then by a capital letter.

Also, there is a flagrant misspelling in the very first sentence of your entire narration.

It's funny how a lot of web novels are based around reincarnating into an mmorpg yet the mmorpg genre is dying and games barely ever release.

>>24583149
Already fixed it.
>because the sentence does not end there
I thought dialogue and action were two distinct things to separate?

Is it literally all anime and chinkshit plus LitRPG? How about some basic genre fiction?

I tried that star wars fanfic that people said is above fanfic level
>first person
>tense error in the first chapter
I'm just gonna not...

>>24583152
Look up a couple style guides for writing dialogue. It makes the text flow much better when the reader doesn't have to pause within the same chunk of context. You'll see universally commas used, usually before to the quotes as well.

>>24582854
Ready to have your mind blown? The outline IS your first draft! It's just a really really short first draft. You'll be working on your second draft once the outline is done! Congratufuckinglations.

>>24583177
My rules for dialogue are:

"Dialogue(comma)" X said, X's action.

or

"Dialogue(period)" Anyone's Action.

In both cases, the action happens after the dialogue, in the future.

>>24583150
MMOs are dying because you can enjoy the social aspect of being a colorful digital creature in VRchat and Roblox with a far broader range of content.
Or you can hop on the current hot friendslop.
Or you can play a live service game.
Etc.
MMOs ultimately just don't have anything unique to them anymore.
Conversely it's a good template because it explains how a world works and when to Pog Out easily.

>>24582928
It's bretty gud
Not everything is a psyop

How long did it take you to get approved on RR? It's been 5 days for me going back and forth with the staff and they take 2 days to reply back each time. It's bullshit

>>24583261
That's how you know it's a good, trustworthy site run by real flesh and blood meatpersons

>>24583236
Honestly it's kind of sad to me. I miss the days when we weren't so oversocialized and overwhelmed as a society with endless choices of media slop to consume. Everything is at our fingertips and yet it all feels empty. Back then we'd play a game because we didn't have many options. We had shitty internet, shitty computers and being able to play with and talk to someone across the world was a miracle in of itself. It evoked a feeling that can't be replicated. I don't even know if im capable of feeling that kind of thing anymore. Could be that I'm just older but I think the massive growth and globalization of the internet has played a part.

Sorry for the rant, your post just struck a chord.

>>24583261
It took me about 4-ish days.
30 hours on Scribblehub so go there if you're twitchy

>>24583236
>>24583267
People are more active in online communities than ever but at the same time shun direct physical contact and fear everything real. The paradox of our age.

>>24583261
Are you the guy trying to upload the translation of his friend's work? Just give up. It's not the right kind of platform for that anyway

>>24583261
Took me not even a full day. Are you the same anon from before who couldn't get approved because mods refused to accept you had permission moving from a different site? Or is there something controversial in what you're submitting?

>>24583282
Why not? The site says translations are allowed. I'm just salty that the original work got very little recognition despite the year of work he put into it and I into the translation. It might hit it off on RR for being a completely different story from everything else. And if it doesn't then it's whatever.
>>24583286
They're fucking idiots. He stalled me for 2 days because he couldn't find the confirmation of authorship message I wrote in the chapter notes (told him where it is in the very first message) so I sent him a picture with 5 arrows pointing to it. I think he got annoyed and is ignoring me on purpose.

>>24583293
Well, you ARE pretty annoying.

>>24583299
Just thought it would be funny. But yeah it's going nowhere. Sorry for shitting up the thread.

I'd like to share an observation if I may.
I've been noticing more shit blurbs recently. I'm not talking about the RR meta of detailing "WHAT TO EXPECT" (which is a necessary evil) but two other problems: (1) infodumping setting information/worldbuilding/lore etc and (2) treating the blurb like a place to do more hard selling (like describing your own story as "riveting" or "unmissable", and saying your character relationships are "heart wrenchingly real" etc)

>>24583310
RR has always been plagued by the most shameless self-shilling known to man. The forums are completely unusable because of that. Threads asking for readers' favorite fictions or hidden gems will be full of retards plugging their own trash. Doesn't matter what is requested, there's always that guy going "check out my work, it might be want you want". Pointing out it doesn't actually fit at all is futile: they already got their clicks. The mods do nothing. It's sick.

>>24582569
Woah, woah! Easy with the hard R there buddy.

>>24583191
This is super confusing. If the person speaking and the person actioning are different people, start a new paragraph.

>>24583342
I agree. Lot of Dunning Krugers in here

>>24583310
it's a tradpub standard
blurbs have always been absolute garbage in genre fiction and I have no idea why this precedent is upheld by anyone
"WHAT TO EXPECT" is unironically a more effective blurb format because it actually gives some insight into the story.

>Joe Johnson's life is going to change. One day, he was living a normal life, when an inciting incident changed his whole world. Then he met Deuteragonist Donna and everything changed. Nothing will ever be the same.

>In the Lands of Loredump, things happened. Things happened two thousand years before the events of the story. People live in this land. Very original and creative people. -ids, -ians, and even the -ons. There are factions and communities that exist.

>Will something happen? Will there be a plot, or any intrigue at all? Who knows... but all that can be said for certain is that this blurb will end with a vague theme drop.

>>24583363
Answering basic "who, what, where" is the blurb's purpose. But that's not what anon is talking about.

>>24583372
>(1) infodumping setting information/worldbuilding/lore etc and (2) treating the blurb like a place to do more hard selling (like describing your own story as "riveting" or "unmissable"
?
the blurb's purpose is to convey the content and appeal of a story and be an efficient elevator pitch to potential readers. listing information is not good enough. you have to ground that information in the context that makes it interesting
the issue is probably that most people have no idea what it is that makes their story interesting so their blurbs come out as word salad jumbles of pointless factoids

tip to anyone writing a blurb: start by verbally telling somebody what your story is about. then take that answer and shape that into a blurb
you'll naturally par down your elevator pitch to the core appeal of your story when forced to say it outloud to someone else

>>24583381
Fucking everything is only "listing information", if you want to deliberately misunderstand that point.

>>24583394
tard

>>24583403
You spent 10 minutes thinking about that?

>>24583330
>Doesn't matter what is requested, there's always that guy going "check out my work, it might be want you want".
Sounds just like here with a certain gigasperg

>come up with a really great extended metaphor
>it's literary
>it's comedic
>it's about love
>the kind of thing twitter tards would quote with cursive typography over a picture of a sunset
>dont write it down
>get distracted
>completely forget it
>shit.
>remember I came up with it while listening to a song, but I cant remember what song
>listening to my recent playlists and nothing jogs my memory
>days pass
>come across the song
>cant remember my idea, exactly
>a day later, thinking about the song, and it comes back to me, exactly as before
I think I just invented the opposite of déjà-vu.

>>24583330
Maybe I wasn't clear enough but I'm not making a point about self-shilling in a general sense. I'm talking about writers who don't understand what a blurb is for and end up writing a worldbuilding wiki entry or marketing copy (sometimes both) for it

>>24583363
I'm not complaining about the "WHAT TO EXPECT" meta. Like you suggest, I think/agree it fits the needs of the web serial scene
Paragraph 2 of your example is a common mistake for sure. Worldbuilders often have an overinflated view of how important/appealing their worldbuilding is from a pick-me-up-and-read-me standpoint.

>>24583372
maybe it's miscommunication on my part
hopefully we can still get some interesting discussion/rants/advice out of it
I'm still not sure if anons understand my point about the hard selling. To clarify, it's when the author has written stuff they wish someone else had written about them and beyond just misunderstanding the assignment, I think it shows a general lack of self-awareness to claim your own story is "riveting" or "entrancing" etc

>>24583381
that's a good tip but most midwit authors will think their story is too complex to elevator pitch
or they end up with a vague elevator pitch because their original conception is vague and reliant on "stuff" happening in their worldbuilding sandbox playground

>>24583462
anon that's called remembering. sane people call that remembering
start writing your shit down immediately

>>24583477
nah you make sense
>I think it shows a general lack of self-awareness to claim your own story is "riveting" or "entrancing"
I get what you mean I just didn't address it. blurbs that are informed by the promotional voice right? haven't seen it much desu
I think the tasteful version of this is reader/review quotes. I could see tiring of it if it becomes a trend but knowing that someone out there said [XYZ quirky thing] about the story adds a human element that's charming. similar to promoting with critic quotes and excerpts of 'rave reviews'

>>24583481
I'm going to call it vudu-déjà. I won't copyright it, though. So I expect you to start using it.

>>24583514
He vududeja'd that shit

it's been nearly a whole day and i havent started my NEW series. i think im going to need ideaguys to carry me

>>24583584
foreskin restoration progression fantasy/litrpg (with System©)

>>24583293
Who was it, moderator John. Yeah, that dude does not fucking play.

>>24583596
This faglord mod has been known to delete a lot of stories for arbitrary reasons, and if you send any tickets contesting his decision he takes it for a personal attack and reacts with even more bias https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/royalroad-aka-censorship-road.21214/

>>24583595
Gaping Meatus Demon Venerable is no match for Sensitive Glans Immortal Venerable

>>24583610
>this is the average scribblehub thread

>>24583610
>this is the average scribblehub thread
Glad these chuds got booted out of RR

>>24583619
Gonna pick this guy's story up now, I love female knight getting raped storylines.

Has anyone else gotten a spam DM on royal road lately? I'm not really sure if it's spam but it kinda sounds like it. They're asking to have a creative conversation with me.

>>24583644
We should have a creative conversation right now instead.

>>24583644
>>24583647
yea give me ideas
>>24583584

>>24583610
>dude tries to submit AI-generated cover of an anime girl with ginormous tits in a skintight suit
>gets rejected
>spends weeks arguing with the moderators and people online that you're just projecting if you think the image is in any way sexual
He'd have half a million word-backlog, if he spent that time typing his story instead.

>>24583584
I got 35k words into my new project in the past two weeks, but I still feel I'm not making any real progress

>>24583655
i think there should be a hot girl with big boobs

>>24583655
i think there should be a hot girl with a big cock

>>24583660
That's amazing progress even if it's "just" an early unedited draft

>>24583584
Make the ULTIMATE 2000s fedoracore story
>MC pricks himself on a cursed skull ring at the mall
>this seals a contract and he can now see THE MIRROR WORLD
>has to war against other ring holders, possessed people and demons
>each time he loses or doesn't fight a random aspect of his life gets [severed] i.e ceases to exist, such as his sister never having been born or his crush having moved away 4 years ago etc
>Angst, Dusters, Katanas, nuMetal
Also when you transform the ring becomes a half-mask and your cloak bursts alight.

>>24583675
American GARO?

>>24583672
It really is a rough draft. I just squeezed the words out by force, though my brain's melting from the heat. Well, the future me will fix it

>>24583689
>squeezed the words out by force
being capable of that (without self-censoring and editing while you write) puts you ahead of a lot of people already
keep going anon

>>24583686
Basically a blend of GARO, [C] — The my money of soul and possibility, Geist: The Sin-Eaters, Kamen Rider Ryuki and a bunch of assorted ideas, ye.
The idea is basically that the edge fuels the Angst.

>>24583619
How the fuck did Path of Ascension with its teenage drunk promiscuity not get banned but this did?

>>24583766
Popularity.

>>24583766
wtf are you talking about? There's no promiscuity in PoA. It's about as mainstream vanilla as you can get.

>>24583261
12 hours. and i had to get verified for crossposting
you might just be retarded

>>24583660
>>24583689
You are literally me, anon, though I'm currently sitting only on 28k. I'm coming up on that climactic fight scene I envisioned for this arc, and the main reason I even started writing this junk. I dread the revisions, though. I already noticed there's a major problem with what I wrote, since I only explored one single plot throughout the arc, which is my isekai'd protagonist learning the local magic system to build a portal back home (which is a surprisingly rare motivation for most isekai protagonists for some reason). But there's a whole other aspect of the story I wanted to explore, with the drama of taking over somebody else's body, and having to pretend you're someone else, and the fear of discovery and so on, but somehow I just kinda forgot all about it and most of my scenes just move the A plot forward.

>>24583778
You clearly didn't read the WN, then, because there is literally a scene where MC and his LI meet each other after having one-night stands with strangers.

>>24582040 (OP)
Why do people pay for adverts if their shit doesn't even have a name?

>>24583797
High IQ marketing strategy.

>>24583797
>what's with this weird ad?
>paid attention to it, posted about it on a forum
it worked

>>24583171
Because there is already unlimited amounts of basic genre fiction available as cheap paperbacks. There's a lot less interest in reading an amateur's unedited attempt at something you can find 100 examples of at the local walmart book section. The popular webslop genres are things that don't exist outside of webslop.

>>24583837
Now you just know somewhere in the internet there is an ad of an unnamed fantasy novel, not the actual novel not the link to it, just that it is the ad of an unnamed fantasy novel

>>24583462
>I think I just invented the opposite of déjà-vu.
jamais vu

If you buy an ad and don't get the promised 200k clicks or whatever, do you pay the full $66?

>>24583788
>I'm coming up on that climactic fight scene I envisioned for this arc
Cool, you've managed to come up with a proper arc. I'm not even done introducing the cast yet

>>24583797
Some people simply have too much money and don't know what to do with it

>>24583905
You pay the goy tax, yes

>>24583905
>the promised clicks
what? ads only promise X views. how could they promise that your shitty unappealing ad gets X clicks?

>>24583931
Damn I might actually be retarded

>>24583644
>Has anyone else gotten a spam DM on royal road lately? I'm not really sure if it's spam but it kinda sounds like it. They're asking to have a creative conversation with me.
Step one.
anon, you need to join *this* web novel site.(RR)
Step two, I agree
Step three? Direct message, morning after posting my first chapter! Loved your first chapter, have ideas!
step four.
I come on here, happy. A reader! Engagement!
step five:
I got asked if it wasn't just a BOT driven artist looking for commissions.
anon was right, I googled the name, artist who does illustrations and covers.
step six.
how familiar does this story sound to you, anon?

>>24583381
>the blurb's purpose is....
here's my example of the blurb.

Meet Merry.

She's on her third life, and really didn't choose it for herself. Buried back in her past, she experienced horrible things that no one should have to know about, much less live through. Right up there on the list? Merry's boyfriend. The love of her life. The man she intended to marry and have children with.

He was murdered right in front of her eyes, killed by corrupt police officers. His blood and guts got blown right into her eyes and mouth, then she had to watch him die right in front of her. Why? Because he was trying to do the right thing. Because he was trying his best to help set things right. Merry learned right then and there. Its true.

No good deed goes unpunished.

His last words to her? Changed her life. Forever.

Time does not, in fact, heal all wounds. Life isn't a greeting card. Ever since that fateful day came to pass? Merry's life took a weird turn. Its sometimes harsh, and almost always very strange.

Its years later now. And while life is most certainly no fairy tale for her, things have settled down. Just when she decides things are finally starting to look up a little, and she can plan on some measure of contentment that normal people get to enjoy? She gets a disturbing bit of very unwelcome news.

The man who shot her fiancee was killed seconds after he did it, but there was a conspiracy to commit his murder. Of two men charged in that conspiracy? One was convicted and went to state prison for years.

She gets the news he's just been released. Early.

Convicted felons like to believe they have a handle on what it means to be dangerous. Some of them, even like to prove it. Some of them think its fun to be the thing that goes bump in the night. The thing is, though. There are other things out there in the night, and some of them can and will bump back.

Merry learned her hard lessons years ago.

There are no rules.

There's just karma.

>>24584015
please tell me this is your illustrative example of a terrible blurb you found somewhere
it can't be yours, surely

>>24583931
>how could they promise that your shitty unappealing ad gets X clicks?
in the wide world of internet advertising pay-per-click is definitely a thing. if nobody clicks your ad keeps getting shown until it spends through the budget. i dunno how common it is compared to pay-per-impression though.

>>24584039
>pay-per-click is definitely a thing
>if nobody clicks your ad keeps getting shown until it spends through the budget
What the fuck are you talking about anon
im not saying ppc doesn't exist but what you just typed is nonsensical.

>>24584067
oh are you saying it'll just keep running for 20 years? huge kek if true

>>24584021
so write me a better one and show me how its done. After my blurb you have a clear idea of the basic background and general nature of the conflict. What would you have proposed, as my editor.

>>24584067
writing thread unable to recognize hyperbole... grim

>>24584127
well the thing is i can see "never getting clicked" not being total hyperbole. some ads are bad enough they surely get ignored. so how does ppc work? they just run it 50x longer than a good ad? kinda bizarre that this is an actual payment model

Well, not even BrandoSando offering ghostwriting services would get 200k CLICKS, so you should understand what you're paying for

>>24584119
an ego check to start

>>24584015
First line is cliche, sets a bad impression. You have a similar premise from the second line onwards as 7th Time Loop but it's a thriller? I feel like I get faked out multiple times, first it's a reincarnator/time looper, then its a murder revenge maybe, oh no it's a conspiracy thriller revenge fic? Just start from the last one, what is actually is going to be. You have how many seconds until someone is bored again? Don't waste those seconds.

>>24584119
I'm not going to just write you a blurb because that's your job but I can give you some detailed and honest feedback. You seem delusional but maybe this will be helpful for the rest of the class (and I can use this as practice to better articulate my thoughts).
You've just given away too much. Too much detail, too much navel gazing, too much narration, too much convolution, too much rambling — before anyone has had a chance to be invested in anything. I'm under the impression that you think a reader will simply care more because you're telling them all these big important grisly graphic philosophical things but you've front-loaded stuff that works better when slowly teased out as part of a narrative, not in a synopsis and certainly not a blurb.
You could reduce this down to mentioning her dead boyfriend's killer dying on the scene —maybe this robs her of some satisfaction which signposts her vindictiveness— but there's still a loose end when an accomplice is released from prison.
You seem to be hinting at the driving action of the story being her taking revenge? Vigilante-style with violence?Mention that with less navel-gazing. The blurb isn't a manifesto.
It might be helpful to tie that into who your protagonist is and why she's equipped to pull it off (or maybe she isn't and she needs to apply her "toughness" acquired from whatever life event to performing a manhunt). You've been extremely vague with your "hey-she's-totally-a-world-weary-badass" schtick which can be executed with more finesse. Why is she tough? You say she was ready to settle down and have a family with her dead boyfriend which, especially in genre fiction, isn't a clear signpost for a character being capable of or driven by violence. If she's an ex-soldier or something, that can mentioned in as simple terms as her once being ready to put that soldier life behind her for him/a future together. That's already more emotionally and narratively compelling than your vague navel-gazing, especially if you call back to it later in the blurb about her tapping back into a side of herself she thought she had buried or whatever.

>>24582040 (OP)
Got my first scammer.

>>24584348
Am I an idiot? why is this a scam

>>24584348
I just turned off my direct messages in settings.
Captcha: KYSXY

>>24584420
>user has no messages
>account was created a few days ago before the message
>messanger was sent 2 minutes after I posted recent chapter
>tell them "sure, but I have no money for you", immediately silence
I presume they were going to give something AI generated, and charge 10,000 pesos for it.
Either way, key thing is, they want your email or Discord, despite fact they could share those "covert art ideas" on RR.
I'm not sure what scammer will do with Discord, but giving them email goes straight to someone's target list.

The leap to the first draft was successful bros, ill post the chapter in a rentry when I finish the chapter and guess it cursory edits later.

>>24583675
Dude asked for an idea guy not the fucking idea emperor holy shit. If he doesn't write this I fucking will.

>>24583675
Okay i will dwell on it

I “all-fields’d” another thread and it keeps auto filling my alias now. Forgive me

>>24583675
>>24584650
so i won't be taking this idea, but i've instead used it a whetstone to hone the EDGE of my own. thanks ideaguy

>>24584658
sage only goes in the options field. putting it into the name field as well to show your digust is unfortunately bannable.

>>24584756
All fields, the way of tradition

>>24584756
I always thought of the "all fields" as being newfag bait, when I want to show my disdain for OP I put something like "wise sage" or "elder sage".

I need an "aesthetic" for my web novel
know what I mean? I'm lacking a vibe

>>24584772
Make it like berserk like dark and gritty and suffering core!

>>24584772
50's style retro-futurism.

>>24584772
Memphis Group Mallcore

>>24584770
It might be intended that way and theres the millions of discussions of why you don't announce sage and they are right in a sense but its exactly good at showing disdain.

>>24584763
i know but tradition has been bannable for a very long time. most mods don't enforce it but they can and do sometimes. i found this out the hard way.

>>24584770
i don't really remember but i learned the saying in 2006 when i was a newfag. i don't think it became bannable until like a decade or so ago. i could have sworn that when you saged in the ancient times it auto announced "Sage!" in red text in the name field.

>>24584772
Frutiger Aeropunk

>>24584783
>>24584819
https://cari.institute/aesthetics/global-village-coffeehouse
This one is important to me, i hope it brings inspiration. Or makes you feel some type of way

I'm addicted to refreshing the stats dashboard even though the views don't even go up...

>>24584869
same but with /lit/

>>24584833
Thanks for sharing this, got an instant flood of memories

Idea guys I need your help. I need ways for my silly suicidal protagonist to try to kill himself and fail. So far I've had him jump in front of a truck, go skydiving and try to "eat lead" (literally) but I am running out of ideas. I was thinking perhaps a dumb scenario where he lays on train tracks and someone pulls the rail switching lever like a real life trolley problem but that's as far as I've got.

What are some ridiculous ways an idiot could try to commit sudoku?

>>24584885
If its meant to be silly or prove some thematic point im not sure the realism of it matters, have him try to eat until he explodes but he shits out faster than he can make himself eat.

>>24584885
toaster in bathtub
fork in power socket
repeatedly trying to slip on banana peel
dunno watch some old cartoons like tom and jerry for inspo

>>24584885
Try to assassinate the president on live television.
create a bloody revolution.
Kill as many people as possible.
make himself as hated as possible so some hater kills him.
get into a sex trafficking ring and leak it to the news but make it as obvious as possible he did it so he dies by suicide with 8 shots to the back of the head

>>24584779
Don't, I did that already.

>>24584885
Overdosing on non-lethal drugs

>>24584890
I thought of something stupid like this. Perhaps he was too broke to afford lots of food so he goes to a hotdog contest because it's free but he fucking wins and doesn't die.

>>24584894
Done a fork in the socket already. Toaster is a good shout. As for the banana peel I have some plans with one, it's going to be looney tunes as fuck.

>>24584899
A bit too dark for my comedy story. I was thinking about him volunteering and going to a war zone but for some reason he's invincible. Not sure if I'll go with it though.

>>24584903
Death by flintstones vitamin gummies.

>>24584869
I still check my dashboard even if it's been a month after completion of my short story. Recently passed 1k views.

>>24584869
The numbers have never gone up faster than after I stopped giving a shit altogether

>>24584905
>Death by flintstones vitamin gummies.
This but instead of ODing it makes him jacked so it's even harder for him to kill himself

Kino-Man here. Apologies, but no chapter today. I was forced to work on Saturday and Sunday, too, plus the chapter ended up being over 4,000 words.

>day 4 of comic con
>0 sales
Gentleman, I have confirmed that the public is illiterate, and poor. At least I'm doing well on Royal Road.

>>24585155
Feels bad man. You sounded quite happy a few days ago. Hope it turns alright, but it's quite the bummer.

>>24585155
It can't be helped.

>>24582118
you can buy reviews anon

>>24585247
retard

i will give 5 (yous) to anyone who gives me a good review

>>24585285
just dropped 0.5 rating on (you)r fiction

>running out of things to write
>start writing random perverted shit
Welp.

>>24585333
post

i will NOT give you a (you) for a 0.5

>>24583675
you should write it yourself. this shit would make 13 year old me kneel and quote this book on myspace

>>24583675
This post is some genie in a bottle kinda shit, why can't I receive answers like these

>>24585155
You were expecting it to go differently? Unknown authors never sell at cons, especially one like CC.

>>24585399
I don't have the money to buy every volume of my favorite author, let alone a afford a trip to a con. Webnovel fanbase is not as physically invested as, say, manga ones

What is the maximum proportion of navel-gazing (PoV character explaining what happened during some period of time, planning, theorizing about what's going on in the plot, and giving exposition about stuff directly) allowed before the story becomes unreadable?

>>24585155
Unless you're Wildbow selling a Tattletale bodypillow, I'm not buying your webnovel merch my guy.

>>24585410
the authors who went to litrpg con said they should've brought more books because they all sold out by a lot
dont underestimate nerd tard power

>>24585421
you mean apgte Indrani or Akua

>>24585436
Your waifu taste is trash.

>>24585443
Wrong

>>24582040 (OP)
At what point should I consider giving up?

>>24585172
It's alright, I'm still having fun and handing out business cards. Just thought I'd get at least a couple sales from random curious people. I'll have better marketing materials next year.

>>24585214
Da yo ne...

>>24585399
Yeah, literally zero sales is a bit unexpected.

>>24585421
My fault for having a male protagonist. My next story will be a romantasy love triangle enemies to lovers with dragons. I'll sell dozens of copies.

>>24582052
Alright, I did about 600 words of editing. Not bad, could be worse, but part of me thinks I should just drop it and get another dozen skeletal drafts ready

>>24585155
having been to a con before, this doesn't surprise me at all. I didn't want to say anything as to pointlessly discourage you before
have you ever attened a convention before? I don't think I'd even consider looking at some dude's novel and I doubt you would either. maybe if it were a famous author I'd think about ir

>>24585447
3 months

>>24585461
I go to sdcc every year, and I'm a big reader so I check out literally everything. I just didn't realize how unlike everyone else I am. Also I'm not shilling nearly as hard as I could be. Tomorrow I will ganbaru harder.

Also Matt Dinniman is here but I shan't be seeing him. DCC is huge, tons of people here are reading it or caught up.

>>24585478
>undeterred
based
ganbatte!

>>24585447
if you dont get on rs after the first 6 weeks

>>24585394
The board is only useful during 4 2 hour windows per day.