Thread 24665064

Monster Girl Season Continues

Previously on Monster Girl Z >>24658890

>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: Royal Road, 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 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!

##READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE ASKING FOR HELP##

Running your story like the business it is:
www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/116847

On writing web serials:
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

Recommended web novels
rentry.co/d2yvczro

Anon's guide to success
rentry.co/RRBasicGuide

FAQ
rentry.co/pytefpxn

I've written 1600 words in the past 23 days, it's not over yet bros

Some crabs volunteer to go in the bucket.

i'm not sure if the guy got my last message, so here it is again:
thanks for reading the slop I shilled here, I really appreciate it.

For anons who've run ad campaigns, what are dos and don'ts for designing ads?

Finished Iliad, now I can finally dive into all the webnovels I've been putting off bingeing.

>>24665506
>Finished Iliad
Now its time for the Histories...

>>24665610
I'm starting Odyssey next after reading some of anon's works. Then it's some 20th-century stuff. I'm not sure I will read any other Greek stuff at the moment.

all this prep for virtuous sons or other slop feels kinda like reading kierkegaard to prepare for reading horton hears a who

>>24665680
These indiscriminate readers register absolutely nothing that passes in front of their eyes.

>>24665680
Gaygarden wished to explore the complexity of an infinite regressor.

>followers randomly jump from 270 to 300 in a couple of days
Guess someone somewhere finally mentioned my work. I would've been hyped as fuck some years ago, but in the current climate I can't call the numbers anything but sad. Kinda funny how views that would put you on top of every chart on honeyfeed are like barely above bottom rung on RR.

Royal Road stat numbers

>>24665946
How long have you been posting your story?

>>24665970
6% completed? That's a lot more than I thought.

>>24665980
Too long to have any hope of hitting RS anymore

>>24665970
>monhth
>liscensing

Have you all started writing your "My max lvl character got stuck in a game and also I'm like really stoic" fics now that meta is confirmed to still have staying power

anyone else is joining this? a few anons from the isekai /a/ thread got accepted

>>24666126
>Fresh Start as a Level Cap Arch-Sorceror
>Rebirth as a Skill Ceiling Arch-Shaman
>I Was Reincarnated When I Died To The Last Boss, Now I Am The Secret Post Game Boss Lich
>Resurrection as the Server's Top Ranked Arch-Warlock
there are already a few in the drafting stage

>>24665613
>after reading some of anon's works
whomst?

Just finished reading Lord of the Mysteries... Genuinely, what the fuck was that? There's literally no ending. Okay, some might frame it as "MC nobly sacrifices much for the sake of X", but...
1) It's been spelled out that it literally does not matter whether MC or his enemy wins. Both MC or last volume antagonist can be saviors against apocalypse, so that was fuckin' pointless. He saves zero lives.
2) MC does not even win against his enemy, he just steals his fashion and makes him retreat for a bit, so that was pointless.
Honestly, if the story ended at Volume 1, it would be more satisfying than Volume 8's "no ending" ending clusterfuck. At least MC sacrificed himself for the sake of saving a city, and successfully prevented evil god's descent back then.
>but the next series
Next series is about literallywho. You DON'T start "Next Generation"-type sequel without properly concluding the original series.
Author's previous work, Throne of Magical Arcana, had a such an epic ending, it was very satisfying. Never expected to be unpleasantly surprised with his newer novels, especially considering people praised LotM as "better" than ToMA.

>>24666139
I planned to, but had no fitting ideas for it.

Started to write a story where the MC's former high school friend dies in shady circumstances. Then an evil god (who's not really evil) from another world offers to help MC become a necromancer and revive the dead friend if the MC helps the evil god return to rule his original world. But there are already a billion necromancer isekais out there, so I gave up on it.

Before that, I was working on an idea where the protagonist is a native of the fantasy land, who meets the isekai'd hero. It's never directly mentioned the character was isekai'd and I wanted to show how absurd the asspull superpowers would seem from ordinary people's pov without any context. But that didn't fit the requirements (MC's roots should be established in reality).

I had another older idea about private military companies going through teleportals to farm dungeons in another world. But the style and prose were too grimdark and violent for the tone of the contest.

There was another old draft too which I thought about reworking for this, but it was too long for the contest. (They want a clear ending within max 80k words).
Slopping is hard.

>>24666219
tbqh with you senpai none of those premises hooked me, eastoid webnovel seems to focus on gimmick to catch the readers early on while everything else is secondary.

>>24666247
Would be weird if they somehow hooked you when I avoided technically telling you anything. This isn't a plot takeaway service.

>>24666139
>honeyfeed
will this be the next serious battleground? looks much more polished than RR

>>24666265
The site looks fucking ugly to me. It's nice there's less autism about rankings and works only have likes instead of ratings, but even the top-rankers' view counts are sad compared to RR's trending fictions

>>24666289
it isn't my style of /gd/ either but it actually looks designed with a consistent design language rather than cobbled together like RR
>view counts are sad
is it a new site?

>>24666306
I recall coming across it at least 3-4 years ago, so it's definitely not new. Some works have almost 800 chapters posted since 2022 and barely 60-70k views. Ouch.

>>24666151
Right now catching up on Zucchini. May or may not give the Rabbit one a try but it may too long for me to break the ice for now.

>>24666289
it has a connection to the Japanese which automatically lends an air of legitimacy

>>24666126
I wonder if this would even have done well without hordes of archmage fans flocking to it for another dose of crack cocaine

>>24666352
I am forgotten..

>https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/124656/myth-of-resonance/chapter/2432381/chapter-1-a-world-of-choices
This is AI writing, right?
It got 1000 followers on RR. I think the end really is nigh, anons

>>24666421
What makes you think it's AI? It's not tagged as such. Before you mention — that's not a perfect indicator. I'm not nearly as good as AI and I use them semi-frequently.

>>24666421
Nonsense. It's simply a masterpiece

>>24666434
i found it on a reddit post
the author says it's their very first story and they're a new writer
the prose obviously has a certain polish to it, with very strong economy of words that you only find in semipro+ writing
the writing is very sterile and unnecessarily flowery, using strange/punchy imagery constantly
>Invia saw what others couldn't—the tragic beauty of control in a world spinning toward chaos.
>The woman moved like she was performing for an audience, each flourish begging for applause.
>Her partner fought with the mechanical precision of someone who'd learned swordplay from a manual, never understanding that perfection without instinct was just another form of death.
Those are really obviously AI metaphors in my opinion?

I could see it being written first-draft by a human and completely rewritten by an AI. but there's no way this is human writing from a new author.

it's so fucking over anons

>>24666455
the only good news is that it has 1000 followers and only 36$ a month on Patreon. One of the worst conversions I've ever seen

>>24666459
>1000 followers and only 36$ a month on Patreon
>3 cents per follower
>Archmage was 10000 followers and like 20,000$
>2$ per follower
Jesus christ can someone explain what that story did???

>>24666483
pandering

>>24666483
bots, of course

>>24666421
>Actual AI slop mogging every author in /wng/
That's rough bud

>>24666139
Just found out from your post, I have an idea that may be fitting on my list, maybe I'll give it a shot. 1k wordschapters is very achieable to me.
The deadline though...

>>24666139
damn, so there's gonna be a FFF-CLASS UNLUCKY ANTAGONIST illustrated light novel, manga, anime, mobile gacha game and Netflix adaptation coming soon?

>>24666653
Soon Elf-Gf will be cosplayed.

>>24665064 (OP)
Thanks for the anon who commented on my shit despite a long hiatus. It gives me the motivation to keep going.

>>24666455
Fair points. But I'd need to see a more concrete AI-ism before I went complaining to the mods about it needing the AI tag.

>it's so fucking over anons
Nah, his premise is still boring, and even if his prose is polished I'm just uninterested in yet another system apocalypse underpowered but actually strongest skill MC story. And the blatant signaling of cultivation bullshit without a fantasy china setting turns me off even harder: at least adjust the system to the setting like 1% Lifesteal did.

My "over" gauge is permanently broken by Sorcery Staccato's Archmage story anyway.

>>24666706
>Fair points. But I'd need to see a more concrete AI-ism before I went complaining to the mods about it needing the AI tag.
I would never go to the mods, I don't care nearly enough to do that
But those strange metaphors are all the proof I need basically? Aren't those super strange?
Plus how he admits to this being his first story. For all that I hate the writing, it uses phenomenal, varied word choice and has great punchiness and word economy...that literally doesn't happen with new authors lol. I know what beginner tier prose looks like, no matter how talented...don't you?

It's just terrifying to see AI being good enough to attract large audiences on royalroad and nobody seems to recognize/care

>>24666730
we're living in an era where some people have AI boyfriends/girlfriends and will get tearfully upset if the underlying LLM is altered

>>24666751
so is it really ogre for authors?

>>24666730
Maybe, but it IS possible he's just a good writer. Unlikely, but I'd have to see a sample of his writing outside the story to be sure. I'm willing to be generous with benefit of the doubt.

>It's just terrifying to see AI being good enough to attract large audiences on royalroad and nobody seems to recognize/care
I don't think it's ATTRACTING, so much as it is helping him retain readers. He's probably running an ad or two. As for the quality, it's the same thing with any other automation that produces standard, high quality goods, like nail factories or car assembly lines. Consumers don't care about hand-crafted goods; they only care about quality and utility and price. It's probably going to get worse as AI improves and consumers get used to it.

Compared to my story, he's got about three times as many average views as me, and three times the followers. My guess is that he's got a similar number of views on his first chapter as me, but his retention is much much stronger. I've got an first-chapter-view to follower ratio of about 8:1. It's not great. I didn't follow the precepts. And I lose over half of readers after the first chapter. So I still see it as possible he just played the game better than me, if unlikely his prose is just naturally that way.

>>24666219
>I had another older idea about private military companies going through teleportals to farm dungeons in another world. But the style and prose were too grimdark and violent for the tone of the contest.
this sounds cool to me

>>24666730
Let's be honest. Plenty of successful writers have done nothing creative except copy ideas from other people's work. That is all LLM is doing. Only a few great authors have originality.

>>24666637
are patreon subscribers botted?

I can't stand how so many authors are using obvious AI purple prose, metaphor- and simile-dumping, overlong and unnecessary descriptions, and then, all the reviews are creaming over the writing.

Are the reviews also AI/botted/fakes, or is the average reader an actual imbecile?

>>24666770
To add to this, I didn't see that it made rising stars. That totally explains the disparity to me: he got a significant bump from being on RS.
Following the precepts is more important than most realize...

>>24666793
>Are the reviews also AI/botted/fakes, or is the average reader an actual imbecile?
Yes.

>>24666730
>Plus how he admits to this being his first story. For all that I hate the writing, it uses phenomenal, varied word choice and has great punchiness and word economy...that literally doesn't happen with new authors lol. I know what beginner tier prose looks like, no matter how talented...don't you?
I don't think he's that good? Like, for RR slop, maybe, but it's not great prose or anything.

>>24666803
Check the first chapter. It's a step above most first novels on RR that get carried hard by premise and lack polish. The grammar is basically immaculate, for one, and even The Order's authors often have typos in their releases.

>>24666793
> is the average reader an actual imbecile?
Obviously yes. The vast majority of readers simply don't care as long as they get a story they want to read.

>>24666814
How can you want to read a convoluted mess of metaphors? Surely if they are plotfags, they would rather the author get to the point.

>>24666803
>but it's not great prose or anything.
it's terrible prose.
but extremely varied word choice, perfect grammar, and great economy of words. that simply isn't seen in new authors.

>>24666421
it doesnt read like ai to me, not this first chapter at least

>>24666835
it doesn't read like the turbo obvious chatgpt "It's not just X--it's Y".
but seriously the first few paragraphs use three weirdly "fake-poetic" metaphors that i pointed out in >>24666455
who does that? Only chatbots from what I've seen.

beginner prose did not look like this 5 years ago...

>>24666830
What's your standard for prose quality? I'm genuinely curious. I kinda go on vibes at the moment.

>>24666823
A certain kind of consumer likes it because it makes them feel cultured, like they're not reading webnovelslop. It's probably solidly in the midwit range if I had to guess, maybe overlapping with people who want to like foreign webnovels but can't stand MTL. I can think of one person I know IRL who loves BrandoSando who would turn his nose up at most web novels, but might actually enjoy Myth of Resonance. The veneer and illusion of a story would be enough to satisfy him.

>>24666421
if i had to guess, if it’s not AI, then the author is a fervent consumer of 1920’s-40’s era pulp fiction, particularly Weird Tales. i’ve only seen weirdly poetic yet straightforward metaphors in pulp short stories from that era

prose is a buzzword at this point

Are there any good webnovels without sci-fi or fantasy elements? I don’t want to read crap for retarded babies.

>>24666843
i mean i guess it could be assisted i don't have arguments against it you know what i mean? but that doesn't sound like chatgpt to me so much as it sounds like typical mainstream female style like something you'd read in Caraval or something. of course the ai would be drawing from examples like that. the declarativeness overall in the chapter and its short paragraph style seems typical of RR

>>24666844
>MTL
I've only read one MTL fiction. The translation, grammar, and word choice were utter shit. I don't understand; why don't MTL'ers use chatgpt? Surely it would produce something more readable...

>>24666862
Then look elsewhere, webnovels are for genre fiction. There are a few sports progression stories I've seen but I have no if they are any good.

>>24666861
it just means the writing separated from the plot, character, setting, and other higher order concepts. i don't see how that's a buzzword. it has a clear meaning and is very useful when discussing writing

>>24666877
>prose bad
>no, prose good
riveting discussions

>>24666884
sorry that our conversations are flying over your head lol
its ok retard anons are kinda cute

>>24666867
I reckon most do at this point, but when I was reading MTL years ago it was before chatgpt, and google translate was the best you could do. In addition, it was often ESLs doing the MTL in the first place, throwing it up on some blog to make adsense revenue.

I haven't read an MTL since The Great Cleric back in like 2020-21. Luckily most stuff has official translations at this point (for japanese LNs).

>>24666139
I was going to, but there were a few problems. I don't think I'd be able to pump out a full light novel in time to not just dump all the chapters at once, which is something they discourage. Their discord was also much more insular and circlejerky than even I'd expected.
I'm just going to do the immersive ink thing with the outline I made, see if it gets any success, and then port over to Tapas when I get real art done in the future.

>https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/1myzszp/royal_road_has_gone_to_shit/
o man they're mad about the evo girls

>>24665211
Thank you for shilling the slop anon, I've been enjoying it.

I am 'A', 'Void Lan Zero', 'TTk' and like 30 other names i got on the internet but I usually go by 'A'

I am kinda a big science addict who was dumb enough to not know that not everyone has extreme hyperphansia.

Anyways as i am still a newbie author with little to no experience at all, i can write but its hard to perfectly make my writing readable like in my mind i image like

"prota (protagonist) Swinging his sword at r/12 rad with the 11259 newtowns Targeted on the demons neck while your protas hair flows as the reflection of the light bouncing off the sword covered with blood."

But I can't like no one wants to get reminded about newtons while reading a fantasy novel and pretty sure many people don't even know about radian measures system so idk how.

Thats all ig

Here is a character i made, feel free to judge

```[Name]: Versa Elrod

[Role in the story]: Mother of The Mc and the Empress of Xaoc

[Title(s)]: The Cold Blooded Empress of Xaoc, The Witch of the Night Chaos, The Blade Of The Divinity of War and 18 more local titles

[Personality according to locals]: The Cold blooded empress of Xaoc who is rumoured to be deprived of empathy as her cold fort in the public eye never slips with a face blanker than the emptiness of the void.

[Actual Personality]: A mother who loves family way too much, she doesn’t like when a close family member speaks to her or another close family member too formally as she says “It does not feel normal If a close family member talks to another close family member like that”. She loves dragons and dogs too much but she hates any feline creatures. There is more to her but you have to read to find out.

[Appearance]: She has dark black hair with crimson eyes, her face has a small nearly faded scar below her eye. She usually wears traditional royal clothing with the primary colour white, secondary black with gold at the edges. She is 177.80 cm (5’10 feet) tall.

[Species]: Divinity (Divine power type: Control, Attributed Concept: Massacre.)

[Backstory]: The author said no spoiling "```

>>24666918
I'm stuck in Naraka, Lord Yama has a grip on my soul because I didn't follow the precepts.
Both the forums and discords are banning ill talk about it, so they've been spilling on reddit and /here/, needless to say that it's controversial.

>>24666918
they're right though

being mad, as a reader, that evo girls are flooding rising stars is like being mad that too much piss is getting in the shit bucket

I feel like they should ban anyone who gives nothing but 5* reviews.

>>24666247
>eastoid webnovel seems to focus on gimmick to catch the readers early on while everything else is secondary.
that description covers the majority of the westoid litrpg slop on rising stars as well.

>>24666966
I feel like RR mods are just open about wanting the site to be a hugbox. Low ratings and negative reviews get removed at the drop of a hat, AI reviews get left up, you can leave a five star review after opening the first chapter for a few seconds.

Now that my growth has flatlined and my ego is crushed I totally understand. If I got a one star review right now I'd be fucked up all day.

>>24666483
simply Write Good and remember to fanservice it up with all the popular Tropes (tm)

>>24666862
there's capeslop.and uhh
re trailer trash i think? that's it

>>24666987
trailer trash is time travel. cape slop is literally super powers. what do you think sci fi and fantasy means?? web novel readers are something else

>>24666979
Nah, there's plenty of toxicity going around, but I think the mods only really act when it concerns covering authors. I can't blame them, monetarly speaking, you don't want your site to be shitting on the people making the content you're trying to sell.

But as someone who actually tries to be polite, the thin veiled politeness hiding the sheer venom underneath really gets me. I've only seen a few bits on the forums and discord and yet you can feel the sheer disdain emanating from some posts.

>>24667003
>I've only seen a few bits on the forums and discord and yet you can feel the sheer disdain emanating from some posts.
If I had to deal with RR discord/forum retards all of my posts would probably be dripping with disdain too
but im (partially) sane so i just don't go there tbf

>>24666998
>cape slop is literally super powers
So? super powers are not scifi nor fantasy, which is what you asked for.

You didn't specify any more details so I'm not sure whether you want serialized literary fiction (lol) or you just wanted present day thiller/mysteryslop or some other non SFF genre fiction category.

>>24666862
it sounds like you want sports or mystery. I don't know about mystery but there are sports novels.

>10 (later 11) authors on The Order discord get together and agree to coordinate the launches of "X Girl Evolution" fics on the basis of "haha wouldn't it be funny if RS top 10 was all the same gimmick"
>this works
>it works really well
>inevitably, they start getting backlash from people who see this behavior as unacceptable, manipulation, etc
>official RR forum and various discords start banning people for shitting on the girlevo novels and their authors
>the authors in question start kvetching in author's notes and discords as if they couldn't have possibly seen this coming
they're whining about some guy called Aiden and accusing him of coordinating attacks, sasuga projection

even randos seeing this and deciding it's bad aside, did they really think the authors they pushed off of RS and those authors' fans would just smile and take it laying down?

>>24667017
what the fuck do you think fantasy means?

>>24667031
the fact of the matter is that new authors are conditioned to think of RS as sort of a binary thing, either you get it and you're "in" or you don't get it and you'd better just scrap your shit & start again

which means people see it as their meal ticket

>>24667042
fantasy means tolkein wannabe authors. if there aint wizards and elves it's not fantasy. simple as

>>24667031
>they're whining about some guy called Aiden and accusing him of coordinating attacks, sasuga projection
leaking Order drama is rat behavior akaso anon
i can do it because im a true anon but there's no way there's a third Order member here

>>24667031
>>24667050
Honestly I have to take the Order's side in everything. Nobody's entitled to a spot on RS. There probably is some dork going after them.

>>24667059
Aiden is a pretty funny character. There's some anons here who would flock to his banner probably. He champions turning royalroad into a more "mainstream genre fiction" website. His whole schtick is writing what he calls "off meta" meaning like, sword and sorcery or trad style fantasy. he has frequent spergouts about how litrpg is awful and real fantasy is better
He has his own discord Cabal called Hidden Gems and is at odds with the Order (because the order is obviously the authors who play meta, and he's "off meta")
the whole thing is so fucking stupid but its hilarious as an outsider. personally, i just write and ignore the noise

>>24667066
>He has his own discord Cabal called Hidden Gems and is at odds with the Order (because the order is obviously the authors who play meta, and he's "off meta")
I think I saw some people talking about him getting banned recently in Immersive Ink, now I understand a little of what went on.

>>24667066
i thought he just wanted to help traditional fantasy people out. Made me sad to realize he was attacking other authors and their works. People should get along.
I felt bad withdraw the shoutout and he didn't even respond when I asked him to remove my work, but he did do it and replaced it with a picture of an axe in a stump. Like damn is it really that serious? Just put someone else's work there.

>>24667050
Don't toss this at me. I know of at least two others who lurk and post here who are in TO.

I've already said my piece on the sperging about the evogirls - if it's not good it will fall off RS on its own. It's not good, but I'm also not surprised that RR RS readers, titans of intellect who can't into multiPOV, wouldn't look deeper into the girlevo novels and instead just sperg out about muh ai spam

It's funny to me how single name boogeymen are so prevalent even off site.
>Eric
>Barry
>Aiden
>>24667031
'No, no, you don't get it. This is all just a joke and you aren't allowed to be mad we manipulated the system. Stop voicing your frustrations or I'll get my mod buddies to silence you.'
-The Order probably

>>24667088
you're telling me this whole thread is infested with Order tards?

>>24667092
We spam your thread, one author said
>Wouldn't it be funny if all posts on /wng/ were by The Order?
And so we did.
/s because some anons can't recognize satire.

>>24667092
It's much less exclusive than you would think. The vetting process is just the minimum.

So when this inevitably happens again what's going to be the excuse from them as to why it's bad this time but okay when they do it?

>>24667095
ngl pretty good post even before the spoiler. Got a laugh outta me.
>>24667096
>just write good
FUCK

>>24667098
Their excuse will be 'It was only 11 spots when we did it, not almost all of them'.

>>24667098
>inevitably
So what group of 60 authors is actually popular enough and not already juggling two or more fictions to do a simultaneous launch and dominate RS? See >>24665976. There's not that many actually good/popular authors on the site. Immersive Ink is the only group with the numbers to make an attempt and their spreadsheet of authors lined up looks weak as fuck.

>>24667098
it's literally always okay. dont complain about more popular stories than yours pushing you off RS. that's exactly what's supposed to happen. if you dont want it to happen, attract more readers.

>>24667123
Pretty sure most of the anons complaining think evo girls are doing well because of collusion, so they think the immersive ink botnet will have exactly the same, if not greater, results lmao

i honestly think the evo girls did WORSE on average than if they'd released alone. subgenre fatigue is a very real thing and evolution sloppers would've happily read one per month, but not 10 in 1 week

are stats (and stat pages) compulsory for litrpg?

>>24667159
stats like str/dex/int/HP or whatever? no, and IMO it's best to avoid explicit numbers. the median slop reader loves number go up though so they want at least skill levels or something.

Reminder that Immersive Ink is also behind a competing platform, Novelizing (Which is still down for maintenance). If their event goes well enough, it could propel it forward.

>>24667147
I think you're right. I'm a big monster/animal girl fag and it's been tough to keep up with them all. I've only read 3.5 of the stories so far even though I want to read all of them.
Now, I might not have heard of all of them without the simultaneous launch. Like Zombie Girl would have been totally overlooked. But maybe if they'd handed it off, releasing a new one as the other fell off RS and they spammed shoutouts and ads, yeah that might have worked.

>>24667173
so it's more of a spectrum? at what point does litrpg stop being litrpg and just becomes regular progression fantasy?

>>24667192
People firmly consider the wandering inn litrpg and it just has levels, classes, and skills. no stats, no numbers (besides level going up).
I would say that's roughly the minimum. there should be at least rare mentions of your [Fighter] class and your [Empowered Strike] skill if you want to call yourself litrpg

>>24667192
>at what point does litrpg stop being litrpg and just becomes regular progression fantasy
It's not exactly a hard line anywhere but at some point litrpg cattle will complain.

Some stories use the tag "gamelit" which is supposed to refer to litrpg like mechanics but with less numberslop? I don't really know the difference and haven't read enough of those books to tell

>>24667159
No but also yes. The RR slopper requires frequent hits of small amounts of dopamine. Watching number go up is one of the easier ways to trigger that rush.

>>24667227
just say mc is getting stronger
faster movement bigger punch crater
introduce a monster and have mc struggle with it, then after a training arc show mc mollywhopping a bigger one of that monster

>>24667181
is this how you build a commercial website these days, by beginning it as a discord?

>>24667181
people have been trying to shit out royalroad/webnovel clones forever. Novelizing looks shitty even for a clone attempt, and the business model makes no sense

>>24667159
I don't like stats. They easily balloon out of proportion and don't really represent anything, just numbers go up autism

>>24667326
Every day we stray further from God.

>>24667212
>>24667227
>>24667380
does the cultivation approach where levels are like going from [Moist Prince] to [Juicy King] still count as litrpg then? even if there aren't +50exp notifications and exact breakdowns of which growths are occurring? or would that be progfan but not litrpg?

>>24666455
It does sound kind of AI-ish but
>no way this his human writing from a new author
Come on now, is it really that hard to believe that there is shrimply more talented people than you?

>>24667392
>[Moist Prince] to [Juicy King]
damn dude hit me up with whatever the fuck you're writing

>>24667392
No, but there are cultivation stories that incorporate litrpg elements like stats and systems.

>>24667392
Do the world power systems explicitly resemble video game RPGs? It's probably a LitRPG

Spider isekai did litrpg the best, unironically. A bit clunky at the start, but just kept it simple. Levels 1-10, each level unlocking something significant, and then skill evolves into something else, if it can. Gave us a baseline of what leveling meant for progression by showing how the inspect skill evolved. No snarky system shit (even if it would have been warranted)

Did you guys knew that FFFanon pays the jannies to be able to spam without consequences?

>>24667467
it's not him spamming, it's his fans

>>24667467
Does he pay double their salary?

>>24667066
>He champions turning royalroad into a more "mainstream genre fiction" website.
You don't say.
Not the worst idea I ever heard.
Bring back *some* regular paperbacks. Make them read like 1980-1990 paperbacks read. People that don't read anymore, will start again. You just have to put it out there for them to notice it.

>>24666730
what first chapter is supposedly AI or is it just a good newbie. I want to read it. Either way? Sounds like the bar I aspire to hit. Where is it.

>>24666455
Hmm.
We were fooling around in one of these generals once, forget which one. The thing was "she arched her back" was a trope for making out. They agreed it couldn't be prettied up much beyond that, once you arch its that trope.
>
I took that as a challenge and produced a long sentence or two that everyone liked. No less than two different anons said they were copying it and using it. Screw it, I dropped it into what i was working on, first chance. Not bragging, I just managed to swing for the seats (if only the one time) and cracked one out of the park. pity I was only at practice, lol.
My point being. It doesn't have to be AI. I'm pretty big on metaphors and stuff.
"in a world spinning towards chaos" sounds to me what I think of as "power words". paperback book blurbs were commonly the whole back cover, and contained these kinds of metaphors. Companies that sell their services to download authors, have big articles out. One on "how to write the book blurb"? Was all these power words and metaphors. In fact... when I write my own book blurbs like these web articles hold classes on? the WN crowd all screams at me how horrible I am at blurbing. I'm not butt hurt, I don't care. Its just the state of things on the ground in the trenches, I suppose.

>>24667540
link is right in this thread weenie:
>>24666421

>>24667540
you aspire to having prose that reads suspiciously AI-like, Tina?

>The Order/Immersive Ink brainstorms another "haha wouldn't it be funny if..." launch collusion master plan but this time, it's in the same subgenre as your already generously backlogged slop that you've been banking on to catapult (You) into web slop superstardom

be honest.

would you partake?

>>24667580
If I knew beforehand, I would be launching a week or two beforehand, be the trailblazer. Otherwise I would be forced to launch or I would seem like I was copying and my growth would falther.
Sounds kinda bad eitheer way, honestly.

>>24667571
>you aspire to having prose that reads suspiciously AI-like, Tina?
First off, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you how nice it is to be recognized. How do you do, anon. In this context? Maybe. I'm curious how the metaphor heavy "power words/power sentences" thing, is considered "good". And, almost too good for a newbie to do so well. Whatever this is, it sounds like people are moderately impressed. AI or human? Sounds like a reference chapter for me. If some kind anon would be so kind as to drop a link to said text first chapter in question. If nothing else you get one more opinion if I think a human newbie could have made it.

>>24667597
okay, now THIS is sigma...

>>24667568
Tina-weenie-anon here.
Thanks.

>>24667568
>link is right in this thread weenie:
Wow, However it got made, I think it reads really smooth. Great first chapter, by any metric. I would think.
Possibilities as I see them:
1) if someone was working on something and it was their *one* project. They could have that level of editing and polish. That's why sometimes a GREAT first album comes out, and the second album isn't nearly as good. The first album? Was years i the polishing and making. One possibility.
2) I admit the -- dashing. Always makes me do a double take. And yes, what little AI I ever generated free just to see the stuff. A *lot* of cool metaphors and vivid descriptions of... stuff that didn't seem to matter.
>
still a good first chapter. Me? I'd have to spend a *lot* of time. polishing and repolishing. To try to get that level of smooth.maybe I editing, I don't know.

I'm damn near certain that shit is AI so these responses are making me depressed. I thought AI was a while away from tricking actual readers but that's clearly not the case

>>24667664
If you're the guy who was pointing it out earlier, I'm kind of surprised at how much pushback you got here. I keep seeing AI being used without disclosure on the usual forums, and RR, more and more. I knew the average reader had low standards, but it's a weird feeling to realize how different our perceptions really are. I can usually tell within a few sentences or just by scanning through for the giveaways. But I see people heaping praise on this stuff. (praise I know is very unlikely to be AI reviews)
Part of what I can't stand about AI writing is that I know the "author" almost certainly lacks a plan or even the good taste to judge when the AI is writing stuff that doesn't matter for a real story. There's a uniform overly focused prose that is unbearable to read. It gives equal attention to characters using the toilet as a romance scene.

>>24667664
depends which one
also AI prose hasn't been bad for a while now
it's very forgetful so bigger issues are with how memory is managed

>>24667664
Not really surprised considering how common using ai covers are.

>>24667691
There was someone, I don't remember if they were from here or if it was just linked here, but they said that AI covers were the slippery slope that opens the AI pandora box.
Got a lot of pushback by what I remember.

what’s the deal with that prose style that rarely uses sentences longer than 7 words, and tend to use adverb after adverb, with an almost staccato like cadence that uses vigorous, punchy words like a Metalstorm fires bullets? this writing style is common in AI, yet i’ve seen it used by non-AI writers before the rise of LLMs. you know it if you’ve seen it.

>>24667467
How about read his book?

>>24667710
Can you share an example?

>>24667710
>what’s the deal with that prose style that rarely uses sentences longer than 7 words, and tend to use adverb after adverb, with an almost staccato like cadence that uses vigorous, punchy words like a Metalstorm fires bullets? this writing style is common in AI, yet i’ve seen it used by non-AI writers before the rise of LLMs. you know it if you’ve seen it.
I know what you mean. you're reading, but you can just feel the tension rising.

>>24667674
AI has a problem with consistency. I think using AI to write a decent story right now takes more effort than just writing it yourself. It's great for feedback and error correction though.

thoughts on gb?

>>24666862
How do you feel about Alternative history? It's neither sci-fi or fantasy because anything too wacky that can't be justified historically is called "alien space bats" as an insult.

Any good WNs about death / killing / survival games?

>>24667828
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/escaping-the-mystery-hotel/
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/i-became-the-hidden-mastermind/
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/my-house-of-horrors/

>>24667664
>>24667672
Personally my AI-dar runs on AI-isms more than vibes. I just didn't see any. Sure, it's sus, but I wouldn't say it's more than 50% probable that Myth of Resonance is using AI.
I will say that the small sample of posts by the author I read do not read like the novel, but that's not a 100% indicator either.
Now before you get your panties in a bunch again, I think if he IS using AI without tagging as such, he should be permabanned, publicly. I mean, consider this: he might just be plagiarizing from someone else.

>>24667717
Because I've seen this in fanfiction (fanfiction with a patreon, nonetheless), I will not directly quote an example but instead write this hasty and crude approximation of it.

>Anon stood on the corner of the gloomy street, jaw clenched. Fierce. Bald. Aryan. Odin had sent him a warning in his dreams. They had noticed his recent assaults. A golem now hunted him. Probably one of those tall, brawny, ones with skin blacker than coal. But he was not afraid. His fist tightened. The Vril pumping through his veins thrummed. It glowed with a cyan potency. The air around him took on its hue.

>Suddenly, he heard the approach of someone or something. Readying his innate energies and mobilizing his white power, Anon turned aside. He started. The only other thing there with him that night was no golem. It was a person---bald, serene, and white. He wasn't just white, though. He had no face. The faceless man was clothed in a saffron cloth. He brought up his hands together in an Eastern greeting.

>"Namo Amitabha, Anon." The man spoke. "Have you followed the precepts?" Anon frowned. The man was white. Yet he dressed in the garb of a monk. A Buddhist Monk. A follower of a shit-skinned philosophy. This was no mere golem. Now Anon glowed blue. Blue like his eyes, oversaturated with Vril. He mobilized his energies, but froze. His head swam. The world flowed out from beneath him. Anon's head struck the concrete.

>Stiffly, he tried to move his legs. Then his head. But it was no use. Only his eyes could move. They focused on the monk. He shook his head, sadly.
>"Alas, it seems you did not follow the precepts, Anon. It is a shame. You must now spend another life in the crab-bucket." The monk sighed deeply. He walked away. The world before Anon turned dark. His consciousness blurred. Then, lights off.

>>24667674
Its very likely they've written something up and edited it so much with ai its basically an ai written work at this point.

>>24667931
This reads like a pulp fiction
>T. Have never read a pulp in his life

>>24667088
You mean it's possible to post your story here without getting a bunch of troll 0.5 stars?
>You mean it's possible to post your non-meta story here without getting a bunch of troll 0.5 stars?

>>24668009
yeah

>>24668009
>>24668027
as long as the crabs are offline

>>24667931
What a cruel world we live in that a white power cultivation story would get banned instantly rather than blossoming into the hilarity we all know it could be.
>no genes refinement
>no heritage meditation
>no powered up albino form
>no determining powerlevels with phrenology
>no 500 chapter long arc about the Italian question
>no sect warfare based on obscure historical European regions
It writes itself honestly.

>>24668034
just post it anywhere you can with a monero dono address

>>24666455
It could be someone that learned to write prose from AI. It's going to happen more and more with the increasing popularity of AI.

>>24668034
a lot of xianxia/xuanhuan stories could directly be plagarised and have all terms replaced with /pol/ jargon and it’d still seem reasonable as if the story was originally a white power cultivation story rewritten as a xianixa

>>24667464
yeah, need more litrpg slop focused on skill evolutions (and gaining titles i guess too) instead of pure number go up.
only one i've read that used a similar system was ends of magic

I can't decide whether my isekai'd protagonist gets to the new world with his own body or takes over the body of a (dead) local.

The local would give the MC ties to other characters and places in the new world. It would allow me to explore the feelings of being an impostor.

His own body would make it easier to portray the MC as proactive, because I could make him choose to go to the new world. It would also allow me to bring over a few things from our world, a lighter for example.

Is this an ethical use of AI for my writing?

>>24668316
no, using AI instead of a search engine is not ethical

>>24668316
12 small town's annual electricity budget was consumed to answer THIS question.

>>24667580
Without the discord users backup, shoutouts from the big boys, or older following, no one will notice you, even if you wrote a New Career as Top Tier Arch-druid

>>24667464
It was just another lame-ass case of "I burned my finger=unlocked fire resistance!" where the MC ends up hoarding every broken skill in the world and turning into (literally) god. None of it had anything to do with being a spider

>>24667580
>space opera war epic
well..I'd be fucked. Cool for the genre as a whole, but royally fucked on the cellular level. Shan't.

'The Order' has to be the most cabal-sounding name they could have picked

They're caballing through the titles now. When will RR be safe from such villainy?

>>24668464
You seem to care more about other people's work than your own.

>>24668464
It was funny the first two times, but mods really should do something about this. It's turning into too much of a private circlejerk

>>24668518
>nooooo, stop noooticing anon. just focus on your shitty femMC litrpg book. the cabal can't hurt you.
I can do—and am—doing both actually. Already got 800 words in today

>>24668558
>—
AI posts on fucking 4chan now.

>>24668561
real talk, how to respond to em dash AI accusations without sounding mad?

>>24668566
I spam em dash all the time and no one has ever accused me of using AI. Just have some soul

>>24668566
>nice witch hunt bro

>>24668566
>cool butlerian jihad bro

>>24668566
If I were worried about being accused of AI writing, I'd remove my em dashes. I'm not worried.

>>24665064 (OP)
>/wng/ — Web Novel General
AI threads on fucking 4chan now.

>>24666944
>>24667931
Buddhists on fucking 4chan now.

>>24667931
>fanfiction with a patreon
isn't that illegal?

>>24668727
who cares? are you a narc?

>>24668738
I just don't want my naruto X my little pony X twilight X chinchilla girl evolution story to get shut down by the feds

>>24668727
It is. But patreon seems to have taken the stance that the original copyright holder has to make the claim for accounts to be shut down. Which, especially in case of fanfics based on asian content, is unlikely to ever happen

>>24668746
>asian
this, as long as it isn't nintendo IP

>>24667092
A serious, possible coup d d'etat would really, really piss me off. This is probably one of the last few places where you can speak freely and openly. That’s why I keep telling people not to stake their future on RoyalRoad. Not all of us can be Patreon millionaires, and inevitably the site will turn into Webnovel, one way or another, a total slop machine. RoyalRoad is now already a vestige of what it once was.

But of course, there’s nothing wrong with their behavior. Nothing wrong with “new” authors testing and experimenting. Nothing wrong with forced exposure. Nothing wrong with coordinated campaigns. Nothing wrong with turning the front page into a rotation of gimmicks. Certainly nothing wrong with enshitiffication

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, I guess. Cabals, cliques, communities? Same goddamn thing. I hate how, this general thread has already devolved into their wargames.

the longer this goes on the more likely it is that someone will write some dogshit "explainer" about the entire thing and call it "monster girl evolution girl evolution" or some shit

>>24666935
Oh! Nice.

>>24668464
I don't understand how they don't see that they are gleefully being assholes by doing this blatant cheating. Before I wouldn't have thought of this, but with how brazen they've been I've got to wonder whether they're viewbotting as well.

>>24668839
>cheating
how?

>>24668843
What they're doing is directly against RR rules:
>Attempts to manipulate the ratings or the review system with the help of a group will result in having all the reviews removed. All participating users will be subjected to scrutiny. Additional disciplinary actions are also a possibility.
But if you bring enough clicks and ad money to the site, you're above rules.

>>24668855
>Attempts to manipulate the ratings or the review system
They are not manipulating anything though. Turn on your brain, retard.

>>24668855
They're not manipulating the ratings or reviews though. Do you even know what's going on?
They've short-circuited the visibility/discovery process by linking arms on a bigger, more coordinated scale than previously seen before by shouting out each other while simultaneously launching in a big self-perpetuating mutually beneficial blob

>>24668866
Eat shit, retard. If you tell your discord gang to follow your fiction, this will directly boost it in the rankings and is literal, blatant manipulation. When it's also implicit that everyone gives you a 5-star review/rating.

>>24668874
>lose argument
>muh discord
cope and seethe

>>24668866
>>24668873
samefagging bootlicker

>>24668879
You have no argument, discord troon

>>24668881
The other guy didn't explain anything but I took the time to do so and in good faith.
The problem here really isn't one of rating/review manipulation. I don't like the monster girl evolution shenanigans either which is why I think it's important to actually identify the issue

It's interesting how the thread suddenly get flooded by samefagging trannoids.
What could possibly be the reason for this?

>>24668866
>>24668873
If businesses did that in real life they would be a cartel.

>>24668912
wrong

>>24668922
Well, that explains everything!

>>24668855
>What they're doing is directly against RR rules:
>>Attempts to manipulate the ratings or the review system with the help of a group will result in having all the reviews removed. All participating users will be subjected to scrutiny. Additional disciplinary actions are also a possibility.
>But if you bring enough clicks and ad money to the site, you're above rules.
>
yet a *different* rule, explicitly allows authors review-swapping. They even codified it. Its expected that a writer gives a better review than drive-by reader. 10k words are expected to be read before a real review,meaning I assume more than a sentence or two. So, this is a conundrum. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't

>>24668970
typical pilpul, conflicting and confusing setup. like law.

>>24668970
Don't pretend you can't tell the difference between marked review swaps and off-site traffic coordination

>>24668904
>>24668912
I'm not defending them. I think there should be rules in place to mitigate this kind of non-traditional collusion.

That's why the problem needs to be correctly identified rather than crying about manipulation of ratings/reviews or anything else which isn't the relevant issue here. The real problem has happened further upstream. It's anti-competitive in the sense of a group's collective market visibility drowning out non-colluding competitors.

I'm not saying my interpretation is final or even well articulated but I think it's more accurate than most of the other complaints I've read here or other platforms so far

>>24668904
/Lit/ is lurked by authors from RR.

this is peak webnovel writing right here
westoid writers could never

>>24667931
Reminds me of MTL stuff from 15 years ago. It could be an attempt at pulp, but it's too choppy to really succeed at that.

When I first started using RR a few years ago, I felt a little off about review swaps. This was before people were just doing them using AI. I wondered why people wouldn't just naturally review things they read that they liked and wanted to assist the popularity of. Why it had to be turned into a kind of currency that was bartered back and forth.
I put forward a proposal to other authors:
I would review their story, if they reviewed a story they were currently reading but hadn't reviewed yet.
Several people were very enthusiastic about it! They praised the idea. One even started his own thread with the same promise.
The mods shut it down.
Why? It enabled "Triangle swaps" that evaded the built-in review swap system and created a circle of "organic" reviews that were actually all "paid" for.
I didn't understand. Why was I being shut down for something that could clearly already exist? Manipulators could do what was mentioned anyway. The mods decided that something people agreed was a good idea should be outlawed for the potential abuse that could happen regardless.
What is and isn't allowed by the moderation team at Royal Road makes little sense. Also fuck review swaps.

>>24668999
KEUK

>>24669076
What are RR admins doing anyway? Last update was about community magazine in June and total silence since. Too busy raping palestinians?

>>24668999
nevermind beige, translated chinkshit is grey prose

I have downloaded every novel from royalroad.
What should I do with this trash?

>>24669126
Read mine.

>>24669126
Reaf FFF-Class 'Unlucky Antagonist' and delete the rest

>>24669185
Kino-man would never do this to his fellow wangers

>>24668401
a literal copycat is at #2 and did/had none of those things lol, the irony. your exact scenario exists right now

>>24669189
>discord troon defends the webnovel cartel

>>24668986
impossible to police

>>24669216
they can't stop bragging about it so it sounds like it wouldn't be that hard

>>24668464
Yeah, that's drama farming at this point. None of their fictions seems to have taken a hit to their rates as the mods are probably working overtime to remove negative ones.

>>24669211
how in the world was that defending the cabal?

>>24668986
>anti-competitive in the sense of a group's collective market visibility drowning out non-colluding competitors.
Competition law doesn't exist for online content of any kind

>>24669274
>you can succeed without the cabal
>STOP DEFENDING THE CABAL, DISCORD TROON!!!

>>24668464
rising stars have been pulling meme shit like this to refer to other stories near them in the ranking for a while

>>24668404
Speedreader spotted.
Being a spider was important in like three different ways, at least.

>>24668855
they're not manipulating ratings or reviews (which are largely useless anyway)
they're manipulating reader/follower counts through a technique called "advertising and referrals". if rr banned THAT it would have to send 99.5% of rising stars to the gas chamber

>>24669122
That's obviously Korean you philistine

>>24669377
Yet another cocksucking kike lmao

Yes yes, fuck RR mods and trannycorders. We've had this conversation again and again. Nothing will change. The circular review swappers will continue to do so and the mods will run cover. Let's move on and talk about something else.

>>24669452
That ape is smarter than me. On the upside, this shit made me more productive, got a bunch of words done for my next failed fiction.

>i totally support capitalism and love the free market, marketing & advertising
>EXCEPT when it's in my own field and shit that markets better outperforms my own work
you guys have any pro marxist webslops to recommend?

I'm taking a break from WANG until this thing blows over. I've read every possible angle of attack and interpretation and criticism and defense about this controversy a hundred times over already.

>actually both sides are annoying!
he's really bringing out the big guns lol

>>24669469
He Who Fights With Monsters
The MC and the author are one of those woke types, but it never really comes into play. It's only obvious because the author tries to force terms like "craftspeople" instead of craftsmen a few times.

>>24669452
You only need to care about it if your stuff is mediocre, and then just do the same thing as they do. They do it because they're mediocre. If a work is genuinely good it will break through anyway. And no it has nothing to do with luck, or talent (that doesn't exist, you just suck) most people just lack enough insight to know that their shit is shit, which is both scary and bizarre.

>>24669559
0 correlation between quality and popularity

>>24669562
and that's a good thing because it means everyone gets an equal chance

>>24669559
>(that doesn't exist, you just suck)
You don't need to go around dropping black pills anon.
But seriously, by your definitions, this thread is full of failed writers beyond 2 who made it, 5 if you strech to 500 followers. We're (almost) all mediocre.

>>24669559
>the bootlicker still trying to push it through as acceptable behavior

>>24669597
There's a difference between failed and amateur writing. Most webnovel stuff is written more for fun than as a maximum-commercially-viable income stream. Some anons just wanna create and grow their audience for the purposes of sharing their work with more people, and they're doing alright.

Some wanna live off patreonbux and quit their day jobs and yes they have failed those ambitions like 99% of websloppers with the same aim.

>>24669627
Yeah, that's one big difference. But there's indeed a bunch of the latter here trying to shoot to the top I think.
>Some wanna live off patreonbux and quit their day jobs and yes they have failed those ambitions like 99% of websloppers with the same aim.
I would say that it's the same for any line that depends on having an audience: youtubers, musicians and so on. Gotta keep the expectations real, most will fail.

>>24669637
Damn I'm old. I was thinking about bringing up the wannabe rockstars but youtubers and livestreamers totally slipped my mind.
But yeah, it's a common problem in a lot of creative (or "creative") fields.

>>24669637
The problem many have is that they shoot their shot before they're good enough and get discouraged, abandon ship and quit. The most important thing in anything relating to the arts is to actually finish pieces and improve over time. We can take a webslop example, the guy who wrote Lord of Mysteries, I read that, top notch webslop I thought and read his Embers Ad Inifinitum as well. As good if not better than LotM. Then I read his earlier webslop Throne of Magical Arcana, which was atrocius, just incredible bad and full of cliches, it was poop, shit, and excrement. But he finished it, and apparently he learned a lot from it.

did one anon talk about deleting and republishing work 4 or 5 times before it magically made it onto RS? If not writing dogshit was all that is needed and luck doesn't exist, why did this work? Is this not just rolling the die over and over until it comes up 20?

>>24669667
I think that was just hypothetical, as in, how many times you could delete a story and repost without the mods caring.
I would say that it's both luck and not being dogshit—I've seem both on RS, but the only guarantee that YGMI there is having an already existing audience.

I've written fanfic before. Is it worth transferring that over to RR to try and drum up an audience, before I launch my original shit?

>>24669637
A bunch? Pretty much everyone does it for that reason. The people who don't care about making money from it are the people who write 20 chapters and then go on an indefinite hiatus.

>>24669654
>Then I read his earlier webslop Throne of Magical Arcana, which was atrocius, just incredible bad and full of cliches, it was poop, shit, and excrement.
That was more fun to read then the rest of his works.

>>24669742
Can't hurt; you could use it to try to funnel readers into your original one. Use the daily chapter plan and link your original at some point(s). Godspeed.
>>24669744
Well, maybe that's why I've been stuck on writing for the last two months. The only thing I've released was 11 chapters long and I was almost dying at the end. Money is a very good incentive.
But I can think of two anons who posted their work and don't seem to doing it for monetary reasons; rabbitanon is one of them, the other went on hiatus a few times it seems but stuck with it.
There's some doing for the passion, but you're probably correct that most do for money, going by the amount of dropped fictions. >24665970

>>24669742
No reason not to post everything everywhere.

>>24669533
>craftspeople
Do commies REALLY?

>>24669767
While money is a good incentive, it's not going to make writing any easier if you aren't at least somewhat passionate about what your story. Also, who's the other?

>>24669809
Yeah, I've ran out of passion since a few years ago But I'll keep it up.
>Also, who's the other?
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/61924/the-dragon-and-the-author
Unsure if I should link as they only did it once (maybe they don't like the 4chan association). It's fun but not deep, kinda overlooked on RR honestly, it's enjoyable.

>>24669816
I don't mind any association; I tend to lurk around and not bring much attention to myself. I could start dropping links when I have new content to show once or twice a month. I just don't want to be annoying and fatigue the thread.

>>24669767
I'm not writing for money, either

FFF-Class 'Unlucky Antagonist' Volume 3: Intermezzo IS COMPLETED!!!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/119783/fff-class-unlucky-antagonist-villains-origin-story/chapter/2547784/man-chapter-seven-volume-3s-end

Thanks for your support, bros, and see you in Volume 4: Leitmotif!

>>24669976
Satan rebuked thanks a couple of words.

>>24669895
You're the anon writing the space opera with Lawrence, right? Didn't include you because it's unreleased, but I remember you. Looking foward to it actually.

>>24670007 (me)
Or maybe FFF, but God knows what's his endgame. Or Zucchini; Yellow Typhoon doesn't count as it was less than the 20 chapters that the anon spoke of (even if they're the same universe). Those are the more active ones at least, there's almost 2 dozen works posted at this point. I think Black Sun wants to monetize as he was asking around for an Amazon release.
There's too many and I've lost the plot at this point. I hope we get to see one at RS at least.

>>24670025
I bet one of our backloggers could be able to, probably

>>24669627
>Some wanna live off patreonbux and quit their day jobs and yes they have failed those ambitions like 99% of websloppers with the same aim.
I haven't failed until I give up. I have six more stories lined up after this one, and I just came up with a seventh today. I AM going to make it.

>>24670007
thanks bro you too

>>24669654
>the guy who wrote Lord of Mysteries
he did good numbers?

Why are web novel protagonists so often unlikeable at the start? They often abrasive and dumb. They make silly mistakes or say the wrong thing and just alienate other characters. I understand that there needs to be conflict, but could we have MCs that at least pretend to be nice? They can be abrasive once they're strong or capable, but at the start it just feels off-putting.

>>24670063
My seventh idea's protagonist is the sweetest cutiepie. Cotton candy in human form. All the gods love her and help her out. 100% unadulterated good person and doing her best at all times.

>>24670055
He did well enough to sign an anime deal and the production company has plans for like 10 years of seasons and movies

>>24670055
dude Cuttlefish is huge

>>24670073
it should have been Reverend Insanity
;_;

>>24670083
literally killed where it stands by xi xinping for thought contrary to the philosophy of the CCP. it will never get adapted

>>24670090
Communist Party Leadership cultivation would work well as a story, too.
>petty sect warfare between different administrative units
>meditations on the party truths
>power level determined by party rank
>backstabbing and oppressing mortals (non party members) galore
100% unpublishable in china.

Let's talk writing again.

What terrible writing habits have you finally stopped doing? What/how did you change?

I used to be one of those retard worldbuilders who would stress about whether or not oats were cultivated in a region and/or climate and/or time period. Now I'll just say the characters ate some hardy grains cooked into a coarse porridge

>>24670071
Based anon, delivering the cute FemMC we need in these dark girlboss times.

>>24670111
I stopped writing chapters with only one character and no dialogue, for one. I'm still struggling with giving my main character wins. I have too much fun abusing him and dangling prizes in front of him only to snatch them away. So I'm trying to give him a cool moment at least every other chapter now.
Oh, another anon told me to include more detail about how characters feel so I'm including more description of facial expressions now. I think it's a solid improvement and it's prompted me to actually describe how characters look more, too.

>>24670111
I think I've finally stopped writing poor sentences and graduated to mediocre ones. I fell in love with full stops and em dashes.
I also thought I had stopped my anemic writing but my last manic sprint has undone 2 months of work.

>>24670111
the habit i stopped is the habit of writing.

>>24670111
I quit doing the serious author voice. Now my prose is just fun.

>>24670273
I wish I knew how to do this

>>24670469
Honestly? Read more eastern webnovels. They don't give a single shits about muh prose or muh worldbuilding over there. Just how to write fun plot, character drama and making use of gimmicks/cliches. They don't take themselves seriously at all, just pure wish fulfillment escapism writing

>>24670111
I stopped writing in present tense first person after years of only writing this way. I also had crazy out of the wazoo purple prose and had comical amount of padding with seemingly endless streams of monologe. Now it's more anemic or at least I hope to tone down the crazy padding. And the benefit of thorough outlining this time.

>>24670469
Check your ego at the door. Think of your story not as a way to show off how intelligent you are, but as a joke. Or a 4chan shitpost.

>>24670111
I used to write up the entire manuscript in one go, no editing at all until the end. No chapters established. Now I structure each manuscript in a chapter based format and edit each chapter after I've done one.

I don't write chapters chronologically anymore. When I sprint I write the bits that I want to, and then I leave comments telling myself to wire those bits together afterwards. Does wonders for my wordcount.

Alright, bros. Which one do you think is better for the cover of Volume 4?

>>24671126
nipplers too obvious
you're gonna get SHUT DOWN you fucking mad man

>>24671126
I like the left one a lot ngl

>>24671126
buy an ad

>>24671128
But lore-wise, it makes sense for her to have metallic nipples. Would Royal Road take it down?

>>24671126
>>24671133
maybe not a ban but I've seen authors complain about a cover getting removed for far less
we're entering a weird era of the internet

>>24671139
The worst part is that it isn’t even sexual.
It’s just meant to resemble a Greek statue of Venus.

>>24671147
do you seriously think those aren't sexual

>>24671147
intention doesn't matter anymore
this isn't about you or me.

>>24671133
I don't know, but you bet I'll report it the moment it goes up lol

So are pure female protags popular or do I have to genderbend a dude?

>>24671148
My goal was to unite metal armor with the form of a Greek marble statue.

Image it as a breastplate of a woman armor.
>>24671149
over

>>24671153
You're on /lit/, tourist. Everyone here will tell you they don't read stories about f*males and GB is for troons

>>24671153
if your story could be told just as well with a male protag, then go with male

>>24671153
I don't care whether the MC is female or male as long as they're not a little bitch

>>24671153
Cabals are taking over the once-masculine spaces of RR, and cabals as a rule prefer female protagonists.

>>24671157
>male kitsune
ehhh... hmm...
>>24671156
I'm asking because my tastes are really contradictory and hypocritical. On one hand, I enjoy reading GB but on the other I hate most mainstream GB like Onimai or Ayakashi Triangle whose entire focus and premise revolves around the GB because that actually feels like troonshit where the narrative forces the protagonists to learn to like their new identity as women rather than putting on a 'live' face and bearing with it as an act. or even defiantly retaining their male mannerisms. Series where the protagonist loses their dick and thenthe narrative induces developments of them becoming/being forced to accept things like makeup, dresses, and panties are disgusting and fetishistic, gag.
I just want the GB to act as an auxillary ingredient to induce sweet, sweet despair in the protagonist, add a greater sense of disorientation/fish out of water feel to the scenario, create a better mascot as no one really gives a shit about most male MCs that aren't below the age of 16, and to address to the fact that I'm fucking tired of reading male MCs in isekai settings as they all vacillate between the extremes of pussies or mansluts; sometimes, somehow even managing to be both.
Also, I want my protagonist to brutalize the shit out of another girl in a display of bloody carnal violence at one point, maybe two points, and I feel like a male protagonist would be restrictive towards that regard as I'm not sure the audience would be tolerant of such a thing.
I really don't want to write an isekai'd fem mc... If it were a native protagonist story and not an isekai, I'd be completely down, but I disdain the women of earth to the point where I don't want to touch them even with words.
Basically, I'm out of touch as I don't pay attention to or give a shit about the consumerbase and am politely asking the webnovel general as to whether a genderbent protagonist or a female protagonist has the potential to become popular. If not I'll be forced to make a male kitsune.
I don't really want to do that.

>>24671153
Pure female protags are popular nowadays on RR, just look at monster girl evolution fics, lol.

>>24671192
you wrote all these words and clarifications but honestly the whole GB premise feels inherently troon adjacent if not tranny shit outright. your masochism doesn't change that, nor does the misogyny

>>24671192
>Not only a troon, but also a furfag
that's a yikes from me

>>24671192
I think you're in denial, xister

>>24671196
I don't really read anything with a system or strength focus, to the point where that something like that can become popular amazes me
>>24671198
>Allowing your character to suffer and overcome tribulation = masochism
Tsk, tsk, kids these days only know how to give their protagonists cheat skills and a harem...

Amnesia should be a reasonable compromise. Waking up with only the memories that they were once human and nothing else. Eh, it'll be schrodingers' troon.

>>24671198
genderbender as a fiction subgenre predates the entirety of modern troon gender ideology you gorilla nigger retard

>>24671220
>troons didn't exist before I turned 12
go back to school

>>24671192
>just want the GB to act as an auxillary ingredient to induce sweet, sweet despair in the protagonist, add a greater sense of disorientation/fish out of water feel to the scenario, create a better mascot
you really don't have the artistic high ground here. your "vision" just sounds like shoehorning

>>24671212
Eh, fair. Its kind of like Shonen

>>24671192
>Basically, I'm out of touch as I don't pay attention to or give a shit about the consumerbase and am politely asking the webnovel general as to whether a genderbent protagonist or a female protagonist has the potential to become popular. If not I'll be forced to make a male kitsune.
don't you see how flawed and delusional your thought process is going into this? nobody's forcing you to do shit. craving popularity while looking down on "the consumerbase" is a special type of pitiful hypocrisy and self-absorption.

dungeon cores don't even have genders and those stories have never gone away so whatever

I remember seeing a button to download your fic before deleting it. does anyone know where that is?

>>24671223
Huh? Did I say anything about artistry or a ""vision""? Like, at all? And you're talking about shoehorning elements in when you know absolutely nothing about the story I want to write or its themes, even its most basic premise? The webnovel general's reading comprehension is indeed quite high...
>>24671241
>nobody's forcing you to do shit.
Haha, my good brother, do you really think I think I'm going to be forced into writing anything? It was a frivolous remark, don't take it too seriously. If popularity was my priority I wouldn't disdain the majority of the slop that becomes popular in the first place, wouldn't the prize of that race be self-contempt? Self love is important in maintaining a long and healthy life, self love~
I don't particularly crave popularity, but I'm not so blind as to not recognize that it's better to be with than to be without. I'm not going to construct a premise based off of the goal of popularity, but if there's a hard divisor between popularity and obscurity, and if it lies in something as minute and inconsequential as the difference between GB and FemMc, of course I'll take that into consideration? I'm not writing a story about either of those things, they are merely a small part of it, and who the protagonist is. I'm not going to waste my time learning how to parse various scoreboards and learn the market trends for something so insignificant when I can ask the local retards/gentlemen on here for their insights and expertise.
And, in the first place, wasn't one of my very first statements addressing my own hypocrisy? Why tell me something I know and enjoy well? Alas, it indeed seems that the webnovel general's reading comprehension is quite high...

>>24671283
lol, gotcha bro. sounds like you got a good handle on things. keep doin' you, and if you need any more "insights" from the locals, you know where to find 'em. can't wait to see what you come up with! keep it real.

>>24671192
literally anything can become popular so don't even worry about that, just write what you want

it's never about quality, just advertisement and luck

Me? I'm excited about what the backloggers are creating

>>24671299
they will either be the foulest dogshit in existence maybe ever or peak fiction, nothing in between (all the majority midwits have already revealed themselves)

>>24670803
I both did this early on, and I also ended up where you did. Chapter format, proofing and a little editing after each chapter.

>>24671157
I am sexually attracted to women (female), so I will write about women (female).

>>24671192
>male kitsune

>>24671381
In the original mythology they had two forms, an elderly male, or a young female. It's easier to fap to the latter.

>>24671299
these things... they take time...

>>24671153
I will not read a story with a female protagonist. I've been burned by them too many times.

>>24671473
Wierd , more than half of my top are femmc.
I get not liking TWI (not for everyone) but PGTE and YotA are great.

(worm sucks though)

>>24671494
>PGTE
polyglyceryl tetronic ether

>>24671500
Fuckoff , tourist

>>24671505
no u, dumb retard. just spell it out instead of using incomprehensible acronyms.

>>24671509
No!
It's easier this way and the people that matter get it.

>>24671519
>tfw I matter
Thank you.

>>24671509
westoid wn garbage isn't even worth knowing

>>24671509
Hey hey, rookie. Welcome to the scene! You're gonna be exposed to a LOT of brand spankin' shiny new ideas here but don't you worry your lil' head — there are a lotta cool cats in this town who can help ya out if you're ever confused, bamboozled, or even flabbergasted! Just say the word and all the resident cowboys will be happy to offer that assist. Ciao ciao, tyro!

>>24671592
thanks, jippity!

>>24671192
Fucking based old school gender bender enjoyer. I hope someday there are dozens of stories tailored to your exact tastes.

>>24669533
>It's only obvious because the author tries to force terms like "craftspeople" instead of craftsmen a few times.
It's INCREDIBLY obvious right from the start where the protagonist reveals he comes from fucking MELBOURNE and acts like being half Chinese left him feeling isolated as if chinks aren't nearly a fucking majority in the shithole known as Melbourne.
Fuck that sereis. Fuck Melbourne. And most especially, fuck everyone who lives in Melbourne.

>>24671192
Maybe you would interested in Netherwitch? I dropped when the MC was forced to join a dress up club of all things, but it may be what you're talking about of genderbender despair:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/100678/netherwitch
It did feel a little fetishistic though.
>>24671299
I'm in a love-hate relation with mine where I think it's RS material or shit that I shouldn't even post. I'll now apply the ABC of slopping and leave you in a cliffhanger.

>>24671718
>I'm in a love-hate relation with mine where I think it's RS material or shit that I shouldn't even post. I'll now apply the ABC of slopping and leave you in a cliffhanger.
>
I think that's normal. In different ways I'm both in love with most of what I write, and I also chew my fingernails just knowing it might not meet minimum specs to work.

>>24671873
>and I also chew my fingernails just knowing it might not meet minimum specs to work.
Keep in mind that you're operating with a lot of unknown variables, and you don't want to mistake the forest for the trees or vice versa (the 'market' vs individual readers within the market).

Any given work of fiction (in this case, webnovel) is going to be exposed to a number of individual readers within a market, which comprise a subset of the total market: this is effectively random, with some shoutouts tipping the scale gently in one direction or another (ie, if you got a shoutout from casualfarmer, you're going to get a lot of soft cultivation fans looking at your work).

Of that set of individual readers, you can determine a "minimum" level of "quality" (in terms of say, prose (used as a VERY general term)) which won't turn off more than some fraction of the set. That minimum could be "every reader finds it tolerable" or "at least X number of readers find it tolerable" at the other extreme.

Additionally, there's the "hook factor," which is determined by the premise of the story and demographics of the characters and the details of the setting. This could be "hero must defeat the demon lord," "FeMC elf with big tits," and "isekai medieval !europe with magic system" as examples, respectively. Some subset of the set of readers exposed to your work will be "hooked" and they will make a quality judgment whether or not they can stand to read it. And of course, readers have different amounts of free time, and there is competition for that free time.

The unknown variables compound on each other until you get something like the Drake Equation, where there are simply too many unknowns to make a proper estimate.

Can you improve your odds by cleaning up your prose? Certainly. But you never know if your premise is so great and your hook so catchy that it's worth publishing even with not great prose. And then after launch, popular things tend to become more popular over time (the matthew effect, ie, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer), so initial successes or failures snowball. RS on RR compounds this effect.

In summary, it's mathematically impossible to know if what you have is "good enough." There are too many unknown variables. It's best to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, while doing the best you can with what you can control, and not taking it personally when something doesn't stick. Just keep trying until you get lucky. ONCE you've gotten lucky, you can keep the snowball rolling.

>>24672150
yeah, it's a total crap shoot, ain't it? just gotta throw shit at the wall and hope something sticks. clean up your prose as much as you can, but who knows if that'll be enough? might just get lucky with a killer hook. once you hit that sweet spot, just ride the wave and keep the snowball rolling. good luck bro.

>>24671509
it's fine to use acronyms when chatting or discussing webnovels
it's only retarded to use them when someone comes in and asks for recommendations, which is not what happened here
lurk more newfag

>>24672156
You too man. Always keep trying and always keep improving.

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>>24672530
>>24672530
>>24672530