Gifted editionStubbed >>25451481>What is /wng/ — 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/116847On 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 novelsrentry.co/d2yvczroAnon's guide to successrentry.co/RRBasicGuideFAQrentry.co/pytefpxn
read Clara Casewell, Attorney to the Villainess by cocopiit's peak
>>25463094Okay, but like, how does the water get up to the sky islands, and why are they dumping SO much water? Where is all that water coming from?
>>25463101rain
>>25463101Water coming through portals/wormholes on the islands
>>25463094The magical crystals that keep the islands afloat also produce a lot of moisture.
ScribbleHub > RoyalRoad
>>25463197No
>>25463197i would have agreed 6 years ago
loyal load
Webnovel >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything else
>>25463197>post on scribblehub>zero engagement>none>zilch>zero>post on honeysneed>zero engagementOnly fucking royalroad has actual readers.Retards who comment tftc also piss me off. How about you discuss it, ask something, or comment on the chapter in any way? How about at least writing out the 4 fucking words?
>>25463240tftp
>>25463240Tftp
>>25463240Awful post, didn't like it at all.
>>25463240This post was boring. Nothing happened in it.
>>25463240>How about you discuss it, ask somethingPost on 4chan or gtfo. There are so many novels coming out everyday on rr that I don't even keep track, I go to rr mainly because of recommendations on other sites (mostly /lit/ desu)
I listened to book #1 of Thresholder by Alexander Wales, it was kinda boring.
>>25463324Clara Casewell, Attorney to the Villainess by cocopi it's peak
I listened to 1h of women crying mix, it was peak.
reading the lesbian prison mecha webnovel because i too think women should go to prison
>>25463433>lesbian prison mecha webnovelhow about you use the {title} by {author} template so that anons can actually find the novel you are posting about?
Any decent recent RR fiction?
>>25463437Because if I just type "read defender of asphodel by frichard it's peak" I'll look like a ritual poster
I've listened to ~1.5 hours of The Runic Artist by the author of Gifted by Ellake, it's meh so far.Will continue to listen in the evening and report back tomorrow morning.
>>25463457>I'm reading this series, but my ability to articulate why stops at 20 words maxthe ideal target audience of AI slop
>>25463477what are you reading?
I’ve tried listening to:Dungeon Crawler Carl — like nails on chalkboard.He Who Fights with Monsters — couldn’t get past the cliche opening.Defiance of the Fall — couldn’t get past the opening.Primal Hunter — Enjoyed it for the first several chapters, then I never felt the need to get back to it.Battle Mage Farmer — Damn near finish it, but then… eh.Dungeon Diving 101 — I would’ve loved it if I were twelve. As things stand, I couldn’t get past the first few chapters.Path of Ascension, The Grand Game, William Oh, Unsouled — couldn’t get past the Audible previews.Everything is dull, everything is lame, everything is lame and gay and dull, and I’m losing my mind to boredom.So what should I try next, aside from rope?
>>25463499readClara Casewell, Attorney to the Villainess by cocopiThe Villainess Is An SS+ Rank Adventurer by kayenano1% Lifesteal by Robert BlaiseMother of Learning by nobody103Player 0.4 [You have died.] [Reset in progress.] by Alek AundraA Practical Guide to Sorcery by AzaleaEllisDeath After Death by DWinchesterThe Years of Apocalypse by UraniumPhoenixTen Thousand Tragedies by NMR-3they are peak
I'm prompting the next top 1 RS right now
>>25463481Last week, I've been reading a bunch of C.B. Titus' stuff. Right now I'm reading Armor. I would describe it as his worst book, I guess it's also his first so it makes sense.But this book is just pretty boring. Every character acts like they have known each other all their life and trust each other implicitly. The protagonist is a man-eating suit of armor, that some adventurers took along with them out of a dungeon after he secretly ate one of their other companions (once he put the armor on) and started posing as him. Later in the book, there's a scene where one of the companions is like, "oh yeah, I knew you were a man-eating monster from day one, but I saw you being nice to some random guy so I figured you weren't evil". But, *before* she saw him doing that, she thought it was a good idea to go to sleep right next to him with him 'on watch', when he not only easily could've killed them all but was in fact contemplating doing so. But having the characters suspect him would've contradicted the 'vibe' he's clearly going for, so they just didn't. They all just act like they all know what each other is going to do long before they do it.The MC is also pretty lame. I was hoping for a fish-out-of-water story, but the guy has absorbed the memories of the people he's eaten in the dungeon, so he's supremely competent at all sorts of normal interpersonal stuff (and other things, like he's a supreme cook because one of the people he ate was one). He also has (I guess this is related to the 'everyone seems to know what everyone else is thinking all the time' problem) incredible insights into the personalities of his companions, talking about them to others as if he's known them for years when in fact he just met them days ago.MC is also insanely powerful, at the end of the book he literally ascends to godhood, so there's never any tension during any of the (very many) fights either. The fights also feel extremely formulaic, like the author realized during points that "there hasn't been a fight in a while" and so one will just happen. Like, they'll make camp to go to sleep, bandits will randomly ambush them, they will kill or drive off the bandits effortlessly, and then they will just continue as if the ambush never happened. Stuff like that happens, where events are very clearly put there for some meta reasons like 'there needs to be a fight now'.I could go on for a while writing about the stuff I don't like, but I'll hit the 3k limit. One of the things I do like is that the MC is (despite being a man-eating suit of armor) a pretty decent guy. At least by RR standards. He doesn't like killing people and avoids doing so whenever he can. The whole 'vibe' of the story, that makes it boring to me, also I guess can be enjoyable to people who don't mind the lack of tension. I guess it feels a bit like those old TV shows, like Adventures of Hercules, or Xena, where rarely are the main characters in any kind of real danger.
>>25463509Runescape?
>>25463511I appreciate your effort post. You have successfully convinced me to read Armor.
>>25463507I quite liked MoL, but was pretty unimpressed with 1%. So not sure how much I should trust the rest of this list.
>>25463519yeah, 1% Lifesteal is definitely less peak than the other stuff desu. The Jester of Apocalypse is more peak but he dropped it in favor of 1% Lifesteal.
1-star whiner guy from last thread. I got a 5-star. The 1-star took off .12 from my average. A 5-star that came this morning added .01. Sometimes I think killing myself might be easier.
>>25463537we don't care
>>25463543You cared enough to reply.
>>254635445 left mouse clicks + 13 keyboards presses
>>2546355042 more there.
>>25463499Rope.
>>25463554>+1 (You)worth it
>>25463101No the OP, but sense I have a world of sky islands I feel justified in talking about it.>How does the water get up to the sky islands, and why are they dumping SO much water? Where is all that water coming from?Short answer, magic. Long answer...All skylands in my world have a gemstone core at their core which is why they remain aloft. The color of that gem has an elemental energy associated with it. If a skyland has a red gem core it will be a desert or volcanic, if green will be lush and fertile, if blue will be wet and river laden.Even if the core of the skyland isn't blue, it might still have blue gems on it, which constantly produce water passively. A technology in my world is a barrel with a blue gem in it that constantly creates water, feeding into a second barrel with a red gem in it which passively produces heat. So you have a barrel of clean cold water, and clean hot water.>My world is basically Skies of Arcadia x Pokemon.https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/93079/keygemin-sky-pirates-w-magic>>25463142>The magical crystals that keep the islands afloat also produce a lot of moisture.Surprisingly not my post.>>25463084Yeah its me.
>>25463577>*Not the OP, but sinceI just woke up, haven't had caffeine yet.
>>254635770.5 stars
>>25463477I'm not trying to articulate why. I'm saying I read something and enjoyed it. There is no essay. I'm not making a recommendation I'm saying I am reading it and enjoying it. I don't care if you find it or not, it is for me, which is why I didn't give the title. You asked for a name-drop and I said why I didn't do that and now you're complaining I didn't describe why I liked it. I don't want to. Suck my nuts.
>>25463592incomprehensible post
>>25463593Comprehend my nuts
>>25463592ai answer
>>25463537post your work, I'll review it
>>25463577>>25463611kinda wish spreadsheet schizo was back so people stopped advertising shit
>>254636110.5 stars
>>25463609Dumb anon
>>25463609I have autism, the AI is designed to type like I do.
>>25463617>inspect elementAI confirmed
>>25463592>I'm reading this and enjoying it!>"ok. why?">why do you care? I'm reading it, that's all I'm saying.
>>25463621Nobody asked why I enjoyed it, they asked why I didn't mention the title and author. They then complained I was unable to articulate why I enjoyed it, something I had not attempted or even planned to do.
>>25463628>They>the third-person plural nominative
>>25463630Yes because the two complaints may have come from different people
>>25463628>>25463630you can detect this non-descript gender ambiguous person's ideology from a single 4chan post
>>25463637yes
>>25463628It would probably be more interesting if you did articulate it now that it's come up, rather than hitting that bait over and over.
>>25463636>1 reply>two complaintshmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
>>25463628Why did you enjoy it?What is the title?Who is the author?
Today I read a chapter of a webnovel and enjoyed it.
>>25463649I didn't, but tomorrow I will
>>25463651Yet you won't comment on or review it.
>>25463679I do every thread, see >>25463098
>>25463681I assumed you were the author spamming every thread.
>>25463694no, I'm the Clara Casewell, Reverend Insanity, What would Spectral Soul do, What are gu?, what the FUCK is, etc. spammer.
>>25463697You are all these people? First off, this thread really is empty huh?Secondly, are you unemployed?
>>25463700yes, yes, yes
>>25463700That's three questions, not two
>>25463645The main character struggles. I like seeing characters struggle. The environment is hostile(obviously, prison) but the people are also hostile. She doesn't instantly make friends that make things easier for her. In fact she makes friends and immediately does things to piss them off and make nearly everyone hate her. Another group approaches her and she accepts their friendship only to be abused by their leader. I like reading that kind of thing. There are also mechs and politics involved which I enjoy reading about. The main character also doesn't get in the mech and immediately realize she's a savant, either. I like growth and struggle.already stated title and author previously.
>>25463697Kek, no you are not
>>25463729>Shestopped reading here>>25463732I am though
>>25463737Are you me then?
>>25463744it seems like you are pretending to be me
i am not fff-anon
>>25463770
>>25463706One was rhetorical.
>>25463813which one?
>>25463821>You are all these people?The one that wasn't numbered.
>>25463823damn, I answered that one. Am I retarded?
i'm the only one who is retarded here.
>>25463836You sure?
>>25463780Holy shit the new layout looks so fucking ass. I rue the day they're going to force me into the change. I'll probably need an extension to change it back if some nerd is kind enough to make one.It costs literally nothing to just leave the old layout as a toggle-able option and not fix anything that breaks, caveat emptor.
>>25463863the new layout is actually better, you are just an autist that hates changes.
>>25463866I am in fact an autist who hates change, but the new layout fucking sucks and is objectively worse.Rating your post 2.5 stars.
>>25463877>objectively worsename two things that are objectively worse.0.5 stars btw.
>>25463880>name two things that are objectively worse.nta but Spacebattles new UI and Reverend Insanity
>>25463891are you retarded? (rhetorical question btw)
>>25463893Are you? (also rhetorical)
>>25463880The rounded corner thin line same color as the background buttons to do anything that are clearly ripping off mobile design for a desktop user look like shit. The blue highlight to indicate an option has been selected is fucking stupid.Everything is also crammed in with no regard for negative space. The author area showing off all the flairs and follow button and everything is completely unnecessary. Why the fuck do I care how old a user account is on the fiction main page, and why couldn't I just click off to their author page if I wanted to know? Additionally, there's nothing visible indicating that's what that timer count up (also bad, GIVE ME THE ACTUAL DATE YOU FUCKS) is for. I know it's for account age because I'm familiar with the system and author already, but for all I know that could be time since online. I'd have to mouseover or just GUESS to figure it out if I didn't already know.Also the star rating indicator is another bleedover from mobile design where space on a phone screen is at a premium. Do we REALLY need to save THAT MUCH more space by cramming the fiction's average rating AND the user rating onto the same five star indicators? It's clunky and confusing. Now I have to zoom in to see if my 4.5 stars is more or less than the average rating by looking at six pixels in an outline of MY rating within the total five star indicators.Plus the whole thing is fucking ugly.Finally I dislike the + indicator for follow and prefer the old bookmark symbol.
>>25463907>Additionally, there's nothing visible indicating that's what that timer count up (also bad, GIVE ME THE ACTUAL DATE YOU FUCKS) is for.Am I blind, what timer?
>>25463920Check your HUD
>>25463920To the right of author name. It says 14mo next to a clock symbol.It's indicative of this drive to gamify the site EVEN MORE which is entirely unnecessary on the FICTION page where I would want to know more about the story I'm about to read. Imagine if book covers looked like that shit instead of keeping it contained INSIDE THE BOOK to an author blurb and bibliography.
>>25463577>Second, Minute, Hour, Day, Week, Month, Year >> Drip / Drop, Bead, Beat, Day, Week, Grad, Yearman i just can't be bothered, too autistic for me
>>25463907yeah not a big fan either but who knows maybe itll bring more people to the site
>>25463948If you hover over it with your mouse the tooltip tells you how long they have been a member for,
>>25463950no kidding3 prologue chapters and one of them is a glossary
I read Headless over Heels. Dukerino's really got a niche that no one else on RR seems inclined to fill.
>>25463959It almost certainly won't. Graphic designs NEVER draw people in, content does. The only features a webdev could contribute productively are things like changing the font, contrast, font size, and other settings to improve legibility on the device on which they're reading. Everything beyond that just gets between the reader and the text they're there to consume.The old layout is so much better. The right most third of the screen is dedicated to site features and the author info, with plenty of negative space to mentally separate from everything else, and the left two thirds of the screen are JUST for the fiction: the cover, the synopsis, the title and author, the volumes with artwork, and the chapters if you scroll down. There are tasteful options to view more of the synopsis, more volumes, and more statistics about the fiction if the reader wants, but at a glance you can find something to pique your interest as fast as possible and you can start reading without too much in your way.If I had to pick a single biggest gripe it would be how mobile/desktop blended web designs fuck up negative space. Just keep them separate! Maintain two versions! Or don't even maintain the old version just LEAVE IT for people who prefer it and don't mind some features not working.
new kino just dropped
>>25463966It's completely unnecessary when evaluating whether or not to start reading a fiction, and should be isolated in a separate area with author information. I'd rather that space be empty. There's a massive lack of negative space. Removing the timer and the level indicator would help massively with that. The author name and PFP can stay, but the cheevos should go away, too.
>>25463982>kaeldropped alright
>>25463907>The rounded corner thin line same color as the background buttons [...] look like shitwrong>Everything is also crammed in with no regard for negative space.that's a good thing>The author area showing off all the flairs and follow button and everything is completely unnecessary.true>GIVE ME THE ACTUAL DATE YOU FUCKSit's a time element (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/time)>Do we REALLY need to save THAT MUCH more space by cramming the fiction's average rating AND the user rating onto the same five star indicators?it just makes sense>Plus the whole thing is fucking ugly.wrong>Finally I dislike the + indicator for follow and prefer the old bookmark symbol.autism
>>25463987It's really not that hard to search and replace the AI generated names.
>surprise clara casewell chapter???
>>25464001The author must watch or participate in these threads.
>>25464004that would be so fucking fetch
>>25464001it says in the author notes that the upload schedule is shifting to mon-thu because the author is an autist
>>25463994So many words to tell us you have no sense of aesthetics.
>>25464005
>>25464008wow, that's so peak. cocopi is a gem!
>>25463996I shouldn't have to.
>>25463592I genuinely cannot imagine, as a life-long reader, being so illiterate and such a dunce stereotype that you only ever have one word you can describe media you enjoy. It's only funnier when the newfaggotry uses "kino" instead of "peak" because they're calling their favorite FOTM book a film.
>>25464032kino post, anon
>>25464034Epic sissy kneejerk clapback, newfag.
>>25464032>he thought he was replying to the peak posterpeak retardation
>>25464039I meant "you" in the general sense, not the literal person I was quoting. I could have clarified. /shrug
>>25464041>backtracking
>>25464043#gottem
>>25464041>/shrugzoomer summerfag
>>25464050>-oomer>believing 4chan quality only dips during the summerWhich 2016+ year did you find /lit/?
>>25464054Oh, wait. peak spammer is also the newfag guy?
>>25464069People who spam "peak" are newfags, yes.
What are gu?
>>25464094
>>25463907All these changes and they didn't bother to add the option to increase line spacing, justified text, or a proper font like Times New Roman.
>>25463982I only read wholesome stuff.
>/wng/ - Manga and Movie General
>>25464123skill issue
>one of my go-to porn sites got comprehensive full-scale filter search options before RR
>>25464158He meant on the reader's end.There's no reason not to let the reader use any font they have installed to render the text, or to justify it or increase the font size or contrast or anything else.
>>25464163also skill issue
>>25463577>that one guy posting AIslop in review swapThe sheer balls
>>25464185Review swaps are a terrible mistake. Learned my lesson.
>>25464180>three lines of synopsis>second and third lines are progressively lower contrast to indicate you have to tap/click to read the whole thingHoly fuck how anti user. That's it. I'll be using an extension or just pulling chapters with RSS or web2epub to browse RR when the change goes permanent. That's fucking hideous.>two rows for tags>but only one tag on second row>and a plus button to click to view them all instead of filling out the rowI honestly think the RR devs hate me personally.
>>25464204yet again skill issue>devs this time
>>25464180>two whole optionsI do wish there was an "exclude tag" feature. I don't like anal and that seems to be the most common nasty thing thrown into pr0n these days, along with nigs.
>>25464229>two whole optionsscroll down retard
>>25464235You're talking to a proud goonbrain, do you think he's capable of learning?
>>25463499Maybe this genre isn't for you. /clg is just around the corner mate
>>25464235You only presented two options. I wasn't going to go out of my way to get involved with this argument.>>25464293>proud>goon
>>25464204>>25464214100k software engineer btw. Please understand small team of pissraelis.
do you reckon royalroad still has an appetite for absurdly powerful wizard MC in the far future of his setting fiction?
>>25464357still?
my worldbuilding is getting too complicated for me to keep track ofim too retarded for this bros
I have a different issue with the UI on RR. What's with the dark mode favoritism? I can change it to light when I'm reading, but everywhere else on the site it's dark ONLY. Either allow me the choice for everything or nothing you half ass fagwads.
>>25464419EVERYTHING I HEAR SOUNDS WORSE AND WORSE>>25464357Duh, obviously. Gifted cracked 10k followers and it's written like shit. Numbergoup-fags must be starving to death.
>>25464394>im too retardedWelcome to /wng/!
>>25464447im too retarded for /wng/
>>25463700are you even real bro, you have this conversation every thread
>>25464394I started keeping notes. But just make it up as you go along. You can always just make up more bullshit to cover up the mistake you made, and on RR people don't mind some retcons or edits if it's an honest mistake.
gifted 76 -78 limewire.com/d/LsMTO#tUek0xs48W>what would Spectral Soul do
>>25464490make some gay autistic post
I saw Sunny and Nephis on the credit page of a doujin i jerked off to the other day, is SS really that popular?
>>25464357Make sure he has a power limiter where he's normally a little boy but when a cute virgin girl kisses him he unleashes his full power
>>25464357I like it
>>25464486>You can always just make up more bullshit to cover up the mistake you madeim doing this through making different laws and mechanics that govern the worldbut for every mechanic i introduce it has to affect >1 character or plot pointand 90% of these mechanics won't even be seen in the prose i just want it to be internally consistent
>>25463499My recommends:>bog standard isekai>beware of chicken>cradle>mother of learning >super supportive
>>25464565Well for that you definitely need to be keeping detailed notes and have some shorthand guides to make sure you don't contradict your internal systems.Personally I take the view that my readers won't ever see the internal details, so I never came up with them. Experience works how I want it to, for the purposes of the narrative, period. I will never admit this to readers. My bigger concern is the cosmogony of my setting and how that impacts things, because all that will eventually be revealed to readers as twists and those reveals really will recontextualize a lot of other stuff going on in the world.(The reason I don't care so much about the system and mechanics is that, if that really mattered to the story, the MC could just go out and grind everything to max level and it would turn into a "max level blah blah blah" story, which isn't what I'm writing.)
>>25464486>and on RR people don't mind some retcons or edits if it's an honest mistake.If I make a plot hole that would require a retcon I will simply kill myself.
How angry do you think you as a reader would be if I padded a wordcount with Bible quotes for a chapterNote the characters are specifically reading the Bible and are directly discussing the details of it and how it is relevant to the recent plot circumstances
>>25463457>month old story>170 followersgrimIt is interesting that if you look at the lower ranks of rising stars there are multiple yuri stories. It's like there's a ceiling for them.
>>25464661this is why you use a pseudonym, frend.multiple ones, even.
>>25464702depends on which translation is used by the author
>>25464728The Scofield Reference Bible, of course.
>>25464728KJV is the only one I actually like to read and would work well for print. Complutensian Polyglot isn't exactly something a regular practicing Christian will be just carrying around and also I'm not good at translating it into legible English meter.
>>25464739your readers are thirdies with a tenuous grasp on modern english, at least give them NKJV
>>25464608I made sure that the way magic is explained in my world is delivered through unreliable characters.Or, they present themselves as reliable, and everything they say makes sense and is coherent with everything else they say. But then they interact with each other and overhear each others' explanations, and start disagreeing, though with each perspective being internally coherent (but incomplete) and plausible-seeming. They also never deliver, like, complete theories of magic. They deliver explanations for specific things, and often basically say that they're speculating or that they don't actually know. Or the ones that don't say it outright like that will be presented as e.g., having character flaws that prevents them from admitting such things.Like, I have a witch who is extremely haughty and arrogant and often takes glee in delivering (short) impromptu lectures on magic theory, that always present her as extremely intelligent and well-informed and everyone else as the opposite. Or, when she doesn't know something, she will blame someone else for it. For example, she was born in not!Ireland, where there were druids, but druids of course completely ban women. But she was able to use her womanly wiles to learn some magic anyway, until they figured her out and banished her, and then she became a wanderer who eventually got kicked out of lots of different magical communities. So anyway, she'll be asked about some kind of magic, then explain that she doesn't know because those *men* jealously guarded their knowledge from *women* like her (i.e., not her fault). Or, she doesn't know shit about battlefield magic, because it's only practiced by *men*. Anyway, she constantly hypes herself up but it should be clear from her characterization that she pretends to know a lot more than she actually does.Anyway, I try to make how it works so up in the air that it's not really possible to point to any given thing and say "now THAT shouldn't be possible".
>>25464704Yeah I suspect there is a transsexual underclass minority on RR that has its own very distinct preferences.
When I was taking a shower this morning I had the amazing idea to write an isekai where the guy goes to the gym, tries to benchpress without a spotter, dies and then reincarnates as one of the personal trainers at that same gym but now life is a litrpg. He has to drink protein potions and grind powerlifting levels while avoiding XP-stealing women and baked goods.Probably not gonna do it but it would be funny
Gonna re-read my own writing after a few months tonight which'll be an adventure.>>25464357Not being funny but whenever I come back to RR the site meta seems largely the same.
>>25464749Yep that's part of my strategy too, except every other character has ulterior motives and a reason to lie to or mislead the MC. I love it. So do the readers, funny enough. They like the mystery of it all and getting fed new crumbs of dubious information.
>>25464760I do think there's a fair bit of meat on the bone for just doing litrpg but irl.Would require a litrpg author to actually scale their shit and pace it out though
>>25464817irl with systems is already an old thing on webnovel.com and wtr-lab. As always it takes awhile for the eastern tropes to cross over.
>>25464832Yeah I've read like God of Cooking and some of the nonsense ones about having to lose money but GoC never felt like it was more interesting than if it didn't have a system.
>>25463544I've never understood this reply, it just makes you look angry and petty.
read cocopi by peak, its clara casewell, attorney to the villianess
>>25464817I liked the Level Up series by Dan Sugralinov
>>25464704I have a years old story with 40 followers.The Tortoise and the Hare is a fable about a fast hare and a slow tortoise. In this fable the hare in his hubris...
>>25464801I also low-key have made the most obviously unreliable presenter of magical information (aforementioned witch) the actually correct one.She has a large unifying theory of magic that is coherent with every other theory presented. But I make sure that, whenever she explains how something she said - that SOUNDED like it was wrong is ACTUALLY correct - it sounds like she's making shit up. Everything she says makes sense, but it sounds like she's just making it up half the time, or when someone presents evidence that apparently contradicts her theory, she'll explain how ACTUALLY that makes perfect sense and then come up with an explanation that sounds like she just pulled it out of her ass.All her wanderings really did give her profound insight into the world she's in. She's also just a really crazy asshole who doesn't like anyone and nobody likes her, so nobody takes her seriously. She's also not actually *that* great at magic, she just knows a ton. That's part of why she attaches herself to the main character, he's talented but ignorant. But I digress.
>>25464920One who quotes fables and thinks they positively apply to his own situation could also be said to be filled with hubris
>>25464123>>25464163
>>25464920I would understand this statement if the story had like at least 500 followers but really? 40 followers? Forget a small audience you don't HAVE AN AUDIENCE.
>>25465209post fiction
imagine being in a room with 40 people and they all want to read what you wrote.
>>25465281if you dont average a few real comments per chapter you dont have "an audience"
>>25465329I do that every week. It's called a meeting.
>>25465329What makes you think all of them are still active?
>>25465333crab logic
>>25464749>unreliable charactersI think I know why your story has no followers
>>25465419People like a bit of mystery and character depth. If characters only ever tell the truth, they're just mouthpieces for the author to show off his setting and move the plot along robotically. A balance needs to be struck, but it's not /that/ hard.
>>25465281I don't feel like it, but follower numbers aside, what actually matters is your ACTIVE FOLLOWERS. Yes the follower number is nice, but I have a fiction with over 2k followers that is effectively, in every way that matters, more dead than a new fiction with 500 followers.
>>25465424Oh, so they only lie to each other for plot purposes. I though they so unreliable that even the reader was being lied to
>>25465438Well there's unreliable narrator, which is on the spectrum of lying to the reader, and then there's outright lying to the reader which is bad and causes them to DNF.>>25465437I would say the best public statistic is actually average views. The higher it is, the better. After that it's paying patreon followers.Better to be a 3.5 star story with 20k average views and a thousand patrons than a 4.8 star story with 20k followers and 3k average views and a hundred patreons.
>>25465464>average viewsI'm gonna say TRUE, BUTBecause Average Views naturally inflate over time with fiction age and chapter count. The best estimate of active readers is how many views a new chapter gets in a day, and then in a week.
It's like the ultimate expression of laziness to generate an AIslop story without even bothering to change the names. I've lost count how many stories with Kael and Elara I've seen by now. One fiction I saw yesterday even left the MC's name as Elara and every chapter title included the MC's name in that children's book style. The author might as well have labeled all the chapters as "I'm a retarded faggot please shoot my face" and it would've been no less ridiculous. Holy shit what a time to be alive
>>25465511>He looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the storefront.>The man staring back looked exactly as he always did.>Cold.>Controlled.>Dangerous.>Blackfall.you are right, this is peak. 5 stars.
>>25465517AI does deliver kino moments sometimes. Too bad it forgets what it was doing 5 minutes later like a demented granny
>>25465511pangram says it's 100% ai. Why don't they have that integrated into the site yet? It would catch this.
>>25463240I'm getting more engagement on ScribbleHub. More reviews, better reviews, more readers.RoyalRoad readers make no fucking sense to me at all. No reviews, no comments, just dead silence for months. Then you release one chapter that's a little sexy, or one chapter where the main character gets abused a little, and suddenly a flood of one star reviews come in from these mutes. I genuinely don't understand how these people think, or if they're thinking at all.
>>25465524post your novel
>>25465524Learning more about how RR works has made me hate authors so much kek. Why the fuck do you feel entitled to approval or free feedback from an audience that YOU ADMIT you don't understand. You're trying to get them to pay you, right? That makes you a WRITEWAGIE not a fucking fainting pure artist living in an ivory tower.DING DING DING DING WRITEWAGIE, TIME TO WAKE UP, CLOCK IN, AND WRITE ME MORE REINCARNATED BABY PROGRESSION, PRONTO! ANDALE!
>>25465522Any fleshly human being with half a brain could catch these instantly during the approval process. The kikes just don't give a fuck
>>25465524>RoyalRoad readers make no fucking sense to me at all. No reviews, no comments, just dead silence for months.Frankly it sounds like you need to git gud.
>>25465524>I'm getting more engagement on ScribbleHubGuess 10 is better than 0, but that site is just a ghost town
>>25465464people in here larping they have a single sub on patreon let alone a thousand
>>25465528What if I'm not writing to make money?
>>25465576That's not too bad, also I don't really believe you, but it's still a weirdly entitled way to think.
>>25465578I make money writing, just not with content on Royal Road. That will remain free and available. I'll be making print versions of volumes, and putting them up for sale on Amazon. However, I won't be stubbing my fictions. Anyone can read my stories for free on line, and can buy a copy of my books if they choose.But to say I am "writing on Royal Road to make money" isn't true. My motivation is to share the world I have built with as many people as I can through stories based within it.
>>25464419There's a setting on the front page to change the entire UI
>>25465591>and can buy a copy of my books if they choose.I can spoil the future for you: they won't. If you plan to sell more than 1-2 random copies a year, you're going to have to stub and force them to. But that necessitates that you actually have readers and that they care about the story.
>>25465609It also necessitates that I care that only 1-2 random copies sell a year.
>>25465522Because AI detection tools are not actually reliable and often false flag man-written material (because AI is trained on human writing). And you can make AI write in a different style if you give it a sample.So you ultimately need someone who can discern AI writing to look over any fiction being approved.
I like deckbuilders. It's unfortunate none of them are any good and that they underperform.
>>25465614Then why go to Amazon at all if you don't care about moving any copies there? Senseless behavior
>>25464538I read the first three chapters of this on rr, it might as well be the tutorial chapter/level of some shitty rpg video game. It's just dumb on every level.
>>25463978Is this a lgbt novel? Main character appears to be gay.
>>25465682Try to think about this one a bit harder, I believe in you
>>25465759>I take my product to the world's biggest marketplace and don't care about selling itNo, I honestly don't get it
>>25464792Man it feels awful when you kinda hate your own writing but it's more than good enough for RR
>>25466135it feels even more awful to be told that your writing is great and that you have to make it more retarded because readtards are retarded
What is your default first draft writing style - your go to for when you want to put down the story as fast as possible without worrying about the prose?For me, it’s cave man speak: I opened the door. I stepped in. I saw a bloody knife on my bed. Blood stained the blanket. It smelled awful. I was taken aback. I…In the past, I used to be a conjunction spammer and wrote the whole thing as one stream of consciousness paragraph, but cave man speak is a lot easier to revise.What about you? Do you do something like this, or do you make sure it’s published ready the first time around?
>>25466236nonei have a terrible habit of editing as i go so first draft is usually final draftyes i get stuck often
>>25466236I make it as good as I can. Because that's nowhere near good enough and I'll have to try to make it better later. It would be too much work to edit if the first draft was useless.
>>25464704>at the lower ranks of rising stars there are multiple yuri stories. It's like there's a ceiling for themYuri has a passionate fanbase and including it is an almost guaranteed 400-800 followers, as long as the story isn't otherwise pure dogshit. But it's just poison for the majority and actually blowing up with it is extremely difficult. Even the best usually cap out at around 3k followers, far from the major league.Also, the downside of writing yuri is having to deal with these absolutely insane, manic, schizophrenic, bipolar, transsexual rape victims, who flip between loving you and treating you as their worst enemy at the drop of a hat, often for no discernible reason. Even the more moderate yuri readers are only interested in "when will they fuck?" and don't give two shits about anything else that happens in your story. Which gets pretty fucking annoying.This is why I stopped tagging lesbian romance and making it explicit, and now make sure to include male characters in prominent roles, because that keeps the schizos away more effectively than crosses do vampires.
Ugh wrong thread
>>25466467This is the sausage-making thread
>>25466236I just write, man. Occasionally when I don't want to think about a scene break yet I put comments in line I'm writing code or whatever.
>>25466236I'm a power-through writer.I know I'm prone to putting things off so I don't let myself get stuck. I'll write some absolute shit if I have to knowing I can redraft it later.I think in an ideal world for webnovels you'd write two drafts and then tidy up the grammar for a final but obviously pace is pretty important since readers are hogs.
>>25465654Pangram 4 is way past those issues.https://x.com/nrehiew_/status/2082853282754781586
>>25466467Can't be worse than today's /sffg/.
>>25466571Pangram is for sure better but still fails in both directions at times. Thus meaning its not useful as an automated tool for culling content unless mass casualties of innocents is acceptable
>>25466639Its failure rate is measured at presently sub .01%. If that's too large a margin for error for you, then I regret to inform you most things in your life have larger margins.
>>25466646I don't believe that failure rate is accurate.
>>25466646>If that's too large a margin for error for you, then I regret to inform you most things in your life have larger margins.That error rate is per document, not per writer.Yes, that fucking failure rate is too large.
>>25466646>sub .01%On their cherry picked data set, maybe. Not in the real world.
>>25466647My own tests (n=around 30) match it, for false positives specifically. False negatives might be higher but that's as it should be. >>25465654Defense in depth, have it bubble suspicious ones to the top.
>>25466571>Pangram 4I just tested two AI generated documents of 1000 words with the free allowance. Both were detected as 100% human written. So apparently I can get away with removing the AI-Generated tag for my fiction on RR.
Of course they'll just switch to other providers and if they do the same thing to comply with EU law they'll use the chink models. Then again if the chink ones really are distilled then the watermarks will still show up.
>>25466927you overestimate how many people careempty threats
>>25466930Oh I'm not believing them. Most will keep using whatever is the most convenient tool. Which is good.
>>25466927Kek I guarantee almost none of them will cancel, only slopjeets who are poor anyway. I'm so glad it's so expensive to train models, the slopmongers are going to be starved as legislation slowly catches up to what they're doing. China is likely only releasing open models to curry soft power so they'll likely more or less follow these kinds of western regulations.
>>25466942Hahah yep I just noticed the "dozens have posted". No one cares. I like AI but the average vocal AI fan is such a repulsive little entitled retard.
Frankly if your AI needs are thwarted by the watermarking system, you were NGMI anyway. I use it for data collation and metrics, it's not fucking creative and shouldn't be treated as such.
I finally started reading large chests, breddy gud so far did someone from here write it? some of the references I only associate with this place
>>25467386Not sure. Seems like the kind of person who would find his way here. The first one was great, but it got too cruel for me later on in the series.
Watermarking is weird how would it work when you ask it do something that needs precision, like coding maybe.
>>25467021>if your AI needs are thwarted by the watermarking system, you were NGMI anywaythis, because watermarking only filters out the most brain-dead chimps who can't even RETYPE THE RESULTS
>>25467610that's not how the watermark works you "brain-dead chimp"
>>25467597You can adjust the the coding style and naming choices to have some kind of statistically measurable signature. No one sure yet if it'll affect the actual code it generates. The general consensus is that they are being forced to do this for legal reasons rather than it being a choice they've made.
>>25467703It's also a tech reason. AI models trained on AI output experience something called "model collapse" where they just fail and stop working. There's also training data poison generating programs (eg Nightshade) that do the same thing. They still want to scrape content from the internet to train future models, but there's so much slop on the internet now it's causing model collapse on their new models. So they need a way to filter out slop at scale, and this watermarking system is one way to do that.It probably won't work, due to people wanting to not have watermarks on their slop (ie, hide from their bosses they're using AI instead of doing their jobs) and due to how imprecise the system is. Even if they filter 95% of all the slop out there now, that last 5% is still going to poison the training data. It's a pareto problem: that last 5% is going to take 95% of the effort to identify and remove from training data sets.LLMs peaked years ago when they ran out of easily available data to train on. The exponential, easy growth from "just throw more data and compute at it" is over. Now they'll have to actually refine algorithms which nobody really knows how to do. In the meantime AI companies burned through so much money they're on the verge of collapse and taking the entire economy down with them.Rejoice my fellow amateur web serial authors. We will emerge from the wreckage like the most persistent weeds, squeezing through the cracks in the concrete to find sunlight!
>>25467715> I companies burned through so much money they're on the verge of collapseWhile that true for most of them I do think Anthropic might be an exception since they decided to focus on a specific set of (coding) tools and now they have tens of thousands of larger enterprise customers paying them millions each month. Unlike say OpenAI who might have a billion users, a trillion dollar hardware budget, and try to do everything for everyone, however only a tiny, tiny fraction of that userbase actually pays for it.
>>25467715Is this a parody of redditors
>>25467386It's old as fuck so id doubt it. I dropped it for reasons similar to >>25467454 but is funny.
>>25467715>that last 5% is still going to poison the training data. It's a pareto problem: that last 5% is going to take 95% of the effort to identify and remove from training data sets.and besides, even just a 5% error factor would be murder when iterated, and their error rate is still not much better than a coin flipwe are truly in a Butlerian moment, and I have faith in the Mentats of reason. computers can replace maths but they cannot replace informal reasoning.
>>25467774>computers can replace maths but they cannot replace informal reasoning.I've seen the goal post moved too many times the past 3 years. shit is writing amazon best sellers in this very genrewe're fucked and its a matter of time. and its less than we think
>>25467715>It probably won't work, due to people wanting to not have watermarks on their slop (ie, hide from their bosses they're using AI instead of doing their jobs) and due to how imprecise the system is.The thing is that bosses probably don't give a shit, or are the ones pushing to use more LLMs.
>>25467851I remember when people said a computer would never pass the turing test, and were all amazed when cleverbot was able to repeat the pokerap.
>>25467774I wish we were in a Butlerian moment in the way you think. More like we're pre-Butler and about to sign away all thinking to LLMs (happening faster and at higher levels than anyone is actually comfortable with, like actual court filings and government policy papers).>>25467897I've always viewed the Turing test as testing the human subjects, not really the computers. The computers will do what they do, but how easily fooled is the human subject? Over time we have found that the majority of humans are super easy to fool. Thus "social engineering" is considered a "hack."
>>25467715>take watermarked text>"Hey chabidi can you rewrite this text?">receive watermark-free text from chabidiI propagate the AI menace for at least 2 more years with this post.Only the strongest will survive.
>>25467851>shit is writing amazon best sellers in this very genreOnly because the genre is shit and those amazon best sellers are shitIt's circular reasoning by way of appeal to popularity:>capeshit is good because lots of people like it; people like it so it must be good>>25467907>we're pre-Butler and about to sign away all thinking to LLMsYeah, but we'll get round to the Butler bit eventually, is what I meant
>>25467919>See character named Kael, Marcus, Henderson, etc...>Click off>Ozone mentioned>Click off>See em dash>Click offIt's as shrimple as that.
>>25467932>abuse the hell out of em-dash because it's the best punctuation mark>delete all comments calling it AI and block the usersAhh, it's royal road time.
>>25467940Silly anon, I rate before I leave any comments.
>>25467944
Saw this thread >>>/g/109556070Ai, even free google ai can write better comedy that the entire /lit/ put together.
>>25467946Because hurt people hurt people.
>>25467947
>>25467950
>>25467932I use EM dashes as a parenthese replacement and I can't wait to see braindead retards call my shit AIslop due to the sheer fact I used them in the very first paragraph of my story.
>>25467969I spam the em dash all the time, and no one has ever suspected me of AI use. If you're accused of being a clanker, I dare say the main cause is somewhere else than this character.That said, maybe avoid putting it in the very first paragraph when your readers yet have no reason to expect any better.
>>25467980Too late. I'm not rewriting the entire opening paragraph.I have a human-made cover art and I even ran the first chapter through that AI detector and it came up clean, so anyone falsely accusing me of AIslopping will just get ripped apart in the comments within what the rules permit.
>>25467969I've been using AP-style em dashes - i.e. spaced em dashes, like this - for years because I find them more readable than Chicago-style em dashes. Ai uses Chicago, so for now I'm safeas for your writing, smart readers will use more than one trait to detect Ai usage; retarded readers can go fuck themselves, so it's not a problem
>>25467982>I'm not rewriting the entire opening paragraph.Why would you need to rewrite the entire paragraph to remove the em dash? Also, are you seriously telling me a paragraph is too much work? Thanks for reminding me that replying to anyone here is a mistake
I'm actually glad that AI has poisoned the well on em dashes. Anyone here who uses them is a pseud playing at superiority. Imagine you're reading a litRPG and the author hits you with an interrobang. >What‽ When they could just have easily done>What?!
This is honestly kind of insane now that I look at it. The star system is insanely retarded.
>>25467988>check which ones I use>AP-styleWhew.
>>25467989I am not removing an EM dash or rewriting the paragraph as a consequence because some barely sentient fucktard might think of me as an AIslopper.
>>25467988>-That's a hyphen though.
>>25468028word processors auto-em-dash it for me. cant be arsed to do it manually for /lit/
>>25468030>he does not have a programmable split keyboardngmi
>>25468032>Asimov wrote 40 novels, 383 short stories, and over 280 non-fiction books>with a typewriter!I think I can manage a novel or two with a bog-standard lappytoppy
>>25468035How many of them were good?
>>25468041and yet he was famous and rich and enjoyed himself tremendously, all told
>>25468047So did Epstein.
>>25468035btfo
>>25468023You don't even have ratings on characters and story, man? Jesus.
>>25468051are you referring to the typewriter keyboard, or the standard computer keyboard?
>>25468053I was convinced it was some vestigial legacy thing before it was simplified.
>>25468050and thus we'll all enjoy ourselves without having to resort to underage prostituteswhat's not to like?
>>25468058Not really, no. Sorry you had to find out like this.
>>25468030Word processors generally turn it into an en-dash, not an em-dash.
>>25464394Write down your notes in a folder full of md files organized by topic, then ask an AI agent to see if you wrote some anti-canon shit in your latest chapter.
>>25468060'tis unfortunate that I was sent to this world to be its underage prostitute.I'm not even underage anymore, or a girl.
>>25468023Wtf did you do? I just looked at stories with similar ratings and they're almost all blatant unedited ai, poorly formatted, schizoslop, or all three.
>>25468124>Wtf did you do?The MC is not Literally (You) and he bullies the guild alchemist by sending her glasses to space. Less than 20 chapters in.
>>25468096If you're at all good with computers there's a ton of stuff like this you can do. Just ask ai to make/recommend you tools, there's a lot that doesn't require an LLM. I'm not gonna give away exactly what I do but it's a lot of fun to tinker with, I basically have an ide for writing fiction set up. God bless open source software and plain text as a universal interface.
>>25468023boy that's rough
Is there any smut out there that isn’t low quality slop? No yuri.
>>25468137Jerk off before posting.
>>25468126>sending her glasses to spaceOVER THE LINE
>>25468138
>>25468047You are new to 4chan and you are defending a Jew solely because he had money and status LOL
>>25468516>noooo!!! you can't be rich and famous and enjoy life or you are jew!>>>/pol/
>>25468528>orI'm the guy he replied to, and oh boy, you made a big booboo there
>>25468528Asimov was a literal jew who owned cheese pizza.
>>25468549and that is my problem how?
>>25468569It's your problem because jews are allowed to enjoy cunny while you are not.
Again I forgot you can't have any real stakes in your webslop. I wrote one chapter with some mild tension and vaguely sexual threat and lost about $100 in patreon subs in a couple of days. Well, it comes and goes
WAGMI, bros
>>25468658post novel, I'll give you a 5 star rating
It's over.
>>25468658Same bro but I only lost like half that. I got some good feedback on what people want though so I'm going to do some light revisions. Basically they want a sign that the story's not going to get gay/depressing for a long time, and that bad guys won't get away with what they've done.Obviously what comes after this is going to hit hard and be awesome and hype, but reading it week to week obviously they don't know that and they can't skip ahead so as authors we need to be a little more understanding with our payp- readers.
>>25468751>Phase 1: Kill!>Phase 2: Kill!>Phase 3: Kill!>Phase 4: Kill!Spectral Soul is based. What are gu btw?
>>25468777Read Gifted.
>>25468137I'm working on my smut.Be patient.
>>25468825I'm currently listening to The Runic Artist by the author of Gifted. It's meh so far. I might drop it today, if so it's unlikely that I'll read anything by Ellake again.
Return of the Runebound Professor was dumb fun.Book of the Dead was okay. I’m wondering what I should go for next. Has anybody read Pale Lights? I couldn't get what it’s about from the blurb. I know it’s from the author or PTGE which I haven’t read.
>>25468751>Unserious character beats serious settingWow, next you'll tell me that Popeye can solo The War of The Three Kingdoms.
>>25469100Pale Lights is a classic fantasy novel basically. Bunch of characters get sent to a military academy's insane proving ground because of geopolitical machinations that require them all to get there.Magic system's about making bargains with minor gods.It's good but it takes a while to get going and the first arc does feel a bit hunger gamesy even if it does interesting things with it.
>>25469123Yeah? Popeye is OP in any wuxia.
>>25469759This old monster comprehends the dao of spinach