A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#1
This thread is just a long thread about my recent reading experiences and i wanted to share them so i could get others thoughts on this.

so let me preface this with saying that throughout of my life i have been an easily pleased consumer, i like almost anything i read or watch and i have never been very particular about genres, as long as it had either the fantasy, adventure or scifi tag, i would like it. however i noticed that romance and drama always diminshed my enjoyment, i loved the adventure, the exploration, the discovery of new things. Anyways i soon discovered that almost everything i wanted to read had some degrees of both, so i learned to tolerate it. but in the last few years i have really started warming up to romance, if it is done well it makes the rest of the story way more enjoyable and vice versa.

so around this point i started getting into chinese novels. xianxia/wuxia, it must have been a year maybe two and to this day i haven't read a single chinese novel to completion. i truly started to understand the concept of frustration, these novels are so damn frustrating, the thing is most of the translated works come from official sites where the authors are paid monthly tickets. its a livelihood for these authors and never a project of passion, so basically the start of every story is unique enough to distinguish itself from other works on the site but as soon as the author is sure he got some readers hooked they start padding the wordcount on every chapter, the story starts getting unnesecerly stretched out, developments start taking a backseat to filler content thats only meant to delay and squeeze out as much possible from the current readership as possible. for gods sake i have seen novels with 5000 chapters, FIVE THOUSAND CHAPTERs and they are still ONGOING! and the romance in these novels, oh the romance. most of these novels are harems which i have no problems with but it is done in such a bad way it makes me hurt inside. the love interests are just a non-factor in the whole main story, and even when they are it is just during their introduction arc. ok fine a few useless female character chittering around the MC all day long and being lovey dovey with him is the MINIMUM purpose these characters can serve in the story, they wont be my favorite characters after i am done reading but at least they will have a reason to be there except for the authors writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about how jade-like their skin is. (does anyone even know what color jade skin is? green?). but these chinese novels cant even do that. as soon as some developments start occuring between the character they are quickly plucked out of the story to be place 3 realms above where the MC currently is to use that as a motivation. so what does kind of characters does this make them? they contribute nothing to the story they have no interesting personalities, they can't even serve the basic requirements of being cute girls you can get attached to. as much as i disdain japanese LN's they try to make some use of their own characters. in the end that is what these harem members are not characters. they are basically plot devices, and you are expected to give a crap about that type of romance. it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about ti.

So i tried to stop toturing myself with that crap and started reading original english stories and my experience for the most part has been nothing but dissapointment. just like the chinese novels these too start out with a great promising start but quickly and i do mean quickly as there are few completed original works most of them tend to be works in progress with little chapters out, that promising start flops. either the writer doesn't live up the promises they made at the start of the stories because they either lack the ability or just got bored of their own works and start writing another story within the same one.

so at this point i thought to myself why do i read web novels anyway? its to pass time of course. so would i rather have a story that i know is going to be crap the further i go or one that starts off great and has a potential to just trips on its face halfway through and going to frustrate the hell out of me that entire day i chose the former. the greater the expectations the greater the dissapointement, i so i just read mediocre completed chinese novesl with not so many chapters these days. (pfft ''not many chapter'' being 1500>)

Anyways i would like to hear people's experiences reading webnovels the last few months and thoughts on any of the things i mentioned.

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#2
If you're looking for good webnovels, everything listed on top web fiction is well made and enjoyable. Worm and Twig by wildbow are excellent, as is Mother of Learning by nobody103, especially if you desire a story with a rational Sanderson-esque magic system. The Iron Teeth is also on TWF and can be read on RR. There's plenty of really well written stories, you just have to look for them.

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#3
'Kekkama' pid='828709' dateline='1508511415' Wrote: If you're looking for good webnovels, everything listed on top web fiction is well made and enjoyable. Worm and Twig by wildbow are excellent, as is Mother of Learning by nobody103, especially if you desire a story with a rational Sanderson-esque magic system. The Iron Teeth is also on TWF and can be read on RR. There's plenty of really well written stories, you just have to look for them.

indeed there are i just tend to reach out to the things that are closest to me.i liked mother of learning a lot wildbow's stories took themselves a bit too seriously for my own taste. ( IE: i liked none of the characters)

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#4
Quote:............Rody woke up aching all over his body. This was especially true for the places where he had been kicked by the horse. It felt like some of his bones were broken.

He could not even move a single finger.

Rody immediately realized that he was being restrained with magic! The thought of this dampened his hopes, like a pot of cold water being poured over him.

Sure enough, he immediately saw Nicole’s beautiful face.

However, her face was seething with anger and hatred.

Nicole sat on the chair as she glared angrily at Rody who was lying on the floor. She was sitting on an animal skin chair, wrapped in a large robe. When she saw Rody’s lips, she noticed the bite marks on it. She could not help but blush. This bastard actually dared to do it!

This bashful feeling only lasted for a moment and slowly turned to disgust as she looked at Rody’s Yin Yang face.

“Listen! I will be asking you questions! You better answer honestly, otherwise, you will regret being born to this world!” Nicole lowered her voice and gnashed her teeth.

Rody could not speak nor nod. He could only look at Nicole blankly.

“If you agree, blink!” Nicole continued, “I do not like flowery words. The less you say the better. When I ask you questions, you are to answer 'yes' or 'no'. Blink if you want to say 'yes' and if the answer is 'no', do not blink! Understand?”

Rody blinked.

“Good!” Seeing Rody complying, Nicole’s anger calmed down a little bit. “Then I shall ask you the first question. Do you want to die?”

Rody immediately straightened himself, opened his eyes wide and stared. He was afraid he might accidentally blink. If so, he would be dead.

“Since you do not want to die, why did you break into my home so late at night? What do you want? Did someone order you to come?”

Rody continued to stare and did not blink.

Nicole frowned and shouted. “You better be honest! Do not try to be crafty! No one ordered you, but you dared to sneak in here? Yet you say you are not lying?”

God is my witness. Rody had been staring for a long time. Unfortunately, his eyes could not withstand the dryness and he blinked twice involuntarily. Nicole got furious immediately. She flicked her fingers and a bright flame shot towards him. Rody could not even scream when his scalp caught fire. Even his eyebrows were almost charred.

Fortunately, Nicole had no intention of seriously harming him and the small flame soon died out. Even then, Rody's scalp was already burned in some places. The loss of some hair was certain.

At that moment, the beautiful girl no longer looked pleasant. If Rody could speak, he would definitely curse her ancestors!

“You bastard! Don't you dare to be dishonest!” Nicole spoke coldly, “I will put you in your place. Don't you dare to take advantage of ….” When she said those words, Nicole’s face turned red again.

At that moment, Rody strained to keep his eyes open wide, trying hard not to blink accidentally.

“I am going to continue to ask you questions! You listen carefully! Think before you answer!” Nicole’s face was stern.

Rody blinked once.

Nicole sneered and lifted her finger..........

-from 'Masked Knight' - CNese NV (ch.3)

this kind of stuff u'd find everywhere in CNese NVs Neutral something akind to 'yandere' in JPese NV

as for the MCs themselves? "keke", "haha", "hehe" Neutral the typical JPese NVs' MC is what ppl often call 'beta' male, 'dense', etc. etc.
meanwhile, the CNese ones 're simply...hm...how to describe it Neutral always 'self-centereed'? 'self-important'? something like so? could be that it's not the MCs themselves but the way those authors make the NV all 'orbit' around the MCs in a particular way, i guess

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#5
'Tanaka Tomoyuki' pid='828713' dateline='1508534837' Wrote: I am very sorry for being terrible at writing and contributing to your unpleasant experience in reading. I know you mentioned that I wrote one of those original English stories that you're extremely disappointed with.

I'll go commit seppuku now.

NOO don't! life is worth living.

'mlovolm' pid='828717' dateline='1508558923' Wrote: -from 'Masked Knight' - CNese NV (ch.3)

this kind of stuff u'd find everywhere in CNese NVs Neutral something akind to 'yandere' in JPese NV

as for the MCs themselves? "keke", "haha", "hehe" Neutral the typical JPese NVs' MC is what ppl often call 'beta' male, 'dense', etc. etc.
meanwhile, the CNese ones 're simply...hm...how to describe it Neutral always 'self-centereed'? 'self-important'? something like so? could be that it's not the MCs themselves but the way those authors make the NV all 'orbit' around the MCs in a particular way, i guess

funny that you mention masked knight it is the most recen series i have read lol. i am at chapter 66 but yeah chinese MCs tend to be unable to get their heads out of their asses. abd they tend to be the only thing that moves the plot.

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#6
Hello there,

The webnovels you are ranting are the typical cliches from an author that is looking a way to earn and survives each day, that's why you find it bored because of the same plot. It can occur the same in the literature of any country for that or another reason (Most of them in Asia because the webnovels is more developed and is treated as a market).

The thousand of chapters, there's a western novel with thousand of chapters (If i'm not wrong, it's called Wheel of Time), so the thousand of chapters you see is mainly the webnovels with an author like what i stated above.

Harem, well, that's the preference of the author, not everybody like to put harem. Some author may put a harem but in the end of the novel, the MC only get a woman, example: Jinyong's novel (Hongkong author, i say Hongkong because i think the young generation hongkonese doesn't like to be chinese... i don't know about the old generation) Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre has 4 women for the MC, but in the end of the novel only the Mongol lady get the MC.

The jade skin coloured, the jade is not pure green, some of them are white, dark bronze (Don't know how to call it lol), gray, etc. The translation of Jade Skin, in fact, is Beatiful Skin because the word Yu has many meaning such as Jade, Beautiful, Pure, Gem, etc. And when you see the word Yu written in a sentence and is talking about a woman, then it's about Beatiful Skin because the Yu of Beautiful is especially for a person, a woman and a term of respect. The Jade Skin, in my opinion is just a lit. translation. (Warning, i'm using dictionary).

What i recommend you is to read Jinyong's novels (As always from a chinese LOL, Jinyong jinyong). For Gu Long's novels, when you finish read every Jinyong novels because Gu Long novels is hard to read, and his novel is not for plot, development, amusing, etc, it's about literature and philosophy. Other Chinese author, i don't know which one is good, but the older an author is, then the better is the novel...

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#7
Admittedly, I’ve never been a huge fan of Xianxia/Wuxia based web-novels. I don’t hate them, don’t get me wrong. I’ve just never really found one that caught my fancy (same with LitRPG, though I’ve been contemplating starting ‘Big Chests’ at some point lol). Plus I always hear people complain that they all are basically the same story, so that turned me off a little.

I feel you on the stories being way too long. I mean, it’s one thing to start the story off with a slow pace for the purpose building up the characters and plot. But when your story is thousands of chapters long? That’s just bullshit. Unless you’re planning on breaking the story off into a series, I don’t see a 5000+ chapter story maintaining its level of interest.

'Tanaka Tomoyuki' pid='828738' dateline='1508590239' Wrote: Not when I get 0.5 ratings and when I literally have readers telling me to kill myself.

Readers like that piss me off much more than they should. It’s one thing to dislike a story, but you don’t have to be a raging asshole about it. How about instead of posting something like “Ur stori sux” you post something useful that the author can use to his/her own benefit. You know...constructive criticism?

So yeah. Fuck those readers, man. Keep doing your thing. :)
"The others said that they saw a dog the size of a tree, but they didn't. Dogs are not as big as trees."
-Lisa, 5 years old.

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RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#9
When I start to feel that way I generally go looking for a new type of genre/medium/source. It is a sign that you have become so genre savy that you can see how a story is going to develup and the things that could be considered novel no longer are for you.
I didnt personally start here, I instead took a rather circumveinious route to here. From being introduced to manga by a friend, to anime, back to manga (on the web instead of translated to native language), to translated light novels, to translated xianxia and amature webnovels. There were also webcomics in there somewhere, but I cant remember the timing.

On the other hand, you should know when looking at unpaid webnovels that it is usually the work of amatures, and your expectations of the quality should be thereafter. The reason I tend to read novels on this site is two-fold, there are a few people that write decently well and are worth reading, and they tend to cover genres and topics usually not touched too much in main stream, because they come with warning signs of some kind (such as small groups of potential readers, many people having heavy bias against them, and/or easy to mess up stories that include them). This include things such as OP mcs, harems, LitRPGs/VRMMO, and so on.
You need to have lower expectations when shifting through amature works, as the people who write on a compariable level to professionals would tend to become professionals, and the ones left here are the ones who hasnt realized it, havent buldozed through the publishing trials, or simply are so much better at something else that it still doesnt make sense to shift proffesion for them (and some different variations, like semi-proffesionals who treat it like a hobby part-time job).

For xianxia the main thing you have to realize is that it is for people who read a lot. A series on this site that update often would typically update 1-2 times a week with a single chapter. Xianxia may update with 3+ chapters a day. This puts a lot more strain on the authors, more than many traditional proffesional authors in terms of words/day. This leads to many authors streching out their stories. It can be felt much easier on some than others (BTTH and ATG can be quite obvious here), but it can be more exucable for people who are going to read a lot more anyway, especially if done as benching (though 20+ chapter fights are not exactly good form).
Here are some suggestions for stories that have a decent flow and not too horrible romance: I Shall Seal the Heavens, and Swallowed Star. The first has a good amount of shifts and good pacing, leading to the story often feeling at least partially novel (when viewed against itself). The second features a different type of setting (sci-fy based), so there are a lot of things that may feel new. Both of them have some romance elements, which are not "omg she is the huges beuty, gotta have 'er" type, but instead feature more believable types of romances. They are also used partly as plot devices, but it is also somewhat more refined than "push status to higher grade to make them a goal".

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#10
A note about jade, courtesy of Wikipedia, concerning "white" jade as being highly prized:

Quote:Although deep and bright green jadeite is better known in Europe, for most of China's history, jade has come in a variety of colors and white "mutton-fat" nephrite was the most highly praised and prized.

So, "she had skin like mutton fat." Doesn't that get your motor revving?
She's a VRMMORPG player on a mission: Granny God-mode
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RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#11
'David Penchyk' pid='829761' dateline='1510494573' Wrote: A note about jade, courtesy of Wikipedia, concerning "white" jade as being highly prized:

Quote:Although deep and bright green jadeite is better known in Europe, for most of China's history, jade has come in a variety of colors and white "mutton-fat" nephrite was the most highly praised and prized.

So, "she had skin like mutton fat." Doesn't that get your motor revving?

You know. I heard from some Asian people in my class 25 odd years ago, that they found a lot of pasty white girls to be very pretty due to their light toned skin. Girls that the rest of us found to be average at best, So for some people, mutton fat white skin does get the motor revving. 
otoh. more than half the boys in the class were drooling all over themselves over that almost chocolate brown girl with the luscious lips, despite that her looks if you discounted the lips and skin tone were pretty average as well.   
Point is. It's the rarity/novelty of the trait that is attractive.  It stems from our natural desire to find partners that will give us the best chance for strong healthy kids.
My fiction

Cheers!

RE: A rant about chinese novels and romance. plus my reading experiences lately.

#12
I wholeheartedly agree with your rant having experienced similar issues with both English and translated webnovels.

One thing that I do appreciate, however, is the discovery process of finding new stories and watching the stories unfold from the beginning. Plus we get that whole instant author-reader interaction going on. At least that's why I chose release chapters online; other aspiring writers will usually write a novel, then send it off to various publishers.

Not to stray too off topic, there are very few translated novels I enjoy myself. And like the original post, I often find the 'romance' displeasing to read, and elongated chapters that lose their substance after a while.

A few completed, translated novels I've really liked were Coiling Dragon, The King's Avatar, and Praise the Orc. Though I'll be honest, as the chapters increased so did my skimming, because the 'suspense' no longer felt real through indestructible plot armor.

I honestly can't think of a web novel where romance was done well on the top of my head. (I can tell you many which I thought should burn lol.) Except maybe Ze Tian Ji accomplished a lot where other novels failed really badly, but the pacing was exceedingly slow...Tbh I like light novels more in this aspect. Somehow they can find a better balance between action and romance. For instance Danmachi, The New Gate, log horizon, SAO, etc. But ugh, the harems are like eye vomit.
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