ValentinaKhan I repeat. Every story follows the Transformational Arc. If it doesn't it's not a story, but a teenager's wet dream.
Really? Wow! Who said that? Must be a powerful Sith, I'll bet!
So, how to elongate your narrative?
You can do like Martin: writing a story with many POV, almost every POV a transformational arc itself.
You can do like Tolkien: writing the backstory of every damned tree branch. But you risk to kill your readers by the sheer amount of infodump.
You can do like in the Hunger Games series: writing multiple arcs but every one of them self concluding (Escaping the games, overthrowing the government, etc).
#1 Lol, were you too lazy to google the name of the Hunger Games author?
#2 See what the problem is with your examples? None of them are web novels. See, with a title called "how to write a webnovel..." I expect you to stick to that format when citing examples.
Or you can use some cheap tricks like in most asian narrative: Fan service, fillers, slice of life and so on.
It's really difficult to find a story which doesn't follow the rules.
(If it doesn't it's not a story, but a teenager's wet dream.)
Again with the generalization. And you're either not looking hard enough, or not looking in the right places.
#1. Movies are stories, too, right? I can point you to a bunch of war movies that have no transforming protagonists. They don't change, they just survive. They are spared a horrible death not by overcoming character flaws or whatever, but sometimes by sheer dumb luck or outside intervention.
Or, certain movies just depict a snapshot of someone's life, i.e. over the course of a few days. Example: Inside Lleywin Davis. The protagonist doesn't transform. He just... exists. There's not inciting incident, we just see his struggles, and at the end, nothing is resolved. His life continues.
Or, the Dollars Trilogy by Sergio Leone. You can argue that The Man with No Name doesn't transform at all throughout the trilogy.
I can go on and on, but you get the point.
#2. Look at The King's Avatar, the #4 (Edit, #5 now :() on Translated story ranking and tell me: How did the protagonist transform?
Most people would scratch their head at that question. Sure he has flaws (1 or 2), but it doesn't affect the plot in any way. He has the same personality in nearly 2000 chapters. The thing that does the most transforming is his umbrella.
And I dare you to say that novel is a teenager's wet dream. If you do, then (1) I applaud your ballsiness and (2) Congratulations, you just alienated the very community you set out to "educate."
What you've outlined in your "guide" is not a webnovel. It's just a story cut down to bite-sized chunks. I'm not dissing your guide. I'm just saying: it doesn't fit a web novel.
I suggest changing the title to "One approach to writing fictions." It's more reasonable and open to discussion. Assuming that's what you're trying to be.
When I saw the thread, I thought it was an invitation to a discussion. However, it looks like you're just here to dispense wisdom and expect to be responded with praises and thanks. If that's the case, I'm gonna peace out and go back to verbalizing my teenage wet dream.
