Arguably most western and Japanese romances features a reader proxy (your average guy/girl) who for absolutely no sane reasons at all go after a representative of the stereotypes listed here.
If such a story is done into a film and the reader proxy is girl you always have to remove a pair of glasses to turn plain Jane into the next miss Universe.
StenDuring And there's that cliché too, sigh. The funny thing is that would more 'original' on this site because of the lack of it here. :joy:
It's not that we shouldn't have standards, but sometimes I wonder if stories and media are the reason why relationships fail or are fleeting or difficult to start/develop for young people these days. I'm contemplating a broad, generic statement without anything to really back me up except my observations and overall feeling/conceptions. But certainly when I see abusive relationships or ones where the ML acts like a prince, and the FL is an innocent little flower, I can see how it creates misguided impressions and behaviors....
I totally see your point about how every novel seems to be the same. Personally, I hate the cliché stereotypes you listed, and for once why can't we have a main protagonist that isn't extremely beautiful? That is why I like writing my own stories about things I actually want to read that features realistic characters, with a main character that isn't beautiful. Some say she isn't even attractive.
I would recommend giving authors who are new a try. That's what I like to do. Most of the newer novels are original and do not follow your typical cliché story.
Cliches definitely have a market. I love my cliches, I love my kinda guilty cheap reads. I especially love my happy cliches with a twist!
But what WN floods us with, especially the newer romances is pretty....awful yeah. They're not cliches at this point they're just....bad writing. Not blaming the translators, I feel like the original content is just part of the cookie cutter flood of generic to bad novels to fill up the virtual shelves.
They feel like the Chinese versions of mass printed harlequin romances that make up that aisle of supermarket book shelves. You know the kind of cheap paperbacks read primarily by bored middle aged housewives. IT's filled with the same swooning women, perfectly handsome rich men, questionable content, and some pretty awful 'sexy' scenes. Oh it's just all variations of 50 Shades of Grey.
Hopefully no one acts out or accepts these dangerous behaviors/relationships in real life.
As much as I agree, I hate this stuff, this is apparently what's making WN their money. I sure would appreciate them picking up better quality stories, different genres, or refocusing on older unfinished projects. But hey I don't know what's paying the server bills back in the WN main office.
Well, since I decided to dabble in high school romance I'm a little more aware of the tropes associated with that genre.
To be honest I'm pretty clueless about what goes for for the stories aimed at an adult female readership.
Anyway, the main difference between Japanese (manga) romance and its western counterpart is that there's basically no western market for shounen/seinen romance (or whatever such stories would have been labelled as if such an English reading market existed), I haven't encountered once since the Can't buy me love movie from the late eighties.
Let's assume, for a moment, that it did. With a male audience your male MC will act as the reader proxy. So you have an 'average' MC with or without a harem. Slapping your love interests around ceased being cool since James Bond did that during the sixties and early seventies. Raping them wasn't cool even then.
Why it's supposedly ok in shoujo/josei (and their western or Chinese counterparts) is beyond me, but it's definitely not specific for this site. The entire Bad Boy subgenre takes flight from this setup, no matter if said Bad Boy actually acts abusively or not in the story. Add that every "let's have a bet about turning the female geek into a prom queen" -story basically depicts a first class jerk as a love interest. Yeah, yeah, he changes his mind, regrets everything and buys a new personality at Walmart and ends up perfectly lovable a few weeks later...
StenDuring Well said. No matter the form or the circumstances of the bad boy aka simply jerk, the MLs are the same regardless if the story is from the FL perspective or the ML is the MC instead. I suppose very country and culture has their own version of this character (and vice versa of the girls).
StenDuring Sensei! You just summed everything up in one neat package.
Actually... boys love can fit into this mould too since some stories just tend to swap the gender not the personality or characteristics. The cliches are a lot more obvious in boys love, and cheesy.
That's why I attempted a boys love CEO romance using as much of my own corporate knowledge as possible. At the end of the day, I like writing fighting action so stuck with historical fantasy/action adventure with boys love as a side dish.
Ah much agreed, though the boys love genrecan bewhole different matter. It's kind of a mixed bag. It flies under the radar a lot due to the support from readers/target demographics. There's a lot of deep heart touching stories in this genre but they're also swimming in the sea of cliches and generics.
BL seems to get a mere slap on the wrist towards both harmless cliches and abusive content. As if just bc it's LGBTQ then it's okay. I partly agree (I want all the cheesy LGBTQ romances, hit me with every pure happy cliche in the books. Pls I'm so tired of the ' bury the gays' trope in mainstream media). Again it's a different discussion and depends on the author and their intent.
Back to mass release of cookiecutter 'bad' novels, here's a substantial market so the mass productions is just supplies to meet the demand at the cost of quality. Cheap but effective thrills often means a lot of stories containing abuse/rape and very one dimensional characters being overly romanticized. That applies to the CEO genre too- mass releases to meet reading demands.
How about giving BMS a try and see if it's the same?
https://www.webnovel.com/book/11963007805667305/Be-My-Strength
Lonelytree Yes, please support me (meow) <-- idk why i do that...
Well, the shounen/seinen romance actually differs (or rather swaps roles). Since the reader proxy is male he's supposedly your average Joe. Slapping girls around simply won't work with that setup (ie not very average Joe).
Arguably the main difference as far as depictions go is that he won't turn into the school prince by having his glasses removed. The secondary difference is that he also gains a (pontential) harem for absolutely no valid reason at all and in difference from most female counterpatrs (as in female leads) wavers horribly. If seinen it's common that he'll bed just about every love interest before he makes his bloody mind up.
The harem romances are almost always running with a male lead. It's common enough that stories with female leads are called reverse harem, which in turn says just about everything depressing you didn't want to know about the gender views used as a norm for the readers.
StenDuring The harem romances are almost always running with a male lead.
My mind went straight to Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches when I read this for some reason.
Well that one makes physical smooching a bit more explicit as a plot device :D
The World God only Knows runs with an even more explicit plot device since emotions are vital in that story.
As a contrast Clannad and Good Ending are less hamhandedly told.
Chryiss They do exist, you just need to dig through the layers of originals. I've found some myself, sadly, they're often dropped cause well, you know why. lol
AriaKang That's very true. But that's why a Webnovel story stays a webnovel and will never become any praised work of literature/classic/known outside of Webnovel or web serials. Maybe that's a harsh statement to say, but I believe in this 100%. The stories that shake the world of literature and storytelling will be the original ones or those which evoke emotion, strive for deeper meanings, and amaze with stylistic language. Then there are also the ones that tingle the imagination by immersing readers in a world and taking them on a journey that quite literally impacts some aspect of their life or outlook on the world. At least, this is what I've gathered from my own experience, knowledge, and observations. 'Famous' authors are often known for their style of writing and employment of significant themes that touch one's humanity in some form. Before stumbling upon Webnovel, I knew nothing of the webnovel/web serial world even while liking to read and write.
So in short, while catering to the audience on here might be ultimately most beneficial, it's okay to be different too. Of course, that doesn't mean that all the popular stories are all cliched stories. Even the best stories technically have cliches still since when a cliche is born isn't definite/known/agreed upon.
That's why sometimes I want to have tragic endings lol
AriaKang You just described my battles.
Being different/niche has a lot of hits and misses, since it's seen as experimental or avant garde writing. The amount of mixed reception I've received on my stories has been interesting, since every reader experience has been different. Pretty cool actually.
That is one of the benefits of writing to niche or using fewer cliches. You tend to receive genuine, individual opinions than cookie-cutter responses. Readers are learning, seeing and feeling a new experience from the book for the first time or not used to. Some take to it guns blazing, others not quite so well. I tend to receive the contrast a lot. The ratings given certainly reflects this.
I wouldn't change it for the world.
Whilst some writers play it safe, I play with chance and a belief that the stories I'm pumping out are markers for a future generation of readers.
Right now, I'm experiencing an Edison moment of failure. I'll keep pushing a head with the mindset that I only need that one kick-ass opportunity to make an innovation milestone happen.
Like Freddy Mercury once said to his drummer, "I'm not going to be a pop star, I'm going to be a legend."
I keep this mantra at the back of my head to keep me going during times of failure like now. Certainly Queen was definitely not catering to the masses during their time of Rockdom. I'm aiming to be like them.
Shoot. Did I just derail this thread with irrelevant comments?
Ehem... as you were people...
Edit: :eyes: Holy crap. I just re-inspired myself to write again. Thanks for the comment and thread all.
StenDuring
not entirely true. I remember a few years ago an awful YA female oriented called Beautiful disaster, and something called september 9 or smth. Both the stories have the classic super extra gorgeous FL, and the ripped, sexy handsome (full blown psycho) ML. Both books depicted what imo is an abusive relationship, and afaik had their fair amount of success. Ime, many girls love the "bad boy" because in their fantasies they will be able to change/redeem him. It doesn't work in books, let alone irl. An abusive man stays abusive, period.
As for cliches, it's a matter of how you use it. If you do the cookie cutter stuff everyone does, they are terribad. But you can always turn them in something new. EG: codex alera by jim butcher purposedly (author's words) took two extra cheesy plot elements (pokemon and the lost roman legion) and tried to make a good book out of it. Imo it failed big time, but not because of the cliches. The take Butcher had on pokemon/furies and roman empire were great, the problem lied in a horizontal plot forced af (all chars from emperor to MC are retarded and follow the author's script like mindless drones, totally unbeliavable) and the power building beyond saving (in codex alera the furies/pokemon are too common and yet super OP. In a realistic story it would be a chaotic "might makes right" world, simply beacuse they are too powerful and there is no defense from furies, none at all. Once again, in codex alera things work just because the author says so)
Legion20 Hated Beautiful Disaster. Just remembering it makes me want to punch someone. 
Read it because my friends kept on nagging me to read it and telling me how great it was. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the ML was some kind of yandere psycho. Didn't hesitae to give it 1star on Goodreads. 
Carry on peeps. I'm just passing by. LOL. 
