Shadowles_Immortal am with you on that one, if they don't like then guess what they can go write there stories or don't read the book at all. Some of these readers are very demanding like what do you quantity or quality but it's not easy to get both especially at the fast rate that they want these authors to write. Authors keep your heads up and keep doing y'all best
An Open Letter To All Readers - From Your Dear Authors
So totally agree!!! Am reading a translated novel at the moment and most of the comments on every single chapter are complaints about the privilege section being a scam and its only 1 short chapter a day, give us more or I'm dropping this book....
It's a regular 1 chapter a day (albeit short) and 2 on Fri thru Sunday's. They are getting so bad now that hardly any comments are about the actual story and its horrible to just read the comments section now. People need to realise that authors and translators don't live chained to their computers for our convenience.
If you want to read a book in 1 go, wait till its finished before you read it!!!
one of the main problems of webnovels are bunch of readers thinking translators are authors or authors are translators. and they end up generalizing everything.
As a reader i don't mind to wait quite a while as long as each chapter got satisfactionary part even at the end might be making me depressed coz i want more. But then,thats fine because it makes me want more that waiting for next one is always exciting..
And i believe you dont have to always follow what your reader want too, because its your story and you wrote it. Readers might give you some ideas if you have dont have idea whats next to write but its still up to you. You know more how would be your story gonna be..
Its always important to enjoy the things that you do to keep you going and makes you able to write the feelings that needed on you story.
Ummm yo pienso que los que son responsables de la página hacen su mejor esfuerzo por se puede hay que estar mejorando aún más
I see this so often. One thing that made me laugh my ass off was seeing a review complaining about how the story needed a better translation because the writing and grammar sucked.
This was on an original. Written by a native English speaker. I genuinely dont think it was a joke. Lol
TheyDreamer uhhhh I don't agree necessarily? :cold_sweat: it is definitely difficult to be a published author irl, but on webnovel, being an author isn't that unique. anyone can do it.
I am a dental student! Barely gets 4 hours a day at most for other activities. So writing novels along with my daily work it's really a mess.
If a person were to demand 4 chapters a day, he must have been influenced by novels from Chinese giants, who have published hundreds of chapters with 2-4 or even 6 updates per day, after their work had been translated.
For them it's their life, so be it, for us it's a hobby we cherish. I had published 60+ chapters till now on alternative days, so 3-4 chapters per week itself let alone 4 per day.
balubalubalu666 same here !!!! Becoming a dentist!!!
I am the author of an ongoing original science fiction novel called 'Trapped in Time'. Writing is a hobby for me and so is writing poetry. I find that I have very few readers who are posting comments. Those who do post suggestions, I do make the necessary corrections if I think they are pointing flaws in my story. But so far I have not had anyone telling me how to write my novel. Incidentally, I have more of the silent readers.
I also work and take care of my home and kids. By the time I get back from office, it is 8 p.m. Cooking, dinner etc does not leave me much time for writing, but I write my chapters as drafts, and publish these as and when I have checked them.
Yes, reading speed is definitely more than writing speed. Writers have to struggle in imagining the scene and putting that scene to paper in script form. A reader, on the other hand, will just read and frame the picture sequence in his mind as he reads. Hence, a completed novel is easier to read for anyone. Readers would naturally get impatient when they are reading the published one chapter a day or two chapters a week especially when these chapters leave them at cliffhangers.
yaoyueyi as a reader, I personally prefer stories that take longer to update, because the quality of grammar, content etc are usually much better. Also, the suspense gives me something to look forward to, and the feeling of satisfaction from finally getting to read a new chapter is better. All respectful readers and true fans would know that not all authors devote their entire 24/7 to writing, you guys have your own lives too. And anyways, good things are ALWAYS worth waiting for. Mad respect to all you true authors out there, who take time out of your lives to bring happiness to us your readers!
Gourmet_DAO well said
Thanks for the letter. As a writer myself, I know the struggles authors encounter and it's seriously a headache!
That's hilarious OP, if I ever bother finding out what you write I'll leave a 3 star review asking for at least 6 chapters a day. Hahahahah
I agree with the messaging of this post, but I did have a good laugh at the "inflicted with writer's block, a chapter of that length could even take days."
I've had chapters take upwards of 6 months to a year because of writer's block. Not knowing where to go, not knowing how to revise old chapters, etc etc. I don't write on WN for a job, though, so I'm free to take these much needed hiatus whenever I'm stuck.
yaoyueyi Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
As a contracted author of three novels, I cannot emphasize the wording better for the struggles of writers and for the demand of mass releases. Even after explaining IRL problems, I receive constant demands of mass release.
I appreciate the enthusiasm of readers. But even as a native-English speaker and writer, it takes me 2-5 hours to write a chapter, and realistically, I don’t have that much time in a day, excluding sleep, school, and my day time job.
I even write a lot before actual publication but with writers block in the way—I easily run out of the stockpile.
Another issue is that I would make one mistake (ONE—a comma placement for example), and someone points it out. I like to emphasize that the story is not always about the grammar, but the content itself. It also hinders my confidence as a writer, afraid that I will be called out. This also applies to non-native English speakers. Yes, if it’s constant then don’t be afraid to suggest an editor (respectfully) but other than that, pointing out one simple mistake is just arrogance at this point. ~ sorry ~
I suddenly found the urge to write and then I posted on webnovel. No editing. No checks whatsoever. Its just one of the many novels you are free to ignore. But if you read it I hope you like it.
I got my first review today. The person just said "bad bad bad bad".
How does one delete a review? The only option I have is to report it.
Beautiful
yaoyueyi First let me start by thanking all you authors out there who manage to keep me captivated ,my humble respect. Moving on, thank you for ironing out your side of life. Really appreciate it. Am not going to be a hypocrite and say that am not one of those people who demand almost the impossible from authors because that would be plain lying. I love reading wonderful captivating work of art and I see that putting pressure on my dear authors is not doing me and you any good. Am new to web novel so I've managed to see some minor problems that have managed to irritate me like typos and such but after reading this I know that it's somehow our fault as readers.
We put so much pressure on authors to release more chapters that they can't even properly edit their work and when they release unedited work we start pointing out the mistakes like it's all there fault.
We should be thanking and helping out our authors the best way we could if we want excellent work. How many stories have been dropped by readers due to poor work and such?
Have we ever wondered how a beautiful story simply goes out of context the further it's released? How it captures you in the beginning and then just goes "blur" the further it goes?
I think if we were to answer these questions we would understand the pressure authors are in to produce award worthy work...( Too many words )
I live in America. In my opinion some of your books are better than a lot of books we call " Best Sellers" here. Ya'll are very talented. Yes I ask for mass releases. Especially when it start getting real good and the chapter is over. But it also gives me something to look forward to the next day. And yes I love spoilers. But you're good at what you. People are people and you can't please us all. Do what you do best.
For the record I rather read on here than read my Kindle. I'm on here everyday but I haven't been on Kindle for almost a month. But please understand I still don't like that Privileged stuff
TheCaffinated those Writers working for chinese webnovel companies are expected to have that level of performance. Er Gen can tell you horror stories about expectations of paid writers for webnovels.
Clowniac You’re absolutely right, authors don’t owe readers anything regardless of whether they’re reading for free or not. Likewise, readers don’t owe authors anything: they don’t have to like your books, they don’t have to vote for them, they don’t have to review or comment on them, they don’t have to save them in their libraries or even freaking read them.
Honestly, if basic, and I mean basic, standards of writing were to be adhered to; most novels on WN would fail the test and that’s being modest. In fact, when it comes to grammatical accuracy, the translations fare better than the originals (feel free to disagree). Most readers shut down their brains and read with their hearts in order to appreciate the efforts of the authors. Like someone rightly said, readers choose the plot over grammatical accuracy. That said, even the plot is so messed up sometimes that readers have to, mentally, edit it as well as the grammatical errors ( which is freaking frustrating) for the order of events to make sense.
Tip to readers:
When choosing a book to read, 1) check how far gone it is - if it’s less than a hundred chapters, then it may take a while for the story to pick up (especially so with translations which are usually a 1000+ chapters) in which case you may want to hold on; 2) check the frequency of updates by checking the last date it was updated and the intervals between each update; 3) check the creator’s comments to see if the author is one who communicates breaks in updating regularly then you may choose to read at your own risk; 4) NEVER fall the ‘comments and suggestions are welcome’ ploy cause most authors say that but end up whining and ranting when you actually comment and suggest honestly (except, of course, if you’re painting black white).
Tips for authors (if I may, o magnificent ones):
1) don’t be in a hurry to publish your book if you’ve not completed up to 75% of the raw/draft/first edited text, cause once you publish, readers will keep demanding for updates to feed their suspense (I dare say that it’s only on WN that this is considered a bad thing).
2) Don’t open the floodgate of suggestions if you can’t handle honest views and opinions.
3) Minimise subplots involving supporting characters as these leave too many loose ends to resolve, especially when there’s no clear connection to the main plot. (I suspect this to the main cause of ‘writer’s block’ here).
4) Be sincere in your communications on updates; prepare the readers’ minds (whether to expect daily, weekly or monthly updates) so they know what they’re getting themselves into.
5) Now this is the most important one - STOP whining! Its unnecessary and annoying. Frankly, I’d rather be ghosted than to read an author’s lamentations about how difficult it is to do what he/she claims to love doing.
That’s all folks!
PS:
If you think I was rude, read your post again.
Clowniac You’re absolutely right, authors don’t owe readers anything regardless of whether they’re reading for free or not. Likewise, readers don’t owe authors anything: they don’t have to like your books, they don’t have to vote for them, they don’t have to review or comment on them, they don’t have to save them in their libraries or even freaking read them.
Honestly, if basic, and I mean basic, standards of writing were to be adhered to; most novels on WN would fail the test and that’s being modest. In fact, when it comes to grammatical accuracy, the translations fare better than the originals (feel free to disagree). Most readers shut down their brains and read with their hearts in order to appreciate the efforts of the authors. Like someone rightly said, readers choose the plot over grammatical accuracy. That said, even the plot is so messed up sometimes that readers have to, mentally, edit it as well as the grammatical errors ( which is freaking frustrating) for the order of events to make sense.
Tip to readers:
When choosing a book to read, 1) check how far gone it is - if it’s less than a hundred chapters, then it may take a while for the story to pick up (especially so with translations which are usually a 1000+ chapters) in which case you may want to hold on; 2) check the frequency of updates by checking the last date it was updated and the intervals between each update; 3) check the creator’s comments to see if the author is one who communicates breaks in updating regularly then you may choose to read at your own risk; 4) NEVER fall the ‘comments and suggestions are welcome’ ploy cause most authors say that but end up whining and ranting when you actually comment and suggest honestly (except, of course, if you’re painting black white).
Tips for authors (if I may, o magnificent ones):
1) don’t be in a hurry to publish your book if you’ve not completed up to 75% of the raw/draft/first edited text, cause once you publish, readers will keep demanding for updates to feed their suspense (I dare say that it’s only on WN that this is considered a bad thing).
2) Don’t open the floodgate of suggestions if you can’t handle honest views and opinions.
3) Minimise subplots involving supporting characters as these leave too many loose ends to resolve, especially when there’s no clear connection to the main plot. (I suspect this to the main cause of ‘writer’s block’ here).
4) Be sincere in your communications on updates; prepare the readers’ minds (whether to expect daily, weekly or monthly updates) so they know what they’re getting themselves into.
5) Now this is the most important one - STOP whining! Its unnecessary and annoying. Frankly, I’d rather be ghosted than to read an author’s lamentations about how difficult it is to do what he/she claims to love doing.
That’s all folks!
PS:
If you think I was rude, read your post again.
For what it's worth, I've had it happen for long spans of time like this as well, but it's been a long time since the last one. Once I genuinely stopped caring if anyone was going to like what I am writing, I stopped hitting those kinds of snags. I really do think a lot of it is performance anxiety, and not an absence of ideas or creativity.
Clowniac I feel like only a child would complain about writing speed. In higher education you get 6 month to research and write 100 pages long thesis and 3 months for 50 page short version. I personally clocked up to 200 including images and transcriots etc. but I had to work at it 10+ hours a day. If you wanna meaningfull text produced faster than a page a day then you get a textbot or a chatbot that generates rubbish.
Bloody hell, 2 hours to write a 2,500 word chapter? Who said so? I spend 3-4 hours a day writing 2,000 words!
It's kind of funny because I usually receive several types of responses. I do have one or two readers asking for mass releases, but when you spend 3-4 hours a day writing just one chapter, that's not realistic. Really. Even so, I do my best to the point I overworked and fell sick a couple of weeks ago, complete with a fever, just so I can stockpile enough chapters.
And what did I get in return? After falling sick from overworking myself (I don't just write, I actually have a real job and I have to study for graduate school in real life, and I essentially sacrificed sleep and lots of stuff just to write), one reader came in and told me in a one-star review that my story is garbage. Now, I understand that my story is trash and I'm probably the most awful writer on the site, but do you not find it frustrating that when you've overworked yourself to the point of falling ill, some guy (or girl) comes in and calls your story garbage? After all the time and effort you put into it? I'm not asking for praise, and I guess readers should be encouraged to be brutally honest and call people's stories trash if they think it's terrible, but it's no less depressing. I feel like I should have spent the time better and taken care of my health if I knew everything would go to waste.
The other type of response, which I receive more often, is rather than asking me for mass release or chapters, these readers actually demand that I stop releasing any chapters whatsoever. They want me to delete my story and leave the site because my writing is so poor that it apparently lowers the quality of the website. Yeah, that is how bad I am, and sometimes I think I should just take their advice and quit writing because I clearly don't have the talent for it. I don't know why I bother...