Your feedback is good btw. Question, since you’re a lit professor, how did you find Webnovel? Which novels have you read? Any originals? I’m curious to what you think about the general level of writing on here.

    Seshata Okay! Just don’t want you to get in trouble since it was vague. We can’t do review swaps outside of the dedicated monthly one. So since you clarified it, no worries!

        Chryiss Thanks! Yeah, I came across that pinned post a while ago. This was supposed to be its own thing. I just realized I think I made it a discussion in the Novel Recommendations section though, and I have no idea how I did that or how to undo that, so...whoops.

            Seshata The tags still applicable, don’t worry. If you want to change anything, you can just ping at yaoyueyi. (:

              Chryiss

              And thank you! I really enjoy giving feedback and editing. I came across Webnovel when I was getting ready for a flight last October and didn't have anything to read. I was looking for recommendations (I had just finished all the SAO novels and manga available in English, and wanted something similar) and stumbled upon The King's Avatar and then proceeded to read 1700 chapters in like 2 weeks because I was immediately OBSESSED.
              Since then, I've read TKA, Night Ranger, The World Online, Reincarnation of Strongest Sword God, Only I Level Up, Haven, Return of the God-Level Assassin, Devil's Cage, Lovely Writing System, Haru's Love, The Hitting Zone, and King of Sports. I've dabbled with reading several others in a variety of genres.
              I think many of those were translations, but several of my faves were Originals (I anxiously await Hitting Zone and God-Level Assassin updates like I need them to BREATHE).

              In general, the level of writing is a bit difficult to pin down. It varies so widely between stories. I've come across some insanely highly-rated fantasies that barely use paragraph breaks or standard punctuation, and at the same time, I've seen some fan-fics that were nearly best-seller quality. The thing that really sets Webnovel apart is the crazy pacing at the same time the stories are allowed the room to breathe. It seems like you shouldn't be able to have both in the same format, but webnovel allows that. It's cool. The plot is always zooming forward and stuff is ALWAYS happening, but the characters are given ~200 chapters just to level up to first main fight. Traditional western lit doesn't usually give authors that kind of space and room, especially with genre fiction. TKA would have been shrunk down to maybe 200 chapters if it were published normally, but as a web novel, it could take its time, work up from the beginning, show us an entirely new world.

              Overall, I'd say the experimentation with form is great and the plots/characters are well-written and interesting, but the standard grammar and vocab could use a little work for most stories. I also have to admit that really awful grammar makes a story impossible for me to read, so I've only read a few chapters of stories that fall under that category. It's kind of fun that no one's afraid to use tropes and cliches and find new ways of exploring them, but I also think too many authors fall into a trap of re-creating instead of creating. And the sexism in the ML stories is a bit over the top, but what can you expect from a platform that separates ML and FL stories in a way that enforces such unnecessary sexist dichotomies?

              Sorry, that was probably more of an answer than you wanted!

                  Seshata NOPE. I loved it! ❤️
                  Long answers like these are awesome. I couldn’t have said it any better! You listed some great stories. I too had a similar response discovering some of those long translations, binging them like Netflix!

                      Chryiss Riiiiiiiiight?! Ah! They're downright addictive! And now that I'm actually reading stories as they release, I realize how freaking awful it must have been to be there on the ground floor for the older stories we get the privilege of binging! Eek.

                      ...I recognize I've probably ruined the image everyone had of professors as high-brow people hahaha

                          Seshata Lol, nah it’s okay. I did tilt my head to the side at your enthusiasm from the first post. But professors, and any people in any profession, are human too and get excited about things. It’s not good to get too caught up in stereotypes.

                          And yes, waiting can be painful haha!

                            RandomchaoS I was the kid who got in trouble for hiding a book in my lap during math class, then the teen who got in trouble for reading fanfics during bio, then the young adult who got in trouble for reading manga during lectures, so. I feel you. lol
                            Honestly, it's probably a good thing I hadn't discovered webnovels (or they didn't exist yet?) when I was in undergrad, or I don't think I would have passed my classes, haha.

                                Seshata Thankfully I graduated undergrad last year, so while I may have procrastinated a little (lot) at least I passed, lol. Right now I'm trying to balance reading web-novels, writing my own, and my MLIS degree, rofl.

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