sol IS a common genre, its just that its not the focus of the book. A scifi or video games novel can still have sol elements.
Is Slice of Life still a thing?
victorines Great Doctor Ling Ran has slice of life mixed into it. It's a relaxing read, but the monotony of it may bore you.
victorines tbh, its common but I don't like it. Unless it's genuinely good SoL comedy like the Minami-ke anime, I really can't see the charm of it.
I seek new experiences in a book. A good story, new ideas and something exciting.
Honestly, I'm rather disspointed with the many books that startoff that way then suddenly turn sol because the author has run out of inspiration to progress the story.
SoL is pretty much the 'I don't know what to write for now' genre that authors use to just get some word count out there before the negative feedback helps them make the decision to go on hiatus.
The only thing more prominent than slice of life on WN are Erotica / Romance stories, primarily with female leads by female authors... Just check the mass giveaway event's original novels...
So yeah, it's a thing, but unless you primarily make it fun for women to read, then itl probably fail as a slice of life. I don't think slice of life is very popular amongst the male population, where system novels tend to reign supreme...
That said... If your focus is a female audience, then just mix the SoL with romance cough Erotica cough and you should be golden.
- Edited
slams into the forum thread
Genuine Slice of Life is truly rare.
It's not the most popular genre, and it won't be anything/time soon. The focus is on naturalism, the seemingly mundane, that pause breath of peace in between while reading(feeling) the echos of intent and multiple truths. Plot often isn't there, things are arbitrary- atmosphere plays a huge rule and character dynamics make or break everything. It is transcendent of media in its relatability.
Some fans are this genre are jokingly called cult-like I guess I'm one of them.
But it's soooooo badly labeled, especially so on this site/app, something that I as a great fan of the genre can't help up get pissed at the blatant mislabeling. From my exp using WN I can say this Slice of life tag here is filled with incorrect reaches, -stories that ass all sorts of tags to get more audience views and making a sick sad joke of Slice of life.
Personally I hate them with the intensity of a thousand suns, cluster together into a burning inhospitable galaxy. They appear to me like filth-ridden trashy spam, polluting up space.
If they weren't falsely labeled Slice of Life, I wouldn't react so harshly.
I do believe real Slice of Life Gems are out there- as there are souls who know how to appreciate them- I just don't see it here.....at all.
I see slice of life more as a device, rather than the main construction of a story. After all, one doesn't read for the sake of knowing how a day in the life of a character goes, unless it is placed in context of the plot and denuoment. Otherwise it's just going to be boring and pointless.
victorines it's still around and maybe mixed into other genres. It's also known as Realistic Fiction or Urban.
Problem in particular with this site is that this kind of story gets lost in the catalog structure. So not a lot of SoL stories can find their way to readers.
There are still some of them, but it's not really a popular story genre in WN.
I legit think this is because (bad) Erotica is highly rated on here (as they are generally on the internet), often hitting the top 200s female ranks....which is 97% Romance. WN also promotes their contracts- which are money makers. Even less SoL in those, so they don't show up anywhere near as much as those 'popular' rankers.
Some people tag incorrectly (purposeful or not) and reach into the Slice of Life tag/genre. (that thing I hate with a thousand suns).
So we somehow get stories labeled Slice of Life, Erotica, Action, Comedy, Drama, Mature, and every other reach under the site's tagging system. If you click "Slice of Life" tag, those sort of stories sit on top- being more 'popular' and ranked than actual Slice of Life, which isn't usually the most popular genre in the first place.
Since SoL is about character dynamic, growth, and magically mundane realism- it's possible to have them in....a CEO romance...but the overwhelming majority of them just aren't. A fast paced smutty romance isn't SoL, or contain SoL at all. It's just unstable writing with bad tagging- which gives some readers(and non fans) the impression it's a plot device used when writer doesn't know what to do.