Webnovel.Forum

ranmaro Hey there! I've been reading stories by tackling posts with just one story in order to cover the most people at once so that's why I held off on yours as you have several. :laughing: With that said, you were one of the very first people to reply, so it wouldn't be fair to keep you waiting so long, haha. I recently took a two day break, so I figured now was better than ever to tackle them all. You can find them all listed onsite now.

As for your question about "in-depth critic oriented topics about writing webnovels and the challenges this new industry is facing in the literature," this sounds very interesting! However, yes, my site doesn't accept such topics because Virtual Bookshelf is strictly traditional storytelling novels. But, I've been considering writing and featuring articles alongside its story index, so if you want to translate some of your ideas into an article format, I'm more than happy to post it on Virtual Bookshelf and credit you. If you're interested, we can discuss over Discord. :smile:

Short Review:
Also, I wanted to let you know that the reason for TQ being 2 instead of 3 is that besides some common mistypes and general non-critical errors (such as not capitalizing at the start of a sentence on occasion or missing the "t" to the end of not so it says no instead), I saw some frequent grammar and tense issues. For instance, on the first several paragraphs of Chained to the Crown in chapter one:

Writing:

The steeled boots I wore, matching the full armored suit, was making me suffocating, despite no being the first time wearing them.
:arrow_right: The correct tense is "suffocated" based on how you constructed your sentence, and no should be "not" (like I said above, forgetting the t is not critical; it's just a mistype, so I overlooked these). However, the syntax/structure of this is still off. I noticed you like to use a lot of commas, and while the large majority of them were correctly placed (which is quite rare as I more often come across comma splices or lack of any where there should be), I believe it hinders your sentences from the most intuitive syntax. A better way to construct this sentence is "The steeled boots I wore, which matched my full armored suit, was suffocating me despite it not being my first time wearing them."

Another instance follows right after this...

At this day, at this moment, their cheer for me nearly got me puked, not knowing how, I found myself walking to the end of the balcony, overseeing a sea of people stretched as long as my eyesight could go.
:arrow_right: Firstly, this sentence is too long; it's actually a run-on and should be split after "puked." However, due to how it was constructed, it cannot simply be split exactly here and be correct. If going along with this single sentence form, then the correct tenses are puked and stretching instead. But again, the structure is not intuitive even with these tense corrections. "Got" should almost never be used in most cases as it's like a weed in sentences. It hinders usage of the proper terms or is a filler word in itself. Thus, the best construction and word choice is "At this day, at this moment, their cheer for me nearly made me puke. Not knowing how, I found myself walking to the end of the balcony, overseeing a sea of people stretching as far as my eyesight could go." Now this could further be revised even better, but those are the most subtle of changes to make it grammatically correct. Another option is to change the first sentence to "At this day, at this moment, their cheers nearly made me puke." And you can do this because in the previous sentence, you already mentioned that people cheered for the prince as soon as they saw him.

Story:

Outside of the technical aspects of writing, I'll dip a little into what I thought about your storytelling. You are able to navigate through a game world very well with various quests, dungeons, and other details. This is essential for LitRPG, and whether or not a reader knows video games well, this was generally quite clear.

You also have great original ideas such the NPC into Player one. Having a NPC from an abandoned game join a competing game as a player instead is fresh! However, I don't think you capitalized on this idea as much as you could have nor did you explain exactly how this is possible. While you don't have to be technical and logical about how a "fictional" NPC could become a player controlled usually by a live human as this is fantasy after all, you still need some logical rationale. Otherwise, as it is right now, the NPC could be replaced by any human player and it would literally not affect the story in any major way.

Some supportive details to this main idea of NPC into a Player could be that the NPC became an AI during the peak of the game it was in; thus, it essentially hijacked into another game. And to make it more interesting, if he dies in the game world, he dies "for real" since he's not a real person. This would give the story another layer of tension and more thoroughly capitalize and emphasize he's a NPC. And as the MC likes engaging with details of the game world that the system even tells him not to be so shameless (like with the caravan), maybe as a NPC, it can interact with more of the game world more than any human player could. In essence, no place is off limits as normal players have walls or boundaries of where they can go. Furthermore, making a NPC able to interact with other NPCs outside of usual player constraints could also be another "hack" he as a NPC could do. And lastly, more of his lore in his past game in connection to the competing one would be a nice tie.

In short, you have solid story ideas and writing which could further be improved. But overall, I think you're doing great with a lot more potential in store.

Now, I don't give such specific feedback on this thread, but because you listed half a dozen of your stories, I figured pointing out something I commonly saw in your writing could be helpful. If any writers want feedback outside of their numerical score, they are always welcome to join the Discord for it as I don't provide any feedback/review here.

Lastly, you'll notice that Chained to the Crown has a lower score due to it having fewer chapters and less of the story developed. Feel free to reach out to me about any questions you may have. All the best to you! With your numerous book titles, you're doing great. :smile:

HinataPerolada The scale is on 0-15, so I can see how it might be confusing. :laughing: I purposefully made it that way instead of 1-20 which would be the same size scale. But it's easier to translate 1-20 into a percentage out of 100% instead of out of 15. Since I stress on the score being qualitative, I wanted to prevent people from making that quantitative conversion. Thus, a score of 0 or less than 5 is technically "bad." That's why anything less than 5 isn't further listed elsewhere on the website except for the initial assessment post.

And that's quite all right! I completely understand it's not for everyone. Even if you do change your mind in joining us, you aren't required to be active. :)

Edit: I forgot to add in my previous first reply to you, yes, Webnovel does contract regardless of content. Typically, as long as it gains a lot of views and collections, then almost anything can be contracted. Sometimes, even stories with not a lot of readership traction still get contracted if editors like the stories. Some stories are well-written, but others, not so much. I've seen plenty of substandard writing on contracted novels here. However, a large amount of writers are non-native English speakers, and even with those that are, they usually do minimal to no proofreading. Essentially, most stories are just drafts with constant output to match consumer demand daily. That's just how it works on Webnovel; it's neither bad nor good. But because of this, that's why a lot of serious writers could gain from critical feedback on how to improve their work. I believe a lot of good writers on here don't have a chance to really enhance their stories to the next level because of the fast pace they have to work at.

Book_Keeper
My question was a serious one. Is a book with an 8 worth to be continued...? What am I doing with my time?

I have a contract for this novel, and I'll keep my word and finish what I started, but I wonder... is it worth it? If I hadn't a contract, I'd probably throw it away to start over or even, just write something else.

Yes, I'm sure it's a characteristic that is both good and bad, about Webnovel's business novel. It won't help that WN doesn't allow cuts on the word count of the locked chapters. You cannot edit them for sake of clarity unless you make it the exact word count as before. Which is weird, uh? But it has to do with their payment method, I guess.
Anyway, I digress.
Thank you very much for the opportunity, and also for your time. It made me think about myself, and it's good.

HinataPerolada I have a contract for this novel, and I'll keep my word and finish what I started, but I wonder... is it worth it? If I hadn't a contract, I'd probably throw it away to start over or even, just write something else.

It's a question I think every writer asks themselves. I certainly ask this all the time since I don't attract a solid readership. To date all my works I consider are failures, but I'll still give them some sort of finish since each one is adding value to my craft development.

The cues to drop a story is when you no longer feel the passion to write it. There's no point in continuing a story where you yourself isn't bothered to reach the ending. Better to put it back in a slush pile or recycle parts of it for another.

Since you're asking these questions also tells me you're developing well as a high-quality author :grin:

Keep it up. Though there maybe times when you'll feel disheartened, don't forget the initial joys that made you want to write your own story in the first place.

Note to OP: Sorry. I derailed your thread a bit. :pray:

HinataPerolada Apologies for my confusion. The About page does explicitly say, "All factors are scored on a scale of 0 to 3. Thus, the highest score is 15, and the lowest is 0." So I think I read your previous reply above my last one incorrectly. Regardless, moving onto your most recent reply.

It does not matter whether a book is rated low or high---this is not indicative of whether it's "worth it" or "valuable" to write. That's my belief just as with anything done in life. If people stopped doing something just because they didn't get it "right" or "perfect" the first time around, then everything would be stagnant. Although it's good to experiment and continue tweaking a novel where the final product may even be very different from the original, continuing to refine the idea while staying within the same scope and storyline is just as fine. I don't believe in any "bad ideas" for a story, only "bad" writing. A good writer can make any idea well done. But a great idea doesn't make a poor writer into a good one. A good writer takes years of practice and determination honing their skills. So it is completely okay if some writing pieces don't turn out the way expected.

The simple question is, do you enjoy writing your story? If you do, then keep at it. Contract or not, it does not matter. If you need the money gained from the contract and have no other ways to provide for yourself, that is a different issue. But if writing is purely your hobby with or without a hope to be a serious published author down the road, then it's only about whether you like writing your story or not. It does not, for one second, matter what I, or others think of your story for you to continue writing it. Any feedback on it is only for your sole discretion whether to refine your story more depending on how seriously polished you want your story to be. My only mission as a book blogger/reviewer/reader is to offer my two cents among many others' feedback on how to improve it.

Of course, qualitatively significant or not, a numerical score doesn't lend much to what specifically needs to be improved in a certain story. That's why I only offer more in-depth feedback via Discord. But that's just my personal choice with respect to my time and goals for Virtual Bookshelf. So, I completely understand you about not being sure what to do with the score.

As some general guides, I do believe it's good to finish stories instead of dropping them each time and never finishing any but starting many. Writers can learn a lot about the writing process this way. But, that doesn't mean they should have to force themselves if they don't enjoy it. If you want to have a catalogue of stories to establish yourself as an author on this site, then yes, I do think continuing this story to the end is good. And whether or not your current story is written the best it can be, that's okay. You can always make your next story even better with what you learned from writing this one and taking in all the feedback prior. There are many avenues that writers can improve with no right or wrong way. I don't want to discourage writers, but I also don't want to be dishonest about what I think. I also don't expect all writers to agree with my opinion or take the score to improve their stories. Everything with a grain of salt.

I feel like I also digressed a bit with my lengthy response. I sort of answered both of your last replies at once as soon as I clarified myself on what you meant last time. Anyway, Veronica8's response was great, and no, you did not derail it one bit---thank you instead for inputting your own experience and thoughts too!

All good writers have likely asked themselves these sorts of questions at one point. And I'm sincerely happy to see your desire to write. I can only wish your the best and continue supporting in whatever way I can.

Lastly, on Webnovel. It's a unique business model; at least, it's uncommon here in the U.S. I believe. So, it has its positives and negatives. The main positive I see is being able to reward and encourage many small and undiscovered authors comparative to other sites with a chance to monetize their work and grow their audience. But at the same time, the method does not filter quality, so a reader cannot expect all contracted stories to be fully polished.

I did not know that the word count has to be same as before in order to edit them. That's an unfortunate hindrance which only can hurt writers and readers, so I hope that changes for the future. At the very least, make it within a range since it's based on a coin for every 200 words (last I remembered).

No problem! I enjoy any writing questions thrown my way. It's great that you're seriously thinking about all of this! That attitude will help you be successful in writing. Thank you too!

Edit: When you write this long response and then go back to revise it due to a single out of place apostrophe.... :sweat_smile: