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This argument is hella entertaining. Is it odd that I'm grabbing popcorn?
But honestly, some real good points have been raised.
Your novel is trash if it has harem
There are many settings that would justify a harem situation for the MC. 99.99% of the harem translated works I have read have settings appropriate for others in the story to have a harem, but not the MC. His family is currently being oppressed? Dogpile him! He saved my life but is in love with someone else? She must accept me!
My personal favorite though is the MC that is comepletely oblivious to anything while persuing strength yet somehow falls into a premade harem...despite never being at home.
Moat of these stories would be better without harem. Some, though, could not exist without it simply due to the comedic effect being the sole redeeming feature of the story!
I think harem is just an easy way of continuance of the romance plot in a webnovel.
Think of it in this way: A webnovel needs to be long for the author to earn anything out of it.
For an action novel, the author can create an epic novel with multiple villains and the MC against them all using his wit to fight against them one after another.
But what about a romance novel? Can you actually even make that long without adding a ton of ntr and drama in it?
What if an audience wants romance with no drama and stuff?
The author is left with only one option to make the novel substantial reading experience and that is going for the harem.
Just like there is multiple villains in an action novel, there are multiple love interests in a romance novel if one uses harem.
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Misguided_Rooster I am willing to write good food and not fast food as long as you pay me good money.
Authors are humans too. They too need to earn. Though not always, but turns out fast food sells more than good food in most cases.
Don't believe me? Check the top 100 novels that are there on the site.
Tomoyuki I actually was referring to school days, and by "Realistic" I meant more along the lines of "What would really happen if a bunch of girls were all in love with the same guy in the same way that a harem portrays things."
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Hey, I know fastfood sells. But, if you're selling fastfood be prepared for anything that rightfully comes your way.
Do what you gotto to do earn money, but if you're novel is shit if it's shit. And harem is not romance.
Maekellen I 100% don't see any comedy in a harem. And the length of a novel, bro. There's so much that can be done in these chinese novels, so freaking much. As long as the authors truly want to, they don't need cheap crap like harem to extend their novels.
But the majoirty don't do it, which is sad. And those that do, still don't do the concepts justice. I know it's hard to write a good book, but it was never meant to be easy.
Dubstheduke Oh, yeah. I see what you mean.
Harem has my approval. 
Tomoyuki oh ffs, how much I hate this forum. Was almost done with my wall of text reply to your post when I accidentally brushed my finger on the left side of the screen, which this dumbass mf of an app took as a command to shut down the forum.
Now all I can say is - fuck this forum’s design and fuck School Days while we’re at it.
Whoa there's strong opinions here.
I don't read much in the harem genre, but I think there's a reason why harems are so popular.
Harms are romantic ensembles, much like how the Avengers is an action/adventure ensembles. Readers get to pick their favorites, compare and contrast characters, promote their favorite ships, attack their favorite punching bags, argue about who's "best girl" or "best boi" etc. Authors can create a menagerie of characters that fit all kinds of tropes, each to fit a certain kind of reader. And with so many characters, ensembles make it easy for authors to write new content--all they have to do is an episode with two or more characters in the ensemble doing something, with the others off in a B-plot somewhere.
The problem I think is that the authors that choose to write harems often are often not writing for an audience, but for their own wish fulfilment. There's nothing wrong with a wish-fulfilment story, but those stories are going to have a limited appeal. A story that reovlves around five monster-hotties or anime waifus clamoring over a sanitized author self-insert is not likely to win many prizes.
Relationship stories require brutal honesty from the author and ability for self reflection, and a deep and nuanced understanding of relationships between wildly different personality types order to make that diverse cast of characters work. But it may be that the kinds of authors interested in writing harems are writing precisely because they don't have that nuanced understanding yet. The large cast allows them to switch between character arcs without going into any particular one too deeply--because they just don't know how to yet.
And that's fine--it's all part of an author's growth. But if that's not something that's up your alley, as it's not necessarily mine, I would just read other works in other genres. Let people enjoy their sparkly werewolves and E-cup demon-girlfriend-senpais.
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The author can grow, I agree and have said this. But, they're all growing in the same direction. Combined with so many other factors, the majority of novels are becoming worse and worse. Look at all the new novels.
I get certain people like certain things. What I say is trash you might like. I've read novels other called trash and liked it, but at the end of the day I myself know it's still trash.
In all honesty, authors can do what they do they just need to change like 2 things: Little to no stupidity and no freaking annoying harem. Literally, if a novel has that it has surpassed most novels. But I guess stupidity makes money and that's all that matters to them.
It's annoying seeing how authors just focus on money than actually writing a decent story. At this point, i don't even consider you an author.
Sythcake
Im sorry but I laughed
The struggle is real on this forum XD
Yeah, School Days was awful. No objections there.
Heres the thing, if the so called 'trash' is popular, then clearly alot of people are reading it.
There's a demand so can you really blame the author for supplying the 'trash' that people love to read? Just saying...
If you wrote what you wanted and no one read it, or you made no money, would you even continue to write?
Im pretty sure no one wants to write 'trash', but if that's what people want, then they will.
From what I see, until general preferences change you'll continue to have all sorts of 'trash' recommended to you.
EternalNightLotus Already wrote that in another reply.
Also, no, I don't write for money.
Misguided_Rooster
Neither do I, but I can't speak for everyone. I write for fun, but other people have their own $$$ expectations 
Misguided_Rooster If you hate it so much then why read it?
There is an entire FL section on webnovel filled with one on one romance. Webnovel has a good enough tag feature that most books follow. If you don't want harem just read a novel with no #harem tag
Misguided_Rooster When I was beginning to write novels, I too was against harem novels as well.
My book had a tag #no-harem, lol...
But what happened afterwords was that many readers complaining in the comments sections spouting hate and saying that an MC that the story is stupid because its not harem. To them it was illogical for a cultivation setting to not have a harem.
So yeah, there you have it. It's the law of supply and demand. Honestly, authors would write anything as long as there is demand for it amongst the audience. If there is no demand for a non harem book then an author would probably not write.
And its not really about MONEY. It's simply that being an author you don't want to write a book that on one will read.
So, technically at the end of the day it's the audience's fault not the authors.
If at some point of time, non-harem novels become popular amongst the audience unlike these days. Then I am sure authors would focus more on those kinds of stories.