I'm not sure either. I just wrote all the characters significant to the story and that's it. And now that I thought about it, I wish I've written a bit of descriptions as well but it's too late now, I already submitted it.
What to write on the Main Character thing required when applying for a contract
- Edited
The protagonist's name is sufficient, though you can add the love interests' names if there's any.
Tomoyuki does that also include the protagonist's relations or family?
- Edited
NotiamDawn No, unless they are also the main characters and play major roles in the story.
Hello this is kinda random, do you guys separate your chapters into volume? Do volumes do anything other than making it look less messy?
I do divide my books into volumes. It doesn't do much actually.
- Edited
Sereinchoo I divide mine. Also, volumes aren't just there to make the TOC less messy but rather, to also show the beat of the story. Just like how manga and light novels are divided into many volumes instead of making it into a really big book. Every volume has their own conflict that will be resolved by the end of the said volume. It's recommended for really long stories with overarching plots.
However, if your story is one shot then you don't need it. Let's have the traditionally published novel as an example. Say, the Harry Potter series. There are 7 books(volume). Though the story was continuous from book 1-7, each book has a story and a conflict of each own that gets resolved by the end of each book. Another example is The Shining by Stephen King. It doesn't need to be divided into volumes. After all, it only has one volume (one book).
Hope this answers your question.
Hiraya_22 Wow thanks for the explanation. It's great. Alright I will try to do that too for my story. (^~^)
Tomoyuki Do you have any evidence for this? It's pretty common when writing proposals for stories for other publishers to be required to write detailed plot summaries and a detailed overview of the main character's powers, motivations, and major relationships.
Webnovel has done a laughably bad job communicating what they want from people, but it's probably better to err on the safe side and give more information than they were looking for rather than potentially have an application be ignored or rejected because your application told them literally nothing more than the MC's name.
- Edited
EldritchBlade Because I'm a contracted writer and been through the application process, so I can assure you that they don't really care what you write for plot summaries and main characters. Many writers end up changing their stories halfway anyway, so they don't really expect a detailed summary - just a tentative one. This might sound cynical, but I don't think the content editors actually bother to read our stories and check if they match the proposed plot summaries or main characters or whatever.
The only thing that really matters is for the documents to be accepted is that your signature is done by HelloSign or a similar online software, and that your name and details match your identification documents. That's it. Frankly speaking, if there are any issues and your application gets rejected, it's best that you contact your assigned content editor (he or she will be named in the documents or in the specific story in Inkstone) through Discord and speak to them directly. They will then inform you what went wrong and how to correct it.
Tomoyuki That's pretty convincing evidence, lol. Thank you for explaining.