Syosetsuka ni Narou Discussion Thread

[wuhugm]

Yea, girls are clearly trophies in CN stories
But CEO is also a trophy for female MC so they are all the same

So who the MC snusnued in Lord of Mysteries?

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by wuhugm

Yea, girls are clearly trophies in CN stories
But CEO is also a trophy for female MC so they are all the same

So who the MC snusnued in Lord of Mysteries?

Nobody according to all the spoilers. No romance.No sex.Story entirely plot driven.

[wuhugm]

^Hey, I said no heroine and not no snusnu

I don't want Monk MC

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by wuhugm

^Hey, I said no heroine and not no snusnu

I don't want Monk MC

Which is why I haven’t started reading it yet. I like there to be some romance.

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by Darth Fanta

I beg to differ. In a lot of JP works I have read(e.g. Death March and Smartphone), the MC is just flat, does not seem to know that the girls like him and the story is almost driven entirely by the girls’ antics. It’s so boring that I dropped them. In CN novels at least, you can see that the MC is a massive dick.

I do agree that censorship is a major problem, but in the comments section, you can clearly see people asking whether there are heroines in the story and that if there’s a single heroine, they will drop the story.

I thinks bad example exist in both side, for example good novels with decents characterization always benefit more from this. There is also many good harem story in CN though, but generally they are belong to previous decade. Most authors currently is bad at writing romance.'

Deathmarch and smartphone is not exactly a good representatives though. Deathmarch especially, have issues with characterizations, and i'm talking not just about harems, but also the entire cast of characters including Satou. I like deathmarch, but I do admit it issues, I remember the stall of characters is what push me to leave Death march back on 11 or 12 arc ??

EDIT: Lord of mysteries is rather peculiar, since the author got influenced a lot by western writing style, seem like he was actually educated to become a writer, so his style is heavily based on world buildings and plot thread connecting. His story generally have very slow start before it spiralling into the plot. Don't expect common WN writing style when it come to any of this guys work.

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by dragon1412

I thinks bad example exist in both side, for example good novels with decents characterization always benefit more from this. There is also many good harem story in CN though, but generally they are belong to previous decade. Most authors currently is bad at writing romance.'

Deathmarch and smartphone is not exactly a good representatives though. Deathmarch especially, have issues with characterizations, and i'm talking not just about harems, but also the entire cast of characters including Satou. I like deathmarch, but I do admit it issues, I remember the stall of characters is what push me to leave Death march back on 11 or 12 arc ??

EDIT: Lord of mysteries is rather peculiar, since the author got influenced a lot by western writing style, seem like he was actually learning to become a writer, so his style is heavily based on world buildings and plot thread connecting. His story generally have very slow start before it spiralling into the plot. Don't expect common WN writing style when it come to any of this guys work.

In general, I found that CN novels are better on the baseline level compared to the JP works. Some of the JP works like RE:Monster and I’m the Evil Lord of a Galatic Empire for example are written in a diary like format than as a novel. There’s a lot of problems with the exposition. A lot of detail’s blatantly skipped.

[dragon1412]

^In general though, I have to say do we count LN or just pure WN. Since we all know, WN in JP is completely hobby writing instead of full paid position like CN version. Narou is filled with the majority writing simply as a hobby for fun and many works are abandoned along the way.

So with that said, If we only compare WN, than yes, I agree that the baseline compare CN is better somewhat, though I would not say it is a big margin. But if you taking LN into the equation, then I'd say JP baseline is way higher.

[wuhugm]

Originally Posted by dragon1412

EDIT: Lord of mysteries is rather peculiar, since the author got influenced a lot by western writing style, seem like he was actually educated to become a writer, so his style is heavily based on world buildings and plot thread connecting. His story generally have very slow start before it spiralling into the plot. Don't expect common WN writing style when it come to any of this guys work.

Like Agatha Christie stuffs?

Originally Posted by Darth Fanta

Which is why I haven’t started reading it yet. I like there to be some romance.

No romance is fine

What I meant is in the case of adventurer story
MC usually meet a Lewd adventurer onee-san who wants to have some fun before separating
But MC always declined for no reason

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by wuhugm

Like Agatha Christie stuffs?

Generally western writing, basically, the kind of writing you'd expect from someone who actually major in literature in college. Ie: professional writer instead of hobby writer.

Basically, the authors take times to slowly build up the settings, so the early story is slow and the author slowly release infodump into this slow beginning, fleshing out the world and possibly planting a few plot seed. And when the world is present enough to the reader the author start connecting the plot and lead it through. The story is very structured and plot driven. Normally though, this kind of writing is not very well matched to web novel platform, so it take quite a bit of patients for reader.

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by dragon1412

^In general though, I have to say do we count LN or just pure WN. Since we all know, WN in JP is completely hobby writing instead of full paid position like CN version. Narou is filled with the majority writing simply as a hobby for fun and many works are abandoned along the way.

So with that said, If we only compare WN, than yes, I agree that the baseline compare CN is better somewhat, though I would not say it is a big margin. But if you taking LN into the equation, then I'd say JP baseline is way higher.

Many of the WNs I have mentioned are published as LN as well, which are sold in bookstores. In a story like Santairiku Eiyuuki for example, a battle is over in 1-2 chapters. In a CN story however, a battle on average would take around 10 chapters to write, some could last 20+ chapters.

EDIT:I would also like to note that many CN writers are actually paid peanuts.It’s also a side job for many writers.Very few CN novelists survive on whatever the novel sites pay them. In the unlikelihood that their work is adapted, many of them are only paid a couple hundred ymb(Chinese dollars) because the ‘author should be grateful that his work is getting a promotion on tv’.

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by Darth Fanta

Many of the WNs I have mentioned are published as LN as well, which are sold in bookstores. In a story like Santairiku Eiyuuki for example, a battle is over in 1-2 chapters. In a CN story however, a battle on average would take around 10 chapters to write, some could last 20+ chapters.

I don't count them as pure LN, basically, Any novels which come out originally as LN and have no WN counterpart tend to be much higher in quality baseline. I don't think length is a big issues compare to how battle are depicted. Though I do agree that in the case of actions, CN generally have an edge. It depend on authors really, but I found a lot more case where battle in CN is all over the places or simply spend words to describe the effects of the attack than the actual fight itself. Of course, this might simply because the amount of CN WN is wayyyyyyyy biggers than the amounts of JP WN and I have simply bad luck of reading too many trash before touching a good one

Of course, beside alphapolis stuff, generally LN of WN origin are actually mended and changed a lot by editors, which is something i feel very thanksful for. You find a lot more amateurish writing in Narou which is harder to find in CN counterpart. Cn writer tend to follow formula of success novels a lot more than Japan. I found some works in Narou very amateurish , unreadable even, though while barebone, most work is somewhat readable in qidian

[Rasty]

Originally Posted by dragon1412

Cn writer tend to follow formula of success novels a lot more than Japan.

Definitely, they oftentimes follow it so closely that I can't remember which series I am reading as the events are exactly the same just with different names and a bit writing style.

CN novels are definitely better in the depiction of big battles, but I wouldn't say that the novels are of higher quality. Firstly is the padding. A lot of popular novels are shamelessly padded to up the word count by meaningless repetition and lengthy phrases (that's a result of getting paid per word I guess). And there is the problem of characterization. CN novels generally suck in characterization compared to JP ones (as those also focus much more on that), but especially in heroines it's just sad. JP heroines might be often only a set of different archetypes (tsundere midget, cold-beauty, scatterbrained large chest, etc.) but CN heroines are usually just clones of the same type with different names that fade into oblivion the moment their arc ends, that is if they even have any character to begin with.

[wuhugm]

Originally Posted by Rasty

CN novels are definitely better in the depiction of big battles, but I wouldn't say that the novels are of higher quality. Firstly is the padding. A lot of popular novels are shamelessly padded to up the word count by meaningless repetition and lengthy phrases

JP is the bigger offender
By repeating the Status Board every chapter and they have hundreds skills in there

CN heroine indeed sucks tho
CEO hero too

[Rasty]

^ I think you have never read novels like Reincarnation of the Strongest Sword God (surprisingly, it's not a cultivation but MMORPG one, though it has cultivation elements). You could cut 2/3 of it out and you will lose nothing and have a pretty good novel. Status screens are certainly bad, but not so bad.

[Ruki0089]

Son-Con is free from cultivation, CN like heroines, CN cliché, there's characters development, world development and it's incest.
But too bad, author want to end it quickly.

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by Rasty

Definitely, they oftentimes follow it so closely that I can't remember which series I am reading as the events are exactly the same just with different names and a bit writing style.

CN novels are definitely better in the depiction of big battles, but I wouldn't say that the novels are of higher quality. Firstly is the padding. A lot of popular novels are shamelessly padded to up the word count by meaningless repetition and lengthy phrases (that's a result of getting paid per word I guess). And there is the problem of characterization. CN novels generally suck in characterization compared to JP ones (as those also focus much more on that), but especially in heroines it's just sad. JP heroines might be often only a set of different archetypes (tsundere midget, cold-beauty, scatterbrained large chest, etc.) but CN heroines are usually just clones of the same type with different names that fade into oblivion the moment their arc ends, that is if they even have any character to begin with.

I am not sure that such novels are considered popular.People know that they are being screwed with their money. This practice is commonly known as ‘watering down the word count’ in China. Readers will generally drop the series altogether or pirate it if they still feel interested in it.

When it comes to characterisation,I do admit that JP heroines are better, but at the same time, half the plot of JP stories are driven by harem antics as a result of their characterisation. CN novels are IMO better in terms of world building and characterisation of both the MC and the villains. Some of them goes in depth to explore the motivations of the villains. They also write convincing arguments about why people follow the MC instead of simply justifying it in terms of the MC having saved them and nakama powa.

The most realistic scene I have ever read from a wn actually came from CN. It was from a novel called ‘大明春色‘(rough tran:spring appearance of Ming). The MC is a prince that’s a brilliant commander in his father’s army. When the emperor, his father was assassinated, the MC was in midst was bringing troops back from the campaign. His older brother, fearing the MC would launch a coup with the army he brought back, tried to lure the MC into the palace and put him under house arrest there. The plan failed, but when the MC returned to the army and screamed like a madman about how his father was assassinated, everyone except for the MC’s bodyguards pretended he was insane.In the end, the MC had to flee from his own army and raise a rebellion from people who are his bodyguards and fugitives under his father’s reign. All of this happened because the army sees no benefit in fighting for the MC(many of the army chiefs were already dukes and could not be raised to higher ranks if they fought for him)whereas the MC’s bodyguards would have been seen with suspicion, probably even purged should they turn on the MC.Prior to this scene, most of the readers were literally expecting the army to just side with the MC because they are ‘nakamas’. The fact that they didn’t was a massive surprise to both the readers and the MC in particular.

On the other end of the scale, the worst CN writings IMO, are ironically those that are blatantly plagiarisms of other works,JP works in particular. There are CN WN where the MC has the ability to move through different isekai worlds that are basically the worlds of JP LNs or popular video games. The author spend zero effort in creating anything new and they are essentially just paid fan fiction works not like those from space battles.The webnovel sites put zero effort in destroying these abominations.

[wuhugm]

^At the end of the day
People will just go back to harem crap
It's crap, but when you don't want to think so hard
And just want to feel good
What's better than power fantasy?

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by wuhugm

^At the end of the day
People will just go back to harem crap
It's crap, but when you don't want to think so hard
And just want to feel good
What's better than power fantasy?

The winds of change are clearly blowing hard in CN.

On a more serious note, there’s a CN webnovel by the name of ‘春秋我為王’(rough translation: I’ll be king in the Spring and Autumn period) where the author tried to explore harems realistically. At the end of the story, one of the heroines framed the MC’s eldest son and the MC’s wife for rebelling against the MC. Both the MC’s eldest son and his wife ended up committing suicide as a result. The MC finds what really happened in the epilogue and personally strangled the heroine before exiling their son to bar him from the throne.

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by Darth Fanta

The winds of change are clearly blowing hard in CN.

On a more serious note, there’s a CN webnovel by the name of ‘春秋我為王’(rough translation: I’ll be king in the Spring and Autumn period) where the author tried to explore harems realistically. At the end of the story, one of the heroines framed the MC’s eldest son and the MC’s wife for rebelling against the MC. Both the MC’s eldest son and his wife ended up committing suicide as a result. The MC finds what really happened in the epilogue and personally strangled the heroine before exiling their son to bar him from the throne.

Isn't that drama realm though, I remember watching a fews old CN dramas that deal with Harem actively trying to influence the Kings and infighting in the harem. And I thinks there is a lot of those.

I thinks the story vary between genre, CN novels have a lot of outstanding novels in historical genre. But cultivation, fantasy ...... ehhhh not so sure. Some western fantasy is ok though.

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by dragon1412

Isn't that drama realm though, I remember watching a fews old CN dramas that deal with Harem actively trying to influence the Kings and infighting in the harem. And I thinks there is a lot of those.

I thinks the story vary between genre, CN novels have a lot of outstanding novels in historical genre. But cultivation, fantasy ...... ehhhh not so sure. Some western fantasy is ok though.

History works are indeed more suitable as tv dramas than animu when adapted, but the base concept is around the same as JP isekai genre. Some guy from earth finds himself in the body of someone in the past, and using his knowledge of the period(as well as technological knowledge from the 21st century), he becomes successful.The only difference is that there isn’t any magic involved apart from the ISOT.The harem doesn’t really influence the MC in decision making until the epilogue, when the MC’s old and clearly not the person he once was.

Just skip the cultivation novels and CEO rape, then a lot of the novels are excellent.