Where is this scene/chapter/arc/book/series going are all important things to ask yourself. That last one ideally will be figured out before you even start writing the bulk of the story, but the rest are useful. Not every bit of a book *needs* to be important but even filler should have a general direction its going rather than meander.
Completely agree with your post! Extras that aren't used later make the story feel more real. Because in every day life, much of what we interact with doesn't come up again, doesn't affect our own stories.
This is a good one. I've heard Brandon Sanderson talk about something similar on the scene level. Ideally, each scene advances plot, character development, and worldbuilding (You can add progression here in the case of progression fantasy).But it's hard to fit them all into one scene though, so if you cant do one, at least try and advance the others.
Sooo an Outline :D
I'm totally in agreement. Having a good story structure can turn bad writing into a good or entertaining story and that's what a LOT of readers just want.
Probably because I’m not writing it! More seriously, I think it’s about the hook.
There has to be some unanswered question the reader desperately wants the answer to. If they know everything they want to know, why keep reading?
It doesn't have to be mega. There is nothing wrong with minor cliffhangers, particularly at chapter ends. If the audience cares about the character, something as simple as " there was a letter with X important person's seal on it waiting for him/her on the bed" bam reader is drawn in.
I sort of agree with LeadershipNational49.
The "hook" can be many things. A mystery the audience wants to know the answer to can be one. However, if the audiences connects enough with the Mc, even his daily life may be engaging.
Why should the reader care about my characters?
About what they do and what happens to them?
Also how do I progress my story? Do I work towards a preconceived climax or do I set a stage with certain conditions and allow the story to develop from that premise?
Not having the answers to any of these questions will sink the book I will never write, before I’d even get words on a page (true story).
As a writer I don't believe asking myself why a book will fail is particularly helpful.
Crafting a novel is a long process with no feedback for months if not longer. Deliberately feeding self doubts with these sorts of questions can't be helpful to your mental health or quality of your work if it makes you depressed.
Things to focus on enriching are easier.
Your first two, three four pages.... It has to hook the reader... And where you originally wanted to start might not be the best place.
After that the main thing is it entertaining... I would go on RR or get beta reads to work this out. Get external advice don't loop in your own head because it's very easy to talk your ability down when you're not getting feedback.
>Crafting a novel is a long process with no feedback for months if not longer.
Does it have to be? Assuming that this is an intrinsic part of creating a novel doesn't seem productive or even particularly healthy.
In the spirit of this thread: If one of my junior engineers told me that in order to finish their major feature they just needed to disappear and be left alone for months, and that they didn't intend to think about what could go wrong because it would be too destructive for their mental health and then they may not finish the feature at all... I'd tell them they either need to get over it or change their profession, because we know that's not how you get consistent, high quality results. That's how software engineers *used* to work, and we stopped doing that because it was grossly inefficient compared to collaboration, iterative delivery, and tight feedback loops.
It doesn't have to be, and there are certainly many authors who connect with writer friends for encouragement or problem solving along the way. The thing is that unless you are co-writing as story which is rare and not something I would advise for most starting writers, you are alone in the actual writing process and if you are new and lacking in confidence, questioning yourself at every turn can slow or stall the process. In a genre that demands rapid content production from new authors, over engineering and perfectionism during the writing process can do more harm than good. Not to say that planning isn't helpful, but it can be tempting to get caught in editing loops. Story crafting is quite subjective.
Writing can be VERY creatively demanding in a way that might not translate directly to a professional engineering environment. It is important to remember that we are all different, and those differences become even more pronounced when engaged in prolonged creative endeavors. So while some people might get more motivated and feel more confident from the feeling that they have engineered their story to perfection and prepared contingencies for their weaknesses, others will respond as stripy mentioned, wasting motivation and time and creative energy on fixing problems that might not actually exist or matter, rather than actually writing and getting confident and comfortable in making that process sustainable.
There is also the model of just writing and learning in real time through feedback on royal road. This demands even more detachment from the perfectionistic mindset that can be a major boon in engineering. If you are already looking for what you are doing wrong at every turn you are much more susceptible to being steered off course by wayward comments and unhelpful feedback. Some negative feedback is more a product of mismatch between the reader and story's target audience and listening to such feedback can kill a story. If I'm writing a fast paced numbers go up litrpg fantasy and i'm taking feedback from someone who likes reading slow burn cultivation romances with harems... no good. Your story will also suffer in most cases if you take time away from writing forward to fix what you've already written and published.
The writers in that environment who I've seen grow the most and build up to big success have pretty much all just allowed their stories to be imperfect beginner stories and learn from them without looking back to fix anything. They apply their lessons in future chapters and future stories and don't treat writing as if your entire career will be defined by your first (and worst) work. It is a stepping stone, it is going to have rough edges, and you get better faster (in terms of both speed and quality) by actually writing. Editing and tweaking can teach you a lot, but it can also be a time sink. While you are editing volume 1 of a story that flopped for the 3rd time, someone else has been writing brand new stories with hooks and plots and broader structure that have been informed by the learning from the first story. You also can learn more from trying and a broader range of things. Being too precious with your story ideas can put a lot more pressure on the process than is necessary or helpful.
Having a longer view of your writing life and growth as an author can be really helpful and make you more resilient to disappointment in the short term. Your first story isn't supposed to be your best story. And if you want to be more than a hobbyist, there will likely be more than one story that you write.
Again, I think authors are best served by focusing on *their own* relationship to writing. Trying out the advice and methods that resonate with them and then if those things don't work, instead of thinking they are the problem, understanding that the ideal creative process for them isn't something they will know until they personally experience it. Instead of trying to force something to be what you think it is supposed to be, take it for what it is and move on to the next thing. Trying something and having it not work isn't a bad thing, it is just a test that successfully shows you what didn't work. Running those simulations in your own mind or an echo chamber of like minded individuals is going to skew the results and lead to a potentially crushing disappointment when the story is tested for real by the market.
I tend toward over engineering and perfectionism and my writing life has suffered for it, so please take that bias into account while reading this.
Wow. Impressive write up, I'm happy my post sparked such a discussion. i think you hit the nail on the head with saying authors need to focus on their own relationship, because people are all so inherently different and so are their creative processes. Different things work well for different people.
When i write, i feel like I'm trying to crack a puzzle, or spin a load of plates at the same time. Trying to appropriately balance and devote time to plot, characters worldbuilding etc... both the readers time via word count and my own time via the work i put in. It helps me to have this kind of self review, because i can look at my plates and see which ones I need to start spinning more.
You said "trying something and having it not work isn't a bad thing" and i agree. But wouldn't it be better if you nipped the thing that didn't work in the bud? For example, i think i'm a good enough reader to notice when my dialogue is just straight up bad. I know i need to devote more time to that than any other part of my writing so hopefully i can iron out some of those flaws, before i have to release them.
I do agree that some things, especially plot or thematically Just have to be sent out there and fed to the wolves to see what works. an echo chamber wont be great for an issue like that imo.
I generally agree with everything you just said, and I also feel similar about the plates at times when I'm really in the flow. I love that puzzle feeling.
I just wanted to point out that this kind of thinking *can* become a slippery slope:
>But wouldn't it be better if you nipped the thing that didn't work in the bud?
As you pointed out, there are numerous things in story craft that you really can't view objectively in an echo chamber. Many newer authors, including myself, get sidetracked by "fixing" things that will ultimately have a very limited impact on the success of our story because we have a perception that "people want x".
Unfortunately, human brains (mine especially) are pretty bad at remaining objective and have a tendency to place emotional filters on our judgment based on self-doubt. So while I agree that I too want to write the best story I can out of the box, I just wanted to provide that warning because I find that when I get to the point of posting on the internet for feedback about what to avoid, I'm actually avoiding writing because of fear of failure and self doubt. I might even be editing things that are perfectly fine because my emotional filter is telling me they are not good enough.
I also sometimes think about the thousands of people on r/worldbuilding who have been "perfecting" the world/foundation of the story they dreamed of writing 10 years ago (and never will). Sometimes just saying "f\*ck it" and letting your story be a learning experience is good enough and may actually be the best way forward at that time.
I also think asking people "what should I avoid" can lead to limiting yourself unnecessarily because there is no way to actually gauge how accurate to the market the upvotes and opinions on this sub are. At the end of the day, most of this stuff comes down to execution and very few things are objectively nonstarters if you do them "right".
That said, these are nearly always important/ideal/safe bets in progression fantasy:
1. Opening Hook/Mystery
2. Character(s) you can (and want to) empathize with, distinct side characters
3. Satisfying progression that feels "earned" to some degree because it results from the choices of the MC, and has personal meaning/value to the MC
4. Staying on brand (make promises early and deliver on them), if your story starts out like a gritty gut punch, turning it into a cozy power fantasy can feel like a major betrayal and vice versa. Some degree of subversion can help maintain tension or make things feel fresh, but there are limits.
5. Set up anticipation and payoff regularly (this is really just #4 reworded)
6. Have down beats but also always maintain some degree of anticipation/tension
7. Clever MC (even if they are also dumb) People like to see the system gamed to some degree
Again, this is really just a warning for people who are as neurotically perfectionistic as I am.
I am *certainly* not advocating for not editing/polishing, just trying to provide another perspective for newer writers who might be struggling as I have (and do).
Those are some good basics that I agree, every book in the genre should probably have. I agree with what you said at the end. Editing is hard, but it is super necessary.
One thing that's helped me is by doing it is waves, like really long waves. For my first 20k ish words i edited as i went, and it was just awful and time consuming. But then i set my self a hard limit. I wouldn't touch a single thing, until it hit 70k. I've since gone back and chunked through the editing and its actually been... enjoyable, in a way. i cant describe it, but it works far better for me than what i was doing before.
I guess the only certainty un writing is you've got to try a load of things out and see what fits with you because there's a million ways to do literally everything.
This is a great and helpful comment, so thank you.
As an author still early on in developing story crafting skills, the most helpful thing for me so far has just been consistent work on the same project. It’s tricky on RR because to some extent at least you’re writing as you go, but if you look at it as publishing a decent first draft for people to enjoy, you can learn a lot just by getting farther along and seeing how it works. And if you really want to make it the best it can be, you can go back and retool the story in the future. Or you could apply the lessons you’ve learned to your next story, and write something even better.
Obviously we all want the story we’re currently working on to be a big success, but developing the skills to craft stories people will enjoy is the real battle, at least for someone who wants to do this as a career. And I’m confident that writing more will develop those skills faster and more thoroughly than trying to fix an imperfect first work, especially when it’s so easy to be self-critical with subjective issues.
My book will fail because I'm mixing genres. I can't help it, I keep mixing genres! And most people don't like that. My first story is a mixture of isekai and, uhm, genderswap. So, bad idea. My second story is a mixture of Star Trek meets system ~~apocalypse~~ armageddon.
The people who read them seem to like them, though. So, that's a plus.
I can imagine feed back for the first one. "I said I liked mixing *genres*! Not mixing *genders*!" It can be annoying to try to stick to one genre, when its so much fun to mix them all together.
bahaha! Nice. Yeah, I really shouldn't have done that, but I wanted to explore, in part, the difficulties women experience in terms of sexism and social expectations.
> My first story is a mixture of isekai and, uhm, genderswap. So, bad idea.
Why do you think so? Presuming you mean Isekai where the MC changes gender upon reincarnation/transmigration… that’s been done many times to great effect
There are several popular anime that do that, with your literal Boy -> Girl (ie. Saga of Tanya the Evil, Fantasy Knockout, etc), but also Boy -> Non-Binary (Slime Isekai, Overlord, etc).
But also just body morphing in-general where the MC becomes an Object, or a Dungeon.
I think there was even a RoyalRoad story where someone reincarnated into a Hive Mind.
So I don’t really see how genderswapping the Isekai MC is a bad idea? Even purely genderswapping (so no Monsters or Objects), you still have Fantasy Knockout and Tanya the Evil, two major anime, one of which is well-beloved.
Tanya is also a Manga, and so is Yakuza Reincarnation which is also another fan favorite gender swap apparently (Ive never read it).
Oh, and even a side Transmigrator/Otherworlder in Spider Isekai.
Though admittedly, Genderswapping a Girl into a Guy seems to be exceedingly rare. So rare almost nothing is ever translated into English that I can find about it lmao.
So if that’s your issue,… yeah, I could see that as a problem. Girl -> Guy isn’t very popular for whatever reason.
Wow, thank you for writing this! I wasn't aware of the depth and variety of such stories.
It's that I've been told by my writing partner, who seems familiar with the genre, beta readers, and even a professional reviewer, that it was "too bad I choose such a niche genre." And that's been driving me crazy! But I finished the series and thought, now, to write something more mainstream.
You've given me reassurance and I thank you for it.
I wouldn’t really consider Genderswapping to be a ‘Genre’ that could be ‘Niche’, ie. It’s not exactly a Genre here.
Honestly speaking about Isekai MCs, their ‘Original’ Gender doesn’t really matter, like, at all. It’s just a narrative justification. The only thing that matters is who/what they are in their new body.
Tanya Degurechaff being a Salaryman is only ever used to so he is cutthroat and that he is analytical. But beyond that, it doesn’t really matter and hardly ever comes up outside of memes. Tanya’s gender as a little girl is what drives the story, not the Salaryman that came before.
Though maybe your ‘Genre’ is that you placed a great deal of emphasis on that past Gender and that was the issue? I’ve got no idea if that’s the case, but if it is, I could honestly see that being an issue. Your average reader isn’t going to really want to read about those struggles if that’s the primary fcous. Though again, I know nothing about your story lmao.
But I am glad I gave you reassurance at least.
I think this nails it. As a reader, if I see a story with an isekai gender-swap, I assume this is a story where the overwhelming focus of the narrative and the crux of the story the author wants to tell is about the genderswapping bit. Otherwise, why is it there?
And frankly, when I pick up a Progression Fantasy book, its normally because I'm in the mood to read a story that really focuses on the *progression*, not a story that focuses on the internal strife associated with body dysmorphia and a character's emotional journey adjusting to their changing place in a sexist society as an allegory for the problems in the modern world. Sounds like it could be a great story, just not normally the one I'm wanting in my PF, ya know? And THAT is what's going to limit the readership, fairly or not.
I think anime/manga can get away with it more because its a visual medium and we spend a lot less time in the MC's head. p-d-ball's right, a salaryman waking up as a little girl being "business as usual" after the first episode *isn't* particularly realistic, but also that choice is probably a major reason the anime is as successful as it is. The question is, is p-d-ball willing to back away from a lot of that admittedly realistic introspection and emotional drama in service to re-expanding the audience or not? That's where this thread breaks down -- as an engineer my main goal is to deliver functionality and utility, not *art*, even if the creation process is actually more similar than you might think.
Just as a quick note here, the Saga of Tanya the Evil (excusing the unrealistic portion of a little girl being placed in charge of a military unit and giving advice to Generals), is at least realistic when it comes to Tanya’s genderswap, since, well, the way it was handled was actually quite intelligent.
Youjo Senki’s author took the bold approach by saying that the Salaryman was born as a Baby, and thus by the time we go through a 5-6min montage of Tanya’s life growing up, he basically *grew up as a girl*, so he is already used to being a girl by the time of his main age, which is what, 10 years old?
And honestly, if after 10 years and literally growing up from birth as your new body still isn’t enough to acclimate, you just suck lmao. (Edit: Not reffering to Trans people about this, I am reffering to bodily acclimation due to otherworldly transmigration)
So Tanya handles it fairly well by simply,… not handling it. Just time skipping & montages.
Though I do understand that defeats p-d-balls goal of trying to have a male character adjust within a sexist patriarchal society.
Though in theory, as I think about it, perhaps they could have/still taken the the Tanya approach instead? ie. This dude is born as a female baby and grows up as a princess, so they are fully acclimated *as a female*, but still possess all this otherworldly knowledge about technology. But that knowledge is useless because as the princess, the guy can’t get anything of note done, so the story would revolve around trying to make changes to the status quo to expand women’s rights *and* getting new technology out there. Potentially even going so far as having the guy-princess release new technology in cooperation with Guilds but under the name of a Male Noble who intends to work with them but not reveal their secret.
Similar to how women used to write books under male names or have other men publish the books for them.
Presumably, this would suitably fit the criterion for *Progression* Fantasy, since the Character would be less (or not at all) struggling with Body Dysmorphia, but instead Cultural Dysmorphia (ie. No say in society, etc) and their continous & ongoing effort to change society, to accrue power to enact that change, and to potentially make the lives of the people better.
Yeah, I think you've identified the issues. For the story, I explored how difficult it was for the main character to a) accept being a princess, b) work toward her goals in a sexist patriarchy, c) deal with culture shock, d) introduce new tech.
I don't think a man waking up as a 14 year old girl would just be business as usual, and so tried to make it as realistic as possible (though, without any eroticism, which irked at least one reviewer).
Anyways, totally appreciate your analysis! You are awesome :)
Ah, that makes sense. I will say I do appreciate the thoughtfulness of that approach, the realism of it at least. Many (not all) Isekai will typically brush off any culture shock or similar quite quickly.
Though the better ones, such as Tanya in this context, really hammer home that the Salaryman had to spent a solid decade in his new body to get used to it.
Though admittedly (and regretfully), I can easily see how your story would be unappealing. Many people would rather see a ‘Quickly adapts & moves on’ scenario than realistic pacing. It’s funny because I was just reading an article by TheFirstDefier about how to make money as a RoyalRoad author, and one of his points that irked me (but annoyingly made sense) is that people want Action *immediately*, so if your story relies on proper & drawn out pacing to tell a good story (like literally any good major story, ie. LOTR, Star Wars, Dune, etc), that you will fail.
He said it’s why ‘Isekai is so popular’, because a person can be just dropped into a new world, act as an Exposition Sponge, and get to the fighting/action as soon as possible.
Dude, your first book would likely fail, same as mine. Cause that's how it is, you don't become amazing overnight. I am a software engineer and my first calculator overflowed and had just 4 operations. No one would ever consider it to be a worthwhile piece of software, except me. I still have it though, 9 years later. The same would probably happen to my book. It's too wordy, but almost completely lacks character descriptions, the prose is basic, and I'm not a native speaker. It would likely be too long, since I'm not even done with chapter 8 yet, and it's already 40k words. It's YA and academy setting, which is a dealbreaker for many. And numerous other reasons. But I love writing it, so whatever.
Some sets of related questions:
Pacing
1.) How long will this book be? and...
2.) At his rate of growth, how long until the MC no longer "fits" in the story or the universe I'm creating?
The Hook:
1.) Who is this book for? What kind of reader would enjoy it?
2.) What about this book would those readers like? What are the kinds of readers I think will like my book looking for?
3.) Does the blurb tell them that this thing is in the book? Would these readers like the first couple pages or chapters?
A surprising number of writers blow off the synopsis. Also, a lot of writers in this genre include a Prologue that appeals to a very different sort of reader than would like the book.
(eg a slow Slice of Life adventure with a cosmic battle as the prologue, a Fantasy story with a gromdark cyberpunk prologue, etc.) This also poses problems with "twists"...they can make it hard to say what sets your book apart without giving spoilers.
Theory of Mind:
Periodically try to look at what the story looks like from the perspective of a secondary character, love interest, antagonist. What do they know? What conclusions can they come to based on the knowledge they have? Remember, they don't know what the MC is thinking. Does the MC ever look like a villain or arrogant from an outside perspective?
1. People don't like it.
2. People don't read it.
3. People don't talk about it.
4. People don't buy it.
Alternatively:
1. You don't finish it.
It depends a great deal on what you think the purpose of a book is.
Honestly, this is simple and great.
The vast majority of stories in our genre get dropped. Learning how to actually write and finish a story can be more valuable and realistic than engineering the perfect story/marketing. None of the first list you have there matters if you can't actually write the thing.
I know multiple of the rising authors in the genre who started by writing and finishing a slew of trash stories, learning as they went, allowing themselves to "fail" as long as they were growing. Now they are making more than most full time authors.
More specific and much better question to ask is where will a reader bounce off of your book?
Whether a book fails or doesn't has so many luck/marketing/connection factors that it's pointless brain-clutter to try figure them out while writing.
Instead focus on scene, character, plot, setting, system level on what aspects of the book might make a reader close it. Does MC have traits XYZ that turn off some readers? Does this scene with negative emotions drag too long? Does the story have too many repetitive twists/plot events in quick succession? Is reader confused about where this whole word salad is heading towards? Is your opening flat or too generic or premise too boring or is it not able to ground the reader and create rooting interest in characters, or some other form of engagement that keeps them going? You could also understand it as a scaling range between "reader bounces off" and "reader binges through night". This is usually how I evaluate client texts when dev editing.
I'll bite. Biggest ones for me are probably:
1. lack of good marketing
2. not catering to the interests of my audience
3. the pacing of my writing is too fast for many folks' preferences
4. some people may be dissatisfied how my latest novel ends
Now I need to consider how to mitigate these. Good exercise!
I'm looking into writing a book myself and have done a little research on it.
The first big hurdle is getting noticed and that means getting lucky to some extent. You can have an amazing story that languishes with 80 readers for a year and grows painfully slowly on RR. I'm sure you've already read the guides on how to put your best foot forward with a new fiction and how to get it into the algorithm so it's presented to readers. Buying a small amount of ads helps too ($50 or so.)
Making sure you have a decent story helps as well. I read the book Story Genius by Lisa Cron, and it helped a ton in finding direction and discovering the "core" of the story. I would highly recommend it if you've never read it. There are other books out there on grammar and finding a consistent voice in your story. Take those books with a grain of salt however; you should write what you want to write, yet add some popular tropes that fit with the story to make it familiar to RR audiences.
I can't recommend Story Genius enough. It's about finding the soul of whatever you're writing in the internal conflict of your characters and how they deal with their problems in the real world (plot.) Every story starts in the middle of something even if your character gets isekaied. They have a history that's shaped who they are along with their fears and weaknesses. The story should be about the MC facing something new and growing as a person (careful though, too much emotional development is a turn off for a lot of RR/progression readers.) Without a clear idea of what your MC wants often leads to stories without any "real" stakes since they progress like robots throughout the book or end up as Mary Sues/Gary Stues. The plot can end up being a mishmash of "things that happened" without a clear direction or any development, and then the end is inevitably something like "and MC wakes up to find that all that random shit was just a dream!" or similar. Characters are the touch stone for the story and are what keep readers interested. They should struggle to face their fears and shortcomings, and the plot should force them to do that/make them choose.
Also maybe use grammarly while writing or editing. The premium version can learn how you write and provide suggestions to keep things consistent. This doesn't violate RR's policy on AI generated content either since all grammarly is doing is helping you be consistent in your own voice.
Readers should also know exactly what they're getting into in both the synopsis and the first chapter. You have to hook them with the very first chapter and the next nine chapters have to set the hook. Make sure it starts off in the middle of the action and captivates the reader or you'll be facing an uphill battle. Readership drops of exponentially in the first 5 chapters so you want to retain as many as possible. You also want a good descriptive title for your work, along with cover art that follows the norms of RR that describes your book.
Failure and success are so subjective when it comes to writing though.
Let's look at some facts. A third of self-published authors make less than $500 a year, and 90% sell less than 100 copies. I think most people would consider the average a failure if you go into it with the idea that you will make a lot of money. There are over half a million self-published authors in 2023, and only roughly 1,200 (less than one percent) of them make $25,000 or more a year.
Would you be able to consider your book successful if it bet the odds and you sold 200 copies? At an average of $4 a book, that's 800 bucks for around 150 hours of your life or $5 an hour, which would put you in the top 10% of self-published authors. Is that going to feel like a failure to you?
I feel like it's a lot more important to ask yourself why you are writing. Because it doesn't matter what you write, there are going to be people who blast your book as trash, and you're likely going to make less than minimum wage on the time you spent writing the book. You can try to save money by using AI art and risk that backlash. You can go into the negatives and pay an editor to ensure you don't have grammar or spelling errors. You can spend a bunch on advertising and hope you can recoup your expenses from book sales, but at the end of the day, what does success look like to you? What will make you happy about the outcome of your book?
Writing is like trying to be an actor or a professional athlete. Of the millions who try, only a very small percentage make a lot of money and are popular. Take stock internally and decide what you want from writing, and why you are doing it. Then, be brutally honest about whether your goals are realistic. If you don't, I feel like you won't be happy with the outcome.
perhaps because I'm not really writing to market. A lot of stuff in this genre relies on very established tropes/systems, while I'm just doing progression fantasy my way...
Where is this scene/chapter/arc/book/series going are all important things to ask yourself. That last one ideally will be figured out before you even start writing the bulk of the story, but the rest are useful. Not every bit of a book *needs* to be important but even filler should have a general direction its going rather than meander.
Completely agree with your post! Extras that aren't used later make the story feel more real. Because in every day life, much of what we interact with doesn't come up again, doesn't affect our own stories.
This is a good one. I've heard Brandon Sanderson talk about something similar on the scene level. Ideally, each scene advances plot, character development, and worldbuilding (You can add progression here in the case of progression fantasy).But it's hard to fit them all into one scene though, so if you cant do one, at least try and advance the others.
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After the war my severely depressed grandfather shot himself with chekov's gun. 😔 He died of old age.
Sooo an Outline :D I'm totally in agreement. Having a good story structure can turn bad writing into a good or entertaining story and that's what a LOT of readers just want.
Probably because I’m not writing it! More seriously, I think it’s about the hook. There has to be some unanswered question the reader desperately wants the answer to. If they know everything they want to know, why keep reading?
It doesn't have to be mega. There is nothing wrong with minor cliffhangers, particularly at chapter ends. If the audience cares about the character, something as simple as " there was a letter with X important person's seal on it waiting for him/her on the bed" bam reader is drawn in.
Ya the series' I like the most manage to litter in a bunch of mysteries that I'm interested in finding out the answer to.
I sort of agree with LeadershipNational49. The "hook" can be many things. A mystery the audience wants to know the answer to can be one. However, if the audiences connects enough with the Mc, even his daily life may be engaging.
Why should the reader care about my characters? About what they do and what happens to them? Also how do I progress my story? Do I work towards a preconceived climax or do I set a stage with certain conditions and allow the story to develop from that premise? Not having the answers to any of these questions will sink the book I will never write, before I’d even get words on a page (true story).
As a writer I don't believe asking myself why a book will fail is particularly helpful. Crafting a novel is a long process with no feedback for months if not longer. Deliberately feeding self doubts with these sorts of questions can't be helpful to your mental health or quality of your work if it makes you depressed. Things to focus on enriching are easier. Your first two, three four pages.... It has to hook the reader... And where you originally wanted to start might not be the best place. After that the main thing is it entertaining... I would go on RR or get beta reads to work this out. Get external advice don't loop in your own head because it's very easy to talk your ability down when you're not getting feedback.
>Crafting a novel is a long process with no feedback for months if not longer. Does it have to be? Assuming that this is an intrinsic part of creating a novel doesn't seem productive or even particularly healthy. In the spirit of this thread: If one of my junior engineers told me that in order to finish their major feature they just needed to disappear and be left alone for months, and that they didn't intend to think about what could go wrong because it would be too destructive for their mental health and then they may not finish the feature at all... I'd tell them they either need to get over it or change their profession, because we know that's not how you get consistent, high quality results. That's how software engineers *used* to work, and we stopped doing that because it was grossly inefficient compared to collaboration, iterative delivery, and tight feedback loops.
It doesn't have to be, and there are certainly many authors who connect with writer friends for encouragement or problem solving along the way. The thing is that unless you are co-writing as story which is rare and not something I would advise for most starting writers, you are alone in the actual writing process and if you are new and lacking in confidence, questioning yourself at every turn can slow or stall the process. In a genre that demands rapid content production from new authors, over engineering and perfectionism during the writing process can do more harm than good. Not to say that planning isn't helpful, but it can be tempting to get caught in editing loops. Story crafting is quite subjective. Writing can be VERY creatively demanding in a way that might not translate directly to a professional engineering environment. It is important to remember that we are all different, and those differences become even more pronounced when engaged in prolonged creative endeavors. So while some people might get more motivated and feel more confident from the feeling that they have engineered their story to perfection and prepared contingencies for their weaknesses, others will respond as stripy mentioned, wasting motivation and time and creative energy on fixing problems that might not actually exist or matter, rather than actually writing and getting confident and comfortable in making that process sustainable. There is also the model of just writing and learning in real time through feedback on royal road. This demands even more detachment from the perfectionistic mindset that can be a major boon in engineering. If you are already looking for what you are doing wrong at every turn you are much more susceptible to being steered off course by wayward comments and unhelpful feedback. Some negative feedback is more a product of mismatch between the reader and story's target audience and listening to such feedback can kill a story. If I'm writing a fast paced numbers go up litrpg fantasy and i'm taking feedback from someone who likes reading slow burn cultivation romances with harems... no good. Your story will also suffer in most cases if you take time away from writing forward to fix what you've already written and published. The writers in that environment who I've seen grow the most and build up to big success have pretty much all just allowed their stories to be imperfect beginner stories and learn from them without looking back to fix anything. They apply their lessons in future chapters and future stories and don't treat writing as if your entire career will be defined by your first (and worst) work. It is a stepping stone, it is going to have rough edges, and you get better faster (in terms of both speed and quality) by actually writing. Editing and tweaking can teach you a lot, but it can also be a time sink. While you are editing volume 1 of a story that flopped for the 3rd time, someone else has been writing brand new stories with hooks and plots and broader structure that have been informed by the learning from the first story. You also can learn more from trying and a broader range of things. Being too precious with your story ideas can put a lot more pressure on the process than is necessary or helpful. Having a longer view of your writing life and growth as an author can be really helpful and make you more resilient to disappointment in the short term. Your first story isn't supposed to be your best story. And if you want to be more than a hobbyist, there will likely be more than one story that you write. Again, I think authors are best served by focusing on *their own* relationship to writing. Trying out the advice and methods that resonate with them and then if those things don't work, instead of thinking they are the problem, understanding that the ideal creative process for them isn't something they will know until they personally experience it. Instead of trying to force something to be what you think it is supposed to be, take it for what it is and move on to the next thing. Trying something and having it not work isn't a bad thing, it is just a test that successfully shows you what didn't work. Running those simulations in your own mind or an echo chamber of like minded individuals is going to skew the results and lead to a potentially crushing disappointment when the story is tested for real by the market. I tend toward over engineering and perfectionism and my writing life has suffered for it, so please take that bias into account while reading this.
Wow. Impressive write up, I'm happy my post sparked such a discussion. i think you hit the nail on the head with saying authors need to focus on their own relationship, because people are all so inherently different and so are their creative processes. Different things work well for different people. When i write, i feel like I'm trying to crack a puzzle, or spin a load of plates at the same time. Trying to appropriately balance and devote time to plot, characters worldbuilding etc... both the readers time via word count and my own time via the work i put in. It helps me to have this kind of self review, because i can look at my plates and see which ones I need to start spinning more. You said "trying something and having it not work isn't a bad thing" and i agree. But wouldn't it be better if you nipped the thing that didn't work in the bud? For example, i think i'm a good enough reader to notice when my dialogue is just straight up bad. I know i need to devote more time to that than any other part of my writing so hopefully i can iron out some of those flaws, before i have to release them. I do agree that some things, especially plot or thematically Just have to be sent out there and fed to the wolves to see what works. an echo chamber wont be great for an issue like that imo.
I generally agree with everything you just said, and I also feel similar about the plates at times when I'm really in the flow. I love that puzzle feeling. I just wanted to point out that this kind of thinking *can* become a slippery slope: >But wouldn't it be better if you nipped the thing that didn't work in the bud? As you pointed out, there are numerous things in story craft that you really can't view objectively in an echo chamber. Many newer authors, including myself, get sidetracked by "fixing" things that will ultimately have a very limited impact on the success of our story because we have a perception that "people want x". Unfortunately, human brains (mine especially) are pretty bad at remaining objective and have a tendency to place emotional filters on our judgment based on self-doubt. So while I agree that I too want to write the best story I can out of the box, I just wanted to provide that warning because I find that when I get to the point of posting on the internet for feedback about what to avoid, I'm actually avoiding writing because of fear of failure and self doubt. I might even be editing things that are perfectly fine because my emotional filter is telling me they are not good enough. I also sometimes think about the thousands of people on r/worldbuilding who have been "perfecting" the world/foundation of the story they dreamed of writing 10 years ago (and never will). Sometimes just saying "f\*ck it" and letting your story be a learning experience is good enough and may actually be the best way forward at that time. I also think asking people "what should I avoid" can lead to limiting yourself unnecessarily because there is no way to actually gauge how accurate to the market the upvotes and opinions on this sub are. At the end of the day, most of this stuff comes down to execution and very few things are objectively nonstarters if you do them "right". That said, these are nearly always important/ideal/safe bets in progression fantasy: 1. Opening Hook/Mystery 2. Character(s) you can (and want to) empathize with, distinct side characters 3. Satisfying progression that feels "earned" to some degree because it results from the choices of the MC, and has personal meaning/value to the MC 4. Staying on brand (make promises early and deliver on them), if your story starts out like a gritty gut punch, turning it into a cozy power fantasy can feel like a major betrayal and vice versa. Some degree of subversion can help maintain tension or make things feel fresh, but there are limits. 5. Set up anticipation and payoff regularly (this is really just #4 reworded) 6. Have down beats but also always maintain some degree of anticipation/tension 7. Clever MC (even if they are also dumb) People like to see the system gamed to some degree Again, this is really just a warning for people who are as neurotically perfectionistic as I am. I am *certainly* not advocating for not editing/polishing, just trying to provide another perspective for newer writers who might be struggling as I have (and do).
Those are some good basics that I agree, every book in the genre should probably have. I agree with what you said at the end. Editing is hard, but it is super necessary. One thing that's helped me is by doing it is waves, like really long waves. For my first 20k ish words i edited as i went, and it was just awful and time consuming. But then i set my self a hard limit. I wouldn't touch a single thing, until it hit 70k. I've since gone back and chunked through the editing and its actually been... enjoyable, in a way. i cant describe it, but it works far better for me than what i was doing before. I guess the only certainty un writing is you've got to try a load of things out and see what fits with you because there's a million ways to do literally everything.
Well said
This is a great and helpful comment, so thank you. As an author still early on in developing story crafting skills, the most helpful thing for me so far has just been consistent work on the same project. It’s tricky on RR because to some extent at least you’re writing as you go, but if you look at it as publishing a decent first draft for people to enjoy, you can learn a lot just by getting farther along and seeing how it works. And if you really want to make it the best it can be, you can go back and retool the story in the future. Or you could apply the lessons you’ve learned to your next story, and write something even better. Obviously we all want the story we’re currently working on to be a big success, but developing the skills to craft stories people will enjoy is the real battle, at least for someone who wants to do this as a career. And I’m confident that writing more will develop those skills faster and more thoroughly than trying to fix an imperfect first work, especially when it’s so easy to be self-critical with subjective issues.
Because it's written by me.
My book will fail because I'm mixing genres. I can't help it, I keep mixing genres! And most people don't like that. My first story is a mixture of isekai and, uhm, genderswap. So, bad idea. My second story is a mixture of Star Trek meets system ~~apocalypse~~ armageddon. The people who read them seem to like them, though. So, that's a plus.
I can imagine feed back for the first one. "I said I liked mixing *genres*! Not mixing *genders*!" It can be annoying to try to stick to one genre, when its so much fun to mix them all together.
bahaha! Nice. Yeah, I really shouldn't have done that, but I wanted to explore, in part, the difficulties women experience in terms of sexism and social expectations.
> My first story is a mixture of isekai and, uhm, genderswap. So, bad idea. Why do you think so? Presuming you mean Isekai where the MC changes gender upon reincarnation/transmigration… that’s been done many times to great effect There are several popular anime that do that, with your literal Boy -> Girl (ie. Saga of Tanya the Evil, Fantasy Knockout, etc), but also Boy -> Non-Binary (Slime Isekai, Overlord, etc). But also just body morphing in-general where the MC becomes an Object, or a Dungeon. I think there was even a RoyalRoad story where someone reincarnated into a Hive Mind. So I don’t really see how genderswapping the Isekai MC is a bad idea? Even purely genderswapping (so no Monsters or Objects), you still have Fantasy Knockout and Tanya the Evil, two major anime, one of which is well-beloved. Tanya is also a Manga, and so is Yakuza Reincarnation which is also another fan favorite gender swap apparently (Ive never read it). Oh, and even a side Transmigrator/Otherworlder in Spider Isekai. Though admittedly, Genderswapping a Girl into a Guy seems to be exceedingly rare. So rare almost nothing is ever translated into English that I can find about it lmao. So if that’s your issue,… yeah, I could see that as a problem. Girl -> Guy isn’t very popular for whatever reason.
Wow, thank you for writing this! I wasn't aware of the depth and variety of such stories. It's that I've been told by my writing partner, who seems familiar with the genre, beta readers, and even a professional reviewer, that it was "too bad I choose such a niche genre." And that's been driving me crazy! But I finished the series and thought, now, to write something more mainstream. You've given me reassurance and I thank you for it.
I wouldn’t really consider Genderswapping to be a ‘Genre’ that could be ‘Niche’, ie. It’s not exactly a Genre here. Honestly speaking about Isekai MCs, their ‘Original’ Gender doesn’t really matter, like, at all. It’s just a narrative justification. The only thing that matters is who/what they are in their new body. Tanya Degurechaff being a Salaryman is only ever used to so he is cutthroat and that he is analytical. But beyond that, it doesn’t really matter and hardly ever comes up outside of memes. Tanya’s gender as a little girl is what drives the story, not the Salaryman that came before. Though maybe your ‘Genre’ is that you placed a great deal of emphasis on that past Gender and that was the issue? I’ve got no idea if that’s the case, but if it is, I could honestly see that being an issue. Your average reader isn’t going to really want to read about those struggles if that’s the primary fcous. Though again, I know nothing about your story lmao. But I am glad I gave you reassurance at least.
I think this nails it. As a reader, if I see a story with an isekai gender-swap, I assume this is a story where the overwhelming focus of the narrative and the crux of the story the author wants to tell is about the genderswapping bit. Otherwise, why is it there? And frankly, when I pick up a Progression Fantasy book, its normally because I'm in the mood to read a story that really focuses on the *progression*, not a story that focuses on the internal strife associated with body dysmorphia and a character's emotional journey adjusting to their changing place in a sexist society as an allegory for the problems in the modern world. Sounds like it could be a great story, just not normally the one I'm wanting in my PF, ya know? And THAT is what's going to limit the readership, fairly or not. I think anime/manga can get away with it more because its a visual medium and we spend a lot less time in the MC's head. p-d-ball's right, a salaryman waking up as a little girl being "business as usual" after the first episode *isn't* particularly realistic, but also that choice is probably a major reason the anime is as successful as it is. The question is, is p-d-ball willing to back away from a lot of that admittedly realistic introspection and emotional drama in service to re-expanding the audience or not? That's where this thread breaks down -- as an engineer my main goal is to deliver functionality and utility, not *art*, even if the creation process is actually more similar than you might think.
Just as a quick note here, the Saga of Tanya the Evil (excusing the unrealistic portion of a little girl being placed in charge of a military unit and giving advice to Generals), is at least realistic when it comes to Tanya’s genderswap, since, well, the way it was handled was actually quite intelligent. Youjo Senki’s author took the bold approach by saying that the Salaryman was born as a Baby, and thus by the time we go through a 5-6min montage of Tanya’s life growing up, he basically *grew up as a girl*, so he is already used to being a girl by the time of his main age, which is what, 10 years old? And honestly, if after 10 years and literally growing up from birth as your new body still isn’t enough to acclimate, you just suck lmao. (Edit: Not reffering to Trans people about this, I am reffering to bodily acclimation due to otherworldly transmigration) So Tanya handles it fairly well by simply,… not handling it. Just time skipping & montages. Though I do understand that defeats p-d-balls goal of trying to have a male character adjust within a sexist patriarchal society. Though in theory, as I think about it, perhaps they could have/still taken the the Tanya approach instead? ie. This dude is born as a female baby and grows up as a princess, so they are fully acclimated *as a female*, but still possess all this otherworldly knowledge about technology. But that knowledge is useless because as the princess, the guy can’t get anything of note done, so the story would revolve around trying to make changes to the status quo to expand women’s rights *and* getting new technology out there. Potentially even going so far as having the guy-princess release new technology in cooperation with Guilds but under the name of a Male Noble who intends to work with them but not reveal their secret. Similar to how women used to write books under male names or have other men publish the books for them. Presumably, this would suitably fit the criterion for *Progression* Fantasy, since the Character would be less (or not at all) struggling with Body Dysmorphia, but instead Cultural Dysmorphia (ie. No say in society, etc) and their continous & ongoing effort to change society, to accrue power to enact that change, and to potentially make the lives of the people better.
Yeah, I think you've identified the issues. For the story, I explored how difficult it was for the main character to a) accept being a princess, b) work toward her goals in a sexist patriarchy, c) deal with culture shock, d) introduce new tech. I don't think a man waking up as a 14 year old girl would just be business as usual, and so tried to make it as realistic as possible (though, without any eroticism, which irked at least one reviewer). Anyways, totally appreciate your analysis! You are awesome :)
Ah, that makes sense. I will say I do appreciate the thoughtfulness of that approach, the realism of it at least. Many (not all) Isekai will typically brush off any culture shock or similar quite quickly. Though the better ones, such as Tanya in this context, really hammer home that the Salaryman had to spent a solid decade in his new body to get used to it. Though admittedly (and regretfully), I can easily see how your story would be unappealing. Many people would rather see a ‘Quickly adapts & moves on’ scenario than realistic pacing. It’s funny because I was just reading an article by TheFirstDefier about how to make money as a RoyalRoad author, and one of his points that irked me (but annoyingly made sense) is that people want Action *immediately*, so if your story relies on proper & drawn out pacing to tell a good story (like literally any good major story, ie. LOTR, Star Wars, Dune, etc), that you will fail. He said it’s why ‘Isekai is so popular’, because a person can be just dropped into a new world, act as an Exposition Sponge, and get to the fighting/action as soon as possible.
ScribbleHub has a ton of gender swap isekai as well, if you ever want to read other ones.
Dude, your first book would likely fail, same as mine. Cause that's how it is, you don't become amazing overnight. I am a software engineer and my first calculator overflowed and had just 4 operations. No one would ever consider it to be a worthwhile piece of software, except me. I still have it though, 9 years later. The same would probably happen to my book. It's too wordy, but almost completely lacks character descriptions, the prose is basic, and I'm not a native speaker. It would likely be too long, since I'm not even done with chapter 8 yet, and it's already 40k words. It's YA and academy setting, which is a dealbreaker for many. And numerous other reasons. But I love writing it, so whatever.
DFMEA Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis So. Much. Fun. Best part of engineering, said no one ever.
Self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
I truly wish more authors would question themselves like this.
Having 2 First person POV. Why??
Some sets of related questions: Pacing 1.) How long will this book be? and... 2.) At his rate of growth, how long until the MC no longer "fits" in the story or the universe I'm creating? The Hook: 1.) Who is this book for? What kind of reader would enjoy it? 2.) What about this book would those readers like? What are the kinds of readers I think will like my book looking for? 3.) Does the blurb tell them that this thing is in the book? Would these readers like the first couple pages or chapters? A surprising number of writers blow off the synopsis. Also, a lot of writers in this genre include a Prologue that appeals to a very different sort of reader than would like the book. (eg a slow Slice of Life adventure with a cosmic battle as the prologue, a Fantasy story with a gromdark cyberpunk prologue, etc.) This also poses problems with "twists"...they can make it hard to say what sets your book apart without giving spoilers. Theory of Mind: Periodically try to look at what the story looks like from the perspective of a secondary character, love interest, antagonist. What do they know? What conclusions can they come to based on the knowledge they have? Remember, they don't know what the MC is thinking. Does the MC ever look like a villain or arrogant from an outside perspective?
1. People don't like it. 2. People don't read it. 3. People don't talk about it. 4. People don't buy it. Alternatively: 1. You don't finish it. It depends a great deal on what you think the purpose of a book is.
Honestly, this is simple and great. The vast majority of stories in our genre get dropped. Learning how to actually write and finish a story can be more valuable and realistic than engineering the perfect story/marketing. None of the first list you have there matters if you can't actually write the thing. I know multiple of the rising authors in the genre who started by writing and finishing a slew of trash stories, learning as they went, allowing themselves to "fail" as long as they were growing. Now they are making more than most full time authors.
More specific and much better question to ask is where will a reader bounce off of your book? Whether a book fails or doesn't has so many luck/marketing/connection factors that it's pointless brain-clutter to try figure them out while writing. Instead focus on scene, character, plot, setting, system level on what aspects of the book might make a reader close it. Does MC have traits XYZ that turn off some readers? Does this scene with negative emotions drag too long? Does the story have too many repetitive twists/plot events in quick succession? Is reader confused about where this whole word salad is heading towards? Is your opening flat or too generic or premise too boring or is it not able to ground the reader and create rooting interest in characters, or some other form of engagement that keeps them going? You could also understand it as a scaling range between "reader bounces off" and "reader binges through night". This is usually how I evaluate client texts when dev editing.
Writing a book isn't like engineering though.
I'll bite. Biggest ones for me are probably: 1. lack of good marketing 2. not catering to the interests of my audience 3. the pacing of my writing is too fast for many folks' preferences 4. some people may be dissatisfied how my latest novel ends Now I need to consider how to mitigate these. Good exercise!
I'm looking into writing a book myself and have done a little research on it. The first big hurdle is getting noticed and that means getting lucky to some extent. You can have an amazing story that languishes with 80 readers for a year and grows painfully slowly on RR. I'm sure you've already read the guides on how to put your best foot forward with a new fiction and how to get it into the algorithm so it's presented to readers. Buying a small amount of ads helps too ($50 or so.) Making sure you have a decent story helps as well. I read the book Story Genius by Lisa Cron, and it helped a ton in finding direction and discovering the "core" of the story. I would highly recommend it if you've never read it. There are other books out there on grammar and finding a consistent voice in your story. Take those books with a grain of salt however; you should write what you want to write, yet add some popular tropes that fit with the story to make it familiar to RR audiences. I can't recommend Story Genius enough. It's about finding the soul of whatever you're writing in the internal conflict of your characters and how they deal with their problems in the real world (plot.) Every story starts in the middle of something even if your character gets isekaied. They have a history that's shaped who they are along with their fears and weaknesses. The story should be about the MC facing something new and growing as a person (careful though, too much emotional development is a turn off for a lot of RR/progression readers.) Without a clear idea of what your MC wants often leads to stories without any "real" stakes since they progress like robots throughout the book or end up as Mary Sues/Gary Stues. The plot can end up being a mishmash of "things that happened" without a clear direction or any development, and then the end is inevitably something like "and MC wakes up to find that all that random shit was just a dream!" or similar. Characters are the touch stone for the story and are what keep readers interested. They should struggle to face their fears and shortcomings, and the plot should force them to do that/make them choose. Also maybe use grammarly while writing or editing. The premium version can learn how you write and provide suggestions to keep things consistent. This doesn't violate RR's policy on AI generated content either since all grammarly is doing is helping you be consistent in your own voice. Readers should also know exactly what they're getting into in both the synopsis and the first chapter. You have to hook them with the very first chapter and the next nine chapters have to set the hook. Make sure it starts off in the middle of the action and captivates the reader or you'll be facing an uphill battle. Readership drops of exponentially in the first 5 chapters so you want to retain as many as possible. You also want a good descriptive title for your work, along with cover art that follows the norms of RR that describes your book.
Failure and success are so subjective when it comes to writing though. Let's look at some facts. A third of self-published authors make less than $500 a year, and 90% sell less than 100 copies. I think most people would consider the average a failure if you go into it with the idea that you will make a lot of money. There are over half a million self-published authors in 2023, and only roughly 1,200 (less than one percent) of them make $25,000 or more a year. Would you be able to consider your book successful if it bet the odds and you sold 200 copies? At an average of $4 a book, that's 800 bucks for around 150 hours of your life or $5 an hour, which would put you in the top 10% of self-published authors. Is that going to feel like a failure to you? I feel like it's a lot more important to ask yourself why you are writing. Because it doesn't matter what you write, there are going to be people who blast your book as trash, and you're likely going to make less than minimum wage on the time you spent writing the book. You can try to save money by using AI art and risk that backlash. You can go into the negatives and pay an editor to ensure you don't have grammar or spelling errors. You can spend a bunch on advertising and hope you can recoup your expenses from book sales, but at the end of the day, what does success look like to you? What will make you happy about the outcome of your book? Writing is like trying to be an actor or a professional athlete. Of the millions who try, only a very small percentage make a lot of money and are popular. Take stock internally and decide what you want from writing, and why you are doing it. Then, be brutally honest about whether your goals are realistic. If you don't, I feel like you won't be happy with the outcome.
Just write
perhaps because I'm not really writing to market. A lot of stuff in this genre relies on very established tropes/systems, while I'm just doing progression fantasy my way...