As far as I am concerned: If it's a fictional story, anything goes. Literally anything. Child abuse, rape, murder, torture, genocide, racism, emotional exploitation, psychological warfare, any sort of cruelty - and of course compassion or love - is acceptable in a story.

The question is: is this plot device being used by the author in a good way. To make a point, to make the reader think, to build up the foundation of the fantasy world the story is told in or simply to open a new branch in the story telling?

Or is it used in a bad way, to appeal to the existing fantasies of a niche group of people?
I say bad, because that is my opinion as to what constitutes a "bad way" here, but strictly speaking, both choices are equally valid. The thing is: No one forces you to continue to put up with it. If the story doesn't do it for you, you are free to stop at any point.
However, I've been surprised more than once here. Sometimes I've kept reading a book I thought was rather disappointing only to find that suddenly things that have irked me beautifully come together at a later point.

A story is in part what you make of it. If you feel uncomfortable reading a book, you should stop there for a second and reflect on that.
Why do you feel uncomfortable? What are your values that the book is violating? Maybe entertain the thought of imagining yourself in the different available perspectives in the situation at hand. A book can be much more than the story it tells, really. You just need to be open to imagination.

Of course, I have been left feeling utterly depressed more than once doing that. But I have also felt exhilarated, inspired. Sometimes it made me forge new moral values or even change existing ones. Fictional stories have in no small part contributed to my world views, simply by contemplating the actions of characters, their individual situations, circumstances and relationships.

In that sense, even a poorly written book can hold surprising value, which is why I rarely drop a novel series at all, and I can't remember ever stopping to read a book because of extreme content. If anything, I stop reading books if there is constant repetition.

@bloodygaikotsu said in NaNoWriMo:

@terrence said in NaNoWriMo:
But, seriously, I can't write long clickbait titles like this—and I feel really self-conscious about typing very LN-esque stuff lol.

I have no self-respect so I can do this, lol. xD

Hopefully I get into the writing mood today. Only day off this week. T_T

@saskir for your time control thing I have a thought.

Flow Chart
The power to travel to key events from any dimension. You would have to actually experience the events and they can be a close of hours apart from each other or years apart. You have no control what an event is, the only criteria you are aware of is that this point I time must be a time and place where there is a major choice that will have hugely different consequences depending on what choices you make. It could be something like the choice to turn left to save the world and universe or turn right and see the stars dissapear. The important thing is that it must be something that causes huge change. You can NOT go back to an event when you die (like in re zero), you have to manually choose to go back. There is also the fact that the farther back an event the greater effect over time it will have, so if you want an even bigger change you have to go back farther AND will have to live through that timeline until you make it to another event to save that choice. So if say you just ignore some person and say five years down the line that person had a powerful skill or ability that is required for your quest to defeat the demon lord or something but he committed scuiside because no one treated him with well, you would have to go back 5 years to help that person and live through those 5 years again.

Actually, gloves are used quite often in occult rituals, mythically. It's one of the common ritual tools you see in actual medieval occultism, along with cups and wands and a few other things. It's all about imagery. Probably drawing on that a bit.

@cosm1cfall Yes, Moon+ Reader can sync between devices.

@catstorm Persoanlly “The War of The Best” was extremely memorable. However:

So with that i would say Merry’s goodbye was so much more impactful.

I think this should answer your question:
https://www.quora.com/Which-is-better-Kobo-or-Kindle#

The idea of being able to speak to characters is very interesting and well worth writing. I hope this helps. I am not really a writer but imagery provided in your outline got my imagination flowing.

The following is how I would start it:

Hotaka is a broke college literature student moping on a train going to an Interview with a new start up light novel company called somename books.

He only got involved in literature in college because he was in love chasing his best friend with famous light novel author parents. She decided to follower her parents and took literature at College. Unfortunately, he chased her for years but never got the courage to ask her out. Last night their friendship was destroyed.

He only got this interview because it was a favour done by this best friend who father wrote the company's only hit novel. The night before his best friend told him that she met someone and is now engaged. She expected him to be happy but instead he was devastated resulting in a big fight breaking their friendship and throwing Hotaka into his current depressive funk.

Hotaka, barely interested in this interview, only went because his overbearing mother would of beat the crap out of him and turn him out of the house if he did not go. As he is scanning the company's hit novel for interview prep, lo and behold a Zel pops out.

I would then have the Zel provide his dissatisfaction in a humorous embarrassing way resulting in Hotaka blowing the interviewer away by providing the answer for the author's writer block that was preventing book 2 of their only hit novel.

In this way you establish that the protagonist is pathetic and give yourself some direction. He is pathetic because he is lazy and a coward w/o ambition. You also give the reason why he impressed enough to get the job and establish the existence of the Zel.

My impression from your post is that you want to write something but you are stuck on the idea and arcs, but have missed filling in your characters bios and motivations which ultimately gives the nitty gritty for your story direction.

I took your depression/loner/untrustworthy character desire and tried to think of what would make a person like that. That is how I came up with the starting idea. Since a character like that would be useless for most jobs, he needs some convincing reason to land it. (I answered the somehow he has a job to start the story) What naturally follows with the idea that he met a Zel making him of value to the company in the form of solving writers block for volume 2 of a hit novel. The best friends engagement was just to establish the protagonist as pathetic and possibly provide a thread for a future direction. As for the novel belonging to her father, another possible future direction.

A story is more than an outline arcs- it is the characters that make it. Start to outline your protagonist ( how they act and react, how they are feeling, parents, motivations, backstory etc). Give it enough detail to have a history like a real person but not so much depth that you lose yourself in it and don't write.

Once you got that, just start putting the scenes together. As you put the scenes together, continue to outline the people who your protagonists interact with to give the scenes direction. (Currently your outlines of his coworkers are shallow probably contributing to your writers block). With these histories in the back of your mind, the scenes to write should naturally pop in your head.

You may find that when you start writing, your outlined goes into a totally different direction because your original direction does not fit the character. That's okay. Sit back and reforcast.

Myth & Roid is pretty catchy. Though I mostly listen to metal/rock and 80's which is usually just in the car driving to and from work. XM-37 Octane / 80's on 8 or similar made playlists on Spotify.

In terms of conflicts you hate, I don't like it when you manufacture a conflict just for the sake of drama.
It happens a lot in romance plots/sub-plots, for example
MC: I'm going to choose side characters plan/method instead of love interests
Later Love interest is either jealous or begins questioning how MC feels about them
and now that is going to be the sub-plot/character motivation for this episode of love antics (added points if side character is actually another potential love interest)
Or a none romantic example
Side character: Why is MC acting so suspicious, instead of asking them about what they're doing I'm just going to secretly investigate/stalk them
Or they ask and the character is just being vague for no reason

But like with anything if it's written well enough (and/or for comedy) I'd still forgive it

@myskaros Uou. That was fast :)
Nice to know. Thanks a lot.

@paulnamida said in Who is the most clueless male protagonist?:

@paul-nebeling Bakarina's black hole tier denseness is probably unbeatable.

I kind of want to see what would happen if Bakarina met one of these dense male MCs
I mean can you imagine what would happen if she met Ichika? I'm sure the two of them will get along fine, but their harems?

Voting Monday for Elf Bride, Dendro, and Werewolf (and technically Kokoro, but I won't start that until the ebook comes out).
I also need to read LDM one of these days. I might binge it when more is out.

Meh we never will get such a thing in germany. Damn book price binding.

The Great Justus R. Stone has decreed Megumin as "Best Girl, Fight me!" (in his newest top ten list) My faith in lord Justus R. Stone has only deepened! I will even commit the sacrilege of JNC if the holy Sam disagrees and fights back! Do not worry my Lord, even if you do not like to "fite" I will.
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I've actually brainwashed my twin boys (not-identical). They both love the idea of reading. When they were learning to crawl, I would read books with me and the book on the floor a couple feet in front of them to encourage them to start crawling. They were extremely curious about what was keeping my attention.

We would read stories to them almost every single night before bedtime (punishment for extremely bad behavior was having the story time taken away).

My biggest tool I used to brainwash the kids was the concept that "people seek to confirm that which they already believe". I talked about how great school was and told hem what they would be able to do when they learned to read and do math. I got them excited about things like pen and paper role-playing games and more.

One kid I was a little too successful at brainwashing, when I told him how long Christmas break was he started crying. When Valentines Day came around the teacher had him fill out a card that had "love is" printed on it he wrote "scool" [sic]. He just got out of kindergarten and two days ago I asked him how he liked his summer break; he said "I don't. I hate breaks."

The kid has already read three of the five books from the Prydain Chronicles on his own without help (AKA The Black Cauldron series). I didn't read that series on my own until I was well into first grade.

My other son has struggled a little more but seems to be doing much better after he finished the summer reading class we put him in.

Back on topic though, I prefer light novels over manga. I would rather read the light novel before watching the Anime or read the manga.

I was summoned to another world with the power of magical wish contracts

My name is John Smith and I was summoned to another world yada yada human kingdom alliance yada yada demon king yada yada you get the general idea. It turns out I have an extremely broken power as I am able to put an end to the war between humans and demons, well not necessarily as the cost is too great for that. What cost? Well I can grant any wish possible but the wisher needs to pay a price to me that I keep for myself. Now to an extent I can choose what the price is, as I need to think it a fair price and one I want myself. The thing is, if I save someone else's life I think it is only fair that their life belongs to me now. You can see the problem when this is on a world scale. I can not stop the war but I can take the top demons out of the picture, the price is still great but at least if the human alliance shares the price it can be granted. What is the price? Well I am a young healthy teenage boy, the price was well... every cute noble girl. It turns out in the whole alliance there was 1278 cute noble girls. Well there was a bit extra for that price but this was really the main bulk of the price. The other part was money and land, 25% of land and money from each nation part of the alliance. This is how my life started in this other world, wiping out all the top-level demons, getting a harem of girls and starting my own kingdom with a bunch of money too. The war with the demons would only last a few more months before the demons spread across the world scattered and peace fell upon the world. I go on adventures, grant people wishes and lived peacefully. Or so I thought 10 years later all the top-level demons returned, this is why you should be specific when you make a wish. Sigh.

I kind of talked about it in the first podcast I did, but the biggest thing that holds me back from reading English made works are their art. If the art looks cheap, it makes me think the rest of the product is a cheap cashgrab too. Even some of the better art looks doujinishi quality.

Though, I just looked at Varnell's two latest releases that are not in the American Kitsune series, and they look good, especially the third volume character; the first volume art looks off to me though, not quite LN quality.

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There are good artists out there taking commissions you could contact to create something. If you're going to do an English light novel inspired novel, and you think your story is of high quality, go all out with at least the cover to match the story quality.

Here are all of Varnell's works from Goodreads so you can take a peek at them:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/8031812.Brandon_Varnell