Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality
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@tsukikira that’s the hard way to plan a series — write the whole thing twice 😊
Also, thanks for the details since I haven't read the WN, and those do seem like improvements to the story.
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@HarmlessDave said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@tsukikira that’s the hard way to plan a series — write the whole thing twice 😊
Given how much the writers I know rewrite their works, I'd say writing it only twice sounds quite easy compared to the usual. :-P
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@Pieta said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@HarmlessDave said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@tsukikira that’s the hard way to plan a series — write the whole thing twice 😊
Given how much the writers I know rewrite their works, I'd say writing it only twice sounds quite easy compared to the usual. :-P
A flaw with the webnovel format is often times it's the first draft posted right out of the authors head rather than the more structured, iterative approach someone writing traditionally will take.
When they get contracted to write an LN they finally have an editor to point out a bunch of issues, hindsight of some of the problems they encountered writing themselves into a corner and for better or worse reader comments and criticism.
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@HarmlessDave said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Also, if you enjoyed the first few Abilities Average, I recommend two others:
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear
Kuma has very repetitive story structure. Its predictable, there are no stakes for Yuna, no character growth, no "main" story that would weave through the series, just repetitive side quests. Althrough it is hinted that there is some with the gifts god has left lying around, the gifts dont make any difference since Yuna is already the strongest.
Im not hating on the series, it was endearing and enjoyable in the beginning. Im sad it grew stale for me.On the other hand, Abilities Average has a main story, that the protagonist almost uncosciously plays a part in. That makes it easier to get past some repetitive side quests and keeps me invested.
Going from Average to Kuma might be a bit of a let down once you get far enough.
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Largest drop in quality for me was Supreme magus. I was binge reading it untill 4 in the morning, while having to go to work the next day. I couldnt stop myself, it was that good.
When i dropped it, it was full of crafting filler, powercreep that makes the current plots short and the past plots seem questionable and over 9000 near death/disaster/r*pe scenarios that get averted at the very last moment because the author is unwilling to let the popular characters suffer.
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@kurosov said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Korean webnovels more often seem to be self contained stories with a planned ending
Huh... I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn't sure of that being the case since I have been reading fan-translates of the korean literature, and they tend to take burn-out breaks quite often. But those I have read seemed to me like you say, one planned story beginning to end. Good to know that seems to be the case.
Honestly, it really goes to show the differences between authors. AoaB for instance has maintained its steam, having multiple arcs, and a very very large environment. All handled apparently seamlessly. But then you get the author of Sasaki and Peeps, and while it is good in my opinion, you can tell the author struggled to keep track with the time differences in the story. I know it's hard to juggle things like that, but then there's AoaB and you're like, "Hmmmmmmm.....?"
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@kurosov said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
I've been reading a lot more Korean novels recently for just this reason. Korean webnovels more often seem to be self contained stories with a planned ending sometimes with bonus chapters post conclusion so you don't get the "happily ever after, no you don't get to see" ending.
They're often shorter because of this with 100-200 chapters and done.@igounfazed said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Huh... I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn't sure of that being the case since I have been reading fan-translates of the korean literature, and they tend to take burn-out breaks quite often. But those I have read seemed to me like you say, one planned story beginning to end. Good to know that seems to be the case.
I don't read webnovels but I have the same feeling about manhwas - they often feel very pre-planned, with a steady progress towards the conclusion, and when you get to 100 chapters it's usually obvious you're near the end. Even the outliers, like True Beauty (233 chapters of main story, with 33 extra) are long but not infinitely long.
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@Pieta said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@kurosov said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
I've been reading a lot more Korean novels recently for just this reason. Korean webnovels more often seem to be self contained stories with a planned ending sometimes with bonus chapters post conclusion so you don't get the "happily ever after, no you don't get to see" ending.
They're often shorter because of this with 100-200 chapters and done.@igounfazed said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Huh... I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn't sure of that being the case since I have been reading fan-translates of the korean literature, and they tend to take burn-out breaks quite often. But those I have read seemed to me like you say, one planned story beginning to end. Good to know that seems to be the case.
I don't read webnovels but I have the same feeling about manhwas - they often feel very pre-planned, with a steady progress towards the conclusion, and when you get to 100 chapters it's usually obvious you're near the end. Even the outliers, like True Beauty (233 chapters of main story, with 33 extra) are long but not infinitely long.
With most manhwa/webcomics being an adaptation of a Korean web novel it's not surprising you'd notice the same thing.
Of course manhwa have their own issue. The pacing can crawl along as they try to stretch those episode numbers for more sales only for the series to be abruptly not renewed for another season so they cram the the whole thing into 5-10 episodes even when they were only 60-70% through the story.
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@igounfazed said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
I know it's hard to juggle things like that, but then there's AoaB and you're like, "Hmmmmmmm.....?"
Bookworm might be a gold standard of that kind of writing. She had the entire story plotted out with bullet-point summaries of every chapter before she wrote the first one. It's a little ridiculous that she did that for a story in the same order of magnitude as The Wheel of Time though. WoT certainly didn't have its plot planned to that level of detail. She basically could only do it because it was self-published, and written primarily for herself and her husband.
I don't think good stories actually need to be plotted out to that level of detail, though. I think its true value is in how it enabled her to start out writing a chapter a day (at least until she got published) with confidence that if she followed her plan there wouldn't be plot holes or writer's block.
Which is to say that if someone wants to write a long, epic fantasy and publish a new chapter every day, at a high level of quality without resorting to filler, yeah, they probably need to plan most of it out beforehand. But if the focus is on episodic storytelling, where each episode is satisfying on its own whether or not it contributes to a larger plot, maybe not so much.
But I'm not a fan of writers who purport to have an epic, slow-burning plot that's the central focus of the story... that is being made up as they go along. How well thought out a plot device/point is should be directly proportional to how important it is. If character development is just going to be undone for the next episode, don't have character development. If big victories are going to end up downplayed, don't have big victories. If mysteries aren't going to be solved, don't pretend you're getting closer to the answer.
That said, a plan might also help in getting the publisher to let you finish the story... I've seen a few manga that seemed like they were probably cancelled with how abrupt the ending kicked off, but were given more chapters to resolve things than I would have expected for a cancellation. Possibly because the writer already had an ending - a final "episode" - that could be triggered on demand. But also possibly because the writer ran out of ideas for episodes and kicked off the ending themself.
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I mean, Potions Loli is and will always remain the poster child for this issue.
There is occasionally some nuance though... I'd include My Next Life as a Villainess as a series that also had a huge drop in quality as it basically just started repeating itself over and over again with nothing really changing. However, it's also an example of the rare series that has that kind of drop off and somehow manages to course correct itself. The newer volumes don't match up to the original plot arc exactly, but they have succeed in bringing the level of quality back up to respectability. That's exceedingly rare in my experience... once a series takes a nose dive over a cliff, it normally doesn't make it back up.