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.
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None of the Magical Girl Raising Project sequels I've read have been as good as the original. "Jokers" had potential, but "Aces" and "Queens" are the worst so far!
I'm just about ready to give up on light novels altogether. I have yet to find a single series I can complete without losing interest.
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@Cid said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
I have yet to find a single series I can complete without losing interest.
Well first, you will find few series that are complete to begin with. So what do you actually mean by series you can complete?
Look at Bookworm, it has been going on for years and is just now finally getting to the end of the original story.
Mushoku Tensei (Seven Seas not JNC) is another that I believe is just getting to the end of the series in translation.
Those are examples of longer series that are near completion. I cannot think of any shorter series that is actually complete off the top of my head.
As for most of the rest of the genre, they are just releasing until they are not releasing. Most just seem to stop because the next volume never got approved.
So "complete" is a real hard thing to determine
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@Cid said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
I'm just about ready to give up on light novels altogether. I have yet to find a single series I can complete without losing interest.
Do you mind elaborating on what else you've read and why you lost interest in it? For that matter, can you think of examples of non-light-novels that you were able to read through to completion? Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Magical Girls Raising Project, so I can't suggest anything based on that example.
Speaking for myself, light novels are mostly easy-reading fare. It's something that you can pick up, get invested in quickly, and finish it in a few hours. I've always found the quality of the writing in light-novels to be worse on-average than more traditionally published novels (note that this isn't to say that there aren't well-written light novels or poorly written traditional ones). Also, stories that are able to stay interesting for the long haul tend to require elaborate setup and careful plot-building, meaning they can get off to a slow start. Such stories certainly exist if you look for them (this thread is a good place to ask). But this is almost contradictory to the value proposition of the typical light novel.
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@unknownmat - also, there are many series that have good arc or two even if the publisher or author keeps releasing volumes after those arcs are finished. It's disappointing when a series goes downhill, but that doesn't remove my enjoyment of the volumes that (for me) were done right.
FUNA's later volumes of Potion Loli and Abilities Average aren't as good (keep inserting "for me" :) ), but I'm glad I got to read the early volumes.
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@HarmlessDave said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@unknownmat - also, there are many series that have good arc or two even if the publisher or author keeps releasing volumes after those arcs are finished. It's disappointing when a series goes downhill, but that doesn't remove my enjoyment of the volumes that (for me) were done right.
On top of that you series where once you get past a bad arc in the middle, the subsequent arcs are good again. Lazy Dungeon Master is an example of this for me. The whole arc over in the Demon King area before the final arc was just bleh.
@HarmlessDave said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
FUNA's later volumes of Potion Loli and Abilities Average aren't as good (keep inserting "for me" :) )
I keep hoping Potion Loli will enter a better arc. For me, Abilities Average has simply stayed average.
As you can see, @Cid, opinions and novels differ. Give us more feedback and we might be able to make better comments.
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@unknownmat said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Do you mind elaborating on what else you've read and why you lost interest in it? For that matter, can you think of examples of non-light-novels that you were able to read through to completion? Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Magical Girls Raising Project, so I can't suggest anything based on that example.
As the topic title suggests, I lose interest in a series when the quality of the story goes down. I am mainly complaining about long-running, double digit volume series. I know of few comparable western examples, as I did not grow up reading such long series. A Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter are a couple that I like.
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@Cid said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@unknownmat said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Do you mind elaborating on what else you've read and why you lost interest in it? For that matter, can you think of examples of non-light-novels that you were able to read through to completion? Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Magical Girls Raising Project, so I can't suggest anything based on that example.
As the topic title suggests, I lose interest in a series when the quality of the story goes down. I am mainly complaining about long-running, double digit volume series. I know of few comparable western examples, as I did not grow up reading such long series. A Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter are a couple that I like.
Western sci-fi and fantasy does not have a comparable media. You simply cannot compare the light novel category to western categories. Western novels are longer and generally planned around being a trilogy.
The closest to being light novels for variety of authors and stories that I can reference would be the old StarTrek and D&D novels from the 90's. I mean the cranked those out like mad. it was a mixed bag of quality, but they were still longer than light novels and the D&D ones were based around sets of trilogies for the most part. But still tied to hard a continuity in their respective multiverse.
The closest thing I can think of to light novels when comparing length would be maybe the Destroyer series? But that was all one series of books. One MC with most books being one shot stories with little timeline continuity between books, basically many could happen in any order.
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@sorvani said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
The closest to being light novels for variety of authors and stories
Wouldn't it be those long-running teen/children's novels that most millenials/Gen X would remember reading in their childhoods? Novels like any of Enid Blyton's series, Nancy Drew/ Hardy Boys, Goosebumps, Animorphs, Baby-sitters' Club etc. The individual volumes are not thick and the series usually runs for 10/20 or even more volumes.
For me, I've never actually finished any of these series. Since they are usually more episodic than Japanese light novels tend to be nowadays, it was fine to just jump in anywhere and read whatever was available to you. However, they did also have overarching plots and if you missed some of the previous volumes, it was hard to pick up the story in the middle so I tended to lose interest after a while.
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@saidahgilbert said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@sorvani said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
The closest to being light novels for variety of authors and stories
Wouldn't it be those long-running teen/children's novels that most millenials/Gen X would remember reading in their childhoods? Novels like any of Enid Blyton's series, Nancy Drew/ Hardy Boys, Goosebumps, Animorphs, Baby-sitters' Club etc. The individual volumes are not thick and the series usually runs for 10/20 or even more volumes.
For me, I've never actually finished any of these series. Since they are usually more episodic than Japanese light novels tend to be nowadays, it was fine to just jump in anywhere and read whatever was available to you. However, they did also have overarching plots and if you missed some of the previous volumes, it was hard to pick up the story in the middle so I tended to lose interest after a while.
I never read any of those and completely forgot about them. So yes, I agree, that would be the closest.
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@sorvani said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Western sci-fi and fantasy does not have a comparable media. You simply cannot compare the light novel category to western categories. Western novels are longer and generally planned around being a trilogy.
I am fully aware of that. I was responding to someone who asked about what else I read.
