13 A Guide to Eastern Fantasy (Xuanhuan)
Author: Small Team Leader
1. Why write Eastern Fantasy novels?
Ever since the appearance of webnovels in China, Eastern Fantasy and Modern Novels have been two of the biggest mainstreams. These two genres of novels are the most popular. On one hand, they are what most readers are interested in, and on the other, they are the easiest genres for new authors to write about.
2. What is an Eastern Fantasy novel?
For authors in the east, Eastern Fantasy novels can draw in the greatest number of readers, which means that writing such a novel can bring the greatest potential benefits to an author, such as publication, the making of an anime or manga out of the novel, creating a game, and so on.
Eastern Fantasy is a specific genre of novel. Simply speaking, it's a fantasy story that has elements of Asian culture as the foundation. It can also be combined with Western Fantasy, anime elements, and so on in order to create a uniquely Eastern Fantasy story.
3. The core of an Eastern Fantasy novel
The biggest deciding factor of all is how experienced the author is with reading the genre they are writing about. In my long experience as an editor, I've met far too many authors who have read extremely few Eastern Fantasy novels yet are still brimming with confidence. They always say something like, "It's only an Eastern Fantasy novel; it's so easy for me to do!"
But in the end, these authors don't even understand the core structure of Eastern Fantasy novels. So naturally, most of these authors will end in failure. So, how about we take a look at what the core elements of Eastern Fantasy novels are??
A. What's the framework for an Eastern Fantasy novel?
After more than ten years of development, Eastern Fantasy novels have changed from having a plot at its core to having leveling at its core instead. The true identity of an Eastern Fantasy novel is the ultimate book about leveling.
What I mean about ultimate book about leveling is that everything revolves around the main character achieving the next level or realm. It doesn't matter if you have plots about dungeons, revolving around characters, or obtaining all sorts of treasure. All of this solidly revolves around the concept of "leveling".
B. Why make an Eastern Fantasy novel into the ultimate book about leveling?
At first, the typical Eastern Fantasy novels all had plots relating to embarking on adventures, taking revenge, finding out about the main character's mysterious identity, winning the heart of a beautiful maiden, and so on. Why is it that today, Eastern Fantasy novels have completely become leveling fantasies?
This was determined by the length required of web novels. None of the plots mentioned above can sustain a constantly updated Eastern Fantasy novel that has one million or more words in it.
Only constant leveling and breaking through new realms of power levels is a plot that can possibly withstand such a high word count which may be written for over a year.
Not only that, readers feel great affinity for the desire to level up and become stronger.
Of course, plot arcs like taking revenge, finding out the main character's mysterious past, and so on can all be inserted into the story as needed.
C. Leveling system
Having a leveling system has become the foundation for all leveling stories.
First of all, let's take a look at names used in typical leveling systems. For instant, some classical leveling settings, like the leveling system used in the story "Mystical Journey", which became the standard used for almost all Eastern Fantasy cultivation novels today.
Example: Qi Refinement - Foundation Establishment - Golden Core - Nascent Soul – Soul Formation.
Another method is to use your own original leveling settings. With this, you also need to learn about and to research on classical Eastern Fantasy story settings as well as to understand the logic behind how to develop your leveling system.
Here, let me give you a power system I just invented myself as an example: Mystic Sand Realm – Mystic Stone Realm – Mystic Hill Realm – Mystic Peak Realm. As a character develops in power level, there are clear differences in the power levels by name. You could try coming up with something similar to this.
D. Leveling system, part 2
Then what's the most important part about the setting of a leveling system?
Differences!
Differences mean that you absolutely need to show the advantages and disadvantages of being at different power levels. Higher levels absolutely need to be superior to lower levels in every way.
Let us look at a specific example.
A level 2 martial artist is stronger than a level 1 martial artist, not only because of superior base stats on his numbers and that 2 is a bigger number than 1.
First, there should be a difference in strength.
For example, maybe a level 1 martial artist is capable of punching three times in a single breath, while a level 2 martial artist can punch thirty times in a single breath.
Another example is that maybe a level 1 martial artist can punch with 50 kilograms of force, while a level 2 martial artist can punch with 250 kilograms of force.
The obvious difference in power level will make readers desire to read about the main character leveling up and becoming stronger.
Apart from differences in strength, there should also be differences in financial and social status.
Here, let's use a bit of an exaggerated example.
For instance, a level 1 martial artist has an income of 100 gold coins per month, while a level 2 martial artist has an income of 1,000 gold coins per month. As for social status, level 1 martial artists will forever remain as commoners, while level 2 martial artists might be given a feudal lord status.
This is why, when creating your own leveling system, not only do you need different power levels, you also need to establish the differences between strength as well as financial and social status together with your setting.
If this is too difficult for a newcomer author, then at the very least, you should put work into making clear differences between each power level. Try doing like the examples listed above.
E. Cheats
Cheats aren't actually the true core of Eastern Fantasy novels, but since I mentioned leveling systems which are typically connected to cheats, shall we have a short discussion about why it's necessary to have a cheat?
You can interpret a cheat as having something like outside assistance in a game, like a program that can cheat and help modify your character's parameters in a game. Why is it necessary to have a cheat?
That's because the main character of an Eastern Fantasy novel must surpass all the other characters as he or she becomes stronger. This is the most basic rule of an Eastern Fantasy novel.
At this time, the cheat is incredibly important. That's because the existence of a cheat is the most foundationally accepted method of convincing readers about the reason why the main character grows powerful at a faster rate than others and becomes better than everyone else.
Cheats can come in many forms. Perhaps your main character receives a mysterious technique book with unknown origins, or suddenly awakens to a mystical power. You could even have your main character meet a nameless old person who possesses great power and teaches your protagonist, or have a demon king possess your main character's body. (For more details on designing cheats, please read Section 5 – A simple model and analysis of Eastern Fantasy novels).
At any rate, after the main character receives a cheat, he or she needs to speedily start powering up as if a god was helping!
When mentioning cheats, I should also briefly mention miracles. Miracles are something that are typically done at the very beginning of the story in order for the main character to receive a cheat.
4. The three major points that are absolutely necessary for you to understand in Eastern Fantasy novels
（1） Tempo – Tempo may sound like something rather abstract, but tempo can definitely determine whether a novel succeeds or fails. So, let's make this abstract concept more specific. I have two simple words to summarize the concept of tempo – rise and fall.
A． Fall – this refers to having calmer moments in between tense action scenes to help ease the readers into the story. Rise and fall need to be utilized together when writing any story. Here's an example from an Eastern Fantasy novel. After having a tense, fierce battle, you shouldn't immediately begin another battle that will keep your readers on the edge. You should have something more relaxing in between to help your readers relax so that they're in a better state of mind to read the next exciting battle.
This logic of having "falls" in your story is a theory I call the "horror film" theory!
When watching a horror film, if the entire film is filled with nothing but tense and scary scenarios, the audience will soon become numb to what the movie is showing. In between each terrifying scene needs to be more relatively normal scenes that allows the audience to relax themselves again so that the next tense scenario can be developed more effectively.
What if some authors say: "I don't know how to write relaxing scenarios."
My fellow editor known as 314 has an excellent answer to this question. "Just write some filler." Even if you add a little filler in between two exciting scenes, it's acceptable and a better outcome than numbing the readers with too much tension which can lead to them giving up on reading your story.
B． Rise - Rises, also known as climaxes, are like ultimate abilities. All novels, movies, anime, manga, and everything related to the entertainment industry must rely on climaxes.
If you wish to have a climax, first you must have a lull. Falls always come before the rise. Since I don't want to ramble on endlessly, I shall summarize it quite simply.
Here's an example: a character named Adam is a powerful swordsman. How do we express in our story that Adam is a powerful swordsman? Here, we can combine the concepts of fall and rise to give the readers shock and excitement.
First, we can start with the fall. For instance, a group of non-player character (NPC) bandits look down upon and act condescending toward Adam. They feel that Adam, who appears skinny and weak on the surface, is someone easy to bully. These bandits want to rob Adam of all his valuables and equipment.
Here, there's two possibilities. One is that the readers already know that Adam is a powerful swordsman due to earlier events in your story, or two, the readers have no clue how powerful Adam is.
Here is where we insert the rise into the story. Adam attacks the bandits with a brilliant flash of his sword and defeats all the bandits with one sweep. Every bandit stares in disbelief as Adam ends up stealing all their equipment and valuables instead. At this time, readers that didn't know Adam's power level will be pleasantly surprised, while readers who already knew Adam's power level would have entered the "expectations and satisfaction" mode right from the moment that Adam entered this seemingly dangerous situation. (The "expectations and satisfaction" mode of all readers is the core element that should push forward any story's development. When I have a chance, I'll analyze this more closely with everyone, but right now, let's focus on rise and fall.)
Under the same logic, you could change Adam from a swordsman into a policeman or an athlete, and these NPCs can change from bandits into wanted criminals or rival athletes. Adam can show off his brilliance through such use of fall and rise.
Controlling the usage of fall and rise then using them well will bring your readers great surprises, expectations, and feelings of satisfaction. Not only that, fall and rise can be used for events as well. For example, using a section of fall to create a great danger that everyone in the story feels like is impossible to deal with. At this time, make a rise with the main character's appearance where the main character uses some method or technique that nobody imagined to overcome this great danger, which will satisfy the readers' expectations.
The rise of an event is foundationally a magnified version of the rise of a character. It's just that making major events can help expand the plot and horizons of your novel, which will help improve the readers' expectations of your novel as well.
（2） Characters – Characters are the soul of any Eastern Fantasy novel. In any fantasy story, the characters you create and the way you describe them are the most basic foundations for obtaining your readers' recognition.
Simply speaking, there are two major types of characters – your main character and side characters.
A. For main characters
In Eastern Fantasy novels, there's two major types as well – main characters that are powerful from the very start, and main characters that are like a blank piece of paper.
Powerful from the very start: For example, a reincarnation or transmigration novel where a powerful individual needs to start over again. The main character possesses a large amount of memories and cultivation experience right from the very start, which is just like their own personal cheat. This type of main character can typically start off quite strong even at the beginning of the story.
Black piece of paper: This type of main character is the exact opposite of the powerful-from-the-very-start type. Most likely, this main character is rather young and inexperienced. Such a main character typically needs a miracle in order to obtain a cheat, and as such, the beginning of the story might not seem as impactful as having a powerful-from-the-very-start character start off strong and accomplishing great things. Yet, this type of blank paper character has far more space for development.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using either type of main character. Whichever you choose should be determined by you as an author with own personal needs and choice.
As for what type of main character is more popular, or what type of main character is easier for readers to self-substitute for – I'd like to use American superheroes from two rival publishing companies here as an example.
Superheroes from the DC universe are typically more perfect, while Marvel's superheroes mostly have character flaws here and there.
The Hulk, Iron Man, Wolverine… these main characters who have some sort of flaw will obviously seem more realistic.
Being irresponsible, greedy, womanizing, arrogant, or even icy… you can find plenty of character flaws in main characters of any classical story.
Also, everyone needs to remember that character flaws are meant to flesh out your main character's personality so that it's easier for readers to self-substitute. The character flaw shouldn't become the only aspect of your main character.
Your main character's personality and morality should agree with what the majority of readers are willing to accept. Only this will bring you the greatest number of readers.
This is also why the main characters written by some of the most successful Eastern Fantasy novels always have personalities that are hard-working, serious, or able to take hardship. This is something that's worth learning from.
B. Side characters
There's also two main categories of side characters. The female (male) lead, and the true side characters.
The most basic rule of creating a female (male) lead to complement your main character is that she (he) needs to be someone that your readers will like. No matter what her personality is like, willful, tsundere, seductive, or whatever, please remember that she still needs to have some part of her personality that the readers will like. Otherwise, this character won't be a success.
The female lead isn't only there for the main character to romance and get intimate with. She's also there for the readers to like and enjoy reading about. A highly popular female lead can often make readers more loyal to your book.
As for female leads' character types, I'd like to give you a classical example from the famous author Louis Cha's book "The Deer and the Cauldron".
Pure – Mu Jianping, the infanta from the Mu Family
Lovestruck – Ceng Rou, the teenage girl assassin
Seductive – Su Quan, the cult matriarch
Tsundere – Ah Ke
Gentle – Shuang Er, the personal maid
Willful – Princess Jian Ning
Everyone, please note each of these characters' personalities combined with her social status and background. After all, female leads can't have their personalities for absolutely no reason. Different social statuses, jobs, and backgrounds that they grew up in are required to flesh out their personalities.
What if a newcomer author says: "I still can't write moving female leads even with all these classic examples."
Writing good characters requires writing experience and prowess. If your writing ability isn't high enough and you can't describe a wonderfully moving character, my recommendation is to use the method of exaggeration.
What's exaggeration, specifically? Simply speaking, magnify the biggest trait of a certain character by several times over.
Here's an extreme example.
For instance, you have a female lead that has an icy personality. Then, you could try having her show icy expressions eighty percent of the time, always speaking coldly, and even attacking others with clean, sharp movements filled with a tinge of ice. This type of extreme exaggeration can at least help the readers walk away with a deep impression of this female lead.
l Side characters. There's one saying that the main character is the existence that ties the whole plot together, while the side characters are only there for readers to enjoy. While this belief may be a bit exaggerated, charismatic side characters with standout personalities are indeed a reason for them to exist. Still, the biggest value in side characters' existence is to push the plot forward along with creating a detailed world for your story.
There's countless methods of creating side characters for your story. Since I don't want to write an overly long article, I'll simply mention a "Golden Rule of Writing Side Characters" as my advice for all you authors to help you create vivid side characters.
Side characters must have their own goals in life.
Side characters aren't only elements to help push your story along. They need to have things they want to do as well.
For example, a male side character in a basketball story. His dream is to go professional in the NBA, and this is a goal he's always worked hard at. This makes him a living character!
For example, a pirate side character. His dream is to become the world's #1 swordsman, which is a dream he's never given up on. This makes him a living character!
For example, ____ side character who lives only to take revenge. And for the sake of his revenge, he's willing to stoop to any means. This makes him a living character as well!
Important side characters aren't only puppets that exist to push the plot along. They need to have their own goals in life as well!
In order to create a successful side character, you need to give him a soul and something to strive for.
（3） Beginning your story
Here, let me begin with the taboos first.
First, you definitely can't have a slow beginning. This is already well known as common sense, so I won't go on too much about this.
Having a beginning that can attract the readers means that your story has already half succeeded. It isn't that stories with slow beginnings have no future at all, it's just that this will require the author to tolerate the loneliness of creation with few readers at the beginning along with possessing a resolute heart to keep writing.
As for how to write the beginning of your story, there's also endless possibilities. Here, I'd like to summarize the most classical beginning of all, starting off in poor circumstances.
Starting off in poor circumstances is one of the most cliché beginning types. At the very start, the main character has some sort of difficulty or danger that must be overcome, which makes the readers immediately want to see how the main character overcomes the situation. This obstacle might be a cancelled engagement, a debt where the debtors are coming, being so weak at martial arts that he is being exiled from the family, or maybe an upcoming fight with powerful individuals that the main character is sure to lose.
Having a cliché beginning in poor circumstances is all in order to solidly grasp your readers from the very beginning! The beginning scenario must be attractive.
Also, any successful story absolutely relies on one word: "Expectations."
"Expectations" means that you need to make the readers endlessly expect your story's development and continuation.
A good novel can make the readers expect and look forward to the main character's growth, the plot's development, and read about an unknown world together with the main character's perspective.
Such a novel's beginning will give it a solid foundation from the very start.
Creating expectations in your reader is something that arises from countless details and plotlines. It's quite difficult for me to summarize this highly technical concept with everyone. Still, I can try discussing this topic and teaching newcomer authors a way to create the setting for your main character's identity that will create a sense of expectation in your readers.
This method is to give your main character a status that isn't suitable for accomplishing great things, so that the readers will look forward to the main character accomplishing great things regardless of his or her status.
For instance, in a scholarly world, the main character is an illegitimate bastard son who can't even qualify to take examinations due to his low status.
For instance, in a martial arts world, the main character is a piece of trash who can't even cultivate. This also answers the question of why so many cultivation stories' main characters start off as pieces of trash who can't cultivate.
For instance, in a medical world, an accident happened to the main character's hand which makes it impossible for him to ever become a surgeon.
5. A simple framework and analysis of Eastern Fantasy novels
This section is targeted at people who have never written Eastern Fantasy novels before but perhaps wish to try their hand at doing so. I hope that this simple framework and analysis of Eastern Fantasy stories will be of use to you during the creation process.
However, a framework is still no replacement for reading experience. In order to create an Eastern Fantasy novel, the most important thing is still to have read a large amount of Eastern Fantasy novels.
Here, I'd like to thank my friends May and Preserved Duck Egg in assisting me to write this section.
（1） Blank paper state main characters
A） Starting as a low-ranked piece of trash type stories are quite commonly written by both newcomers and veteran authors alike. It's also one of the most popular clichés around. The main character can be some ordinary person from earth who transmigrated onto a piece of trash cultivator's body, which will increase the readers' feeling of self-substitution. Or, the main character can be someone who's originally from the cultivation world, and is a piece of trash who obtains some miraculous treasure that begins his grand fortune. There's not much difference between these two types, so let's look at the framework for these story types together.
Beginning: Earlier, I mentioned fall and rise in the section about tempo. You can set the main character's abilities and status as rather low, and start your story with a fall. In that case, the critical factor is the first rise.
When starting out, my advice for newcomer authors is to let your main character obtain a cheat within the first three chapters if at all possible. This will help him gain the ability and potential to improve himself, along with giving readers a strong sense of expectation.
(Three points need to be addressed here. First, how much the main character is suppressed. It's fine to let the readers understand the main character's limitations, but you should avoid writing too much about how weak or how little the main character can accomplish. Also, you need to watch out for actual harm caused to your female lead and similar characters. For example, the female lead being kidnapped by the villain can help to incite the readers' emotions enough without needing to have the female lead being raped. That would be a case of going overboard with your main character's terrible situation.
Second, you should take care with your cheat's settings. Is it a secret? Is it unique? Can it be leveled up?
Third, how the cheat is taken advantage of. The cheat can help the main character resolve troubles as well as increase the main character's power. Also, new troubles may be brought about because of this cheat or increase in power level. The new troubles might be taken care of by this cheat as well, and by repeating the cycle, the plot can move forward.)
After obtaining the cheat, the main character's power level and realm will increase. At this time, like a tutorial map, the first low-level opponent should now come to challenge the main character.
The first low-level opponent should be higher-level than your main character, but it's best to not be higher-level by too much. Your main character should level up faster than other people in your story.
Let's take a look at how to deal with opponents in our story.
First low-level opponent appears – The main character practices cultivation – The main character defeats the first low-level opponent – Mid-level opponent appears (Typically someone like an elder to the first low-level opponent) – The main character practices cultivation again – The main character defeats the mid-level opponent – High-level opponent appears (This could typically be someone like a powerful individual in the first opponent's family) – The main character practices cultivation once again – The main character defeats the high-level opponent.
Repeating this cycle can easily help you complete the outline for the beginning section of your story while your main character is still a newbie in the tutorial map.
Speaking of maps, let's take a look at the concept of maps in your story. Typically, the tutorial map is something like a small city or town. Once you leave the tutorial map, the next map's city or society should be on a relatively larger scale, and the highest-level character here should be at a higher level than in the tutorial map.
Simply speaking, every different map should be of a different level that corresponds to the main character's current cultivation level, while the biggest, strongest boss of this map is stronger than the main character, but not by too many levels.
The leveling system and rate at which maps change need a simple balance.
At changing locations and moving to a new map, the main character will meet the low-level, mid-level, and high-level opponents of this map. Wash, rinse, repeat, and move on to a new map.
If that's what you believe Eastern Fantasies to be like and that this will be quite easy to write, then you're massively wrong.
There's no such thing as something the readers haven't seen before. The readers don't want to see a straight up formulaic approach to the Eastern Fantasy genre. This framework is only there to help you understand the basic logic behind Eastern Fantasy stories.
If you want to write a good story, you need to have various elements weaved together so that the readers are filled with expectations. Only this is the best way to write.
We need to understand how to put elements together as well as how to take them apart.
As an example, just the main character practicing cultivation can be taken apart in many ways.
Prior to the cultivation: a villain appears, and the author emphasizes how powerful the villain is, along with why the main character is weaker than the villain. Then, mention some method that the main character can use to win, and then the main character uses this method to obtain the materials and resources needed for his cultivation. The main character then visits dungeons, goes hunting or adventuring, goes to auction houses, or does quests to fight for these resources.
During cultivation: cultivation can be done at any place and any time. You could have the main character cultivate alongside obtaining resources, or focus fully on cultivation after hiding away in a safe location. Also, there are countless methods out there for cultivation, such as putting the physical body through a trial, gathering qi, or opening up one's internal meridians or even cultivating one's soul
After cultivation: the most important part is to defeat the enemy, monster, or even female lead that the main character was unable to defeat before. The main character should end up with a treasure previously unobtainable, be able to cultivate a high-level technique that was previously unusable, or catch a pet that was previously uncatchable with his abilities, something like this.
Cultivation completed, and the battle has begun: the main character uses all the advantages gathered from before to obtain the victory as expected.
After the battle: the main character's power level and social status shall rise, while the improvement as a result of the battle should also set foreshadowing for the next major climax.
B）Main characters that are originally from the fantasy world: You can take the famous Eastern Fantasy author "I Eat Tomatoes" and his stories as an example. In this type of story, many expectation points are quite similar to when the main character starts out as a piece of trash character, and the cheat settings are mostly similar as well.
The main difference is that in the trash to hero type of story, there's a natural course of fall and rise during the story, while stories focused on a main character originally from a fantasy world will likely pay more attention to the process of growing stronger, and are far likelier to begin while the main character is still a child.
This type of story has more requirements of the author's writing ability. As for the storyline setting, it's mostly similar to having a piece of trash become stronger.
（2） Powerful from the start main characters:
A）Powerful individual reincarnates to his own past when he was young: With this type of story, you could try to read the famous Eastern Fantasy author "Feng Ling Tian Xia" and his stories as an example. In this type of story, the main character typically has many regrets and missed opportunities in his past life, or perhaps due to one mistake, was unable reach the peak in cultivation. Or, maybe the person they loved was someone they didn't dare to try to woo due to their own lacking abilities…
This type of story needs to have powerful emotions pulling the plot along so that these emotions infect the reader and quickly pull them into your story.
For stories where the main character reincarnates in his own past, it's typical to reincarnate to a critical point where he previously failed. Using his life experiences and predetermined knowledge, he can begin overcoming his past failures right from the very start.
For those main characters who reincarnate into their own past, their cheat is usually predetermined knowledge, or knowing the location of many treasures, or having knowledge about many cultivation techniques that his younger self wouldn't know, or simply being able to take a powerful artifact along with them when they reincarnate.
At such a time, the readers will be looking forward to the main character putting his past regrets to rest in his second chance at life, stomping all the former bullies under his feet, and taking good care of a girl that he missed his chance at. In such a story, when discussing clichés, the beginning will be starting cultivation all over again, while constantly wiping away the previous life's regrets. The climaxes will typically be the differences between this life and the previous life. As for the middle of the story, that's where it should catch up to the end of the main character's previous life. By this time, your main character should have far surpassed his previous self and should be capable of accomplishing far more than his previous self would have ever dreamed. The end of your story should be all about undertaking an adventure into the unknown future and a brand new world.
B）Powerful individual takes over the body of a piece of trash: for instance, the novel "The Ultimate of All Ages".
In this type of novel, the main character is typically a powerful individual who's an expert in some specific field, such as pill-making or talisman crafting.
If there are ten realms to the power level system, then the main character should be at or near the tenth level before his soul enters a new body that belonged to a piece of trash cultivator for a second chance at life.
With this type of story, the funniest part to read is typically the huge contrast between the main character's original status as someone great and powerful and how he's now someone considered as a piece of trash by everyone. The status of being a useless cultivator will naturally mean that everyone around him must try to suppress him, while his status of being powerful in the past means that he will always try to overcome his limitations. This is greatly convenient for the main character to pretend to be weaker than he really is in order to fool an opponent.
C）The main character utilizes his past life experiences to dominate in this new world and new identity. He still needs to obtain resources and cultivate right from the very beginning.
A powerful individual transmigrating to another world: You can try reading the famous Eastern Fantasy author "Writing Tablet" and his stories as an example. In this type of story, the enjoyment is mostly created through "out of place" abilities.
All of the main character's knowledge from a previous world is completely absent in this new world he's in. This will make the main character seem absolutely unique.
Perhaps the main character brought a gaming system and game abilities to another world, or brought cultivation and a xianxia system over to a fantasy world, or brought high-level math to a world where magic is based on mathematical abilities.
The author utilizes the clash between two different worlds' cultures to exaggerate the importance of the knowledge that only the main character possesses.
Typically, the main character's abilities or knowledge needs to run opposite to the new world's natural laws. He should be able to dominate the new world's system. For instance, his martial arts abilities overwhelm the magic in the new world, or his xianxia cultivation system overwhelms the fantasy world. As long as the readers believe in the superiority of the main character's knowledge or abilities, the "new" elements that the main character brings to his new world will continue dominating.
6. Conclusion
The creation of an Eastern Fantasy novel could be called an academic field in and of itself. And as commercialized novels written for entertainment continually develop, the top novels will only get better and better. Due to the limitations in not wanting to write an overly long essay, such as how to write an overall outline, how to do the specifics for your character settings, how to develop your plots, how to have conflicts with enemies and so on, these are topics involving all novels out there, not only web novels, so I didn't mention much about them.
This guide about Eastern Fantasy novels is mostly at the beginner level. I hope that it can be useful to newcomer authors who wish to write an Eastern Fantasy novel. I also hope that more potential authors will have flashes of inspiration after reading this guide that will take them into the journey of writing an Eastern Fantasy novel. Perhaps some new superstar Eastern Fantasy authors will be born as a result of this guide, which will make my life on Earth just perfect. Wouldn't that be wonderful! Just joking.
