24 FAQ Part 5
by 314 (Yang Chen)
1. I read an introductory guide online about the guide author's personal writing experiences. This guide stated that webnovels absolutely must have a conflict in the first chapter where the main character is suffering, a cheat in the second chapter, and face-slapping in the third chapter. I would like to ask Teacher, do all webnovels absolutely have to follow such a cliché? Will my story fail if I don't follow this cliché? I'm an avid reader myself, and I'm really tired of reading such clichés. That's why I'm determined to write something different. Although I've never considered how well my novel will do, I still want my novel to obtain recognition. I'm a bit lost right now. I hope that Teacher can guide me.
Answer: I think that clichés aren't absolute. Clichés can be modified in countless different ways. However, there are some natural rules that absolutely must be obeyed. Here's an example. A cliché such as creating a conflict in the first chapter and introducing a cheat in the second chapter can be changed around. For instance, there's nothing wrong with putting the cheat in the first chapter and the cliché in the second chapter. However, there are some fundamental rules of writing such as how the beginning should always be easy to understand and straightforward. The beginning absolutely has to attract readers. This is an unchangeable natural law of writing that writers must adhere to. Otherwise, your novel's popularity will be severely affected.
2. How can I excite my readers' emotions during a Xuanhuan novel's fight scene? How should I describe my fights? And, should I focus on emotions or descriptions more? Simply speaking… I always feel like I'm bad at writing about fights. How can I improve my skills in this area…?
Answer: Exciting the readers' emotions will of course have to be about things other than the fight itself. For instance, the opponent's words or body language taunting the main character, which will anger the main character as well as your readers. How much you should focus on emotions vs. descriptions depends on what you need for your scene. For instance, do you want to emphasize how angered your main character is? On principle though, I think that both should be focused on approximately equally. Or, perhaps you should focus a bit more on describing the fight itself. As for improving your abilities, I've mentioned the answer to this in so many of my previous FAQs. Simply speaking, you have to read more, write more, and think more. This may seem like useless advice, but it's actually the most practical advice out there.
3. What should I do if my plot gets far too sidetracked from my general outline? I'm writing a mystical novel. Originally, I intended to have a grand climax at the 200,000 word mark with a magic battle at the royal court. I also have a few smaller outlines for the subplots before the 200,000 word mark. However, I keep thinking about the grand climax whenever I'm writing. I was afraid that I would sidetrack myself, so I kept advancing the main plot as much as I could. But now, I'm almost at the grand climax already at only 100,000 words. Now I have to write an entirely new subplot in order to keep up the word count of my novel. Is there a better way to do things than what I'm currently doing?
Answer: I think that first, you shouldn't consider if there's a major difference between your novel and your general outline. First, let's look at what you've written already. Does the current pacing of your novel flow well? If you've kept up a good flow in your novel so far, then you don't need to mind at all if it's exceeded your general outline's planning or not. Just continue down your general outline as you originally intended. However, if you clearly feel that you're stalling the main plot too much, or that you're advancing your story too quickly, then you need to make some modifications. You'll need to either expand or contract your story. Also, if you often make such mistakes where your story gets sidetracked from the main plot in development speed, then you should start paying closer attention to your general outline when you write your story in the future. The better you control your story to match the outline, the better things will be for you. It will be much easier for you to fix any pacing issues.
4. I feel like I've improved my writing skills. However, I started writing a Xuanhuan novel recently but found myself unable to obtain a contract at all. I didn't start with any obvious cheat or a trash main character at the beginning. I want to move my story along using suspense. Does this mean that my story is destined to have a slow start that detracts from readers' enthusiasm?
Answer: Probably yes. You don't absolutely need to have a cheat at the beginning. Nor are there any other specific requirements. But no matter what, an unchangeable fundamental law of writing is that your beginning must attract readers. So, you could try analyzing your own beginning. What is it about your own story that will attract readers? Try telling your readers that your story will be amazing as well as different. Tell them that your main character will have awesome experiences, that he'll level up quickly, and soon slap people in the face. What methods did you use in the beginning of your novel to attract readers? Are they effective enough? If not, then I recommend that you obediently follow the clichés, such as a cheat in the first chapter, leveling up in the second chapter, and face-slapping in the third chapter. Clichés aren't absolutely necessary, but they will indeed make writing an easier process for authors that aren't experienced on the topic of writing.
5. Many reincarnation novels start off with the main character waking up in another world. Is this an easier method to obtain a contract or to attract readers? I want to use a different type of beginning that also reveals the main character's cheat. Will this work? Will it be easy for me to obtain a contract?
Answer: This isn't the best method of writing out there, but it's the easiest as well as most consistent. And actually, it's even quite effective. The author will be able to use a sufficiently few amount of words to inform the reader quite clearly about what type of story and main character this will be. If you can change your type of beginning but achieve the same effects, of course that will be even better.
6. How should I overcome the problem of readers having difficulty self-substituting for my main character? I have large amounts of fun face-slapping scenes in my story. However, the early parts of the story are a bit too violent for many readers to handle.
Answer: I don't think that this is a problem of self-substitution. This is more of a problem of moral disagreement with the main character's actions. Actually, readers will automatically self-substitute themselves for every single novel's main character. It's just that some main characters act in far too different a method from what the reader would. Problems with self-substitution will arise especially in cases where readers strongly disagree with the actions that the main character takes. So, this problem isn't difficult to resolve at all. First, you need to understand the general personality of your readers and what their way of thinking is. Then, have your main character mostly deal with things by the same line of thinking. I'm not talking about the finer details here. For instance, if your main character loves sweet foods but hates salty foods, that's fine even if your reader is the opposite.
7. What do current readers prefer? An ordinary person instantly becoming godlike after obtaining a cheat, or the cheat being just an opportunity that isn't as important as hard work?
Answer: This is quite easy to answer. Readers hope that the main character will be successful in life and dominate his or her opponents thanks to the cheat. But at the same time, they also don't want the main character to instantly defeat all the most powerful individuals in the story's world in just a single move. The readers don't want the cheat to be too overpowered. So, the best method here is to give the main character a powerful cheat that allows him or her to level up quickly and forever be better than their enemies. But, we also need to lessen the main character's plot armor of having received everything for free. The main character should still work hard even after receiving this cheat every day, which will help to cover up the fact that they received such a miraculous cheat without hard work at all. This will help the readers to forget that the main character will be nothing more than a weakling without the cheat, even if the main character works himself to death.
8. How should I write my general outline? Could you give a detailed example?
Answer: Sure. Let's say that I want to write a story about a hick town village youth maturing into the Immortal Sky Emperor. The book will start in the youth's mountain village hometown and end when he achieves the status of Immortal Sky Emperor, which will take a total of 3,000,000 words. The human world will take up half the novel, while the immortal world will be the setting for the last half. As for the human world, the beginning where he lives in the mountain village will take 50,000 words. The main character joining some martial arts branch sect will take 300,000 words. Going to the sect's main branch will take 450,000 words. Leaving the sect and dominating the world will take 700,000 words. Every section should have a beginning and an end, and a clear level that the main character will be at. For instance, the first part's beginning will be the main character obtaining his cheat in the mountain village. The first part's conclusion will be the main character killing off the mayor's bully of a son, and the main character will be cultivation level 7 in your story's system when he leaves the mountain village. Then, add more specific details to each part of your general outline. For instance, the 50,000 words for your story's beginning in the mountain village can be separated into several sections. Each section can be described in a few sentences about what major events will take place to progress your story. Mention which important characters will be relevant in each section, what levels they're at, what personalities they have, and so on. Having a clear list of all this will complete your general outline. And at the very beginning of your story, you only need to figure out the details of the first part of your story. The rest can all continue off of such a framework.
9. My story goes like this: My main character wakes up, receives teaching from an elder, enters society and begins training, helps a family to defeat a small monster, and then he gets recommended to join a sect. He then completes two missions for the sect. I used only 30,000 words to write all of this. When I read my own novel, I feel like the main character is too busy. How should I deal with this?
Answer: The main character being busy isn't such a bad thing. The problem is if these events seem chaotic and disorderly or not. On one hand, all events in your story need to have differing priorities, and your main character needs both long-term and short-term goals. On the other hand, everything needs to be connected. For instance, defeating a small monster helps your main character to obtain recognition, which leads to a recommendation to join a sect. Then, he must abide by the sect's rules and complete some basic missions. If you keep everything connected, then it won't seem chaotic at all.
10. Sometimes, when I'm imagining my own story, I think that it's wonderful. But when I finish writing my general outline, I feel that it's quite ordinary. Is this a problem with my own mentality, or that this story isn't worth writing?
Answer: I think that it's probably part of both. No matter if it's your overall story or a specific plot, it's common for us to feel that it's a wonderful story when we first think about it. However, this largely is due to our own imagination. When we actually write the story, it's common to discover that it's not quite as wonderful as we imagined. This is because the written story has eliminated some purely imaginative fantasies, as well as how all authors have to abandon impractical or contradictory subplots in our writing. We must all abandon our ideals in the face of reality. Not only that, something as summarized as a general outline will often seem boring for a large and completed story. That's why it's quite common for general outlines to appear boring. You don't need to mind so much.
11. How do I make it so that continuous amounts of fighting doesn't seem boring?
Answer: First, everything needs to have limits. If you're using the word "continuous", that typically isn't a good thing. This is something that we should try our best to avoid. However, sometimes it's impossible to avoid a large amount of fighting for certain plotlines. In that case, we can try and differentiate all the fights. Look for special characteristics. For example, perhaps your main character will first fight against a highly agile opponent, followed by an opponent with great physical strength. These two fights will obviously seem very different. Another method is to emphasize more about things other than the fighting. For instance, who's fighting who, why they are fighting, what's the meaning to this, what the consequences and results will be, how both sides react, and so on. These factors all have countless possibilities.
12 In my story, I have a complete general outline as well as plans for all the future events. However, I feel that the connection between them is too forced. How do I solve this problem?
Answer: If you increase the logical connection between events in your story, of course you won't feel that it's forced anymore. For instance, if your main character was playing a game in his room, but then suddenly turns off his game and begins studying, that will seem rather forced. But, you could add a connection between the two. For instance, your main character meets his teacher during the game, and was scolded about the upcoming test tomorrow. Then, it will be only natural for him to go study instead of playing the game.
