4 The First Step of Writing a Webnovel: Choosing Your Genre

Author: 314 (Yang Chen)

Naturally, the first step of writing is deciding on what you want to write. That is to say, what genre to choose.

Any literary work is a bridge that authors use to communicate with their readers. In that case, choosing a genre means that we should also take into consideration both creation and the market. From specific issues to actually taking action, there are three main questions that can be asked:

1. What genre should I choose?

2. Is this genre appropriate for me?

3. Will my story be enjoyed by the readers?

These three questions are in obvious chronological order. Yet, when actually fleshing out your story outline, these three important factors typically complement and affect each other. You can definitely think about all three simultaneously, and use the answer to the latter two questions to change the genre you chose for the first question if necessary.

1. What genre should I choose?

Choosing a genre typically isn't quite as simple as picking one from all the genres available out there. Most of the time, it's actually a brand-new process of creation.

If you as an author have no idea what genre to pick, and only know that you wish to write a webnovel, in that case, you can try thinking about it from the following angles:

l Starting from a specific type

This means that you should first confirm what type of story you wish to write. Which overarching genre does it fall under? What subcategories? What's the background of your story, what year does it take place in? Only after that will you think about other relevant story settings.

For example, you have decided that you wish to write a Xianxia novel, with the story taking place in a modern-day city, which puts it in the modern-day cultivation novel subcategory. Then, you should start thinking about where the main character learned his skills from in this modern-day city setting, what his abilities will be, and how cultivating power levels work in your story…

This is a rather passive and mechanical method of choosing your story's type. The advantage is that after you choose your genre, you can use the overall outline that your genre generally has for novels to fill in the blanks. This is a rather simple method for newcomers that can help to greatly reduce any errors in writing.

l Using a specific novel as an example

This method is to use an already existing novel as the blueprint for your novel by borrowing certain elements.

There's an incredible amount of elements that can be borrowed as reference from any novel. From the story's setting, to how the novel describes its characters, the author's style, and so on can all be used as references. Of course, you can only use such elements as references, not copy and plagiarize.

What needs to be said is that this type of referencing has a foundational difference from the imitation method mentioned in the starter level authors' guide.

At the starter level, what's more important is to improve your writing ability. It's not really that important whether your book is good or not, or even if it's one that can't be officially published, like fan fiction. But if you're at the level where you wish to write for a living and already possess starter level author abilities, you must be careful just how much you borrow from others. Not only do you need to be careful not to be accused of plagiarism, you also need to make sure that you have a story that's unique enough to stand out on its own.

We must absolutely remember one point: the point of borrowing for reference isn't to help you skip over the creation process entirely, but instead to help you get inspired to create something even better!

As for the novel that you're referencing from, there are two types that you can choose from.

The first type is to choose a novel that's currently highly popular. This type of referencing can often be referred to as "bandwagoning."

There are many authors that look down upon bandwagoning and believe it to be abandoning their own creativity, or that it doesn't show any skill at all.

But actually, bandwagoning can oftentimes be quite an effective shortcut. Not only that, bandwagoning will also often create new developments in the original genre and help to improve the overall genre even further.

This is also the reason why the best and most popular novel in a particular genre is almost never the novel that started the genre in the first place.

To be honest, being successful at bandwagoning isn't as easy as you might think. A bandwagoning author needs to have sharp insight and judgment. You must stand out from other bandwagoners in the crowd and also have the ability to create new from old and adapt your novel so that it'll become a truly original work in the genre.

Still, no matter what, this is an excellent method for newcomer authors to choose a genre to write in. Even if you choose a genre that has an overabundance of novels in it, that's still better than choosing a genre completely blindly.

Not to mention any genre that has such a large number of bandwagoners and overabundance of books means that the market has proved that this is an excellent and classical topic.

The second type of novel you could choose as an example to reference from is one that you as an author really enjoy, even if it isn't a popular novel. This can't be called bandwagoning and can only be called referencing.

For authors that really don't know what genre to choose, this is a method that you could try as well. Try remembering what novels you've read in that past that you've really loved.

Even if the novel and/or the genre that you really enjoy isn't a currently popular one, and maybe it wasn't even popular back when it came out, just the fact that you enjoyed the novel means that it still has a market for readers. Not only that, it is highly likely to be a genre that's highly appropriate for you to write about.

Of course, when borrowing from such novels, we need to pay close attention to how much you borrow from them. At most, borrow ideas from the genre. You should create completely original settings, your own style, and so on.

This is somewhat difficult for newcomer authors, so I don't quite recommend it for authors that don't intend to become professional.

l Starting with a cheat

This method is to first give your main character some specific cheat and then figure out the rest from there. Consider what type of situations this cheat can be fully taken advantage of, what background should be given for such a cheat ability, and what type of main character is the most suitable for possessing such a cheat…

For example, let's pretend that the cheat ability you wish to give your main character is "Far Sight." Your main character has excellent vision, perhaps ten times, or even one hundred times better than an ordinary person.

In that case, we can naturally extrapolate from this that this advantage is greatly lessened in any era where binoculars have already been invented. So of course, your story will be much more suited to have an ancient setting. You can write a historical fiction novel with this, making your character into a noble commander, or perhaps an army general…

For authors that aren't skilled at writing historical or military fiction, you could also use this cheat ability for a wuxia or xuanhuan novel. After all, these novels also typically take place in ancient times with very limited levels of technology.

The main character could use his ridiculous eyesight to spy on grandmaster martial artists practicing their techniques or teaching their disciples to steal their techniques and secretly learn in such a method. With such a story setting, you can easily come up with additional settings – your main character needs to have a low social status and is probably poor to explain why he needs to do this, along with the fact that he needs to be skilled at learning martial arts…

Of course, it might not always be so easy to make extrapolations like these. Sometimes, we'll often discover that after extrapolating to a certain extent, there will be conflicts within your own storyline, perhaps two settings that can't be resolved with each other, or that you ended up with a story that isn't the one you wanted to write.

To continue using the example of the main character with the "Far Sight" skill, now that you've extrapolated that the main character is suited to be in a historical, wuxia, xuanhuan, or other ancient setting, maybe you actually only wanted to write a modern-day novel. In that case, you came up with a failed cheat for your planned novel, and you should probably be decisive in giving up on that cheat idea.

It may be somewhat more difficult to begin brainstorming with a cheat power as your foundation, but it's not that difficult, either. Newcomer authors can trying to do it this way.

l Starting with the main character

Starting with the character settings, or more accurately, the main character's settings, is quite similar to starting with the cheat power.

Actually, the cheat is just an element of the main character's settings. But apart from that, the main character's settings also has his social status, background, personality, and so on.

Normally speaking, when starting from the main character's settings, especially the personality, you need something special, maybe even something appropriately ridiculous.

For example, maybe you can make your main character be someone who is terrified of dying. Then, you can try imagining what your main character would do with his exaggerated trait of fearing death in certain scenarios, and how other characters might react.

Perhaps you can write that in a modern day setting, he only goes outdoors while wearing a bulletproof vest and iron helmet despite the fact that it's a peaceful era. Not only that, he has modified his house into a fortress with an underground bunker, he hired the strongest bodyguards around, but he's also paranoid of them; he's incredibly obsessed about eating healthy and always exercising…

Obviously, this main character's habits will require a large amount of money. In that case, your main character will either need to be from a rich family, or he needs to be skilled at making money. This can help to flesh out your main character even further. For example, he doesn't have any hobbies for fun at all, and instead only works hard at making money…

And if you have a setting in another world, then naturally your main character will work hard at cultivating his skills. Of course, he would have an overwhelming preference for all defensive skills and techniques. Not only that, your main character should have a good temper, and not be the type of person who likes to challenge or fight others…

Still, not having any conflict means that your story will be rather boring. So, in order to have a more interesting story, you'll have to write some reasons why your main character is forced into fighting with others. For example, your main character accidentally consumes a magical medicine that turns his blood into a magic potion that can improve anyone's power level…

This type of extrapolation is quite a bit more difficult than others. I don't recommend it for newcomer authors.

l Starting from some other media's idea

This is even more challenging than starting with the main character. The writer needs to have a significant level of creative ability.

In this type of situation, you as an author can try using other media, movies, television shows, news in society, what you see around you, or just about anything else for your inspiration so that you have something to write for your original novel.

Obviously, this method isn't suitable for newcomer authors.

l Starting with the market's needs

This is yet another high-level method that's not particularly suitable for newcomers.

Only veteran authors that have an excellent understanding of the market should try basing their next novel on what the market needs and what the readers want.

In conclusion, for a newcomer author like you to choose a genre, you can first consider about what type of novel you wish to write, or choose to bandwagon a popular novel. Or, starting with the cheat's settings is a good place to start from as well.

2. Is the genre appropriate?

To be more specific, this means you need to judge whether or not the genre you have chosen is one that you are familiar with and skilled at.

Of course, different authors will have varying levels of skill with different genres.

To a certain degree, the difficulty of writing a particular genre also has a direct correlation with the type of novel it is. I shall cover the varying difficulties of each novel type in a later article.

Newcomer authors can try measuring themselves from the following angles when it comes to your novel's topic:

l Knowledge

This refers to professional knowledge, layman knowledge, special experiences, and so forth.

Some novels' topics will involve relatively professional topics which requires the author to know more specialized knowledge about the topic at hand than the average person. For example, basketball, medieval politics, artifacts, gambling, racing, and so on. If your topic has to do with some specialized field that you're also well-versed in or have done your research on, this will be of great help to your novel.

The reverse is also true. If you wish to write such a topic but don't know anything about it, you should probably reconsider.

l Personality

This refers to you, the author's personality. Of course, there's no need to go too deep into analyzing your personality. You just need to have a general idea of your own personality—for example, if you're more of an introvert or an extrovert.

Normally speaking, it's not very advisable for newcomer authors to write a main character with too much of a personality difference from themselves.

Otherwise, not only will you feel awkward while writing, it's also much easier to accidentally make mistakes and write using your own personality rather than the main character's, and make decisions that don't seem consistent with the main character's personality.

Obviously, this will affect your readers' ability to enjoy and believe your novel.

When choosing a topic, we can tell that the main character's personality should be directly related to the topic as well. From this angle, it can also be said that the author's personality will also affect the topic that you should choose.

l Age and gender

This is quite easy to understand, as this refers to the author's own age and gender.

Just like the previous subsection, the same logic goes for the main character's gender. It's usually not advisable to write a main character who has a different gender from you for the same reason. This also goes for having a main character who has a large age gap from you. It will be much easier for a newcomer author to write about a main character who is the same gender and a similar age to themselves.

l Imagination

Imagination doesn't have any specific criteria to it, and this strictly depends on the author's own personal interpretation. If you feel that you lack imaginative ability, then I would advise you to choose a genre that's more realistic, such as modern or historical fiction.

And if you instead have a wild imagination, then of course you're probably more suited to writing xuanhuan, xianxia, and other more fantastical story types.

l Personal interests

This refers to the author's personal preferences when reading. If you read one genre more than any other, then naturally a newcomer author like you will find it much easier to write this particular genre.

l Topic extrapolation

I already mentioned this in yesterday's article. After we think of a particular topic, we'll naturally extrapolate various settings from the topic, including the cheat, the main character, the story background, and so on. Perhaps these settings will all mesh excellently with each other, but they also might conflict and contradict with each other.

Whether a topic is appropriate to write about or not will largely depend on how much these settings clash with each other and whether or not you have a way to resolve these conflicts. If you're unable to resolve them, or you will have to sacrifice great enjoyability in order to resolve a conflict, then it's not a good topic.

3. Will your novel be popular?

This is a topic that every single author out there should consider before even writing their novel.

Whether a novel will become popular or not typically depends on the market and the readers' overall preferences. Still, newcomer authors should consider one more factor—whether or not their novel will be welcomed by their editor.

I mentioned before in a previous article that whether your editor likes your novel or not can be considered even more important to a newcomer author than whether the market likes your novel.

When choosing a type of new novel to write, most people will say: "There is no best genre out there. There's only the best genre for you." Without a doubt, this is correct. This phrase applies to choosing what specific topics to write about as well.

Still, depending on different websites and different editors, choosing a more appropriate topic that goes well with your own writing is a good way to increase the odds of receiving a contract.

Normally speaking, the larger and more powerful the website is, along with the more experienced the editor, the less importance they'll place on the genre and topic of your story. As long as your story is indeed an excellent one, they'll be more than willing to sign a contract with you.

As for smaller websites and newer editors, they typically choose books based on the website's needs. The website's needs typically fall into two categories: novels that will be able to do well on the website, and novels in a genre that the website lacks.

The first category is quite easy to understand, and relatively easy to judge as well. The author only needs to take a look at the top-ranked novels on the site along with the novels on the front page that are recommended and see what genres and types of novels they are. That's all that is needed for you to understand.

Of course, in order to understand this even better, you should probably check out the front page once a week for at least two to three weeks in order to reduce the effects of a rather abnormal week in making you misinterpret things.

The second category, to be more specific, is that the website already has a well-developed business model and happens to need novels of a certain genre. Don't misunderstand and think that just because the website lacks novels in a genre, you can raise the price you demand for your contract or that a genre that a website lacks means it's a good genre.

For the rarer genres, it's more difficult to make an accurate assessment. Still, there's typically two characteristics for these.

The first one, normally speaking, is a genre that has a significant number of readers, even if it's not one of the most popular genres. At the very least, this genre isn't one that's bottom of the barrel.

The second characteristic is that perhaps a website has several recommendation slots on the front page, but you only see very few books on the front page, or that the numbers for this genre don't add up to the popularity that it deserves.

These two types of books are "books that editors love." Actually, to a large degree, these books also represent what readers love. For newcomer authors, this is enough, and there's no need to analyze any deeper into the market's wants for each category.

Still, there's also an important factor that newcomer authors need to think about—do you as an author like such a genre?

This is a critically important yet often forgotten element.

Many newcomer authors immediately try to start off by writing a book in a mainstream, popular genre, without any regards to what they truly enjoy themselves. This will only result in a failed, unpopular novel, or, at most, a novel that didn't reach the standards that you hoped for. This will also likely cause you to become extremely tired of writing, and give up on everything you've done.

In the reverse scenario, if you, as a newcomer author, write a novel in a genre that you truly love, then it'll greatly improve your ability to take criticism and pressure. Also, this will greatly improve your novel in the end as well.

This is why newcomer authors should consider first and foremost whether you yourself love the genre and topic that you've chosen for your novel, before you consider whether your editor likes it or not.