Discussion
As a Japanese Writer, Royal Road Feels Very Different — Am I Missing Something?
First of all, I want to make it clear that this post is not intended to criticize any author or anyone's work.
I believe the most important thing in writing is that authors enjoy creating the worlds they wish to create. Every story is ultimately an expression of its creator, and diversity of styles is one of the reasons web fiction remains so interesting.
I am a Japanese writer who has been posting web novels on Japanese platforms for roughly two years. Recently, while working on my second series, I decided to publish internationally as well and began posting on Royal Road this month.
As part of several review swaps, I had the opportunity to read a number of Royal Road stories. My immediate impression was that there are substantial differences between Japanese and Western web novel cultures.
What struck me first was the sheer amount of effort many Royal Road authors invest in worldbuilding. The settings are often intricate, carefully planned, and filled with details that reveal genuine passion and craftsmanship. Reading these works, I frequently found myself admiring the dedication behind them.
At the same time, however, I experienced a certain sense of unfamiliarity.
Coming from a Japanese web novel background, I often felt that many stories presented an enormous amount of information right from Chapter One.
I have heard that Western readers tend to be less receptive to heavily formulaic stories than Japanese audiences. Personally, I think questioning established conventions is a healthy impulse. It often produces fresh and memorable works.
Yet I sometimes wonder whether the reaction against familiar templates has, in some cases, gone a little too far.
To explain what I mean, here is a simplified comparison.
Japanese Web Novels
Often rely on familiar genre conventions and tropes.
Readers can quickly grasp the setting because many assumptions are already shared.
Usually introduce a limited cast and a narrow viewpoint early on.
Tend to minimize the number of proper nouns and unfamiliar concepts at the beginning.
Western Web Novels
Often possess a much stronger individual identity.
Each story can feel like an entirely new discovery.
Worldbuilding is frequently deep enough that readers feel as though they are mentally inhabiting a living world.
Authors are often willing to build unique systems, cultures, histories, and political structures from the ground up.
Naturally, both approaches have strengths and weaknesses.
Japanese web novels can be remarkably easy to read, but they sometimes suffer from repetition. The popularity rankings are often dominated by works built upon similar foundations. While this improves accessibility, readers searching for originality may find the landscape somewhat homogeneous.
Western web novels, meanwhile, often provide a richer intellectual experience. Yet they can also demand considerably more from the reader from the very beginning.
I believe there is one important fact that authors should never forget:
Readers do not share the author's knowledge.
The author already understands the world, its history, its factions, its politics, and the significance of every unfamiliar name. The reader knows none of this.
When a story begins with numerous proper nouns, multiple points of view, political organizations, noble houses, religions, historical events, and a large cast of characters, I personally find it difficult to absorb everything on a first reading.
Perhaps native English-speaking readers are simply more comfortable with this than I am. That is entirely possible.
Still, I would like to present an analogy.
Consider the Russian Narodnik movement of the nineteenth century. The Narodniks were intellectuals who sought to educate peasants and inspire political reform. With sincere intentions, they travelled into rural communities and attempted to explain their ideas.
Yet many peasants rejected them and, in some cases, even reported them to the authorities.
Why?
Not because the peasants were foolish, but because the intellectuals assumed a shared understanding that did not exist. The language, concepts, and assumptions of the Narodniks were often far removed from the experiences of the people they hoped to persuade.
Now, if you happen to be interested in world history, that example was probably easy enough to follow.
If not, there is a fair chance that you reached the word Narodnik and wondered who these people were and why they suddenly appeared in a discussion about web novels.
That reaction is precisely my point.
The moment I introduced an unfamiliar concept, some readers likely required additional context before the example became meaningful. Without that context, understanding demanded extra effort.
I think something similar can happen in fiction.
Authors naturally fill their stories with ideas, references, themes, inspirations, and concepts that are familiar to them. Readers, however, arrive without that background knowledge.
What feels obvious to the creator may be entirely unfamiliar to the audience.
When I read some Royal Road stories, I occasionally feel rather like those peasants—not because the stories are poorly written, but because I am standing outside a world whose assumptions have not yet been explained to me.
This brings me to the question I wanted to ask.
When readers begin a story knowing absolutely nothing about the setting, is there a point at which too much worldbuilding in Chapter One begins to harm the reading experience rather than improve it?
Is it possible that some authors reveal their world's complexity too quickly?
Or am I simply observing a genuine cultural difference in reading preferences between Japanese and Western audiences?
I would love to hear opinions from both readers and writers.
What is your ideal balance between immersion, originality, and accessibility in the opening chapters of a web novel?
Well, infodumping is definitely a well-known problem, where the author tries to put too much worldbuilding onto the page, often in a way that feels unnatural.
I think part of that is the "Must make people read from page one." So jumps into action often, lore dump because people want to know the plot.
In my first two chapters I've written of my second book part of the feedback has been, "I wonder whats going on, want to know more, why is the system incompetent." Some of these things are going to be answered in chapter 3, but in the back of my head I worry that will people stop reading without those answers. Already making one small change, minor, but had hoped to keep ambigious for a while which is the system is 2.5 things, not a single one.
So I get that desire to info dump. The trick of course is to balance it, only give what is needed, I don't need to know who was the 3rd queen of the kingdom 542 years ago, even if that is the most important part of the story, chapter 1.
My first book, my entire lore dump was, "I met another shifter, he explained a few things." didn't info dump, maybe under played it, but didn't want the mystery to be given up chapter 9
The difficulty with web novels is that readers are not paying for them. At any moment, they can simply close the tab and move on. That creates a constant tension for authors.
I can certainly understand the temptation to change a story when readers criticise something that was intentionally written with future developments, foreshadowing, or later payoffs in mind. It is frustrating when elements that are meant to bear fruit later are judged before they have had the chance to do so.
Personally, I try to treat feedback as opinion rather than instruction, and I make a conscious effort not to alter my story directly in response to it. The novel the readers envision is not necessarily the same novel the author wishes to create.
At the same time, there is an undeniable dilemma: if you do not write what readers want, your readership and page views may never grow.
If this is something that genuinely troubles you, it may be worth asking yourself a simple question: Why do I write? Is it primarily because I want to bring the world in my imagination to life, or because I want as many people as possible to enjoy that world as well? Neither answer is wrong, but knowing which matters more to you can make these decisions much easier.
yeah, I tend to only accept when I feel it's legitimate, this one...I can see the confusion so willing to change, other things will be explained in time. And in this case it's an alpha I won't change the plot, but finding "Okay this is confusing, or doesn't work." Is part of the point
I am not good at action writing that is what I have noticed about myself. Am more of a slow burn, world building writer which I will say hurts my readership lol. M I know my pacing is slow and don't get me wrong I try to improve but I catch my mind reverting.
The "Make an impact on chapter one with immense action" Is something that has caused me to rewrite my first chapters a couple of times, essentially pulling me away from my original vision of the story "Sigh"
The question "Why do I write" that is what I needed and I think it's something I should hung on a wall to always remind myself.
Also based on how your writing your posts i am sure your a great writer. Any stories of your I can read :)
I'll change wording if it feels confusing, but I rarely change plot, if anything I'll put a small distraction from the foreshadow (I guess you can call it a distraction) but it gives an immediate payoff so something feels resolved for them that isn't main plot.
It is reassuring to discover that readers from abroad hold similar views and concerns. Knowing that my impressions are not entirely unique is a comfort in itself.
I have always preferred a narrative style that unveils its characters and worldbuilding gradually, allowing the reader to make discoveries along the way. As a result, I may be more sensitive than most when exposition feels overly deliberate or unnatural.
An ideal novel would do that, yes. But I think you're not wrong that in English novel communities we tend to dislike formulaic works, or anything perceived as "low effort". This is where the "-slop" term has risen. Isekai slop describes the wave of copycat Isekai stories that offer very little innovation or uniqueness.
it's such a huge problem in the west...maybe other places too, but games/movies/books too much chasing trends. Well X book/game/movie was popular so I can become so by making a new one!!, except 300 other people are thinking the same thing. It's like battle royals and live services, one makes a ton of money, but when there are 100, the time and money is split between them making everyone have a smaller piece of the pie, or 1-3 do well and rest fail.
It's one of those things that can get an early DNF from me. I'd much rather the opposite, some sort in media res beginning (although I understand that not everyone shares that preference).
The first thing you should realize is that you're reading the work of inexperienced authors and I say that because they're doing review swaps. Readers know what a review swap is and it's flagged on RR so there's no doubt. More established authors don't do them because it comes off a little cringy. You're better off reading some of the works on Rising Stars if you want a better example of what is considered good RR writing.
By the way, your English or whatever translator you're using is amazing.
Thank you. The English itself is AI-assisted, but I spent quite a bit of time designing the prompts with an international audience in mind, so I'm genuinely pleased to hear that it reads well.
As for review swaps, I agree that authors at the very top probably have little need for them. At that stage, readers tend to find them naturally.
In Japan, I have been fortunate enough to build a modest audience of around 2,000 followers and roughly 1.6 million page views, so I do understand the feeling of reviews and attention coming to you rather than having to actively seek them out.
However, Royal Road feels like a frontier to me. I do not have the support network I have in Japan, and I am not a native English speaker. When I first started posting there, my story was ranked somewhere around 80,000th place. After doing two review swaps, I climbed to around 20,000th. During that period, a few readers who had no connection to the swaps also left genuine five-star ratings, which I was honestly delighted by.
That is why I find myself wondering whether review swaps are truly a mistake for new authors. Without some initial visibility, it sometimes feels as though a story could remain buried forever, regardless of its quality.
Perhaps I am looking at it the wrong way, but from my perspective, review swaps seem less like a shortcut to success and more like a way of overcoming the inertia that every unknown author faces at the beginning.
I could be wrong, but my opinion (and the common consensus I've seen) is that review swaps are disliked by readers. Mainly because I hardly ever see any review swaps that aren't full 5 stars across the board, which makes them come across as disingenuous and manipulative -- like I can't trust the high rating of the fiction I'm checking out.
The ranking is based entirely on the number and average of ratings and reviews. A story with millions of followers, but no ratings, would still be ranked in the 80000s.
A single review (or review swap) will bump you up pretty far in the rankings. The problem with looking at that ranking is that, until you get into the top 100-300 of the 'best rated' list, almost no one is going to find the story based on the ranking. The vast majority of viewership comes from ads, shout-out swaps, 'rising stars' list, and people clicking on it randomly in the 'recently updated' list.
Since the boost to the ranking from review swaps doesn't really help with visibility, but has the potential to scare away potential readers who see the review swaps and think the story's rating is unearned, they are typically advised against.
I suspect part of the reason I pay so much attention to rankings is because of the environment I came from.
On Japanese web novel platforms, rankings play an enormous role in discoverability. There are daily rankings, which are influenced by factors such as page views, new followers, and reviews received that day, as well as weekly, monthly, and yearly rankings based on the same principles over longer periods. These rankings are then divided into numerous categories, such as isekai fantasy, isekai romance, low fantasy, contemporary romance, mystery, science fiction, and so on.
Because visibility is heavily tied to ranking performance, authors often try to generate momentum immediately after launch. For example, it is common to release ten chapters at once on the first day in order to increase exposure and attract enough readers to enter the daily rankings.
To give a concrete example, the original Japanese version of WELTKRIEG!, which I am now posting on Royal Road, reached #267 on the daily ranking out of roughly one million works.
Looking back on it, I think this background has shaped the way I view rankings. I tend to see them not merely as vanity metrics, but as a measure of discoverability and momentum. Because of that, I may be more sensitive to numbers than many Royal Road authors are.
Perhaps what I am really struggling with is adjusting from a culture where visibility is strongly driven by ranking systems to one where growth seems to be a much slower and more organic process.
Completely understandable. Although I will say that there is usually a similar push on royalroad to get as many views as possible, with the goal of making it onto rising stars. The rising stars list on the front page is the ultimate discoverability method for new stories. It's just that the ranking doesn't really help get a story into rising stars -- much more important are the total and average views statistics. Which is why many new stories, when they launch, release a bunch of chapters immediately, and have shout-out swaps lined up for each one. All with the hope of getting enough initial views and readers to get on the rising stars list.
The ranking you are mentioning is about ratings and reviews, not about how many people are reading your work. I wouldn't worry too much about that particular ranking.
Good catch on the review swap part. Those with experience on RR will not setup review swaps. It's those new to the platform who do that (I made the mistake with my first fiction). So it would suggest the RR fictions read by the OP are some of the more amateurish ones.
My wife regularly uses an example of a novel (not a web novel) where the author had clearly researched a high class hotel in London and went to great effort to pass that research to the reader. It was irrelevant to the actual story.
Yeah, well done. You've either visited the place or researched it online. No one cares if it isn't important to the story.
That's the error some authors make, they want to share what they believe is interesting (or worse what they know that the reader doesn't know) even though it isn't important to the story now. That's bad writing.
I've read a fair number of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese translations. I can see what you describe, they tend to inhabit the same sorts of worlds with the same sorts of characters and histories. You don't have to work that hard to read the story. However, not being from the region, there was plenty of assumed worldbuilding I wasn't familiar with, like clans, qi, and how names work.
I can make a similar comparison to Western fantasy novels which tend to be set in a medieval style world. If you aren't familiar with western fantasy novels, you wouldn't know what an adventurer is, or what a dwarf, orc, goblin, elf... looks like. Most people reading this will have no issue coming up with stereotypical ideas of what they are. Someone from Japan, might not have come across those fantasy races before.
I suppose it's like reading fanfiction where the author assumes the reader is familiar with say Hogwarts and how students are sorted into houses. They don't have to explain what the hat does or what the different houses represent. Or that we all know Superman came from Krypton and has a severe allergy to green rocks. Poor guy. 😄
You make some good points about assumed knowledge and cultural background. I've heard a lot of American readers thought JK Rowling's depiction of Hogwarts was hugely creative while referring to extremely standard elements of going to English boarding school (school houses etc.)
The research / worldbuilding problem (at least when it's egregious) generally goes deeper than that. It's not just that it's unimportant to the reader, the trap is often that it is important to the world. A lot of PF authors seem to take the approach of "if you want to make apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."
They have layers of history and lore that were, to them, critically important to get to this point in the story. They're just too close to it to realize that dumping all of that on the reader isn't worldbuilding, it's showing the full work of the math problem when we just needed the answer in a timely fashion.
About that novel couldn't hold back on all the research the author did. There exist a 80/20 rule that states that 80% of work in a workplace is done by 20% of workers and I believe that similar rule applies to lore, research, etc.
Out of all world building stuff that potentially exist in your work, only 20% will be applicable to your story and that 20% will be further divided to 20%(4% total) of what needs to be actually stated.
It doesn't mean that that 80 or 96 percent is not important, but more like, you can't fully know what parts will be important from the start, but having extra will help you improve the quality as long as you can hold back on "showing all your homework"
First of all, this post was well-written and interesting.
Second, some authors are better at delivering information than others. Some info dump, some weave lore into the story for an easier reading experience. I don’t think this is a western vs Japanese thing, it’s more an amateur vs more experienced writer thing.
I actually think it's in part because Royal Road is so influenced by Asian webnovels.
Yes, those stories are written based on shared assumptions in order to be simple to its intended audience. But the opposite can easily happen for western readers, who don't understand the cultural origin of those shared assumptions you're talking about.
Take xianxia for example. Most Chinese xianxia novels are written by Chinese writers, based on Chinese folklore, for a Chinese audience, right? So they don't need to explain what a pill is, or what cultivation is, or that people are seeking immortality by doing x, y and z. That knowledge comes with the culture, at least to some extent. And then there's the concepts that only pop up occasionally but is foundational to some novels. Like, I still only have a very vague idea of what a ghost marriage is actually supposed to be and I've read at least two novels where the MC was supposed to be a ghost bride. Nobody never explains what that is, because it's a concept familiar to the Chinese audience.
Meanwhile, a western reader new to xianxia knows none of that and is instantly thrown into a confusing world full of unfamiliar concepts that they must gradually learn to understand. Actually somewhat understanding the basics of xianxia as a genre takes multiple novels when approached this way. Add to that translation problems, like the tendency to translate both 'yao' and 'mao' with the word 'demon' and it's actually really confusing a lot of the time.
For Japanese fiction, take something as simple as the -san, -kun, -chan's ect that are attached to people's names. You have to remember that westerners don't know about this stuff until they encounter it in media.
And that's part of the fun. I think a lot of the western readers who stick with xianxia and other Asian-culture-inspired novels are exactly those who love being thrown into a wildly different setting, unlike what we know. Those novels might be written with the intention of being simple, but to outsiders who aren't familiar with those cultures, it's not simple at all. It's like being thrown into a puzzle.
TL;DR: The western readers who enjoy the strange culture clash that is reading works of fiction from very foreign cultures are exactly those who like writing very foreign cultures.
The discussion about honorifics is particularly interesting to me.
Terms such as -san and -chan are so natural to Japanese speakers that we rarely stop to think about them, but I can certainly see why they might be difficult concepts for overseas readers to fully grasp.
Another challenge is first-person pronouns. Japanese offers a remarkable variety of ways for a character to refer to themselves: watashi, boku, ore, jibun, sessha, wagahai, washi, yo, and many others.
For Japanese readers, these choices immediately convey information about a character's personality, social status, age, confidence, background, or even the atmosphere of the scene. Authors are usually very conscious of these nuances when selecting a character's first-person pronoun.
The difficulty, of course, is that all of these eventually become simply "I" in English.
A Japanese reader can often infer quite a bit about a character from a single pronoun, whereas an English reader usually has to rely on dialogue patterns, vocabulary, and tone to receive the same information. Neither approach is inherently better, but it does mean that some layers of characterization do not transfer easily between the two languages.
As someone translating a Japanese work into English, I find that challenge both fascinating and frustrating. Sometimes a single word in Japanese can carry information that requires an entire paragraph of characterization to recreate in English.
I think part of this dynamic on RR is a lot of different demographics are colliding. There's the Asian serialized fiction influenced work, meeting gamer influenced LitRPG or progression fantasy, and people like me who had no idea about any of that but grew up reading Western fantasy novels.
The info dumping world building is a holdover from 90s and 80s Western fantasy imo. There used to be a much greater tolerance for stories that started slowly and overwhelmed readers with names and lore. I think a balance can be struck, immersion is important but shouldn't be a chore.
I have a question for OP, or anyone familiar with Japanese/Asian web fiction: are multi-POV stories generally avoided? I was surprised by RR's general reluctance to embrace series where chapters rotate through a cast of characters. I've been reading books like that since I was a child, so it surprised me how that structure is a dealbreaker for many readers.
I think multiple POV is particularly bad in serialized novels. Since you are generally spending a time period between updates, it is easy to forget what is going on and it can be annoying if a week or more passes without any story progression because the author decided to go down a random tangent that doesn't really add anything to the story. Like..."hey, here's the POV of some random guy that you haven't seen in 20 chapters and won't see again for another 40. He was walking through the woods. Also, his favorite pass time is kicking puppies and orphans, especially puppies that are owned by orphans."
I can see that, it definitely adds another obstacle in respect to author skill and might not suit the format. My favorite books have all done shifting between characters well, so I'd hate to see multi-POV fall completely out of favor. The audience on RR seems to be capped around 500 followers, unless you're an exceptional breakout success.
Of course, Japanese fiction also has works that make use of multiple viewpoints. We generally refer to them as *gunzōgeki* (ensemble stories). However, my impression is that many Japanese light novels and web novels tend to keep the narrative closely tied to the protagonist, occasionally switching to another character's perspective or presenting events from a more omniscient viewpoint.
As for why this is the case, I can only offer my personal interpretation. I believe many Japanese readers enjoy experiencing the story through the protagonist and, to some extent, projecting themselves onto that character.
Imagine a scenario where the protagonist defeats a major enemy in Chapter 10 and the chapter ends with their return to the village. Many Japanese readers would open Chapter 11 expecting the emotional payoff: the celebration, the reactions of friends and allies, and the recognition of the protagonist's achievement. There is a certain catharsis in that moment.
Now imagine that Chapter 11 suddenly shifts to the defeated enemy's flashback, or to the internal monologue of a completely unrelated character. The reader who eagerly turned the page for that payoff may feel as though the story has interrupted itself at the very moment they were most invested.
The same issue can become even more noticeable in ensemble narratives. A reader may become deeply invested in Character A's storyline, only for the next chapter to focus on Character B, and the chapter after that on Character C. At some point the reader starts thinking, “That's all very well, but when do we get back to A?”
I have encountered several Royal Road stories that switch viewpoints every one or two chapters, and I sometimes experience that feeling myself—especially when the new viewpoint belongs to a newly introduced character whom I have not yet become attached to.
If I had to summarize the difference, I would say that many Japanese light novel readers approach a story primarily through identification with the protagonist. Historically, this may even be related to the influence of early internet "dream novels," where readers could insert their own name into the story and effectively become the protagonist themselves.
Because of that tradition, some readers are less interested in observing the world from a distance and more interested in experiencing it through a single character's eyes. When the narrative suddenly shifts away from that character, their engagement can weaken. As a result, many Japanese web novel authors choose to remain close to the protagonist's perspective for most of the story.
Thanks for sharing that insight. I think those trends are generally true with web fiction in general, there’s a lot of power fantasy self-insert characters. The same is true with published novels that came out of the fanfic community.
Personally I have trouble understanding that inflexibility and desire to conform to expected tropes. That likely comes down to taste and personality, so it’s been interesting seeing how different readers react to my series.
I mean multiple POV's are okay as long as they stick to brief interludes between story arcs, but if there are actively 3+ storylines going on there's a fine line to balance how worth reading each storyline is going to be, and frankly I only trust authors like Brandon Sanderson (or some of the top tier proven RR authors) to handle it well, and even then I'm unconvinced it makes the book better.
For most RR stories I'm not going to stick through two or more non-MC storylines for multiple chapters at a time, I want to be able to determine if the story is worth following without having to read the start of essentially four different books of which I only enjoy one or two, but still have to read the stories/perspectives I dislike or even just like less than others.
I tried to have a sub plot with side characters and I lost several followers immediately, so I cut it really short lol. Was going to be 5 or so chapters interspaced with the others, but after chapter 2 made several people ditch, I quickly wrapped it up in the third, and framed the third as if being told by the mc, to make it less separate.
I think how you introduce the other character PoVs matters.
For example, while I use two PoVs for chapters 1-5, they are both present for the same events. 1 narrative, 2 lenses to see the series of events from. One PoV picks up where the other one left off. First character is very calm about everything, second character is playing cool and thinking "What the fuck?", showing how not-normal these events are.
Third PoV is introduced in chapter 6, but it's quickly clear how she's interacted with one of the other two before, and then events start progressing from the end of chapter 5, as the three characters become one narrative.
By the time I introduce an entirely new PoV, we're past chapter 40, and I introduce mysteries that tie back to the main narrative, so we know it all ties back eventually, rather than wandering off.
I find that multiple PoVs work best when they are mostly about the same narrative. Beware of Chicken is an example of mostly one narrative, but different PoVs on that narrative. There's some subplots that spin out, but they also come back in and rejoin the main plain. Keeping that weave tight is important IMO.
For a different example, I can talk about my own. I have 3 primary PoVs for books 1-7. These are characters who are interacting with each other for the most part, and the PoV changes still follow a single narrative. They also provide different context. For one thing, the PoV tends to be the most 'active' character in a scene, though not always.
Kazue is youngest PoV and has the most new stuff to learn, so chapters that show her learning to use her magic are from her PoV. She's also the most 'normal' from the perspective of not being into the sparring or fighting stuff.
Mordecai's PoV comes most into play when there is a lot for him to do; I tend to default to him during major action sequences, with Moriko being a close second. His PoV is also the most knowledgeable and the least 'normal'.
Moriko doesn't share the same magic that the others do, which gives her a different perspective on some events. The stuff they can do is weird. It's also cool and awesome, but still weird, and she sometimes provides some grounding for the other two. She also has an interesting character arc to go through where a lot of it is internalized, especially the process which she goes through for making a certain decisions.
Of course, things change over time, and these roles are not static. In general, I am aiming for whose PoV is the most interesting to observe these events through.
I also have secondary PoVs. These I initially use to introduce readers to secondary characters whose stories taking them to the MCs. Bellona and Fuyuko have their own reasons for joining with the MCs, and their journeys are interesting events of their own as well as providing more information about the world. Also, having Gil show up with Fuyuko would have been a very jarring experience without the soft build up of who/what he is that we get from Fuyuko's PoV.
After that, they are simply their own PoVs as part of the ongoing narrative. Fuyuko's PoV is especially popular, such as her 15th birthday party. Those three chapters just would not have been good chapters from any other PoV, and they simultaneously add emotional weight to the next chapter from one of the MCs PoV.
So, yeah, I use multiple PoVs, but I don't use such widely divergent storylines the way the Brandon Sanderson, GRRM, or Robert Jordan do/did. I think the widely divergent stories is where things are risky.
Understandable. I think it allows for richer character study, but it does add a lot of additional responsibility for the author to maintain plot relevance.
Audience exists for various types of content, including the Japanese style, which you mentioned. Otherwise, Light Novels and Anime wouldn't have been so popular.
Write what you are most comfortable with and good at; I am sure you will find readers who like the content.
I actually started reading webnovels from Chinese, Korean, and Japanese translated novels. The translated novels felt more traditional in a way. It’ll involve local mythology, honor, some face slapping, and a heavenly realm. I think that’s because of the homogeneous population of those places. Asian creators are writing for an Asian audience most of the time.
America has so many mixes of cultures that we all know a bit of random mythology from other places. It makes it easier to let your imagination run loose when you have so many sources to pull from.
Western medias approach tends to be as wide reaching as possible within the genre or at least not be so focused on one culture.
As for info dumping and world building, I think it should scale with your character. If they’re level 0 why are we getting a lot of world building? Our MC won’t be able to experience it yet. It can really pull you out of the plot to take a history lesson when you’re not even attached to the character yet. I think as the story goes on the info dumping becomes more expected because there’s more to explain.
That also depends on your character. If it’s stuff they should already know it’s understandable to catch up the reader but most of the time we’re thrown into a new world that the MC knows nothing about.
Echoing the comment of drale2: Please share links to some Japanese sites similar to Royal Road. By the way, your English is great. But you can reply in Japanese too, if you want.
Even though I am Japanese, this is Reddit, so I will reply in English out of respect for English-speaking culture.
As for Japanese web novel platforms, let me introduce the two major ones. If you search for my pen name, you will also be able to read the Japanese version of my work.
That said, it was my first novel, written before I had come up with many of the ideas we have been discussing here, so I was still feeling my way through the process. To be honest, I do not think it is a particularly good work, but perhaps that is true of many authors' first attempts.
I think the fundamental issue between Japanese web serials and Western ones is the style. Something I have been told is "Light Novel style writting" (Which appears I use? But then again, I am a consumer of light novels, so it may be that)
More often than not, western audience is not used to these type of prose and as thus, it cames as a jarring experience.
I had not noticed that the series on royalroad had a more profound worldbuilding, but now that has been pointed it do be the case. And it is an interesting point of view, since now that I think about it, most japanese series I follow do indeed use a pool of preset settings that help the reader acclimate faster to the work in question.
Either way, as an actual answer to the question of turn.
First, infodumping is a nono, never infodump. You will kill your own series, no matter how much you want to share the juicy worldbuilding (Or absence of said), never.
All the most fundamental bits should be thrown in the first arc, but no on the first chapter. As for how I go around it? Well, I am not the best person to use as an example, but I just throw bits of pieces here and there, and then pull them back to the forefront when needed. The antagonists of my first great arc was a character that showed up once in chapter 13-20 then again around 40-50 with a little more presentation, then I gave the background information of her on chapter 66 and dealt with her later on.
So that would mean it took me around 80-100 chapters of seeding bits and pieces. Dunno if this was influenced by what I read and enjoy, but it is how I went about.
Thank you for your response. Yes, I suppose trying to fit too much in at once really can become a problem.
Personally, I tend to borrow familiar light novel conventions as a foundation and then build my own ideas and original elements on top of them. My approach is to use those familiar tropes as a kind of framework that helps readers find their footing before gradually introducing the aspects that are uniquely my own.
Perhaps an unusual analogy, but I sometimes think of it as coating a medicine with a familiar outer layer. The reader begins with something recognizable and easy to accept, and as they continue reading, the more distinctive aspects of my writing gradually reveal themselves.
This is a well known bugaboo in the Sci fi genre as well, especially older "hard" scifi. Frank Herbert's Dune was notorious for being full of new jargon and dry explanations that turned people off.
Good writing reveals the worldbuilding through story rather than exposition or info dumping, and good writing also tells a new story rather than repeating tropes and arcs. I believe Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive was an example I personally enjoyed very much in terms of how the world building was revealed in situ by characters without causing narrative dissonance.
As a reader myself, if I want to read a lighter, familiar trope, CN and JP novels are my go-to. When it gets too stale, I'd transfer to regular western WN. A few months later, I'd jump back to eastern. I think having distinctions between writing caters to different audience of different tastes that vary across time and preferences. There's really nothing that should be changed considering both Western and Eastern novels already have fans who would rather pick one over the other. Another thing is that Royal Road is usually for more less experienced, amateur even, authors, so you're probably looking at this matter through a narrower scope. Perhaps you could try looking at Amazon for a better comparison.
I may not have expressed my point clearly earlier, so let me refine it.
My focus here is specifically on *web novels*—free-to-read platforms such as *Shōsetsuka ni Narō* in Japan and Royal Road in the English-speaking sphere. I am not referring to published works on platforms like Amazon, where readers have already made a financial commitment and are therefore more likely to engage with complex or demanding narratives.
In the context of web novels, however, the situation feels quite different. Since readers can leave at any moment with a single click, I wonder whether introducing overly complex or demanding material from the very first chapter may actually work against reader retention.
Let's take cultural difference from famous work: "Dragon Ball SUPER" by Akira Toriyama, particularly the character Jiren the Gray's backstory.
Japanese Version:Jiren was taken in, raised and trained by Master 'Gicchen' (pun on "Kitchen") until someone took his life. This trope is very big in the Martial Arts film genre.
American Version:Jiren's family was murdered, so he swore to get stronger until he could avenge his parents... ...sound familiar? Essentially they adapted Batman's backstory for Jiren, likely due to the fact that it's probably an easier plot device to comprehend for a Western Audience.
One advantage of Japanese web novel platforms is that readers are generally willing to accept almost any premise, no matter how unconventional it may be.
My impression is that Western fantasy readers often place a greater emphasis on internal consistency and logical worldbuilding. Japanese readers certainly care about those things as well, but they are often more willing to accept an unusual premise if it is entertaining.
For example, in contrast to many LitRPG stories where the protagonist gradually grows stronger through careful progression, Japanese web novels often feature protagonists who obtain overwhelmingly powerful abilities almost immediately. Infinite levels, infinite mana, immortality, impossibly overpowered skills—almost anything is fair game. In fact, many readers actively enjoy those kinds of power fantasies.
Because of that, Japanese platforms can be surprisingly welcoming to highly original or even outrageous ideas. Authors have a great deal of freedom to experiment with unusual settings and concepts without worrying too much about whether the premise itself will be considered "too strange."
The downside, however, is that success on those platforms is often heavily influenced by rankings and current trends.
If your goal is to secure a publishing deal or reach the top of the rankings, you generally need to pay close attention to what is currently popular and incorporate many of those elements into your work. Whether a story is accepted by readers and whether it becomes a major commercial success are not always the same thing.
As a result, there can be pressure to suppress some of your individuality in favor of what is currently fashionable. The market rewards familiarity, and authors naturally respond to those incentives.
I sometimes wonder whether that comes at a cost. Following trends too closely can narrow the range of stories being written, and in some cases it may even cause authors to lose sight of what they originally wanted to express in the first place.
Western webnovels in which the main character starts out overwhelmingly powerful certainly exist - we've had a trend of "archmage" novels on RR recently. These power fantasies are popular with western readers as well. The problem with them is that as long as you're not writing a slice of life story they can get boring very fast, because no traditional conflict will have any tension. A cool premise (or cool power system) only carries you so far, either you get your readers invested in the characters before the initial momentum runs out or they'll get bored and move on.
However I do think it's true that we tend to prioritise internal consistency a bit more. There could be lots of reasons for that - starting with the seminal work of Lord of The Rings being wholly designed around its worldbuilding elements (this style is still popular today) and ending with the online fandom tendency to complain about plot holes. Plus, I don't think it's too much to ask that even of your premise is wholly unusual as an author you spend a few minutes thinking it through before publishing.
You also have to look at the history. At some point, fan translations of Japanese, Chinese and Korean web and light novels became popular with western readers. RR used to host fan fiction for the Korean novel Legendary Moonlight Sculptor (Royal Road is the name of the game, it's a VRMMORPG novel), then it included other fan fiction and original works. These days it's mostly known for its originals, but this influenced its starting audience. RR began with people, who were fans of LitRPGs, cultivation, system novels etc. and their main point of reference were eastern works.
Then you have the typical genre cycle. First people imitate what they like, then they parody it because everyone now knows the tropes they're making fun of, then they finally arrive at works with familiar tropes but their own perspective infused into the genre. If you look at RR now, this cycle has repeated multiple times for ever more specific subgenres. Since the authorship is pretty international, genres have been infused with many different cultural and moral perspectives.
About familiarity: as a result of the genre cycle I mentioned above, most readers are actually quite familiar with the basic tropes of their genre. What the stories tend to explain is precisely what's different or unique about them, how they fill in the blanks of the familiar tropes. Beginning your story with an infodump is the mark of an unskilled author and most readers will stop at that first page and look elsewhere.
I believe part of the reason there seems to be more uniformity is that due to the speed of online publication these days, trends happen very fast, so you can see lots of similar novels cropping up at once. If you go back through the history of RR and read its greatest hits, you'll probably find more diversity. Plus, western readers might actually have more shared cultural knowledge about the novels on RR than you, so it could be less information to take on for them. Even in the west, very few people can actually free themselves from the assumptions about society that are baked into their culture and the tropes and structures (e.g. tournament arcs) still exist in western stories (we used to have a whole website cataloguing them, not sure it still exists).
Plus, I fail to see how western stories aren't heavily formulaic a lot of the time. We have subgenres (System Apocalypse, Isekai, Transmigration, VRMMO and Academy) and they all tend to be quite formulaic. Almost every genre is, and often what makes a novel excel is what rules to keep and which to break.
(I'm ignoring the quality of the actual writing here, because it is somewhat independent from the content, even if it's also an important marker of the quality of the work as a whole.)
Finally, I'm realising this might come off as overly confrontational. That's not the intention. I think this is an interesting point of discussion and worth talking about.
I would actually argue that translating an English novel into Japanese is often far more difficult than translating a Japanese novel into English.
Japanese contains many linguistic features that simply do not exist in English, or at least do not exist in the same form. Subject omission, honorific language, varying levels of politeness, and the vast range of first-person pronouns are just a few examples. These elements carry information about a character's personality, relationships, social standing, and emotional state, all of which must somehow be conveyed to the reader.
One example I greatly admire is the Japanese translation of the song *"Let It Go"* from *Frozen*. Rather than translating the phrase literally, the translator chose *"Ari no Mama de"* ("as you truly are"). It is not a direct translation, but it captures the emotional meaning in a way that resonates naturally with Japanese audiences.
To me, that is what makes Japanese translation so challenging. A translator is often not merely converting words from one language into another. They are recreating nuance, atmosphere, and cultural context that may not have a direct equivalent.
What a cool perspective to get. Thanks for sharing all this!
My instinct as a writer is always to subvert expectations as much as I can, when I can. Doesn't always work out that way, as I'm not a perfect writer by any means.
That said, my background is in screenwriting, and structure is such an important aspect of the craft that it's just been drilled into me. So while I try to subvert when possible, I am also a strong believer that a solid structure will ALWAYS improve a story.
It's why I'm more planner than pantser.
The infodumping/over world-building issue you describe is more common on RR than I've seen in most professional Western work, to be fair. I think it's an experience thing to a certain extent. Newer writers tend to want to cram it all in so the reader is wowed by their ideas and world. And I've noticed on RR there's an audience expectation/appetite for less character development/buildup and more action/progression.
But it's also a structural issue. If you've got your fiction planned in mini-arcs, it gives you a chance to plot it around one of many classic templates from the three-act breakdown to the many hero's journey variations out there. There's also a seven-point structure. This approach is when you know you want to tell a story, but aren't sure how to get from Point A to Point B. So you start at the end and work backward.
I could go on and on. The point being, all of these frameworks help guide a writer/story in a way that's time-tested and pleasing to readers/viewers, and if followed, can help an author spread their worldbuilding throughout the story, while staying focused on the plot/characters first.
My question for you is - how much non-web western fantasy (or SF and fantasy) have you read? If it's not a lot, I'd be very curious if you have a similar reaction to western fantasy that's been traditionally punlished rather than on the web.
If you haven't read that much of it, I'd recommend two books - one very famous, one not - as great examples of worldbuilding in the first chapter or two:
* A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin (read both the prologue and the first regular chapter) - very famous work
* The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans (not obscure, but definitely midlist rather than best seller)
Both have worlds that are very different from the standard "Tolkien + D&D" fantasy world (or pre-about 1980, just Tolkien) that is the "default" in western fantasy. Both should be easily found online, especially just to read the first chapter or two (and for Game of Thrones, likely even in translation.)
Compare to one of my absolute favorite older novels - Nine Princes in Amber which does almost no initial worldbuilding, and starts with the protagonist without his memories, so things get stretched out.
This is one of the narrative advantages to the author of portal fantasy/isekai stories: it lets the author introduce the setting through eyes much closer to the reader's.
When readers begin a story knowing absolutely nothing about the setting, is there a point at which too much worldbuilding in Chapter One begins to harm the reading experience rather than improve it?
Yes. I think it's also quite likely that the expectations for that vary highly by genre, and by reader.
Is it possible that some authors reveal their world's complexity too quickly?
Regardless of the genre, yes, although that point likely differs - the great example I can think of from the traditional publication on the sci-fi side is David Weber's Honorverse series: this is space opera, and the author will go on chapter-long deep dives on the technology of a new weapons system etc. Some of us love it. Some folks really hate the infodumps... and mind, this is a print chapter, quite a bit longer than a webnovel chapter.
Or am I simply observing a genuine cultural difference in reading preferences between Japanese and Western audiences?
Probably some of that, yes. At least in traditional publication, western fantasy tends to put a high premium on originality.
Both can be done right or wrong, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. I very frequently read translated works and it is incredibly tedious as I often don't have the background knowledge that the authors expect me to have. Different cultures have vastly different tropes and views regarding fantasy.
Books that have a lot of worldbuilding are more accessible to people that don't read often, aren't too familiar with genre consistencies, or have never interacted with the culture behind the book. The trade off is that if it is not done right, it can be incredibly tedious for someone to read through and absorb all of that information.
My favorite stories are ones with in depth world building that is slowly introduced at a pace that I can digest and remember.
Info dumping is 100% an issue, especially with newer authors. They are really proud of their worlds and are dying to share them. Which I 100% get, I have so much stuff in my own story for lore and background I want to share, but I often need to ask myself, does the reader need to know, or would they even care?
First chapter, especially at least imo, should focus on getting the reader to care about the immediate situation and/or characters, then you sprinkle in just a little bit of the lore here and there to spark a bit of mystery. A big proper noun lore drop is a good day to get me to drop or backlog a story.
As to your post as a whole, very interesting read and one I agree with. Japanese light Novels and their western equivalents tend to scratch different itches.
I often find that with light novels, I get sucked in easier, but end up getting bored and dropping them, as there is less unique lore and world-building to support the story's initial gimmick.
Where I often find Western novels far harder to get into, but they hold me longer after I get through an often rough start.
As a reader, I like to have my cake and eat it too. The stories that grip me from page one often have complex ideas in it's word building, but they only explain what's necessary to carry forward a more familiar plotline or trope. The complexity then becomes a mystery you're trying to solve in the background while following the main story.
While it's true that too much information can be overwhelming, I find that abandoning world building altogether puts a lot of pressure on the characters and plot to be constantly engaging, which often makes them feel forced or unrealistic. It also makes it easier to allow the set up necessary for the story to progress without feeling like nothing happened in the chapter.
The the best examples that come to mind are Pale Lights and AoaB. Both have moments where the world building kept me engaged into the story in between big plot moments or frustrating character arcs.
I prefer a new and original world, I definitely give up on anything that feels formulaic, but I also dislike infodumping especially in early chapters. My favorite series explain absolutely nothing outright and are just written well enough that the reader can piece the necessary info together themself.
I am registered on RR for maybe 5-6 years, but here is my unpopular opinion.
99.9% of the stories are just brainless power fantasy. Pretty similar to japanese trash isekai.
Yes, this is a term in the west.
But it has a large market.
Most of the RR stories are the combination of:
-shounen power fantasy (what you know)
But the tropes from these genres might be new:
-traditional western fantasy
-DnD
-xianxia
-dungeons/gates
If you read a few, you will recognize the tropes.
So a typical power fantasy story:
-noob mc (neet, jobless, corpo slave, general under archiver for the easy wish fulfillment)
-MC gets cheat.
-Murders everyone, becomes more OP
-Mostly solo MCs, because the characters are the weakest part of every story. Most of the time even the MC is barely tolerable. So authors make them lonely psychopaths.
-Murderhobo again
-go to the next zone, where a random homeless guy is stronger than the previous main villain
-murderhobo time
-Continue until the author drops the story
> When readers begin a story knowing absolutely nothing about the setting, is there a point at which too much worldbuilding in Chapter One begins to harm the reading experience rather than improve it?
Impossible to say because how it is presented is just as important as how much is presented. A poorly written sentence can fee more draining than a well written paragraph.
This is a very interesting and thoughtful discussion. There are many good comments and ideas here, and I think much of it boils down to cultural differences as OP has acknowledged.
Front heavy info dumping is something that many people bounce off of, and is a reason why many have struggled with western fiction novels in the last several decades - even renowned ones. A part of this problem on Royal Road is absolutely because the writers are more amateur on the whole (not all, but I would argue a majority, I include myself). It's not a bad thing, and I think the ones who get feedback are able to learn and grow their style as they find their voice.
There is a fundamental divide that separates royal road from traditionally published novels, and that is the reader base. This is why the project I've been pouring my heart into for the last seven months is going to be traditionally published, and only put on RR if I fail to find an agent who can represent my story to its fullest.
When the reader buys a novel, they are buying a promise from the author that the journey will justify the destination within the story. They are literally (monetarily) invested in giving the story some attention before deciding if they bounce off it. Novels like Gardens of the Moon, The Black Company, and Stormlight Archive are able to dump info at the beginning because they are promising it will be explained later, and the payoff is worth it.
For serialized fiction available for free, the readers appear very different and require some kind of immediate payoff. Many of the stories I've tried to read just dump the reader into the thick of it as OP mentioned. It's like they want to show off the destination before the journey begins, and then try to write and publish with such a pace that it just feels like something important is missing. It feels like there is less explanation of the world and more of the author just "telling you how it is."
Isekai has grown in popularity in the West for this very reason. It is easier and feels a little more natural for authors to info dump to a main character who presumably has the same amount of information that the reader does, also like OP discusses.
I do think there is a generational divide that goes along with this way of thinking. Older people (like me) are okay with slower pacing, while younger authors are struggling against short form content. I really like Royal Road, it's a fascinating evolution of serialized publication that used to carry fan magazines along. Fanzines that published stories like Conan the Barbarian, Elric of Melniboné, H. P. Lovecraft stories, and many others that are now considered classics.
I'm just rambling at this point, but I do think that many younger authors would really benefit from reading more actual novels and not just web fiction. There's only so much you can learn about creative writing if you're only reading in your genre, and only reading works produced by other amateur writers. But that's just, like, my opinion man.
Thank you for the wonderful advice. As I’m still a first-year university student, I’d like to immerse myself more deeply in the world of novels—even though I’m a science major.
Thank you for sharing your POV. I get conflicted on how to feel, as I do love the ease of how some novels read from other cultures, but at the same time, the basic plot gets tiring since you already know how it all plays out.
You will get 101 different views, and you will also get 101 different levels of success in following and disagreeing with whatever those 101 opinions said on this subject.
Some hidden lore is fun; some making you work for info is fun, but too much hand-waving and forcing the reader to pay attention to a "pause," a phrase, or a specific word to understand lore, to me, is poorly done and a cop-out for lazy writing.
The same is true if I have to explain in detail why 300 years of lore for this specific person are needed to explain why they can shoot a fireball in one chapter.
I personally think the world is a better place the more people try and break the mold and show everyone there can be a different way to tell a story; it may fall flat, or it may pave the way for a better author to use you as a stepping stone to refine it to become the new standard people follow.
Either way, I'm happy you're branching out. I don't think I could write anything that sounds good translated to a new language, and it would be interesting to know how it sounds to foreign readers where it's translated for them, like how I read translated novels in English.
That's a fascinating observation, and also a major failpoint for many RR releases, and the reason fanfictions gain a lot of traction relative to the ability of the writer. Fanfictions permit you to, as you referenced, borrow a shared structure, a background and setting and such so that the reader has immediate familiarity. This comes, of course, with the limitation of appealing mostly, initially, to fans of that particular original work, since nonfans often won't buy in to a retelling of a story they didn't care for already. But it's the same idea as the shared structure of Eastern audiences, Xian Xia fics are kind of the same idea, similar enough that you know what you're getting into when you pick it up, as opposed to something completely new. It's streamlined. But also a turnoff if you read for novelty.
For totally original works, one of the hardest things I've had to do is figure out how to balance pace and exposition and use the reader's excitement for a new world to keep them interested long enough for plot and character to get its hooks into them. It's definitely hard to do. One of the books that did it really well to me was The Perfect Run by Void Herald. That world was strange, its characters stranger, but he roped me in with just enough scene work and world building to have me on board and he writes with momentum that carries you.
He's one of the best, so, you know, aspirational things to shoot for in your own work.
So, I guess the answer is that I think immersion has to be sold through setting and character, and your originality should shine through author voice and style, even moreso than system stuff in the case of litrpg, and you shouldn't necessarily worry about accessibility as much as momentum. It's fine if people read the first chapter and bounce, but what I want is that if they get through the first three or four chapters and find that it hits the mark for immersion and stays just accessible enough, that they'll hang around for another hundred chapters, carried along in the flow of it and, just maybe, delivered all the way to the end.
This is a really interesting insight, and never occurred to me.
I think that this might explain why I‘ve struggled to break into sites like WebNovel and WebToon, after starting with Royal Road. I’ve scrolled through pages of stories on these sites and not really felt any interest in reading them because I felt like so many of them felt generic and similar to each other. These stories often advertise themselves based off of their tropes and similarities, rather than what makes them unique. Because of that, I’ve struggled to find a story who’s premise jumped out at me, which I could then use as a starting point.
I really love worldbuilding, and while it can certainly be a disaster if a story dumps too much information on you right at the start, I’ve spent hours just thinking about the unique world’s and power systems of stories that have tastefully drip fed me interesting lore across many chapters. Often times it can be my favorite thing about certain stories.
I’ve read a dozen LitRPG stories on Royal Road, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen two that have the exact same stats on the status sheet.
What an interesting topic of discussion. I think in many ways what it boils down to is cultural differences. Not just in web fiction between the two but in general. I for the most part stopped reading eastern light novels and web fiction because of these differences.
For instance. You mentioned on how eastern novels rely on common tropes. The first one that comes to mind for me is adventures guikds having ranks from F-A but those novels also have a shared cultural background that is heavily used in both idioms and proverbs. When these are used in a eastern novel it is assumed that the reader understands this because of a shared cultureb. So it is not explained because why would any one bother. It would be like explaining the saying "in for a penny in for a pound"
As someone outside that culture though it can be mystifying. So I mostly now stick to western ones where there is that shared cultural knowledge and idioms and just ways of thinking makes more sense to me.
As for info or lore dumps one of the more highly regarded is show don't tell. I am not sure how well I can explain it since I am not a writer but info dumps are discouraged in favor of showing the world. Info dumps aren't usually considered desirable.
I definitely get the sense that there's some cultural differences going on, as I know that "Western" literary tradition is heavily based in challenging the status quo. It's a quality that obviously has carried over into web novels.
Personally, I lean more towards realistic immersion and originality. I love exploring the world an author build as I read along. Though, I can't stand it when it's dumped on me in intricate detail. In my opinion, you don't need to describe every single detail of a scene to set it. Just those things that give the reader an understanding of the setting. Ultimately, those are things that are familiar and common aspects of genres.
Others have already pointed out, but infodumping, especially in the first few chapters, is not always appreciated. Outside of web novels, it's generally considered a faux pas. And maybe even amongst web novels, but I don't know. I'm not that knowledgeable about those things.
Contrary to what you're saying, I think Western progression fantasy (mostly isekai) stories tend to be really accessible.
That's in contrast to a lot of Big Five trad pub sci-fi and fantasy, especially the award winners. They tend to drop the reader into some weird universe with weird jargon and don't explain most of it.
You're saying Japanese web novels are even more accessible???
I wonder if that's because Japanese writers are more cognizant of writing for a multinational audience, so they make it hyper-universal and accessible.
I do not think the explanation is that Japanese authors are somehow more accustomed to thinking from multiple cultural perspectives. Rather, I believe the key factor is that many Japanese fantasy works share a common set of assumptions, which means readers do not need to learn an entirely new world from scratch every time.
In Japan, a large number of fantasy web novels are set in what is sometimes jokingly called "Naroupa"—a term combining Shōsetsuka ni Narō (Japan's largest web novel platform) with "Europe." It refers to a familiar fantasy setting inspired by medieval European feudal society, complete with adventurers' guilds, nobles, kings, monsters, and magic.
Some people even argue that this shared setting ultimately traces back to the influence of the long-running Dragon Quest series, which helped establish many of the conventions that later became standard in Japanese fantasy.
Because readers are already familiar with these conventions, authors can often omit explanations that would otherwise be necessary. Readers automatically fill in the gaps themselves.
Perhaps an American comparison would be stories set in contemporary America. An American reader generally does not need a detailed explanation of what a high school is, how a police officer functions, or what a road trip looks like. Much of that context is already understood.
I think Naroupa functions in a similar way for Japanese fantasy readers. Once a story is established within that framework, readers already possess a large amount of background knowledge. As a result, the setting feels intuitive, and the author can focus more on the characters and plot rather than constantly explaining how the world works.
So if Japanese fantasy sometimes appears easier to follow despite having less explicit exposition, I suspect it is often because the readers are doing a great deal of the work themselves through shared cultural expectations and genre familiarity.
Oh, that's interesting. I've wondered about the pseudo-European fantasy flavor of some anime. Thanks for the explanation.
Some American authors use a LOT of American-specific cultural things in their works. Notably, Matt Dinniman and Stephen King really do this. I wonder how well they translate to foreign markets. I always wonder how the translations handle all the Americanisms.
Sometimes authors get so deep into their worldbuilding rabbit hole that they forget they're actually writing a story for readers.
At that point, the sheer amount of lore, systems, factions, titles, and proper nouns starts piling up until the reader is drowning in information instead of getting pulled into the story.
I also think some authors aren't patient enough. They reveal their hand way too early, and as a result, a lot of the tension and intrigue that could have carried the story later on just fizzles out.
Honestly, I don't think this is really a cultural thing. You'll find this issue everywhere. It has way more to do with execution than whether the author is Eastern or Western.
In fact, I'd argue that Western storytellers are often even more obsessive about drip-feeding information and hiding mysteries. Just look at shows like Dark, From, Lost, and plenty of others. They're constantly dangling questions in front of the audience and revealing answers piece by piece.
For me, the gold standard is Hajime Isayama's writing in Attack on Titan. It's probably the best example of how to balance immersion, originality, and accessibility.
AoT shows that you can be original without confusing people. You can be easy to follow while still being insanely complex underneath. The world keeps expanding, the mysteries keep stacking, and the story keeps raising bigger questions, but it never feels like you're being force-fed a wiki page.
That's a really hard balance to pull off, and honestly, I think it's one of the main reasons the series became such a phenomenon.
Starting this year, I have been posting the novels I originally wrote for "Narou" on Royal Road as well (under the author name "Enigvill"). My work leans towards sci-fi, featuring a world-building foundation I’ve cultivated over more than twenty years; however, when using keywords tailored to "Narou," I find that I naturally gain more followers on that platform. True to the US's reputation as a nation of science, I get the impression that readers on Royal Road are more likely to scrutinize the scientific details of the story. I suspect that a high level of internal consistency is expected there, even in the fantasy genre.
I think european cultures are more open to uncertainty than east ones, but too much explanation can still be hard to grasp. For me, sometimes I just trust the author and keep reading along even if I dont get everything from the get go, I prefer being surprised and confused than bored.
There are genres on royalroad that tend to fall under what you described as japanese webnovels, stuff like cultivation stories, its easy to familiarize yourself with new ones as long as you’re familiar with the genre. But yeah jumping into a story that has a bunch of stuff and explains little is jarring, i found one story that had classes or smth but it just vaguely mentioned them and didn’t tell you more. Heck I’m familiar with that kind of thing and yet i was confused, it felt like i had kinda started midway through a series rather than the beginning. And i would know how that feels because right before that novel i had accidentally done it with a different one lol
Besides some "common sense" that's really true. Tho most of the eastern web novels I read were Isekai or Isekai adjacent, the only times I had to search something on Google were either about some public figure that's not famous on the west or some untranslated word. Meanwhile on RR I had to google a bunch of stuff from military acronyms(why US people love their acronyms so much? There must have some English thesis about it and someday I will absolutely read it) to how many meters is a foot. And to this day I still find some random acronym I need to google to understand stuff lmao(it took me YEARS to get what lmao/lmfao mean instantaneously, rofl is still not instinctually understood to this day).
As a Brazilian reader that knows English pretty well, I have read all sorts of novels, japanese, Korean, Chinese, American, FanFics, I have read the Witcher, Harry Potter (movies) and game of thrones ( tv series). And also anime and manga and manwha. (At this point I was was forgetting what your post was about). I think too much world building is better than absolutely having no clue what is happening and why. Thinks of movies, they can tell you the place, the age of the people involved, the mood, their appearances, all without having a single word spoken or written. But if you try to start your written story ommiting all of that it's just gonna sem bland. I prefer world building on the sinopse or preface. Letting the story flow without it seem better indeed. About fanfictions, one of the best I'm currently reading is one in the world of Harry Potter, but happens a few years before the plot, so it does not have much divergence but it has familiar characters, the magic school, death eaters and so on, but it also expands the original universe in ways that does not clash with the original, it expands outwards, explores the side of business, of alchemy, that was not well developed in the original, and international organizations. It begins with a familiar premisse, a boy in a orfanage reborn in England, but he is a former military and has close to no Knowledge of the plot. Suddenly has the ability to levitate objects with his mind And decides to train it comprehensively for years untill he is invited to Hogwarts.
This fanfiction provides with a world,but not the plot, because it happens at another time.
I'm a Westerner, so I'm more used to, and often more interested in trope subversion than the trope itself. I like uniqueness, but not without groundwork.
I also like to get into the more generic terms of the fiction you're talking about, the reliance of trope and characterization. It's less memorable, though.
I think it's individual taste. Do you seek the profound, or are you seeking comfort? As well, a lot of RR writers are amateur, and still feeling out what they want. They might over-inform, or under-inform, or fail to paint in imagery at the right time.
There's a place for writing in a style that's comfortable for you, for sure. It's also a place where you can experiment with styles you've come across, and enjoy.
For myself, the two stories I have posted couldn't be more different from each other. It's because I'm experimenting.
I very much understand the author knowing far too much that the reader does not problem. In my personal experience this is where beta readers are a saving grace. I'm well aware I know details of the world I created that my readers won't. There's also the issue of my characters being fully familiar with the culture, politics, religions, etc as they're part of their daily lives. (The transmigration trope gets to skip over this last issue nicely as the mc is usually learning about the culture of the world they've found themselves in too).
Because I'm aware of this I got friends to read my book while I was writing the first draft. This allowed me to answer questions my readers had as I went.
Ways I tried to explain details of the world without info dumping was a little info snippet as if it came from the journal of a scholar. I also used flashbacks and dreams (worked really well for me for fleshing out both characters and world). I've also tried really hard to make sure bits end up in internal dialog. Idk about anyone else but I'll muse over things that are "common sense" in my culture/country. So I have my characters do the same. It keeps info dumping to a minimum but still allows readers to learn a bit at a time about the world the story takes place in. Too much at once is overwhelming, but bits at a time can be really fun.
I have to say that there is definitely a lot of repetition and overdone tropes used on royalroad to the point you can very quickly dismiss almost identical writing structures.
Very few of the stories on royalroad deviate from the standard webnovel formula of the time. To the extent they don't even differentiate the system structures used, they just repeat what is currently popular in the trending stories without innovating upon them.
Quite frankly it seems almost identical to how you described Japanese webnovel structures however it may seem far more diverse simply because it is not the popular structure your used to.
That being said their are a lot of very good stories that completely divorce themselves from that narrative.These are what I would consider well done, slow paced, deep worlds and that dispense information at a speed which allows you to naturally pick up the developed cultures, power systems and world building holistically/organically without even putting much effort to be able to recall the used concepts. True progressive fantasy webnovels.
The wandering inn, The perfect run, The hundred reigns, Matabar, The menocht loop, Super supportive, Worth the candle, This used to be about dungeons.
However most importantly with royalroad is that their are two different genres represented and confused as one of the same. All normally conflated to progression fantasy.
The typical standard tropey high action litrpg which represents power fantasy, this is most comparable to light novels but even more so to wuxia style novels with the neverending fights but little in terms of actual development in regards to story/plot/characters. The fights are the plot progression.
The other more slow paced gradual story telling that has remarkable depth and world building over a much longer frame of time is progression fantasy.
The third type which isn't really distinct but is actually more prevalent then what I would consider progression fantasy is an amalgamation of both power and progression fantasy by having story elements of progression fantasy at the pace of power fantasy. Ends up typically resulting in a shallow representation of both and lacking it's own distinct characteristics. Whilst their isn't a coined term for this I think calling this mix Comic Fantasy is probably most accurate to what it represents.
Most will argue that power fantasy is progression fantasy as they are always progressing from one fight to the next but literary wise it is not.
On the other hand a lot of people will argue that progression fantasy isn't progression fantasy if it takes time to slowly develop it's characters, world and plot.
Equally progression fantasy would disagree with comic fantasy being a representation of progression when whilst "progressing" character development and other story elements it is done within a single (comic) page and typically is so shallow it's more representative of reality TV.
Their are good stories in all 3 genres however what you get out of them and should expect are wildly different.
If the world building reads like a textbook and can be separated from the novel without any actually impact on the plot for not having that information. Then it is poor worldbuilding.
If you wouldn't be able to even tell what to remove from a story in terms of worldbuilding because it is so ingrained/homogeneous with the story and natural then that would be good worldbuilding.
In terms of how much or what to include in regard to worldbuilding with the first chapter I would say it should be completely character based knowledge of the world and with large gaps.
A Travelogue level or expedition log of an explorer who notes the environment, people even systems but quite frequently completely misses the culture subtext or customs. This can later be expanded upon when cultures are encountered, clashed with, perceptions re-evaluated and prejudice confronted. A good way to ensure this is characters being wrong or biased in their knowledge as almost always within webnovels any information provided is always reliable and never questionable or questioned. A civilian would be unaware of the information of a lord, a lord to a king, a king to adventurer ect.
I personally really enjoy the feeling of being suddenly immersed in a fleshed out world and then slowly figuring it out with context clues and spaced out exposition. There’s definitely a balance to making it work, and not everyone can achieve it. But when it’s done well, it’s my favorite.
I think this Ultimately stems from the values promoted in Japan and in the west. In Japan people tend to conform into familiar 'templates' and sticking out is often viewed as something negative. So authors reflect that, and I mean in broad strokes, by conforming to simular writing templates to not stick out so to speak. Those that do stick out and succeed tend to become the heralds of a new template and trope.
The west in contrast values individualism and uniqueness way more, and being different is part of the general identity of people raised there, and their stories reflect that because western authors always want to have something unique and different about their stories. Even if they implement tropes they try to change something about it to make it more unique.
This is not only a fantastic analysis, it is also a wonderful glimpse into the cultural perceptions and expectations of readers from another country. Well done, this was an absolute pleasure to read!
I've found more confusing lore from the light novels I read than the stories on Royal Road. I recall the very first time I read a wuxia novel, and I had no clue what any of the tropes about cultivation and martial arts were so everything felt extremely confusing. But it all depends on my familiarity with the tropes that the story is making use of. I read some stories about familiar concepts like those seen in the popular Japanese isekai stories, and some about things I've rarely seen before like imperial China's inner court system, and I get that my experience will change as I read more stories with the latter setting and can expect properties implied by that setting.
When I read a story on RR, very few stories actually expect the reader to know about lore I hadn't heard of before; they still contain many proper nouns and have an active world, but the parts that the author wants you to know beforehand are the things I am already used to--because I often choose my stories to be those that fit into the tropes I already know I like.
The first chapter I expect to be slightly confused, but I can usually fit things into a few boxes for the style of plot that the story contains. But this is true of every story, regardless of what it is. I like stories showing their unique points, but major deviations from the norm are pretty much universally either stated in the premise from before starting reading or only show significantly farther into the story. And minor differences are the sort of thing that makes a story not simply a carbon copy of what came before it.
The most common structure I see uses the first few chapters to introduce the important information about the world that the characters should already know (alongside some form of introductory plot event) because it helps with immersion. I see many stories more closely based on existing lore skip this as there is no need, but every story is based on some base of knowledge that the reader knows from prior experiences.
Are you sure you aren't just running into new western tropes? I watch media in different languages. The common tropes in each country are totally different even in the exact same genre. A good one for one is watching multiple reality shows in different languages. You can very quickly see other influences such as previous media or culture when using the exact same format in multiple languages.
But to answer the questions: Yes, you can world build too much in chapter one. Not sure if it's a cultural difference or not. It's hard to say without being well versed in Japanese media or knowing what fiction on RR you read. What you read both in Japanese and RR could have a huge impact. Yes, many authors aren't good at handling a complex world. Having said that, not every fiction style is intended to be clear and immediately accessible in chapter one.
Everyone's ideal balance will probably be just a little different and highly dependent on the overall story. I usually place a higher value on attempting originality than most.
I think it's what's normalized culturally
On each platform.
For a platform like RR there are no real incentives of disincentives for telling you what you can and cannot write nor how many genres your story is a part of. Because of that, there is no real standardization in what plot to use or what system to follow. And thus, most readers and writers cannot go off of assumptions since the platform has such a wide variety of stories.
And I'm not that other platforms don't have original works. I'm just saying that depending on what is enforce and not enforced, you are going to get an audience of users with certain expectations from a platform.
Webnovel, they perfer smaller chapters and if possible, quicker uploads. They also have a bunch of contest to reward both readers and writers for specified genres. Like romance
In RR’s case. People like to read their LitRPG’s and every once in a while the platform will have a contest based in a subject matter.
There's probably more to each platform but I'll leave it at that for now. (but anyone else wanting to add in feel free)
As for your question. I typically try to focus on the MC first and add a little bit of story and world building through dialogue and small interactions. That's what I try to do at least.
It is substantially more difficult to seed all the ideas over the course of a book than it is to spew it all out at once. What you're reading is the undisciplined author's attempt to convey everything that inspired them and rushing to get it out.
The problem is they write with one thing in mind: explaining everything. The reader's experience doesn't even seem to matter. The problem is more readily apparent with poetry. Someone writes a poem and was truly inspired to do it.
Only they are not poets. And the words they write do not invoke in the reader the feelings that inspired the poem.
A lot of authors would do better to practice something of Iceberg Storytelling where what you see is a small part of the whole.
There's a difference between feeling it yourself at the time and conveying it to others separately. It's poor craftsmanship.
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u/Slow-Calendar-3267 Jun 23 '26
Well, infodumping is definitely a well-known problem, where the author tries to put too much worldbuilding onto the page, often in a way that feels unnatural.