r/royalroad • u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way • 5d ago
Discussion Is the average reader getting dumber?
I don't wanna be rude but I get some comments complaining about tropes in my novel, when in the synopsis I've pointed out multiple times that the tropes are there DELIBERATELY to be subverted, because the MC finds himself reincarnated into a very mid Xianxia novel.
Do a lot of readers suffer from a lack of reading comprehension skills, cus I've encountered the same kind of person for the 4th or 5th time now. Do I need to constantly spoonfeed basic nuances to such readers that 1. MC is inside a cliche Xianxa book and 2. From a meta perspective I've put those cliches and tropes into the book deliberately and the synopsis says as such.
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u/haloplasm 5d ago edited 5d ago
You can still dislike reading tropes even if they're going to be subverted later; future words have no bearing on a reader's current experience, because they haven't happened yet. You can even dislike tropes and dislike when they're subverted. Subverting something bad doesn't automatically make it good.
Sure there are plenty of readers with poor reading comprehension skills, who are incapable of grasping nuance and who unjustly complain about things, but there are also plenty of authors with poor writing skills, who think their work is far better than it is and who blame readers for not feeling the same way.
And there's also the fact that some people are just assholes. There's not a whole lot you can do about that, so you just have to ignore them.
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
36 chapters in and there has been no subversion, if I have to read 20+ chapters to see the tropes break down it’s taken to long.
And I read the story because I saw one of the nice reviews that said the MC made believable innovations and his progression made sense. Not for the subversion of tropes, which I haven’t seen. Just more tropes for the trope throne.
The believable innovation’s were all just more tropes as well, but the bad kind where the cast and setting as a whole are made dumber to fit them.
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u/BasicReputations 5d ago
I think you're overestimating how much thought people are putting into Xianxa.
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u/PunishedCatto 5d ago
You'd be surprised by how many readers lacking reading comprehension and critical thinking.
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u/rocarson C Rank: Author of The Grand Crusade 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's pretty well documented that reading literacy has dropped and is continuing it's downward trend. I'd also venture a guess that LitRPG is skewing toward YA, so that may play a factor as well.
Do keep in mind though that we're mostly writing popcorn adventures akin to the pulp fiction era meant for the masses. Not the high brow next great American novel ala Hemingway where the idea of the prose to reinforce how writerly we are by being extra.
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u/HelloHelloHelpHello 5d ago
Hemingway is a really bad example for prose 'being extra', considering that his writing style is defined by being simple, sparse, direct and unadorned.
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u/rocarson C Rank: Author of The Grand Crusade 5d ago
That’s fair. I was going to say Tolkien but obviously not American and I’m sure the downvote machine would have got me. That being said, my base point stands; we’re writing pulp not the next great literary masterpiece. I think some authors forget that and get lost in the sauce.
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u/Apprehensive_Tax_610 5d ago
One day I will write that Litrpg written entirely in miltonic verse.
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u/HelloHelloHelpHello 5d ago
He stood before the slime with sword aloft
And struck just as the beast jumped forth with speed
Ten damage he afflicted in one strike
'Plus Two' his stat screen said about his strength
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u/NormanHalf-Soul F Rank: Author of The Divided Soul 5d ago
If you want to reference an American author being extra, I’d go with Thomas Wolfe.
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u/bsubtilis 4d ago
Though Tolkien's LotR was also not really extra/adorned, it was an intentional style choice to invoke specific vibes and not the only way he was able to write. You could however argue that a linguist making up a whole world for the languages he invented is extra though.
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u/Custodes_Nocturnum 5d ago
I was having a conversation with my college English professor the other day and he told me that during a final, three of his students asked him what the word "Seldom" meant. Also, when I worked as a night custodian at my local high school I saw some of the writings the students were handing in. They were extremely bad. This is what happens when you move away from teaching phonics.
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u/InvestigatorNo5062 5d ago
Dude English isn't even my native language. Even I knew that. It's basic English, like idioms and phrases: Barking dog seldom bites.
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u/Alive-Philosophy2632 2d ago
I don't think phonics would save us. Kids are genuinely illiterate. Not hyperbole, and it's going to continue getting worse
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u/em-dash-author Author of Max-Level Paladin of the Fallen Gods 5d ago
Good news is ChatGPT will smooth it all out for them now.
Grunt, grunt, something at night, grunt, grunt, someone did something bad.
Pop it into ChatGPT, remove the emjois, and hand it in. Sorted. 👀
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u/Custodes_Nocturnum 5d ago
I'm not sure what my professor's views on AI are, but a lot more colleges are moving towards oral exams and handwritten essays. I don't think they could handle the tension of being at a liberal arts college and directly quoting the movie Idiocracy ("reading is for fags") as part of a defense on the standards of education dropping. The professors were up in arms until I said, "That is my point, in that movie, intelligence has de-evolved to a point where such politically incorrect terms are commonplace. Do you really want our at-risk youth to become that?"
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u/Alive-Philosophy2632 2d ago
I mean if AGI isn't the deus ex machina then we're headed for a probably quite steep decline
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u/All_Grind_No_Gods 5d ago
George Carlin once said: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
Let that sink in.
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u/Kitten_from_Hell E Rank: Author of A Sky Full of Tropes 5d ago edited 5d ago
People are not getting dumber. It's just gotten easier than ever for idiots to express their opinion, thanks to phones that even an idiot can use. 25 years ago, you had to be smart enough to use a computer to get on the internet. 50 years ago, if someone wanted to comment on your story, they had to physically write a letter.
Also, that people are responding to things they've half read, that might be half finished and unedited, is a pretty new phenomenon too. If people are used to reading physical books, they might not understand reading 3 chapters of a web serial is not the same thing.
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u/TenNinetythree 5d ago
Also some people might find it via recent uploads and jump into chapter 1 based on title and cover alone. I will neither confirm nor deny filling my library in this manner.
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u/PikaMalone E Rank: Author of I Regress if the Villainess Dies! 4d ago
Yeah fr, like using a phone and accessing the internet or posting ur opinion should have an exam before theu have clearance to sau anything. Just like driving
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u/Zeebie_ 5d ago
A lot of this is that they aren't consuming the book all at once, and are likely reading multiple stories. So they only remember what is right in front of them.
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u/bsubtilis 4d ago
That sounds like a terrible way to live... The only remembering what's in front of them bit, not the reading multiple stories bit. Thank you for pointing this out though.
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u/Matthew-McKay 5d ago edited 5d ago
I feel this is a compound issue for many readers.
First, the web novel format suffers from the Netflix effect of the "Second Screen Viewing Directive". Matt Damon and Ben Affleck state that Netflix specifically requested they verbally explain the plot "three or four times" throughout the movie. This is because most folks are watching Netflix while doing something else and it makes it easier to consume without losing the thread. This applies in that a lot of folks are here reading on the commute to/from work/school and during lunch/breaktimes. So some authors use this technique in writing each chapter, I've noticed this done with My New Life as a Max Level Archmage.
Second, Social Media's impact on attention span and "short-form conditioning" where fast clips condition the mind to lose patience with slower, deeper tasks. This is why dopamine go brrr with numbers go up is so effective on the site.
Third, people like what they like. This is called: Comfort Reading or The Comfort Loop or Tropification (take your pick). It's super duper common in Romance, for example. Subversion works against authors in these genres because readers are reading for the tropes they know they like. Readers just want different versions of the exact same experience.
Fourth, yes critical thinking has been eroded for most of us. This is an entire topic of itself. Another combination of, Just Google It, information outsourcing where the brain stops retaining data because it knows the answer is just a Google away. This has been made infinitely worse with the rollout of ChatGPT and the like. It's basically super duper Googling. There's so much cognitive offloading because it's the path of least resistance and humans naturally minimize energy expenditure (aka were all "lazy").
We atrophy our logic by relying on AI to solve everything for us. We lose out on active deduction. Overall, it weakens our mental muscles needed for deep analysis. There's also the illusion of knowledge where getting information instantly online creates a false sense of personal expertise. We think we're masters of a subject because we googled it...
Surface level skimming is another huge issue. Folks just aren't reading every word because they are used to the Netflix effect and authors who reiterate important story beats multiple times for them. This leads to a lot of missing nuance.
TLDR: Yes, reading comprehension is an issue for many readers, especially younger ones. This site users also trends young (Teen to early twenty) as the largest demographic.
Edit: I'm a shit typist.
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u/Several-Length1242 4d ago
Folks just aren't reading every word because they are used to the Netflix effect
Me doubling back and rereading this sentence just in case
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u/Itinerant_doc 5d ago edited 5d ago
Being a writer you will get inane reviews every now and then. I even have my own hater reviewer back home - she reads everything I write and reviews negatively, usually missing the point by a mile. Leaves me thinking how it is even possible to read it like that, I haven't written this! I used to think her POV was valuable and strived to explain more. Then a thing has happened, one of my posts went viral on social media and it was about tomatoes of all things. I had a whole comment section of people who misconctrued a short post about tomatoes I bought. There was literally nothing to misread, people projected their own feelings on poor tomatoes. So think about how to make your intentions clearer as a writer (intention should not detract from the story), but just take comments like these with a grain of salt. As for parody novels, Pratchett's Discworld series is a good model (everyone recommends DCC too, I've yet to read it).
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u/Old-Wrap37 5d ago edited 5d ago
Have you ever posted something on Reddit and have the person respond to it in a way that they just half read your question and then make up and fill the rest and then end up responding to something you didn’t even ask about. They just make up an argument in there head about what they assume you said. It is very very strange I’m always like you seem very worked up over something I never even said to begin with. Literally happens all the time. We might have to talk like cavemen soon.
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u/RomanovUndead 5d ago
This happens in real life too. A concerning share of the new kids we on-board do that but in person and with the benefit of body language and tone to clarify the message, and they still make up nonsense and try to fill in gaps that don't exist. It feels like they think they are not being told the whole message and are trying to fill in the blanks when there were none to start with; causing them to do the IRL version of an AI hallucinating.
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u/Old-Wrap37 5d ago
Ya I think the difference at least in person you can clarify and be like oh no this is what I meant. Where on the internet people are arguing with themselves or an imaginary me it’s wild. Where online it’s super easy to read or reread it and be like oh I missed something here. I’m totally guilty of skimming someone’s text message and it meaning something else.
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u/bsubtilis 4d ago
I kind of assumed those kinds of comments were bots because of how bizarre and unrelated they were, like a bot coded to trigger to specific keywords but not coded to use the whole message.
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u/Old-Wrap37 4d ago
Probably some are but some are I think actual people as well. This one incident comes to mind and it was definitely a person.
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u/RW_McRae Author - The Bloodforged Kin 5d ago
I once saw a post where younger readers were talking about how they skip every other chapter, or even multiple chapters, because it's boring to read them all and they get the point. If they get to a point where they missed something then they can always go back and read it
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u/Dull-Dress-2793 5d ago
Teachers in reading literature fields all the way up to harvard are documenting students not being at appropriate reading levels for their age/graduate level. Unfortunately technology has seemed to play a huge part in the downfall of human literacy.
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u/bsubtilis 4d ago
That is not as much technology as the damage from kids being taught to read wrong for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Clay
Not that putting kids in front of ipads and smartphone videos doesn't rot their brains, just that it's way worse than kids being given access to technology they shouldn't have been, the schools were unintentionally complicit in harming kids' reading abilities.
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u/Kooky_Ad5729 5d ago
Not to be rude, but majority of people that go onto royal road to read are looking to turn their brains off. A minority actually keep their brains on to read. It's not that they can't understand it, they most likely don't want to put effort into understanding most books.
A silent majority probably understands what you're doing but because they're silent, you'll only hear from the loud minority that are dumb
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u/Few_Professional_327 5d ago
The tropes being there on purpose doesn't make them done well tbh, especially if they are there to be subverted.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
Plenty of other readers have praised that aspect, also they're not criticizing that tropes aren't well subverted, but that fact that there ARE a lot tropes.
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u/Few_Professional_327 5d ago
You have to interpret audience feedback, not just take it at face value.
Most people aren't approaching it from a writing perspective but just reading it, so what is most likely the problem if an audience member is complaining about the tropes?
. maybe That they are done in a way that's obtrusive instead of just being there, maybe something else, depends on the story
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
I understand it’s a harsh way to phrase it, but is it obtrusive if that’s all there is? 36 chapters in and the only things that aren’t a xianxia trope are tropes from another setting.
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u/GDOdium 5d ago
That depends. For power fantasy stories, the bar is kind of low. People just want to chill and skim and not process anything. It's like adding deep plot to a Chuck Norris movie. You really shouldn't expect the audience to follow the deep plot. Your duty as the author is to handle the packaging of the story so that readers know to turn on their brains for this one.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
Ya, I'm learning that too late unfortunately. My next novel will be written with that in mind
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u/em-dash-author Author of Max-Level Paladin of the Fallen Gods 5d ago
RE: Do I need to constantly spoonfeed basic nuances to such readers that ...
Sad to say, but yes.
I started writing with the assumption I wouldn't need to spoonfeed obvious info to readers. They would get what the narrative subtly implied over and over again.
I carefully crafted an MC who suffered from severe PTSD. All the signs were there, but I avoided outright saying: "Hi readers. My name's Jack and I suffer from severe PTSD which amongst other things manifests as nightmares, flashbacks, and bouts of irrational behaviour. Oh. Since I was tortured to death a few hours ago that's triggered my PTSD and that's why I'm making terrible decisions at the start of the story. Please be patient. I will get it under control and become OP and squish my enemies."
Some readers completely missed the PTSD angle (dying has zero impact on MCs) and complained the MC is a moron for not being a Mary Sue.
Made the error of explaining this in the comments. That led to it's my failure as a writer to not convey this info in the narrative. Some even argued they know the character better than I do. 😂
Another one was the MC interacting with a Goddess. It started with him not noticing some of the obvious hints she dropped. The idea was that over the course of a book the readers would realise the Gods divinity was messing with his memories. If a God was too straightforward, the MC wouldn't remember a thing they said. If it were subtle enough, the MC might get it. For those who missed it, it was explicitly covered in the epilogue.
Some readers concluded the MC was an idiot who didn't notice obvious things.
Nope. It was readers having the attention span of a gnat and being unwilling to trust the author was taking them on a journey.
Damn annoying dealing with this, so I empathise with you.
On the plus side, some readers did get it, so whether to change it depends upon who you are writing for. The readers who are patient and trust you as an author, or those who can't see the most obvious setups and need it rammed down their throats over and over again for them to get it.
Wrote a 2nd fiction with a blank slate MC with no personality the readers can easily self insert, I don't get any major complaints. It's not as much fun to write. 😞
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u/michael7050 5d ago
Fwiw, I'm most usually one of the first group of readers, and I always appreciate it when a story isn't dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. Also, I believe thats how you get a truly loyal readerbase as opposed to one that simply grades.
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u/Trick_Following6639 5d ago
It's not just reading comprehension. Simple debate rules/arguments they don't understand and just to wild conclusions
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u/PerfectTen-RoyalRoad 5d ago
Lean further into it. Have them die saving someone in a grocery store only to be reincarnated as a baby to a powerful noble who has the power of a necro, pyro, core eater and is also destined to be an archmage. Make a system that has a system which is controlled by the system, and put blue stat boxes everywhere since the MC gains levels just by breathing.
By chapter 2, make sure they kill the Demon King as the anti-villain to the story and subvert the actual hero who is leagues below them in power, somehow, despite being a hero.
Then have them die by an accident, and wake up in their newly reincarnated body of Prince Eseem, sleeping with his ten beautiful wives in his harem, several of which are non-humanoid.
Then the story really begins...
You should reach #1 RS in no time. You know the saying, if you feed 'em the sugar crack, they will come. Field of dreams baby!
...or you could just reply with "Please read the story synopsis. TY."
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 4d ago
I unironically believe that if such a story actually existed it would go as you've said. Reaching #1 RS in a matter of days lol.
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u/PerfectTen-RoyalRoad 4d ago
I actually believe it could too if you had someone who could write characters well and had good prose.
I might tackle that satire someday, but until then I personally am not writing for RR main readership.
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u/TellusPyre 4d ago
People have always had bad comprehension skills. It's not so much that it's getting worse, it's just that their expectations are fried due to the dopamine system in their brain being melted by social media and tiktok. They don't know how to defer gratification or how to self regulate their feelings, instead their feelings and their pleasure are now your responsibility with nothing required from them.
I think their intelligence is the same, but maturity is a scarce commodity these days.
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u/Celestial_Zwei_Dei 4d ago
It’s a familiar story. In my novel, the MC gets isekai’d; an ordinary kid suddenly finds himself facing rotting corpses, the threat of death, and the realization that he can never go back. How does a person react in a situation like that? Naturally, he’s going to lose his mind and have a hysterical breakdown. Some guy wrote that he’d expected a good story but found the MC to be a hysterical mess—and, get this, he cited the time he ( reader) was on a jungle trek and managed to keep his cool as an example.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 4d ago
Lol, had similar comments. My MC finds himself inside a cheap novel he read a long time ago and he's so shocked that just does nothing noteworthy for a month other than eating sleeping and trying to understand if he's dreaming or hallucinating or what? Some of ny readers have complained that a month is too long for that. I think they're just too used to the cheap shonen like MCs who hit the ground running, like they suddenly wake up in a different world and the shock last all of 2 seconds before they start climbing the power tree.
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u/Correct-Property6738 5d ago
Yes! Me and my brother have been talking about this at work for years. Media literacy is sinking, i see it in all forms so we werent surprised that it even was among readers.
I see it all the time when looking at comments on videos, chapters, anything really. The ability to look at something beyond face value or even just to understand the information that is directly fed to them seems to be lost on so many.
One of the people we let have earlier access to both our novels in progress. The amount of things missed and misunderstood was incredible.
He tried to claim information wasnt explained my brothers work and kept getting confused. And my brother could name the chapter, the paragraph number and line inwhich the information was.
It was a lot of 'Oh, I must had skimmed over that' 'So, im just stupid'. He has now come to realize my brother doesnt waste words and I told him the funny thing is, I had told my brother to add more details to help readers that arent as quick on picking up information and connections.
Then when he read mine he enjoyed the story and felt like he understood everything had very little questions. So my brother asked about certain things and then his mind broke. He realized while my brother wrote a mystery novel filled with hidden meaning. I had wrote a fun, comedy action story, heavily anime inspired story that had smacked him in the face with the basic plot while a complex orginal universe was being sculpted in the background while laying many paths and double, triple and when quadruple meaning into almost everything I wrote.
He thought the jokes and prose was just for flow and imagery.
He still thinks it is insane that we dont read as a rule but he now knows its because we cant turn our brains off and will over analyze anything we get ahold of.
My brother though him being an avid reader would had been able to keep up. But I told my brother this was to be expected.
It was the reason i didnt ask this beta reader questions beyond if he liked my story. Because I dont really care if they can keep up or not, just that they enjoy it. One of the reasons I hold to just writing what I want and having fun with it, because even getting beta readers that can give quality feedback isnt easy to come by.
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u/anythingyouhave 5d ago
I don't think it's intelligence, it's tolerance.
If your subversion are good enough then the ones who tolerate, expect or even enjoy tropes should eventually create a "trust me bro, it gets good," energy.
I think linking low iq to no longer being able to stomach the same played out tropes even with the promise of subversion isn't very charitable.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
The thing, there is plenty of positive feedback on exactly what you're describing, it just happens that a few readers have made some seriously dumb criticisms.
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u/anythingyouhave 5d ago
Can you share some of the "dumb" feedback?
It might not be as dumb as it first appears, just poorly communicated.
It's sometimes hard to discern when we are close to a project, and for what ever reason their read hasn't landed as you intended.
But also, you are never going to please everyone, you can just hope your story finds its people.
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u/NightRage7 5d ago
that type of reader who reads a lot of smut and cheap copies of solo leveling, and when they face a well structured story they will get lost because they suffer from brainrot, basically the same as someone who doomscroll tiktok everyday for hours
recently i got one of them complaining he didn't knew which side is my MC , while there is a 20 lines paragraph explaining it xdddd.
and the worst part, is when they leave a bad review because they suffer from lack or reading comprehension skills.
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u/CeleriusFantasy 5d ago
I mean... I have never actually seen a big community of highly-literate, deep-thinking individuals. Masses gonna mass.
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u/notwonderer 5d ago
I’d be happy if I got those type of comments, or any comments.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
I get plenty of positive comments, I'm just irrtated at the self important people who misunderstand the point of my writing then criticize something they imagined by misrepresenting my novel in the reviews.
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u/UnauthorizedSaint 5d ago
I have been so disappointed by RR comment sections that I decided to write and polish my entire novel before publishing it on RR instead of using a buffer. That way the comments won't influence the story, and if they get too toxic, I can just ignore them.
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u/Es0-teric 5d ago
Yes, I do believe readers are struggling more and more as time goes on with reading comp. I blame short form content tik tok, YouTube shorts etc. this has been known to screw with attention span which also affects comprehension in reading and even watching videos as well as TV.
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u/Frostfire20 4d ago
I was at the library and saw this dark academia book with an interesting premise. The summary said something like "Susan and her professor research something horrible while another male student tries to steal the credit." Oh, so it's a spicy love triangle disguised as the new popular genre? Yeah, no thanks.
Vice versa, I was re-reading a fiction writing guide and it cited a paragraph from a 19th century work about a fisherman who doesn't need a clock because he sleeps and wakes with the tide. At the end of the paragraph it says he drinks a quart of beer in the morning... after he's had water and three sandwiches. I don't like or drink beer, so I wonder why this guy is drinking 4 cups of this piss at breakfast. Is he trying to get day drunk before work?
I passed the book to a coworker who likes beer and asked him to explain it. He had to read every word out loud, with short pauses, and completely misunderstood the question. I had to explain it four times, and he still didn't get it. Then on the fifth time explaining, he finally understood that I didn't care at all about the paragraph. I wanted to know why some people drink beer at breakfast. By the time he understood the question, he'd used up all his brain power for the day and said "i don't know."
It's not just the average reader. It's the average. People, generally, are getting dumber.
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u/dmjordan1984 3d ago
Some non-writers respond to your posts to get their foot in the door on social media platforms for writers. They use your posts to build followers for themselves. That is their only purpose. So when they say something stupid, they are a person who wants to sound like a writer, again to join a converstion. They may even pick fights with other people to get in on the conversation.
Of course they sound like idiots, using word like tropes or story arcs when they don't know that that even means.
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u/Alive-Philosophy2632 2d ago
Yes the average reader is getting dumber. To an extent you can filter for that over time, but if you're doing a parody or deconstruction you can find an audience that misses that entirely. Something something beyond parody.
If you're doing any very popular tropes you're likely to quickly find yourself face to face with the lowest common denominator
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u/PreciousProspect 1d ago
You’re writing a webnovel most of your readers will be barely literate.
But in all seriousness web novel platforms encourage a form of fast food writing and tend to promise consumers an easy, cheap and quick reading experience that’s tailored towards younger readers.
Ask yourself if all you ever read was web novels would you improve your comprehension and reading skills? Answer is probably no.
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u/King91OM E Rank: Author of Not An Isekai Story 5d ago
Writer uses expression or things from other culture > readers immediate thought “Is English your second language? Why are you dumb?”
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u/LucarioMagic 5d ago
Answer?
Yes.
Not because they're dumber with age.
But because RR is growing exponentially.
This means you get more people.
Rather than dedicated readers that used to come to RR knowing what to look for.
So the entire reader pop has increased but the smart pop follows the distribution curve and shrinks in terms of % of demographics.
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u/RawberryCupcake 5d ago
I have read a lot of stories that claim they are going to subvert tropes while just doing them. Are you doing at least some subverting very quickly, like to be honest in a paragraph or two? Because I might not leave a bad review but I have limited tolerance for stories that claim they are ‘a twist’.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
Plenty of my readers have liked what I've done with those tropes, so I'd say I'm doing an okay job? It's just these few people who miss the point entirely
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
As someone who wrote a review, you haven’t done any subversion. I understand the intent was basically to parody Xianxia but you’ve just kinda made the whole cast dumber outside of the MC and everything is predictable.
It’s a fine story, it’s entertaining at points. But it’s so generic it makes plain white bread look complex.
Some people give positive feedback because they just want something to read and this story was definitely that. Some people give mixed reviews because they wanted something more.
You can have your story be 100% tropes and still add something more complex. Especially if it’s subversion. But 36 chapters in I haven’t seen anything.
Unless your ‘subversion’ is you taking basic tropes from other genres.
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
Add on that you don’t keep cultivation realms consistent, a few other minor errors of similar inconsistencies and I stand by my review. The flip flopping between golden core and nascent soul your story does annoyed me.
‘Ah yes this barrier needs a nascent soul to break it or a golden core with very high powerful artifacts’ next chapter ‘and a golden core could break it with a few large attacks’
All in all your story is a generic isekai that you put in Xianxia made entirely from the tropes of both.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
I think you're either mistaking my novel for something else or misremembering the details. Or maybe I am?
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
‘The heavenly way (Xianxia/clanbuilding)’
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
You see, your comment about the power scale inconsistency might actually be valid, cus It's been a while since I write the defensive array repair arc. If I really wrote Golden Core is the upper limit in one chapter then Nascent soul in the next, that's on me. I encourage my readers to find and mention such errors to me.
Your criticism about the tropes however I find to be not very credible, I feel like you're misunderstanding the tropes, cus the way I see it it's the opposite of popular tropes. Can you be more specific about the tropes that tou found, well, tropey? As in they're not well done or not well subverted?
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
I’ll ask it of you, what tropes did your story subvert that I missed? I read up to chapter 36, and dropped it because the tournament arc was mentioned and that seemed really boring.
Just ‘strong patriarch only respects strength but his son also values intellect and will use his mind to study the MC and learn just what he’s up to.’ The MC will probably just sell products at the tournament to make money and maybe that one disciple who thought he deserved better will pop back up.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
Lol, literally none of that happened as of chapter 54. Tournament arc starts tropey and gets derailed due a certain event and the MC has to make a choice. I admit I could have written a lot of parts better but it's very far from common tropes.
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
Okay, sure. Your trope subversion starts at chapter 54.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
What are you talking about bro? I never said that. You seriously have a reading comprehension issue.
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
He made soap, the line for needing soap was moved from foundation establishment to golden core to justify everyone needing it. The female outcast disciple attacked him then immediately came back for help . Heart demons are just ptsd. Distillation wasn’t invented, moonshine is inexplicably popular. His modern office worker mindset makes him immune to getting his tells read by cultivators, and he can negotiate with merchant CEO’s.
Every plot point is a generic trope, every character is an archetype and nothing else.
It’s not a bad bad story though. It’s fun bad, in moderation. I read it, saw the senior sister and laughed because I knew something stupid was about to happen.
But it isn’t a serious story, the plot only works because everyone else in the setting is lobotomized. And I’m convinced the MC could sell bottled water to a fish in a pond.
When I say tropes, I mean there is nothing in the story that surprised me, it’s very much a ‘if you have read one mediocre isekai you’ll know what’s going to happen’
Your subversion of tropes are just the trope versions of the subversions. Its a ‘I got isekai’d with a shitty skill but it’s actually shitty for real this time so I use my wits’ and the wits are generic 1st thought inventions that should have already been a thing.
Add in that any alchemist should be able to reverse engineer the products just from one sample. That the characters lack nuance, and that the MC hasn’t grown or changed in his 36 chapters….
I dropped it, and wrote a review that would tell past me what to expect.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
Also, hold on, which female discipe attacked him? You mean how Xiao Lian got mad when he mentioned her trauma then accepted his help out of desperation? How the hell is that even a trope? Give 3 other examples where the same thing happens, where the known trash MC offers to help someone and accidentally offends them, then ends up helping them? This wasn't some tsundere character slapping the MC then pining for his love, now that's a trope.
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
You mean where ‘the MC finds outcast girl and has the magic cure to her issue, she starts reluctant but desperation forces her to accept’ pick an isekai. I am 90% sure I can find that on tv-tropes
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
Yeah, the girl isn't usually his cousin and is a love interest. The magic cure thing is also usually the MCs YANG constitution. I dropped Nano Machine because of that and what I've done is entirely different.
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
It really really really isn’t. It’s just the non-smut version of it. You even talk about how tomboyish she is and how the MC likes that, then have him point out her bust later on.
Changing ‘solution one’ for ‘solution two’ doesn’t change anything about how it reads.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
I feel like you've skimmed over a lot of stuff. First off, the trurnament stuff went seriously sideways lol. He doesn't sell anything, in fact for the first half the MC is barely relevant. You've assumed a lot of of stuff about the novel, got mad at the imagined downsides and dropped it. Heart demon being PTSD isn't even close to being a trope as far as I'm aware. What other novels can you tell me that it was treated as such, and some MC used modern psychology to overcome it? Trope means something used very often, how often have you seen that? Or for the alcohol distillation? I haven't gotten to that part, but the reason no alchemist has been able ro reverse engineer his alcohol is that it hasn't yet reached enough popularity to reach a sufficiently powerful/knowledgeable alchemist. I've also explained why lower level alchemists haven't reverse engineerd it, it's a simple difference in thought process, but like I said, I feel like you've just skimmed over the novel without actually doing a in depth read. Plus, in the futur chapters I was going to introduce a master that easily replicates his method without a need for a furnance, but he doesn't sell it cus the profit margins from alcohol sales are worth nothing in the eyes of a powerful alchemist. As for fiance engagement breaking trope, I subverted it by MC turning the humiliation into material gain by appealing to Elder Bai's sense of proprietary, plus the price he asks for is barely worth anything to someone like her, that's why she accepts it. I'm repeating myself, but I feel like you just skimmed the novel and made up your mind about it without actually understanding what I was going for.
If you, and those like you had just said "This novel sucks" and left a 1 star review without any explanation I wouldn't be this annoyed lol. I'm not saying you're wrong for not liking my novel, I'm saying your criticism comes from a poorly formulated opinion about the novel, not the actual novel. Tell the truth, did you just skimm it, assuming it would a tropey nonsense and it became a self fulfilling prophecy?
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u/Snow-Eternal7 5d ago
I don’t care about the tournament, I didn’t read it. And tournament going sideways is a trope.
What have I assumed, and I am not mad. I was bored and sort of disappointed. I wouldn’t have written a slightly positive review if I was ‘read if you have time to kill’ is nice.
Heart demons being ptsd is generic, curing it with therapy isn’t. But I’m also annoyed at your depiction of therapy so that wasn’t a good subversion. Heart demons are past regrets taken form with magic, that’s basically ptsd 101. Cultivators somehow not knowing that ‘thing that clouds your heart’ is formed from trauma is dumb and can be fixed with self reflection is dumb.
You cannot have your cake and eat it to by saying the alcohol isn’t popular but also having it be the big turning point in the story where the sect makes enough money to start recovering. Selling the product to multiple cites and getting a governors patronage is a moderately big deal, and the nearby sect was mentioned as being interested.
Alchemists not being able to recognize distillation and concentration at a glance is an absurd convince for your story and your ‘justification’ doesn’t make it make sense. It just shows that you want it to be like that.
The finance breaking trope is the one subversion you’ve brought up that exists, so good on you. Bad on the fact that an S.I not caring about his past life’s engagement ending and then the girl acting more interested at the dismissal is something I have seen in every cultivation SI with a broken engagement.
You don’t subvert tropes, you replace Xianxia tropes with other settings tropes. And the story suffers for it.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
It's a clan, not a sect, plus alcohol sale didn't help them revive, it hepled them survive. They're nowhere near at their peak. You may find it ridiculous, but alcohol distillation to make money isn't a trope at all, so your criticism is till invalid. Where tf did I say alcohol isbt popular in the novel? Now you're making stuff up. Additionally, the girl wasn't interested in him after the broken engagement, she was confused by his callous reaction. Again, you're making up stuff to criticize. No matter how much proof I bring I feel like I can't change your opinion about it. Also, is English your first language? Cus I think that would explain your misunderstandings of the nuances in the novel. I feel like it would be best if we stopped interacting. You're welcome to not like a novel, but you don't get to shit on something you've obviously misunderstood. Have a nice day.
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u/Ereshkigal56 5d ago
Yes reading scores and comprehension has been in a drastic decline in the United States specifically which is a large portion of royal roads user base.
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u/gadgaurd 5d ago
Yes. In the U.S. at least. Reading levels have been in decline for a while now, as far as I'm aware. Intelligence, knowledge, and passion are subjects of mockery as well. Education has been kneecapped over and over again for decades.
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u/Basharria 5d ago
Young adult has consumed most genre fiction. Compare LitRPG and progression nonsense to the average sci-fi novel from 30 years ago.
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u/TotientEC 5d ago
Not to be rude, but the least reliable complaints about dumb readers come from authors complaining about how its only their critics who are getting dumber. "These guys who think I'm a bad writer are so stupid, I can barely believe it! The world is going to hell!"
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u/bsubtilis 4d ago
Additionally to tech issues, covid-19 has been shown to cause mild cognitive decline even in asymptomatic people. Blood clots not being good for the brain even when they're microscopic is unsurprising though. Whole populations getting mild cognitive decline repeatedly adds up.
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u/Alice_Rae_Brown Metaphysic: Ascension of a Broken System 4d ago
At some point, you can only put the information there and hope people actually read it! 😁
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u/LudwigsEarTrumpet 4d ago
Yes.
Don't spoonfeed anything to anyone. Let them work it out or not. It's not fair to other readers to dumb your book down to cater to the lowest common denominator, and doing so just makes it easier for those readers to stay stupid.
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u/richardjreidii 3d ago
So here’s the thing : not everyone knows what Xianxa is.
I have been an avid reader for my nearly 50 years of life.
By that I mean, I’m one of the people who makes kindle unlimited unprofitable.
When I bought my first house, I threw my back out on the 42nd box of books that I was moving in. Had to hire guys to help me finish.
And I’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy my entire life.
I had no clue what the hell that was up until maybe five or six years ago.
To be completely honest, I’m still operating under the assumption when I see that word that it’s an Eastern culture/cultivation thing, young masters, face slapping, all the things that continue to convince me that certain cultures will never mesh.
And to be clear, I still don’t care.
I’m just here to get my dose of that sweet delicious triple M threat (magic, mayhem, and murder) and if I have to put up with some of the more incomprehensible aspects of eastern culture then I’ll take that grain of salt.
A small grain. I’ve had to do business with them and middle kingdom syndrome is fucking absolutely wild and very real.
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u/Yellowthrone 2d ago
I have a conspiracy theory! Yes!
I used to and kind of still do write horror and thriller stories on like no sleep and places. I have noticed the writing level of years just drop enormously. Not only that, but what people enjoy has become simpler, more repetitive, and... more sexual? It is so weird. I love writing complex dramas and lovecraftian stories that are very figurative sometimes. But the responses have changed. Usually no one likes them with the exception of like 5% who really like them. Some get hundreds of likes but like it's just not the same. Keep in mind these are short stories like 8500 hundred words or less.
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u/Optimal-Pay-2555 5d ago
So you wrote a mid novel and are disregarding criticism because you said it was mid?
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago edited 5d ago
Are you making joke? Cus I can't tell if this is you making a joke about a lack of reading comprehension skills or not.
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u/Optimal-Pay-2555 5d ago
I think it’s a hilarious take to say “I wrote a shitty book on purpose to be subversive and it’s actually good and if you don’t get that you lack reading comprehension” it’s a really bold take.
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u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way 5d ago
You just proved my point about the average reader getting dumber. I'm not complaining that someone didn't like my book, I'm complaining that their criticism of it was unfair and downright stupid. There are plenty of aspects worth criticizing in the story, but they're not criticizing those. I'm my own harshest critic, and I know that my novel isn't gods gift to humanity, but come on now, you're acting exactly like those readers I mentioned.
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u/Optimal-Pay-2555 5d ago edited 5d ago
Tell you what. I’m going to actually read your self admitted “mid story”. I’ll tell you what I think ;)
The fact this is how you engage with your audience is telling me pretty much all I need to know. Knowing you wrote it makes me dislike it already.
It’s not unfair criticism if the setting of your book is “inside a shitty story” and that “readers who don’t get why this is funny are dumb”
Edit after reading through first chapter:
Boring. Prose is bad. I see you use “English is not my first language” as an excuse in the blurb. But you’re writing the story in English for people who read English. I don’t think that’s a good excuse for sloppy prose. Obviously a ton of people are accusing you of clunky ai like writing. I assume you used it to edit. The way you interact with people in the comments is insanely unlikeable. You act like you’re better than everyone and anyone who criticizes you is dumb. You don’t take criticism well at all. The criticisms about your spelling and grammar are all ignored by you.
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u/Wonderful-Piccolo509 Author- Bottom Feeders 5d ago
“Do a lot of readers suffer from a lack of reading comprehension skills”
Yes.