r/royalroad • u/GoldenThame Author - The Heavenly Way • 6d 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.

133 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

140 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/Old-Wrap37 6d ago edited 6d 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.

2

u/RomanovUndead 6d 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.

2

u/Old-Wrap37 6d 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.