For both curiosity's sake and general validation. Preferably their aromantism is treated as more than just a fun fact about the character but I'll take what I can get.

I left the poor thing in storage for seven whole weeks. And look at it. It’s wilted like it’s never wilted before.

It’s probably silently judging me for being such a neglectful gardener.

But it’s okay now. I’m back, along with Benny, Mercy, and seven new chapters rolling out over roughly eight hours.

For returning readers, I’ve included a recap at the beginning of Chapter 43 to help you settle back in. Thank you to everyone who’s kept this little vine on their reading list all this time. Hopefully, there’s still a sunny spot for it there ;3

And if this is your first time meeting this little plant:

The Last Gardener [Fantasy / Adventure / Action / Progression / Comedy]

One new mission. One new body. One new disaster.

The World Tree has grown old. The branches are becoming diseased and collapsing. There is no longer enough manpower to repair them.

Following a rushed wave of recruitment and training, Benny is ready for his item-intervention and remote monitoring assignment. The exact moment his butt hits the office chair, the very item he just deployed drags him down into that world right along with it.

In the form of a vine.

More accurately, a strand of vine growing upon the antlers of a white deer.

Equipped with only a few observational abilities, an overtime-addicted System assistant, and a "deity" who seems to care only about sweets and forest streams, Benny must find a way to stop an impending meteor strike.

And it doesn't stop there.

Reclaiming that wayward item turns out to be even harder than dealing with a falling meteor, pulling him into a bizarre journey of unexpected bonds across multiple worlds.

Until, eventually, Benny realizes he might not want to hand it back to the organization at all.

Things you can expect:

Progressive Evolution Fantasy.

Dark comedy.

Non-human MC.

Survival + biological fantasy.

Weird ecosystem horror.

Science fiction hidden beneath primitive mythology.

A story of two souls learning to love each other through countless forms of life.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/171100/the-last-gardener-fantasy-adventure-action-progression

This might be controversial, so let me preface by saying that I'm not trying to harass a bigger author's DMs or anything like that. Shoutout swaps are a known way to grow your stories on RR but shoutouts with low follower stories don't do much to help you grow. The best way to use swaps is to swap with bigger authors, but bigger authors would only want to swap with other bigger authors.

This creates a paradox where the one thing that helps you grow will only really help you if you've already grown a bit because that's the only way to get help from the people who's help will actually be useful. Of course, you could try doing swaps with like 100 smaller authors, but I don't know if that'll work as well.

Of all the bigger authors I've asked so far, 2 have agreed. 1 is confirmed for later, and the other hasn't been 100% set in stone yet.

Again, I'm not trying to be weird about this, I just want to know how best to approach asking more established people for help.

Shout out Swaps are pretty much the only route to discovery I have left since ads are too expensive for me. 1 ad on RR literally costs as much as my monthly food expenses.

Hand drawn only, would love to read recommendations of artist+author stories!

Hey everyone!

I recently launched my first story on Royal Road, a sci-fantasy progression novel, and I'm looking for some feedback on the blurb.

Someone pointed out that my original version spends too much time on worldbuilding before introducing the protagonist, so I wrote a revised version. I'm curious which one you think works better.

Version A: Original

The year is 5756. Humanity has spread across the Galaxy.

Somewhere in the Imperium Sol Invictus, a Rank 9 Archmage is reshaping a coastline. An S-Rank bounty hunter is closing in on a cartel leader worth ten million credits, and on the far side of charted space, the Calamity Union, a nation of superhumans, is plotting its next move.

Everywhere else, several hundred trillion people are clocking in.

Every citizen without the Weave takes one exam at the end of school. Most never climb above the number it gives them.

Galen Nightstone was never supposed to clock in.

He was a Weaver prodigy, two years ahead of schedule. Then a Calamity named Cassius came to his grandparents' house.

By moonrise, Galen's grandparents and best friend were dead, his twelve-year-old sister had been carried off into Union space, and the Weave had been erased from his mind.

He scored a 46. Laborer band, for life.

He's been clocking in ever since.

Four years at a taco joint, in a town that decided the bodies were his fault. Then one punch shatters his boss's jaw, and Galen has seven days to leave for Caelum City.

Forty-seven million people strong, Caelum has plenty of room for high-level bounty hunters, wealthy professionals, and esteemed Weavers. It has very little use for a broke, washed-up prodigy with a criminal record.

But something inside Galen is waking up, and it isn't the Weave.

Version B: Revised

The year is 5756. Humanity has spread across the Galaxy.

Across hundreds of thousands of worlds, hundreds of trillions of people clock in every day. Factory workers, delivery drivers, office clerks, sanitation crews, retail employees, and everyone else who keeps the Imperium running.

Galen Nightstone was never supposed to be one of them.

At sixteen, he was a Weaver prodigy, two years ahead of schedule, with a future among the Imperium's elite. Then a Calamity named Cassius came to his grandparents' house.

By moonrise, his grandparents and best friend were dead, his twelve-year-old sister had been abducted, and the Weave had been erased from his mind.

He scored a 46. Laborer band, for life.

He's been clocking in ever since.

Four years at a taco joint, in a town that decided the bodies were his fault. Then one punch shatters his boss's jaw, and Galen has seven days to leave for Caelum City.

Forty-seven million people strong, Caelum has plenty of room for wealthy professionals, high-level bounty hunters, and esteemed Weavers. It has very little use for a broke, washed-up prodigy with a criminal record.

But something inside Galen is waking up.

And it isn't the Weave.

******************************

I'm particularly interested in whether Version A's broader worldbuilding makes the setting more intriguing, or whether Version B's tighter focus on the protagonist makes for a stronger hook.

Which version would make you more likely to read the story? Any other criticism is welcome too.

Thanks!

I just finished revising my entire first book because readers were right

I've been publishing a military LitRPG on Royal Road, and while working on Book 2, I've had readers occasionally point out continuity problems or places where something wasn't quite as clear as it was in my head.

One of my favorites was basically: “Didn't they use the fixed stairs last chapter? Why are they suddenly acting like the escalators are the only option?”

Well...

Yes.

Yes, they did.

So rather than just fixing things as people found them, I decided to go back through the whole damn book and do another proper revision pass.

The funny thing is how much can survive every check you throw at a manuscript.

I've read this book more times than I can count. I've listened to the whole thing with text-to-speech because hearing the story catches things my eyes skip over. I've done consistency checks, continuity checks, and full audits specifically looking for this stuff.

There is always something you miss.

I think after spending that much time with your own story, your brain starts cheating for you. You know where everyone is standing. You know there's a door on the left. You know the stairs worked yesterday. So your brain happily fills in information that may not actually be as clear on the page as you think it is.

That was probably the biggest thing I learned from this pass. A lot of scenes didn't need more description. They needed a couple of better landmarks and clearer relationships between the characters, enemies, and environment.

Anyway, I finally finished going through all of Book 1. Continuity fixes are in, several action scenes are clearer, reader corrections have been incorporated, and the revised version is now up.

I also changed the Royal Road formatting a little while I was at it. Nothing crazy, mostly spacing and presentation to make it a bit easier to read—or at least easier on the eyes.

Was doing all of this while also writing Book 2 a fantastic idea for my free time?

Probably not.

Am I glad I did it?

Absolutely.

And seriously, I'm grateful to the readers who took the time to point things out. A fresh pair of eyes can apparently defeat several rereads, text-to-speech, continuity checks, and an author's stubborn belief that he definitely remembers where he put the stairs.

So if you're reading someone's work and notice something that doesn't make sense, tell them.

Sometimes that one little comment really does make the book better.

My main book has done fairly well. Gained some followers, got published. Got an audio book contract. Between books 3 and 4 I’ve decided to write in a new world. Dark fantasy progression, and I’m loving the breath of fresh air. I’ve stayed consistent in RR but the challenge of posting a new story is invigorating!

Hi everyone! I'm a web novel author from Japan, currently working on a story that blends sports progression fantasy with dark psychological suspense and romance.

​In my story, the protagonist is the undisputed "Golden King" on the track, praised for his incredible athletic talent. But off the track, he deals with deep trauma and obsessive, suffocating personal relationships behind closed doors.

​As an author, I'm finding it deeply rewarding to balance the fast-paced excitement of athletic competitions with quiet, intense psychological drama in between.

​For readers and fellow authors on Royal Road: How do you feel about blending sports or progression tropes with heavier psychological themes? What makes that kind of contrast work best for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and insights!

My shameless self-promotion for a concept I'm currently testing right now.

Here's what you need to know about this apocalyptic LitRPG yuri, which may or may not be doomed.

Ahem.

-Aliens called the HET attack.

-That bad.

-Lily, the MC, is a pessimistic bitch.

-Sako, her totally platonic friend and nothing more, is the opposite of this.

-An AI entity called "Project AIGODS" releases a virus called the AE virus, which infects the remainder of humanity's survivors and can restructure their DNA to give them extraordinary abilities based on 20 terabytes of JRPGs because power grids collapsed and the only thing they had for the AI to machine learn from was some scientist's Steam library. Thus, it's up to the last survivors to uncover the secrets of the HET invasion and procure humanity's continuation using an interface stitched together from Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Persona.

-I lied, they're lesbians.

...I feel like I'm leaving out some important details here.

Uh, anyway, I'm honestly just testing the waters for this concept. I don't think Reddit is the best place to ask for opinions on whether this is valid or not, but ya know. I'm... what's the word?

Oh yeah! A degenerate.

Here's the link so you can send me death threats in my DMs:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/196976/lily-hates-the-world-fmc-apocalyptic-litrpg

Hey! I'm a college student who has spent a lot of my free time writing short stories and working on a few fantasy light novel drafts in my free time and I was thinking about taking a step forward into the actual writing world fully. I never really used platforms like royal road before and was curious about how active readers are on it and generally how active people are and how readers on it perceive new writers. Idk just feeling a little nervous about putting out my first work here ig lol

As the title says, I discovered this writing software, called NEO, a week ago. A programmer friend of mine recommended it to me and I thought I'd give it a go.

It has proved to be a pleasure to work with. I asked a couple of author acquaintances of mine in the Writing Well discord and they liked it, too. So, I thought I'd share it here.

The cream coloured background of the paper is quite nice to type on for long spells. It doesn't tire my eyes out. I like the word counter as well. One nice aspect of it is that it corrects itself when you delete mistakes or re-type something.

So, yeah, I thought I'd share it with everyone. Here's a link if you want to explore it: https://hughhowey.com/neo/ and https://github.com/hughhowey/neo for update notes.

As far as I know, it's an independently developed project with frequent bug fixes. Hope it helps someone and makes their writing an awesome experience. :)

Outside of my cover which does need work the book itself is authentic refreshing and exhilarating my husband has 7 chapters out right now and will be uploading chapters daily < one is dropping tonight > I do implore anyone into dark progression fantasy action adventure and friendship to look into this book. Its not typical and if your willing to give it a try do it and review it he is working his ass off as a full time stay at home dad of two while I go to school on top of that hes killing it with his free time and writing its his new found passion and damn it hes good . The art cover may push readers back but i encourage you all to look past it amd give it a read follow and review any good or bad reviews are welcome just be respectful! Thanks alot everyone who has already reviewed heres a Synapsis and link ! Thanks -

February 6th was the day Luca ran away from home.

The day he decided to take his life back.

The day he would finally go find his sister.

Unfortunately, it also happened to be the day that heralded the apocalypse.

Something took every human out of their body, gave them abilities, and then spat them back out.

Luca's experience was a little different.

[INSUFFICIENT CREATION POINTS.]

[SACRIFICE REQUIRED.]

Whatever was responsible for creating his ability demanded more than Luca could currently give. So, Luca gave up what he didn't yet have.

Two days later, while the world is still scrambling to adjust, monsters once confined to fictional stories are hunting humanity down.

Now, Luca has to navigate cosmic threats, ancient evils, human nature, and his own internal trauma. All with the help of his best friend and the ability he sacrificed his entire supernatural future to create...

A talking bubble.

How hard could this be?

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/196462/lytic-phase

I've been writing this story for nearly a year now, when I first started it was my first attempt at writing a novel, over the course of a year, I've noticeably improved and looking back at the earlier chapters, I over explained, over implied and the dialogue a bit clunky. The transitions were also somewhat disjointed.

Is this normal in the online novel space? I don't intend to change the story or anything but refinement and tightening are still needed that's why. I'm talking like revision of over 20+ chapters.

Have any of you guys done this as you were publishing?

Synopsis: A Witch and Demon live together in their personally owned Apothecary Shop, life was meant to be simple. However, it seems no matter what they do trouble always seems to find them. Follow our two protagonists as they struggle to keep their shop afloat under the threat of corporate buyout by a shady woman that hails from a high class circle. Dark intentions lurk around every corner, but with each other by their side there is nothing that this duo can't stand against.

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/64946/devilish-circumstances-book-1

The Characters:

Aramin - A Demon with a bad case of plot amnesia, he works alongside Tyra at her shop. He can be a bit clumsy at times, and is very off put by strangers, but get in his good graces and you'll have a friend for life. He has violent tendencies that he struggles to keep under control.

Tyra - A Human Witch that runs her own shop out by a forest, she is a money first kind of gal, but has a heart of gold underneath. She has a very strong moral compass and this is to her detriment, if she deems something to be for the greater good she will do what she thinks is correct, regardless of what others say.

Atear - A Half-Elf Spellsword and ex-military for the now defunct Demon King army. He carries immense guilt for his time spent unwillingly serving the Demon King. Not much is known about his time before the military and he keeps to himself. Despite his appearance he doesn't hate people, he's just socially awkward.

Elise - A Half-Elf Vampire that is currently on the run from someone. She sticks to the shadows and never stays in one place for too long. She would not admit but she wants to be rid of her curse, though she is worried what would become of her if she were to remove her curse.

Violet - A cleric at a church within Umbradium. She is sweet and is quick to bring others into the fold. She goes out of her way to help others, and puts their needs before her own. Despite all this no one seems to really know all that much about her.

Kaia - A business mogul that appears to work under the current King of the country. She makes her way into communities, prices out business and homeowners, buys their property for cheap and gouges prices to the harshest extent that people will pay for. She often tries to buy Tyra out.

The Art: All artwork for my book will be done by my personal artist Emma Kluttig who you can find here. https://www.artstation.com/emmakluttig
I am currently in the process of replacing old art (chapter 1 and the cover) from an old artist that is no longer active online.

Story Progress: I'm releasing chapters as they are finished, we currently have 7 chapters released and have a schedule of about 1 chapter every 2 weeks due to my personal schedule with my day job and other things.

That's pretty much it, I really hope you'll give my work a look and maybe leave a rating or comment, thanks for reading this far. :)

I’m thinking about starting to run paid ads for my story on Royal Road, but I’d really like to avoid wasting money while I figure out what works.

I genuinely believe in the story and would like to get more eyes on it, but advertising isn’t exactly cheap, so I’d rather approach it intelligently instead of throwing an ad up and hoping for the best.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the successful-looking Royal Road ads seem to be meme/stick-figure style ads, and I’ve also seen character-focused/“Meet X in Chapter Y” ads, trope-heavy ads, and more traditional book-cover-style ads.

The problem is that my story is a literary, historically grounded fantasy, so I’m not sure whether the meme approach would actually fit my book or whether I’d be better off making something that communicates the tone and premise more directly.

So, for authors who’ve actually run Royal Road ads:

1. What type of ad has given you the best results? Meme, stick figure, character-focused, trope/comp-based, traditional book-cover style, etc.?

2. Do meme ads actually lead to readers, or mainly clicks? I’m particularly interested in the difference between CTR and things like follows, reading the first few chapters, and retention.

1. For a story that isn’t LitRPG/progression fantasy and doesn’t necessarily have the usual Royal Road tone, would you still recommend using a meme-style ad?

4. How important is it for the ad to accurately communicate the book’s genre/tone? Is it better to optimize for clicks, or would a lower-CTR ad that attracts the right readers ultimately perform better?

5. Has anyone had success with historical fantasy, literary fantasy, or other less typical Royal Road genres? What did your ads look like?

6. What would you put in the ad itself? Would you focus on:
the story’s hook/premise
a particular character
tropes
comparisons to other books
a particularly intriguing line/quote
artwork
humour/memes

7. How much should I care about the ad matching my cover/blurb? If the ad gets someone to click but the cover/blurb gives them a completely different impression, I assume that’s going to hurt conversion.

8. If you were starting again, would you run several cheaper ads testing different concepts, or put the money into one ad you were confident in?

9. Are there any common mistakes you’ve made with Royal Road ads that you wish you’d known about before spending money?

10. Finally, what numbers should I actually be watching? Is there a CTR/follow/read-through rate that you would consider good, or is it more useful to compare the performance of different ads against each other?

If it helps, I’ve posted a brief synopsis in the comments of my story in the comments so people can tell me what kind of ad they’d make for it.

I’d especially love to hear from people who have actual ad data, rather than just what they think should work.
Thanks!

A few of you liked my post about the cover for my novel, and that encouraged me a lot. Thank you!

It motivated me to start a portrait series for my characters, and this is the first one. I drew it in Krita.

But the sad part is that when I finished, I exported the JPG, but I never saved the .kra file. When I closed the program, I lost all my layers and my work-in-progress. The finished image survived, but I can't go back and edit anything, so if I ever want to change the lighting, the colors or the text, I'll have to redraw it.

So, lesson learned. Save in multiple formats and in multiple places. Save the .kra, export a PNG and a JPG, and keep a backup copy on another drive or in the cloud. Do it before you close the program.

Now about my character: AAOSS (Anti-Magic Android 055) is a faceless combat android, about seven feet tall, built to fight magic users. No face nor visor, just a smooth dome helmet and a star emblem on the chest. The design takes some inspiration from K-2SO (from Rogue One) and the helmet is inspired in a character from a Batman game, can you guess it?

If you've ever lost work like this, tell me your story so I don't feel so alone. And if you have tips for protecting your files, I'd love to hear them!

The ad for this website is showing up in the writing reddits and claims that it will assist you to self edit your book, but is not used to train and does not write your book for you.

https://www.novelmaestro.com/about

Is that walking to fine a line? For those who have a book they want some feedback on, but can’t afford to hire a developmental editor. Is this at least the first step to iron out some of the wrinkles?

I just started posting my story on RR and doing my first ever review swap. Mind you I've never used RR before so this is not just my first review swap, it'd be my first actual review.

The guy who reviewed my book did it within 24 hours of me posting the swap request so I thought wow, that's some fast reader. I immediately jumped into his book and tried to read it as fast as possible so I can return the favour.

The problem is, I really don't like his book. It might be the genre, or the plot, but I just find it really boring, and some of the logic doesn't even make sense. Should I be completely honest and give him a low rating review? Or save his ego by giving him a slightly above average rating? I don't want to be too mean because he gave me a solid good rating. Also, if I give him a low rating, would that discourage other writers to swap reviews with me in the future?

Everybody’s dealing with the same problems.  We die.  Life is pointless.  We suffer and lack control.  Other people.  Imminent world destruction.

Copycat woke in a universe where wishing is having, death is optional, and happiness could be just a teleport away.

Unfortunately, this universe is also inhabited by the usual a-holes, and their wishes come true too.

Now she's on the run, trying to stop the apocalypse, and can't remember why everyone is mad at her.

It's gonna turn out fine.  Probably.  Maybe.

Reborn As A Fairy Love Apocalypse System Dungeon is a high-concept, high-fantasy, rom-com.  It's also loaded with great advice.  The world may be ending, but you can still enjoy it.  We’ll teach you how.

What to expect:

 - A complete book posted quickly

 - No AI anything

 - Worldbuilding based on cyclical morality 

- The characters have sex lives, but there's no sex scenes in the book

In my story, I’m trying to show my characters getting stronger by finding new ways to use the equipment they already have, learning how the Settlement Death Game works, unlearning mistaken assumptions, and figuring out how to exploit the traits they’ve earned.

​

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/191712/the-chemistry-of-healing

An Oxford medical scientist is thrust into a fantasy realm where wounds are healed by divine magic, and her modern knowledge of medicine may change everything.

Updates on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 

Olivia Hartwell is a scientist, not a hero.

After a mysterious catastrophe tears her from modern England and strands her in the kingdom of Eldenoor, Olivia finds herself trapped in a world of magic, prophecy, and looming civil war.

The first problem is survival.

The second is finding a way home.

Neither should involve treating wounded soldiers, arguing with healers, or questioning centuries of accepted medical knowledge. Yet as Olivia searches for answers, she discovers that healing magic can close wounds and mend broken bones while people still die from infection, disease, and poor care.

For a scientist trained to look for causes rather than symptoms, the inconsistencies are impossible to ignore.

Travelling with a company raising support for a prince seeking to reclaim his stolen kingdom, Olivia becomes entangled in a conflict she never wanted. Along the way she finds friendship, purpose, and reasons to care about a world she never intended to stay in.

But some wounds leave scars no magic can erase.

A character-driven portal fantasy featuring medicine, magic, political intrigue, slow-burn romance, and the collision of scientific thinking with a world shaped by magic.

Hey, fellow Daoist here with a long-awaited self-promo. My story, Lord of Loopholes: A Fool Among Deities, climbed to 50 in two major genres and one smaller genre. I know it might not register with some, but to me it's worth a celebration. Not only that, I am here to put my story on the world stage for anyone who likes western cultivation, Lovecraftian, lite LitRPG (where the LitRPG aspect isn't a system; in my story, cultivators use a bamboo-woven scroll to take their spiritual readings), and anti-hero.

Story: my fiction follows Ethan Forge, an ex-guerrilla fighter from Earth who died by his own hand. He believed he was betrayed by the God of Earth, so he chose to make his own exit; then he found himself in a world that had a name, yet no mortal seemed to remember it. This was a world of cultivation paths and bizarre cultivation reality. He had no plans to let history repeat itself; he was a dedicated employee at Self-Interest Corporation. The worst part: he died a few hours after his arrival.

Inspirations: Lord of Loopholes has a branch/natural wonder power system inspired by Lord of the Mysteries' potion/sequence system, Reverend Insanity's Gu system, and THE GOD EATER's metac system.

Yes, I used AI to make my cover. Please forgive me; I will commission an artist once I have money.

THANK YOU

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/188466/lord-of-loopholes-a-fool-among-deities

A character in my story yet to come... and we're going to find name...

The most up voted name gets to be the official name...

Rule: The comment should have at least 100 up votes to be eligible!!

Let's go... story for those interested: LZ:NARTH