Pro claims many of Japan’s light novel authors can’t write, aren’t the ones creating their books

Isn't he just saying that the editors are not necessarily doing a better job?
Improving the technical writing of a story doesn't necessarily make the plot as a whole better.

 

why? I'm not writer so IDK what that mean
what pop up on my mind since technical improved it become have more clear goal~
do enlighten me

 

Except that ideas aren't the problem here; it's all about lacking basic writing skills. And that's realistically a much harder problem to fix.

The article isn't talking about how good the plots are though. Editors can't even begin to do their jobs if their authors aren't producing any useful material.

 

I'm not disputing that part, just I consider it a fools errand to even try to prepare some of those web novels for publication in the first place.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was easier to just start over from nothing in some cases.

 

I think he's talking about Lazy Dungeon Master. Although

Spoiler

in both the WN and LN, the female lead has a loli form and an adult form. She just spends a lot of time in adult form in the LN, while it's only an occasional thing in the WN.

 

That's the whole point of the article: that authors who should have never been published are given that opportunity. I find it a bit hard to blame publishers though since they have to look at what kind of crap sells nowadays.

 

So thats the reason why arifureta went downhill from vol 2 *nods

 

Yeah but giving the authors an opportunity doesn't have to mean publishing their ongoing webnovel, asking them to write a new story is also an option.
Part of the problem is that the editors don't just have to fix the bad writing but also have to restructure the plot to fit into volumes.

 

So....

Screw Originality and Stick on what's Popular?

 

The authors are so bad that they don't have any value outside of their existing fanbase. No publisher would ever give a contract for a brand new book to someone like, say the writer of Arifureta because it wouldn't be worth it. Moreover, creating new books won't do anything to address the main problem with these writers.

 

True, I just think what is missing is a middle ground between narou and published light novels.
Rather than being altered for physical publication these webnovels could probably be more suited to simply be edited for a more commercial webnovel format akin to qidian or munpia.

 

That would be a boon to the Japanese web novel industry, but I don't see that happening unless a lot of things change. The first problem is that web novels don't have much respect in Japan so anyone thinking seriously of becoming a writer will do so through other paths. The second is that there is no competition to Narou so there's very little incentive to change anything. Next is the related problem that the only books that have any traction on Narou are otaku works so it limits the kinds of writers who would want to participate. Last, I speculate that there isn't all that much difference between the audience on Narou and the writers on it, and that ends up feeding the incestuousness of the site, and keeping yet more fresh blood away.

 

Eh, why is this a problem? It happens everywhere, even in the United States. A lot of your bestselling authors, yeah, they actually can't write. They have an idea, they have a vision, they have an engaging story in their minds. The only problem is, they don't know how to write. However, their agents and their readers expects a certain amount of quality, which they can't deliver. That's why they hire editors and ghostwriters who have the skills to give better quality reading material, but these people can't make their own stories, because they can't create what these authors can create. These editors and ghostwriters can't create anything new. They can only improve what the author already created.

The article is true, but this doesn't happen only in Japan. It happens all over the WORLD. It's nothing new. If you've been part of the literary community, this won't be surprising at all.

 

Essentially this.

I mean... Really? Is it that surprising? It's part of an editor's job I'd say, even when I was editing a fantranslation I had to re-do entire paragraphs at times. And my quality standard isn't absurdly high, and my translator was great too! >.<

And like... We're talking about amateur writers here, they're amateur for a reason, AFAIK a good chunk of them are even on High School right now... Is it that strange if they aren't able to deliver great quality writting?

It's not like they just publish their first unproofread drafts online as soon as they finish writting it, you know? (I mean, sure, some might do it, but I doubt it's the case for the majority.)

I don't know about professionals since I'm not that much into the field, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, there is a limit to how much an author can do to their own work. It's why editors are needed in the first place.

I think this is not much more than what should already be expected of an editor, really.

Though it would be nice to see the authors' PoV on this like @lnv said, I wonder how do they feel having 200 pages of their work entirely rewritten by someone else, which may or may not entirely change the feel they want to give to some passages...

 

I think that the difference is that back in the day, these authors would have been rejected from the get go. But because their web novels have garnered a measure of popularity, publishers are giving them a chance.

Also, the lack of quality of the Narou authors might be even more pronounced than the others being brought up. I mean we all know that writers like Dan Brown can't actually write, but I'd still expect him to put together decent sentences when he stops trying so hard to seem smart. From what I've seen from some of the books on Narou, that's not something that they can all do. The fact that most of them don't seem to read anything outside of otaku works only exacerbates their lack of writing skills.

 

I think you're underestimating the writers from Syosetu too much... I mean, sure, they aren't super great incredible writers, but there are definitely good writers there, just like there are bad ones.

Not all amateur writers are horrible, you're generalizing it a bit too much. It's up to the publisher to offer deals to the ones that can write works with better quality though.

 

It's not necessarily that they're all bad; there are a few books that I find halfway decent. The bigger problem is that it's obvious that most of them obviously have no understanding of how creative writing is supposed to work, and because they don't seem to read non-otaku works, there's only so much they can improve on.

Admittedly, some of the vitriol I feel comes from hating the writing style that seems to be predominant - a conversational style that barely has proper paragraphs and a dearth of descriptions for anything.

 

It seems like the problem is that you don't like their style rather than a problem with how creative writing works or the quality of their writing.

Since the best thing you find there is "halfway decent" it's clear that this market isn't aimed at you... Which is well, your problem, not the author's.

 

I saw this same article posted on /r/LightNovels. I'd listen to what /u/Quarkboy, whose comments I quoted, has to say about this.

 

Thanks for sharing! *hugs*