Discussion Chinese Cultivation Novels: A Review

It doesn't really seem necessary to me. Yes some writers can use them to pretend to have character development by writing a few pages about their realizations. But there's no reason they can't put more thought into what the character is going through before that realization and show how they act differently after. I've seen cultivation novels put a lot of descriptions into the character realizations, and the next chapter they're throwing them back into the same plot setups that don't give any room to show the differences in them. This is just bad writing and there's nothing about the genre that demands it be that way.

 

This is why I tend to shy away from cultivation stories that have over 1k chapters.
The longest cultivation based novels I read are Peerless Concubine, I think? With over 3k completed chapter. It's nice read since I orefer female lead stories, but basically the plot:
Mc has rival who likes ml, mc or ml face slap the rival, cultivation, repeat and rinse. While the basic plot is there, I can't deny that the various amount of xultivation arcs are interesting (mc is alchemist so more alchemysing stuff), looking for lost brother, past live, etc etc.
Although the cultivation rank? Is like,
Hahaha you think Yuansheng is the highest!? Well there is X Rank and then x rank then x rank... endless lol

 

I would like to add that a lot of these long cultivation novels suffer from being about the protagonist getting from the bottom to the top within the course of the story, so despite all the repetition, filler and stock scenes, these stories are still often actually rushed, since the story is depicting something that is meant to take a really long time.
I often feel these stories would be more interesting if they only covered part of the journey and expanded on that instead of having to rush through the entire journey and forcing the mc to always be depicted as a genius just so the story can cut corners and keep up the pace.

This isn't a problem limited to cultivation novels either, just that it is especially noticeable with them.

 

I don't think this is such a big problem, the author controls how many levels there are, and its not uncommon for there to be time skips or passages that feel long but don't take up much written space. Authors really can work within the format they have, as long as they can be more creative about doing multiple things within each arc. As I previously mentioned they can keep side characters more involved and show how their teamwork changes, they can introduce villains or other late characters earlier. I've seen examples where authors can make other kinds of character scenes play a role in their cultivation rather than simple arduous training.

I don't think its a matter of needing more written space (these stories far exceed the length of many much more complex novels), but writing chapters that are able to play these different functions and keep everything cohesive requires more time for planning. So either this planning needs to happen before they start writing, or means they have to write at a slower pace, or sometimes a writer comes along who is able to think up these kinds of scenes faster than most.

 

I'm not talking about written length though, but rather that these authors tend to pick a scope/scale for their stories where they either don't have the time or will to plan them out properly and instead rush through the development of the story.
For example if the mc goes through 5 different worlds/planes then chance is none of those will get much indepth worldbuilding because doing so would take so much more planning than it would with just a single world.

 

Ah, okay, I think I see what you're getting at. I think there is kind of a tradeoff that needs to be made in terms of giving a sense of adventure with lots of new locations, and having the universe feel really huge, versus focusing on more specific environments and developing and fleshing those out longer. I do think authors have strategies to keep the expansive world and keep the main characters involved the whole time, by having later characters visit the early world, and having side characters travel and grow with the main character or show up unexpectedly in later places, as well as building connections between the various worlds so they're not simply left behind.

Its probably a bit trickier to do the different worlds and maintain the setup of all the sects or countries and the whole political situation between them. A lot of times I find I'm just getting interested in the whole structure of how a sect works and how the protagonist will work there way through it, and then the author will have them go off adventuring on their own forever and come back suddenly stronger than everyone only to leave them behind soon after. There's definitely lots of times I wish the story would stay put somewhere for a while.

I'm not really sure, writing wise, if the writing gets repetitive and underdeveloped because they want to incorporate so many locations, or if they incorporate so many locations because they can easily repeat similar situations with new characters standing in for older ones. Most of the stuff I've read, I've felt there were always more forgettable locations that could've been cut out without losing much sense of scale and adventure, but it would be interesting to see stories focused in one place too.

 

That's not cultivation that's down to earth WUXIA. Xianxia and WuXia are 2 VERY different things. Xianxia is Heaven while Wuxia is Earth. Jin Yong's work are all wuxia. Works that have sects like Begger Sect etc are not cultivation

 

Here's how u tell its cultivation, it has flying humans in it and u live for a looong time

 

That's cultivation??? Titles like that's know it's not. with the exception of ze tian ji, Imperial settings with stuff like concubines are not cultivation
Having a positive opinion of cultivation genre I refuse to believe they have horny titles like that

 

It's cultivation, just look at the manhua. It's just.... cultivation with romance plot, kingdom plot, mc become princess and hated by many cos mc from lower continent and not from ml continent where the aura is rich.

Actually the wn title is Counter Attack of the Waste: King Iceberg or something

 

Cultivation genre pursuits immortality, kingdom plot doesn't count, cultivators disdain worldly affairs and I added another thing: Having a positive opinion of cultivation genre I refuse to believe they have horny titles like that. Cultivation can't just be anything just cuz it's magic, peerless concubine is called XuanHuan

 

That kind of cultivation where the main plot is cultivation don't exist. There are many level-up CN novels though. Like Japanese Isekai just with different leveling system.

 

I definitely do think there are ways to do these stories well, just that I almost never see any of them written with consistent quality, in better cases you might have a good arc followed by a mediocre or even bad one and then back to a good one and in worse cases you might have the occasional good chapter mixed in with a lot of bad ones.
For example you can have a basic tournament arc lasting a 100 chapters, just for it to be immediately followed by a major battle or war that had little buildup but clearly should be more important to the plot, but just for it to be resolved in like 10-20 chapters.

This is a large part of why I often end up dropping these kind of stories early, the mc often tend to move on or start over just as things start getting interesting, which is especially a problem for me personally as I often get more interested in side characters than the main character.

It obviously differ between different authors, but I would assume it is often a mix of both.
I tend to assume that in many cases they simply find it easier to introduce new locations and characters and only superficially develop them and then repeat, rather than try delve deeper into what the story already have.
Sometimes it do work to keep the story running at a decent pace, but the unfortunate part is things often might not have the impact they are supposed to.
For example there is plenty of cases where an author describes a new location as a massive and populous city or country just for it to basically just feel like a village to me because the author never spend the effort to actually demonstrate the scale of it properly.

 

「废物逆袭，冰山王爷倾城妃」
I think its included in cultivation. Here's the title: Waste Counterattack : Iceberg Prince's Princess Qingcheng.
The webcomic/manhwa renamed it into Peerless Concubine, changing MC'S name also, and its still on going and has removed many stuff. I'm not zure if the comic will go in depth with the cultivation stuff.

It's romance with cultivation. Not just as sideplot, but the world revolves around cultivation. There's also demonic cultivation, reincarnator, etc.
The thing is, the cultivators are of royal families, at least ml families are, so mc who married to ml became princess.
Later on the plot, mc is able to ascend on a different higher plane with ml (heaven or something), and they keep cultivating.
And there's also cultivation academy or something in the higher plane.

 

Princess? I only see concubine