Am I the only one who can't stand the length of novels?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Fictionaddiction, Jun 19, 2020.

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  1. Fictionaddiction

    Fictionaddiction Well-Known Member

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    Hello everyone.
    I'm a Novel addict. I hardly finish anything though due to this reason:
    It's so frickin long! You can have novels spanning up to 3000+ chapters and if you are luck the shortest one could only be 200 or something.

    First the novel starts great and exciting and you really wanna know what happens. Then the translation stops, or you really wanna sleep .
    So naturally you go to search for spoilers. And then it hits you... The story about a girl loving the tsundere ml. has turned into: An alien abduction , cultivatory story where this is actually the leads' 24524th life time being reincarnated . And in fact they're not real but it's just their clones and this all happened bec. the devil wanted their bodies and no one is who you thought they were anymore....

    I could go on and you'd probably remember reading something like this for real.

    I wanna give a big thank you to all those who read the novel raws, and fry their brain with mtl. and spoil it despite how ridiculous the plots get .

    I also wanna ask, How do you guys do it? I'v read like 200 novels or something but only completed like 2-3.

    Do chinese people stick around to finish? do they have more patience than others?
     
  2. yakuzapandaz

    yakuzapandaz Well-Known Member

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    Just skip the filler and useless info then the novel will shorten by 80%
     
  3. Drakaos

    Drakaos Member (Patriarch?) of the Anti-Qidian Sect

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    It's the desire to know what happens next I guess. Personally, there are tons of novels that I've just lost interest in once I reach close to the end, when all that's left is somehow reaching the apex of cultivation or some BS. Haven't finished the last five chapters of Desolate Era, last 10 chapters of Warlock of the Magus World, last 20 chapters of Martial World, last 50 or so chapter of I Shall Seal The Heavens...
    The list goes on.
     
  4. YoriMei

    YoriMei (ㆁᴗㆁ✿)

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    I’m a binge reader, reading is my life hobby and I can go for longer lengths than normal people (I can do about 100 chapters in One day if I have the whole day free).

    that said, a lot of them are web novels and written on day to day basis. Surely you could fall into the habit and read 1 chapter a day during the train ride home or morning coffee. The chapters pile up if all you do if just read really slowly but consistently.
     
  5. Scyphoza

    Scyphoza Well-Known Member

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    I tend to like shorter novels due to all the filler longer ones have. Stuff like I alone level up or Praise the Orc. Usually if its around 200 to 500 chapters it ends up being paced decently. There are a few exceptions though i Enjoy most of Er Gens novels even though they are about 1500 to 2000 chapters long.
     
  6. LockedPuppet

    LockedPuppet From the void, the circus horns~

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    Depends.
    One factor is whether or not the novel is finished. I'd generally be less bothered if a long dragged out novel was already completed, since I can binge read at my leisure. It's way more frustrating having to wait for crumbs of updates.
     
  7. BigBadBoi

    BigBadBoi Well-Known Member

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    Stop reading generic xianxia shit
     
  8. Invisalats

    Invisalats The Bearded One

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    I don't mind the length so much as pacing tends to become extremely bad after 500+ chapters and the repetitious nature of plots is often handled poorly.

    Its why MGA still is on my reading list cause it has all the repetitive plots but pacing especially when it comes to mc cultivation is a little more consistent and the author literally doesn't try to shake things up by forgetting what kind of novel he is writing. MGA is MGA there is no attempt to be anything else.

    Very few novels make it to the 1k chapters mark without being kinda grindy but some authors are really good at distracting readers from that aspect with timely comedy or good characters... Though any novel with 3k+ chapters is going to require either being a big fan or just needing something to fill some time while waiting on better novels to be translated.
     
  9. DocB

    DocB "I see you, little mouse! Run along"

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    First don't read spoilers, that is like looking at shit to know what food taste like.
    Second if while reading you think the scope of the story has changed to much that it becomes unrecognizable to initial plot, then it means that the story you started reading ended and another began so feel free to drop it, just keep reading just adds to suken cost fallacy. So put the novel on hold( make sure you don't see it's update for a month) and after the hold period see if you want to comeback
     
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  10. WhoCaresnovels

    WhoCaresnovels Krill

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    I'd say the simple solution is to not read anything that has too many chapters. Quite frankly, they get stale really quickly (if they were ever good to begin with) and you can tell it's more a mass-produced almost industrial piece of writing rather than fun fiction to while away the hours with. Tbh, stuff with less than 100 chapters always feels the most worth it to me, especially in terms of coherence. I usually ignore any original English webfiction that has more than that many chapters unless it's highly recommended. I can usually enjoy translated stuff up to around 300 chapters if it's particularly fun to read.
    You should be able to do some filtered searches on NU to find fun stuff with manageable chapter counts.
    As to the question of how original language readers can follow such long stories, I don't know. There may be parts of the experience that get lost in translation or (as I suspect is true for qidian at least) the gamified, constant stream of content becomes sort of addicting, especially once you've sunk a lot of time (and maybe money) into them.
     
  11. Drunk2nLink

    Drunk2nLink Well-Known Member

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    I'm currently on disability, I dont work, I have tv or youtube I could watch, but my days are mostly spent reading(except when I eat or use the restroom). I binge read pretty much all day every day, so I've finished god knows how many novels, and what i can tell you is the novels honesty seem like most of the content is made up on the spot. The stories usually follow a general outline, but a lot of content seems to be made up on the spot, or forgotten later on in the novel. THE ONLY GOOD novels tend to seem like they have a lot of useless irrelevant content early on, only to find out that content actually has significance later
     
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  12. whitespade

    whitespade Well-Known Member

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    There's a lot of novels that I don't finish simply because I love the beginning of most stories but I don't like the middle or the ending. I like it when the mc is abused and trodden upon, but when they got OP the story become boring and stale.

    When I read romance I only like when they are struggling to love each other or face slapping some white lotus but if its too easy to face slap I got bored too.

    Nowadays I mostly read quick transmigration because the little stories are short so even if the mc is op its not boring. Of course I prefer the QT where MC basically sacrificed every arc like Quick Transmigration system : male god come here.
     
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  13. DiabolicGod

    DiabolicGod Well-known lazy Member

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    In total Ive only completely read like around 10 novels over 1000 chapters long
    For the rest, including TMW MW DE and quite some more, I either come back to it after a long break from them, or just skim through or outright skip the boring stuff where the novel becomes stale
     
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  14. ATrueStory

    ATrueStory Villainesses, Historical Shit, Noble Circuses

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    Not a translator nor Chinese. I just write things. Which means if my editor or publisher wants a filler or two or nth, I have to do it. Sometimes, it's a good distraction whether I'm struggling to write the next scene or if there is a need to have a variety if the story is finished. Anyway, fillers are necessary especially if there is regular release of material just to keep the audience on their feet. As a reader, I don't like fillers but I understand and I just ignore them.
     
  15. Raebit

    Raebit Well-Known Member

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    when the novel so fun and worth it, and accept any ending i read it until end
    but i rarely do so.....
    but i read a lot xD
     
  16. asriu

    asriu fu~ fu~ fu~

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    boring~ long chappy on some point will become boring for this cat~ how this cat keep reading such long thing? skimming~ it kinda rare Chekhov gun trope used on wn so it fine skimming around~
     
  17. Needyneedle

    Needyneedle Crimson's Melissa and the Blackjack of Chaos.

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    I know there are many novels out there with fantastic storylines, but I always skip ones that have 1k chapters+. That made my selection more limited because I can barely find finished novels with less than 200 chapters. Ok, maybe 300 is still ok but that's already a stretch. I honestly don't know how authors can prolong their novels when it could have been done ages ago. In other words, you are not alone, my dude. :ROFLMAO:
     
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