Discussion PERFECT FORMULA FOR XIANXIA NOVELS

There seems to be some confusion over the terms. Xianxia is an offshoot of the term wuxia, and so it's basically wuxia writ large. Immortality isn't technically a mark of the genre, so it's possible for a xianxia novel to not have any interest in it, just as it's possible for other genres to explore ideas about immortality.

Xuanhuan is basically the catch-all term for fantasy. Technically speaking any books with fantasy elements (other than wuxia) fit in this category although most book sites consider it as a separate category for classification purposes. Also note that purely Western-styled fantasy novels are classified as "qihuan" (奇幻). But for practical purposes it's easier to just think of it as xuanhuan vs. xianxia. Also, I think it doesn't make any sense to include wuxia among these because despite being the origin, it's a very different kind of genre.

 

Semantics if you ask me but since you might be right then I would recommend:
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-desolate-era/
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/seeking-the-flying-sword-path/

IET novels have easy-to-understand structures and are a very good choice for first xianxia read. You will understand weak to strong, seeking immortality, cultivation, seeking dao and other basic concepts xianxia usually has easily.

 

Hey transcending the Nine Heavens translations have stopped at around 1484.. Anybody here give me links so that I can read the rest? Raws/translation anything is fine for me

 

Basically all the chinese translations I read are so over the top " he gave a look that had profound mysteries and his fist travelled thousand of miles in a single second" blabla

I really enjoyed crad le by will wight and I would love to read something thats even half as well-written.

Thanks in advance!

 

Just find some mtl...

 

This paragraph is art. You're good.

 

A Xianxia that respects my three rules does not have to be repetitive or factory produced garbage! One of the most common criticisms of the Xianxia genre is that it's repetitive. The main characters commonly sets out to prove their strength in their hometown, offend several people more powerful than them, flee or mask themselves, grow until they surpass their previous rivals, and then move to a new area inhabited by people with a higer cultivation to repeat the provoke - flee - growth - victory - transition cycle all over again. This is called the "mountain beyond mountain" model. While it is true that the increment in strength of the MC must be followed by the appearance of new enemies of comparable strength, otherwise the tension disappears, this must not happens in the aforementioned way, but can be realized in millions of different ways.
A writer that sticks to the "mountain beyond mountain" model is surely lacking in imagination. A great writer uses his creativity to narrate much more interesting stories, realistic or idealistic. The first type depicts life in all his gritty, ugly details and inconsistent, fickle nature, and leaves all abstractions and judgements to the reader. The second type is the most "poetic" and loved by intellectuals, because it uses the classical literary technique invented by the greeks of making characters out of single ideas, and then weave stories derived from the interactions and conflicts of those ideas. This allows the author to put the ideas to test, showing how much each idea is worthy and why some ideas are good and others are bad. Do my three rules above stop you from doing that? No. No one can stop you from writing high quality idealistic original stories and at the same time respecting the three rules mentioned above. Those three rules are like minimal safeguard devices, like saying that "a car must have wheels, seats and an engine" does not limit the car designers in any way. If you want to make a flying car with no wheels, then you are to invent the flying car first as a new genre and prove that it works. No xianxia should to be written recycling any repetitive story pattern: invent a new, fresh story every time and then just add the three ingredients above to make it psychologically edible. If you cannot do it, it's not the formula's fault but your lack of imagination...
If anything, my formula does the very opposite: it helps breaking the shackles of the genre. Many authors wrote their first xianxia following verbatim the story format of the most pupular xianxia, because they are scared that if they write something differently, the reader would not like it. But my three rules ensure that you are finally free to write anything you want, all you need to be sure that the reader is not going to be bored is to follow those 3 simple rules.

 

Holy $%#&, since when was Lord of the Mysteries a xianxia? Anyways let me go back to the topic:

1.Xianxia by definition would require 1 since you are cultivating towards immortality, anything that has a lack of 1 is basically disqualified from the genre. What I mean to say is that if you are to put anything before the desire to cultivate as the main motto of your novel, you may be a xianxia but your major tag would be something like slice of life or romance rather than an actual gold label "xianxia" tag. Same goes to every other transmigration crap out there.

2. Beauties are just fanservice, to who? The audience, the protagonist and the author him/her/itself. She is an easy way to sate your ego and also to rile up peanut gallery through provoking competition, same for the auctions, pets, legendary equipment. All of them can be contested to however relevant their power levels are, but beauties just have longer shelf life since they just need a face setting pill for all the horny young masters and audiences out there. Heck, some novels like ISSTH or RMJI will show the beauty once then hide her for like how many hundreds of chapters, they are basically commodities with shelf lives. I am pretty sure I have read quite a few successful male-targetted xianxias that just have a female that does not have to have "pearly lips, jade white skin, eyes shining like the stars just like an immortal maiden descending from the heavens". They just have to have to be relevant to the story, like actually not hot garbage in it for a one night stand.

3. Wisdom, is plainly a test of how creative and intelligent the author can be. The character's IQ can usually only be equal or lower to the author's and never higher (unlike author's stated text), so whatever plots that erupt follow this personal formula of mine:
Authors IQ x Creativity x Potential (Potential is rated from 0-1, from author's best to worst) = Character's Plot device/Scheme
Readers IQ / Tolerance threshold = Expectation
Plot device x Internal bias factor (how much you dis/like the novel) / Expectation = Satisfaction from the scheme once unveiled

The choice to conceal cultivation, and whatnot has already been trivialised by the fact it is an open market secret since even the rivals will end up "concealing" for the irrational power spikes to brew more chaos for the peanut gallery which are us, the audience. That to me is not real wisdom, maybe it was when it was the first few novels back when it was the "Coiling Dragon Era". Now it is just cookie cutter, peanut gallery buttering plot schematics.

LONG STORY SHORT: Any formula that is given to any writing style to be marketed as a success story is largely going to be an excuse for lazy writing with minimal or no innovation. True success stories will always try to be bold and innovate towards uncharted territories, lets say ISSTH with the ability to scam any and everything, LOTM with the ability to hide secrets barefaced in front of you since chapter one and still remain relevant 1000 chapters later without losing meaning throughout (Anty *ahem*) which is basically a dark souls of LN in my opinion. Still I don't think LOTM is a xianxia since it has 0 focus on eastern lore, 0 linkages towards eastern cultivation systems or dao.

No offense, but to me what you are mentioning are just ways to make it not the worst xianxia out there, not the best or perfect as per say. Trust me, I am not discrediting you anyway since I have seen many xianxia trash that lack these components and perform way worse with your "mountain over mountain" analogy. However, this does not discredit the fact that I have seen enough cookie cutters to say that whatever you mentioned is trivialized to the extent that their impacts are insufficient for a "perfect formula".

 

AN EXAMPLE OF THE FORMULA WORKING MIRACLES EVEN IN XIANXIA NOVELS WITH REPEATING PATTERNS IS 'MARTIAL GOD ASURA'. Many criticized the novel for being formulaic and for following the 'Mountains Beyond Mountains' story pattern. But if Martial God Asura is so popular and it is still going on after almost 5000 chapters is because IT IS VERY GOOD. The universe, the story, the characters, the humor, the adventures, the fightings.. while it follows the usual MBM scheme, all is very well made and entertaining, because it cares about following the Three Feelings Rule of Xianxia Novels.
The Author, Kindhearted Bee, is not a peerless genius like Er Gen, so you won't find the depth and mysticism you would find in Er Gen novels. He is not a simbolist, so you won't find the poetical meanings that you would find in Mao Ni novels. Nor he is a smart geek like I Eat Tomatoes, so you would not find the rich and detailed exploration of cultivation methods and realms, like in The Desolate Era. He is also not a very romantic fellow, so while there are a lot of beauties falling for the MC in his novels, their love stories are far simpler and colder compared to those of Heavenly Silkworm Potato.
Yet, the story is always intriguing, the characters are always fascinating, and even at chapter 4920 I'm still eager to read the next one. I'm still hooked to MGA, and I hope it would never end.

 

FIRST POST UPDATED with the content from my answers in this thread.