This is mainly about chinese romance novels. How far the plot went off course before you can't take it anymore? I mainly browse raw sites to read new novels (meaning no tags whatsoever) and everyone knows that a lot of authors make shitty summary. I was reading some random romance novel when the author introduced some bizarre setting or weird addon. After a while, I don't know what I'm reading anymore == I can't remember what was the plot anymore but I can give some other examples (I think): Example 1: [Ancient China setting] Random second miss rebirth to the time before her tragedy. From then, she proceed to improve her life and meet hot guys. Pretty standard eh? Then someone told her that she is actually the reincarnation of an ancient beast guardian which she must activate her bloodline and make the world great again. == Me: I just want to see the miss living a good life and enjoying a good guy ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Example 2: [Modern setting] Random movie star dude died and transmigrate into someone else. After the 'you sad, I sad, they sad' passage, dude moved on and tried to start anew. Maybe he doesn't want to get back into acting again. How about... opening a cake cafe? Cue random happy moment making cakes and selling em. Then suddenly dude realized there's something wrong with this new body. Apparently it carries a weird virus which will be harmful to everyone whenever it's full moon. Apparently, new body is a runaway from an underground lab. Now, dude is on the run... Me: Damm. You can't just make great cake and meet nice guys?
I read one like this too. It was modern setting. It started with amnesiac hacker FL finally getting her memory back after a car accident, starting her company and fighting to get her child's custody back from her divorced husband with her now-remembered genius. I was looking forward to the face-slapping and romance but suddenly there's mystery about her dead mom's origin cause mommy was a runaway experiment in a lab. Then somehow they went to work in the army, went to fight in another country's warzone privately, made artificial intelligence and artificial limbs, got the divorced in-law's approval again, fought in the presidential election, fought against that lab and helped that country's president gain power, (I'm kinda confused about the timeline here cause too many events) went to the madafaking MOON to fight the lab mastermind, rode and flew a rocket, then dead mom appeared cause she wasn't actually dead but just time-travelled, then main CP time-travels too to stop the mastermind behind all this but they kinda don't succeed. In the end mommy starts training MC's child to defeat the mastermind cause he'll appear again after 40 yrs and it ends with "to be continued ~". After finishing this, I just wanted to ask, "Where's my promised child-fluff and company building? WHERE?!!"
Abandon it as soon as it goes weird. Unless the writing style is particularly hooking. I still have a long reading list, just get another interesting novel to read. I'm good at dropping novels I can't enjoy anymore. Like when the story reaches a point of what's promised in the entire summary but there's still halfway before ending, I'll lose interest. And even sometimes a summary is too good that it includes the storyline from start to finish, then why should I read?
For Romance novels specifically, the more off course the better. Sadly, the worst parts of these books for me is usually the central relationship so anything that stays from that only improves the story. I just find that these relationships can be so dire and awful that I just don't want to spend time with them together. I can give examples: The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage The male love interest in this book isn't awful, but he and the protagonist are at their least interesting when they're around each other. So the first third of the story is the most entertaining because they're barely in contact so the narrative is fully able to embrace the premise of the book. By the final third, they're together all the time and most of the life is sucked out of the story. Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator The premise of this book is that the male love interest runs away at the very beginning of the story. This provides the perfect opportunity for the protagonist to get into shenanigans and it's a ton of fun! But the book remembers that it's supposed to be a Romance novel and it sort of nosedives when it forces this. Again the male love interest isn't the worst character but he's also really uninteresting.
That reminds me of a romance novel I read some time ago. It was about 300 some chapters and despite the constant nonsensical plot changes after first arc, it was still interesting enough to read until the end. 史上第一密探 History's number 1 secret agent Author says there is no fantasy in novel. HE LIED. First the original beginning sounds pretty simple, doctor in charge of 29 mental patients with supernatural powers due to mental problems is transmigrated after getting bombed by another different mental patient. Doctor is transmigrated together with 29 mental patient souls in 1 brain along with their powers to feudal times as a man with a peerless face then "asked" by the country he is in to seduce the female city lord of an important border city between the two powerful countries. I thought this was going to be a fun easy to read romance novel. But plot totally veers off course after first arc. Spoiler it's been many years so I am not sure if I remember correctly. first it turns out female city lord was the spy of the other kingdom all along, so MC needs to rush there and seduce a princess to get closer to the supreme emperor of the other country to patch things up. That plot ends with the 80-90 year old supreme emperor dying. But waitttt he somehow gets reborn with a 30 year old body and has super martial arts now? Didn't author say no fantasy in this novel???? Spoiler then it turns out during the war between two empires MC sabotages the enemy emperor to death. BUT the original kingdom emperor MC was working for was playing pig eat tiger. His original kindly old grandfather image was a facade. He also had super martial arts. That emperor is also the heir to the demonic empire, which was an empire from thousand years ago that focused on survival of the fittest, child sacrifices, and power through mutation stuff. Like resident evil creature level strength except training in human form. Also, they get stronger by absorbing radiation or something. Author, I thought you said this was a realistic novel not fantasy >_< Spoiler Looking at the hellscape he has indirectly helped create, MC leaves for a different empire to resolve things. Trekking across thousands of miles of snow. This empire has guns and technology. MC still has no powers but the powers of his 29 mental patients so he must rely on seducing females. Again. After MC does this through a long and interesting plot, the two new empires go to war. Also remember that princess from the enemy country with the supreme emperor guy? Well apparently she was all cute and innocent and helpless before but no shes actually a super martial artist emperor of the demonic kingdom from 1000 year ago. So apparently the new empire MC is in has nuclear weapons lol. But the two empires are still only evenly matched because other empire has biological creatures, strength, and technology. Think zerg from starcraft. Spoiler Then it turns out that the hand controlling everything behind the scenes was a divine temple. The spirits of the 29 mental patients. It turns out that they transmigrated much sooner than MC did, hundreds of years, and orchestrated everything to cause MC a mental breakdown, because they need MC alive to continue living as well. MC suicides and the mental patients die as well, and I don't understand/remember what happened next. MC is somehow alive. Yeah that was quite a ride. I thought this was one of those romance historical fiction novels to ancient dynasty but apparently not. Still interesting though.
Ikr! I think it was 900+ chapters. And I only mentioned events I remembered. There were lots of other (ridiculous) events too. I recall there was something like body-swapping in the middle too where another girl swaps her body with MC. And author even promised that it won't be rebirth or fantasy before. Just cause somebody changed magic related words to science related words won't make it sci-fi! For people interested, it's a novel on webnovel called "Mr. CEO, please spoil me 100%". Sigh... I read when I was 13 (in "that" phase) and I won't be able to read more than 20 chaps if I tried it now.
Ah yes, when even the author doesn't know how to transition into plot. Dunno about you, but I've been conditioned to take a break from romance novels after they confirmed there relationships. Cause somehow, for some reason, the whole tone of the series change. Very rarely do I go from "make them kiss" to "now get married" like sincerely, I want to feel like the character's are my grandkids and I want to celebrate there reciprocated romance. But not going to lie, it's pretty difficult especially in Chinese novels. Romance seems to be a matter of fact or expected, and then they gloss over sweet little moments. Dog food is dog food when you don't have to explicit write it, or if there is a bitter single dog among the characters. There rarely is breathing room between all the plot, and sometimes they're just unnecessary! Like shenanigans with extended families!
When the author put a sweet and funny description but the plot is about FL running away during pregnancy, become a star, getting rich, face slapping everyone on the way or cutting ties with waste family members. And then... the ML only appeared 3 or 4 times during 300 chapters. Where's the sweet romance??!!
Romance Web novels, mostly in Webnovel, are similar to the core with Everyone hating FL for no reason, Cold ML liking her for no reason and FL suddenly being Overpowered for no reason. All of them have these tropes and generally get completed in around 300 chapters with FL face slapping them. What's next? The author doesn't know/plan and most of the time the stories go everywhere.