Discussion Long webnovels with consistant quality do not exist

After reading so many 2000+ chapter web novels I came to the realization that there always comes one point in the story where the novel's quality takes a sudden dip of quality. It may be just for one arc or a couple of chapters, it always happens with these long-running novels. It happens with either chapters being filled with exposition dumps, arcs with nothing happening or just the author completely ruining the direction of the story.

There just doesn't seem to be a long web novel I can rate a 10/10 and it really pisses me off how there is nothing objectively perfect. Objectively perfect doesn't mean it has to have meticulous world-building, complex interconnecting plotlines and a deep underlying commentary on some random sensitive topic.
No, what I am asking for is ultimate consistency in its usual quality and achieving what the story aimed to convey without sacrificing enjoyment. You may name me a few web novels but please read the criteria I mentioned again and think about it carefully. Yes, now you may have realized there are simply no long webnovels that meet these criteria even though so many people are writing them, this is what's mind-boggling for me, there are so many authors willing to spend thousands of hours writing these web novels to the most passionate audiences yet still somehow no one managed to write a single long-running, consistently enjoyable novel that has achieved exactly what it wanted to do in its fullest possible potential of greatness that can be achieved by the ideas and story goals presented.

What I am trying to say may seem vague and confusing but please think about your favourite web novel. In your mind, it is perfect but you know deep inside that you just want to think it's perfect. You are in subconscious denial, knowing that the story could've reached way higher heights and yet you ignore this fact. You're simply too used to imperfection and inconsistency. "It's impossible for a story to be perfect, after all, humans are not perfect creatures." You comfort yourself with these words. No, if it was impossible then why do we imagine it? Why does it seem so close? The perfect long story that reaches its full potential by utilising its absurd length, don't you always fantasize how spectacular that perfect novel would be? Then what is stopping us from producing such greatness?

When they are close to achieving this objective of greatness they fall short in a single aspect, execution. It makes perfect sense, there are a lot of people that can easily think of ideas and insane genre-breaking premises but then write them down on paper and suddenly it seems like a kid wrote the story. This is at the lowest most basic level. Execution goes deeper and relates to the reason for originally posting this discussion: consistency. Yes, the reason why there is always a dip in quality is that usually authors don't prioritise enjoyment more than good writing. To be more accurate; they don't try to balance the two. They are inconsistent and impatient. The consistently perfect story hits a sweet spot between logic and fun and carefully sticks to it no matter how rigorous and exhausting it is to be consistent with it for thousands of hours.

Let me explain further with two examples:

1. An incredibly thrilling twist happens and you are very entertained by it. However, if you really think about the twist, you would realize that it strongly relied on your suspension of disbelief. This is because the twist either uses plot armour or goes against what the story has previously established; basically, it feels like an asspull. This scenario usually occurs even in highly critically acclaimed long-running novels at least once. With intense and thrilling big twists, an objectively perfect novel should nail the sweet spot of the scene being enjoyable yet making complete sense every single time it happens.

2. Then there is the complete opposite and I imagine you know what I am talking about. A genuinely well-thought-out and interesting power system is explained in the span of many chapters. You may love how genius the system is, but after reading so much you will realize how unnatural it feels for the story to suddenly stagnate for this explanation. It is inconsistent, you may ignore this inconsistency and say that is necessary for the pacing to change for this explanation. However, for an objectively perfect story that meets my criteria, the explanation must blend with the plot perfectly making you not even notice that the author is giving exposition. Again the sweet spot.

Most non-web novel critically acclaimed authors have mastered this sweet spot. However, the difference is, their works are not as long as web novels.

All the popular web novels are notorious for being thousands of chapters long and this is where their weakness and strength lies. The weakness is that because of their length, it's almost impossible to be fully consistent, if not determined enough, authors will be lazy and will decide to go to one extreme and ignore the other. The strength is they can create whole worlds with living characters and the most complex/intriguing plots. With such a massive word count, masterpieces that are consistent in quality for thousands of chapters could technically be created and that is exactly what I am trying to say.

I really hope in the near future a web novel author decides to sacrifice his whole lifespan to construct what I have described.

 

You're looking for a long-running published series, not a single published novel or a perfect webnovel.

The difference between webnovels with thousands of chapters and regular books isn't that regular book authors have 'mastered this sweet spot' but that they have the benefit of editing. Webnovel authors do not publish an entire work at one time, unlike how books are published, so of course you're going to to have a front row seat to when they have writer's block.

When regular books rival the length of long-running webnovels they are published as series, not as individual books. And there are plenty of outstanding fiction series.

 

Long webnovels will never be perfect. It's simply impossible.

There are too many problems. For example, long WNs will never be too thrilling or keep you in suspense, because you know that nothing will truly happen to protagonist. It's like a law of nature. Protagonist can't simply die midway into the story. And nothing too serious will happen to him. Even if he died due to plot, you know that in the next chapter he will resurrect and become stronger.

Also, I once thought that as long as novel isn't too repetitive it will not be too boring to read. Like every arc can be a different story. Surely it will be interesting to read? Later I realized that things aren't so simple.

No matter how the plot goes, every MC has his own personality and modus operandi. So even if protagonist encounters different challenges/problems the way he resolves them will be more or less the same in nutshell.

And that's just one part of the problems that webnovels face. Different people have different tastes. I prefer longer and detailed explanations, while you obviously don't like them. People will also argue about romance and other details.

Perfect webnovel is a dream.

 

the author probably published it since they thought it was perfect for the story although the reader might not think so. "Anotehr mans trash is another mans treasure."

Another issue, as someone mentioned, is editing. Westers novels are: 1 raw draft with all the ideas, then they rewrite that mess, into a second draft, which is then sued for as a base for the 3rd draft. This can go on indefinably but usually they stop at 2 or 3. Then they are sent out to close friends/family (alpha readers) to say what they liked and disliked, then they fix those flaws and then they are sent to beta readers, who are usually paid to read it and criticize it, then the author sends it to an agent/publisher where its edited again. No wonder they mastered that sweet spot.

 

I agree with the editing point, and there’s also the issue of the author’s flow. For published series, authors can take their time to finish their work as long as they finish their manuscript on time, if the author is stuck on a certain part, they can take a break and continue after their writer’s block is finished. Even for a series, you take a rest between books, and it’s not uncommon for an author to take a few years to publish another book in a series. For a web series, the author has to puke out a chapter if they have to, daily or weekly, because that’s on their contract, and it’s what keeps the readers reading. It’s hard to keep a consistent pacing and quality with this type of method, especially without editors (in some cases). The author can also read the reactions of the readers immediately after one chapter is out, so they might adjust their plot with it, which kind of makes making it consistent difficult.
Just from the perspective of a reader, everyone has different preferences on what perfect is. I’ve once read a series where the plot slowed down somewhat between arcs, and I thought it was a perfect way to round up the plot and lead up to the next arc. My sister who read the same series disagreed, saying that it was boring, even though it had only been around ten chapters. Ten was just right for me but it was too much for her. Its impossible to make an objectively perfect webnovel, and I also think this remains true for published ones (Particularly regarding your point of sacrificing enjoyment for plot). I recognise it as flawed, but I enjoy it regardless, is what makes it a good novel for me. Doesn’t have to be perfect. (And honestly I’d rather not have a perfect novel since it’d just ruin other series for me)

 

Well, it's important to remember that the "webnovel" format that goes to 1000 - 2000 chapters or more are either very well established series, or the almost daily serialized webnovels of Chinese origins.

Now, for CN webnovels in general, at least those that can run upto the 1000+ chapters are usually "contracted" already, meaning the online published (qidian, zk, etc.) and the author have a contract between them that requires certain things... commonly a minimum word count PER WEEK. Most of these contracts also have stipulation of "releases" per week, some even release DAILY. You can imagine that... churning out 2k-3k Chinese character chapters EVERY SINGLE DAY, FOR YEARS, is quite the slog. This is why CN novels tends to have a lot of "padding" involved and somewhat cyclical plotline because authors, especially successful ones, are basically forced to do so.

Compare that to JP or KR webnovel authors, most of which release WEEKLY and have "seasons/volumes" in which, they regularly take breaks in between these set periods of time... Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that JP or KR novels are better written as each one of them have their pros and cons when it comes to the general writing style... I guess, many of the differences stems from the fact that, although these 3 countries share some cultural aspects (since they geographically were near enough to have cultural exchange throughout the ages), their modern society are very different from one another when it comes to their daily lives and what they value, etc.

I, for one, like all three types, in good measure I'm not so foolish to think there is anything "perfect" out there since anything made by humans are bound to be inherently flawed from the start. I just take what I can get and only read what I enjoy Haters or reviews be damned!

 

The only exception to that rule that I've found are World Hopping novels. Well, because each arc is its own story and they keep it relatively short, so it makes sense. All the other extremely long novels, I expect a normal start and a xianxia end, and somewhere in the middle it gets crazy.

 

Could you give me an example of a long-running published series that is NOT western?

 

One Piece is the first that comes to mind. Toarumajutsu is another.
There's also Hajime no Ippo and Pokemon that I can think of, but I don't really read/watch those, so I dunno much about their quality.

And for the record, I kinda agree with the main point. Like... Exceptions always exist, of course (see One Piece), but as a rule of thumb, if your story is gigantic, chances are you added a buttload of filler and are milking the story long past the point it should have already ended, which will make the middle to late parts of your story be pretty bad.

 

I meant a novel.

 

Toarumajutsu. I mentioned it above.

 

The certain magical index is not long.

 

22 volumes for the main series
23 volumes for the New Testament
7 volumes for Genesis (ongoing)
6 side story volumes

You think almost 60 volumes and ongoing isn't long? Dunno what to tell you.

According to my quick googling, the first volume of the main series has 56000 words... Assuming each non-side-story volume has this same word count, we have 2,912,000 words for the series... Ongoing.

Sure, it's not as big as Wheel of Time, which has 4,400,000 words, but that's also assuming the volumes of Index kept the same size throughout the series... And generally speaking, that's usually not the case. Latter volumes tend to be longer.

By the way, Lord of the Rings + Hobbit has 576,459 words. About 5x less words than Toarumajutsu, which is still ongoing.

 

NGL, most of the series I read are written in English and published in the west, since English is my first language and I'm not too familiar with eastern publishing practices.

However, there are several famous series (depends on what you mean by 'long-running' really) which were adapted to film. Several of these were first published in newspapers in the 20th century and then converted to book form afterwards, and went through editing processes in between. (I used to read wuxia translations on spcnet way back when which used to discuss things like this, yep, I'm old.)

I believe this is also the case for webnovels that are published as light novels afterwards, they go through editing but probably not to the same extent as a normal published work would. You may have a better experience picking up the translated novels from a regular bookstore, like I know Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation has a proper English novel version.

Authors you can check out:

Yu Wo (famous for 1/2 Prince and Legend of the Sun Knight, she also has several other series, some of which are ongoing, no clue which of these are published in English TBH)

Ni Kuong (famous for the Wiseley series, several stories from which were adapted to film)

Jin Yong (uh... this doesn't really need an explanation, he's pretty much the most well-known Chinese modern author. Even though things like Legend of Condor Heroes aren't to the length you might be looking for, they are long enough to be published in several chunks and have great translations)

Gu Long (also one of the very well-known wuxia writers, you can check his wikipedia page)

Liang Yusheng (famous for the Bride With White Hair, the wuxia series with the most famous badass female protagonist who gave her heart to the wrong person, but IIRC the White Hair series is a trilogy)

Huang Yi (famous for A Step Into the Past, he has several sets of very long series that were published in book format)

Worth a mention: Liu Cixin, author of The Three Body Problem, part of a trilogy.

 

Cultivation chat group gets reaaaaaally close. The power system is consistent, the logic of the characters track, the jokes evolve and change as they develop, the pacing is very good, with each four hundred chapters basically being their own little block, but, unfortunately, the last 300-500 chapters or so drop the ball a bit. It doesn't get bad, but the overall quality and consistency still noticeably drops as it's bringing it home.

 

Well, Guin Saga has over 170 volumes I think.

 

I can think of plenty of books that are good from beginning to end so it feels like a case of "Read better books!"

It's not really a trilogy. The second and third novels are fairly connected to each other, but the first one is very much its own thing. They also take place over many decades which further weakens the ties. Also, if you haven't read it, "the Bride with White Hair" isn't the kind of book you might think it is.

 

I have read it, yep! Just the first one, though. Not sure what kind of impression my description gave.

 

It's more that people seem more familiar with the Tsui Hark film than the book, and the two are very different from each other.

 

I mean, we all can think of plenty of books that are good from beginning to end.

When we're talking about gigantic stories though, then plenty of them start falling on quality as they grow longer and longer, even if the start was very solid.

Of course, exceptions exist~