“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." ― W. Somerset Maugham So the other thread made me do this! Obviously people should also post their own thoughts, it helps make them more concrete and hopefully helps you develop your own style. So...this isn't thoughts on how to write a chapter, it's more about the top level issues writers face based on far too much reading of different authors blogs and my personal experience. 1) Take a moment and think about why you are writing in general and particular If you always wanted to write that story in the back of your mind, trying to impress the hot librarian girl, make $8,000 a month of easy money working from home, or whatever it's fine. Why is all that fine? Because maybe it helps define who you are writing for, besides yourself. Most people are trying to write something other people will want to read but not everyone will want to read whatever it is you are creating. Understanding your audience, even if it is just you, helps a lot later on this list. Generally unless you are trying to write to a particular market you don't like, you should also enjoy your story. It's a lot harder to write a story you don't like that's customized for some other readers. A sci-fi writer can grind some cash writing Yaoi romances but it takes a ton more work to do it. Knowing who your audience is also helps market your novel better, set better tags/genre's on websites, and write better descriptions of your book. 2) Writers publish, authors write Unless your favorite writer only wrote one book and slaved over it for 40 years, which was published after their death, they usually had to say "okay, this is good enough". Almost everyone who has ever hit publish on a website, sent in a manuscript, etc. would be willing to admit that they could have done a better version if they had longer. But if they want to get their work read, and maybe get paid at the same time, they had to call a stop at some point. For webnovelists that's even more important, do a good job, publish the chapter, do a good job on the next chapter and keep repeating that. 3) Give readers as little reason to quit your story as possible People quit stories for all kinds of reasons, an adventure story has a romantic subplot start, a romance suddenly gets bogged down in the details of a lawsuit over the MC's inheritance. Some readers will stop reading at the first spelling or grammar mistake(usually print readers), or because their cat puked a hairball on their foot. You can't control it all but you can help yourself. Readers started reading your story based on some promise they felt it offered to them. "It will be a story of a sweeping romance across multiple universes and reincarnations" for example. The promise of an epic larger than life romance would be dragged down if you start writing a bloody revenge tragedy. It also usually lets readers down to start with a 5 page lecture on the story's universe. Twists and turns are fine, switching genre's or focusing on things the readers didn't pick up your book for isn't. If you do need to do that, go change your story's description so readers don't feel tricked or let down. There's lots of other examples like too many boring explanation paragraphs in a row, confusing action, characters that don't make internal sense and so on. Every paragraph, every page, every new scene, every new chapter is a natural stopping point for a reader. Few will stop in the middle of a paragraph and go to a new web page, a bit more will switch to a video at a new scene, more might not come back after finishing a chapter and going to bed. Cliffhangers, continuous development of the MC, a storyline that make readers wonder how it ends are all different ways to keep readers continuing to read or coming back even if they complain about their addictions sometimes. If nothing is really happening and no tension/promise of something happening soon they will likely give up. So varying tensions/expectations is a skill to develop. 4) The purpose of grammar The purpose of grammar isn't to restrict you, and most people like me fail at it regularly. The purpose is to communicate clearly to the reader who is doing what to whom/what. If your reader can't tell what is going on then you are failing as a writer. It is worth learning more grammar, especially if your readers complain. There's free online tests and other resources. 5) Conflict and desires are the heart of novels A story without conflict is possible, but it is generally similar to a set of still pictures instead of a movie. You are essentially drawing a universe that might be interesting to look at but nothing is really happening. It also usually feels very deterministic, as in everyone went to point B, then everyone went to point C, then sexy times happened, and everyone met up at point D. Every character has their own dreams, plans, and while the reader doesn't need to know most of it they should feel that interactions between characters are driven by something. Minor characters are just trying to get a tip at their dead end waitress job, or are annoyed that the MC looks like their ex, or just simply want to get the interaction done with so they can go back to reading their Isekai novel in the back of the store. Living breathing characters aren't a collection of height, weight, breast size, and hair color. They have somewhere they were, somewhere they are, and plans/desires to be somewhere else. You don't have to explicitly flesh all that out, you just need the bare minimum for the scene, but characters shouldn't be mannequins, they should have trajectories that cross the MC's life. 6) Accept that some people just won't like your work, but realize when it isn't that After all the above, some readers will still pick up novels that don't fit their taste, or try to self insert themselves into it and fail (MC IS DUMB, HE SHOULD HAVE DONE ABC!). Sometimes that's a reader who should likely be reading another book, but sometimes you might have made the MC appear too competent then incompetent. Is the criticism that you failed to deliver the romantic comedy you promised with the description and cover by making it all too serious, or alternatively focusing on the humor and forgetting to advance the romance? Because that's on you. 7) Characters grow in most novels There are character arcs, story arcs, etc. but if you are writing from the seat of your pants instead of planning it all you still want your characters not to stay confused at why their romantic interest gets mad at them. Readers usually want to see that the idiot on page 1 become something better by the final page. 8) Finally, Readers have expectations of you the webnovelist Based on what you tell them, they expect chapters are certain times, certain types of stories, etc. It's up to you to manage that ahead of time, like warning no chapter tomorrow due to exams. If you interact in comments or do FAQ's they will expect more of it. Edit: 9) Webnovelists often take shortcuts in descriptions/introductions to ideas One thing you might have noticed if you read a Japanese webnovel, or Korean, etc. is that they skip introductions to common things in their culture. They are writing to people who know what a Japanese castle looks like, a Qilin, an eastern dragon, etc. This makes the stories flow faster than a lot of published western fiction that isn't set in present day. But you have to keep in mind your reader might have seen the concept you are introducing zero or a thousand times. Stan Lee had a quote, every comic book is someone's first comic book. So if your setting isn't the present day you might want to explain new things in simple, clear terms but also not drag it out. All I could think of at midnight on a Sunday night. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong or what is missing.
I can tell that you're very dilligent... just imagining myself try to point out the points you've written is tiring On a side note, I'd like to add on the marketing aspect of the story. Knowing your audience is a broad subject. I think new writers should really zoom in to their niche. As we do with our character profiles, an audience profile can be made which can be simply written as follows: -I write for Jane, a 24 year-old office lady who likes reading Yaoi smut in her spare time. (This is made to help the writer imagine what Jane likes and dislikes, either the writer will fully cater Jane's likes or throw in some relatively safe dislikes every now and then lol) -I write for James, 22 year-old bachelor who hasn't gotten over his Gundam Seed addiction. Hakhakhak this is randomly written so don't bash... I just hope it's helpful *tilts head* If you write your story for a targeted audience, it's easier to have a guideline on the do's and don'ts (if you're trying to write with money as the ultimate goal) Nevertheless, having a target market will help you navigate this chaotic web novel world.
Additions 4) The purpose of grammar Your prose should be clear, but I also believe that grammar, like letters is also tool with which you can do more with than you might at first imagine. You might want to say something in some way, an indirect yet impactful way, and you can only do it that way if you have enough knowledge on grammar and how words can be arranged. 5) Conflict and desires are the heart of novels Conflict is a slippery slope. The more difficult or impossible you make something seem, the more likely the solution of the said problem will feel unearned or lacking in gratification. But if you don't make the conflict difficult enough, the story will lack drama or tension. Ideally, you want to be having your reader thinking one of the two extremes constantly throughout a tense scene, "They're going to lose," "Now they'll definitely win." 7) Characters grow in most novels It seems to me that most people think in extremes, or only remember extreme things, so I'll set an extreme example. You either have a boring character who can grow, or an interesting character who has already grown all that they can. Ideally you want something in between. But there's also the character that has a crisis in faith and in the end decides to stick with their original values. Much of writing is a balancing act.