Learn how to rate things properly

You don't actually need to know what a story is about to be able to tell if it's going to be awful or not. The author can demonstrate that they can't write in the first chapter. I gave an example in this thread. There was a story with plagiarism in it, several points which didn't make any sense to me, and the grammar was kind of bad. If the author doesn't make sense in the first chapter then I can expect stupidity throughout the story.

 

Didn't I just say that there are circumstances where, if for example the writing/TL is unreadable or the story contains themes that some people would find detestable (say, plagiarism, or child rape, or NTR, or kittens), writing a review early on to inform the prospective readers is perfectly legit and doesn't make it automatically wrong?

That said, if there were two reviews of such a work, one written after 5 chapters and one written after 50, I would still consider the latter more credible, so long as it actually discussed the work instead of the "review faux pas" I have mentioned before, simply because placing more trust in the review that actually covers more of the work is the sane thing to do in my opinion. Not to mention, if a work is so obviously bad, the 5 chapter and the 50 chapter reviewer should have the same consensus anyway.

 

I have to agrre about leaving a review. Totally disagree with everything else. The point of fiction imo is a depiction of what could be, and usually main characters will be relatable to a certain audience. IMO i should be fully prepped as that audience there should be red flags indicating who the novel is directed towards. For instance i do not like reading BL
(i like it in manga but in novels it weirds me out idk why tried a bunch of novels just didnt work out maybe its the lack of flowers everywhere)

Half the time the audience member was not prepped. I look at a novel i see a picture of a cute little girl. There is a synopsis that says some BS about transcending the heavens and blah blah. I see a shit load of tags and i just go ahhh why not. 2 chapters in the maincharacter is a guy who became a trap character and all guys flirt with him thinking he is a girl so funny until i read it like 15 times to chapter 5. So obviously a common theme that i do not like that was not mentioned in synopsis. Oh and dont forget in chapter 3 some zombies came out of nowhere to attack the ML. Always hated zombie plots and crap but where was that tag? Oh yeah nobody added it cause it was like this one chapter?
But you see already i am uncomfortable because of the theme they got going on and then they just add something else, me and that author gonna be fighting!!
I would never write a review though, or even rate it because it wasnt meant for me, we werent meant to be.

All in all people should look for novels that are meant for them, for their audience. I do not think it makes sense for a person to read a novel that is not for their viewing, forcing a straight guy to read BL when he makes no connection to any elements in the novel is kinda dumb. Writing is an art form and all art gets personal.

 

I have a long rant I'll probably end up writing about Romance novels one of these days. The gist is that most of the Romance novels I've read start off the story by concentrating on the protagonist, her challenges, and how she uses her skills and wits to overcome them. This is all good and fine, but the story often shifts to be more about the romance part, so a lot more of the focus moves to the male love interest. The problem is that these love interests tend to be either boring or are outright overbearing. And so the story is effectively moving away from its strengths and concentrating on things that are either mediocre or worse.

 

Long time no see, personally I have not read a romance story I liked since Harlequinn and similar books over 10 years ago. I have found some interesting stories but there is always some form of abuse or rape.. or dude's getting pregnant lol

 

I think anyone should rate and review at any point of the story, especially if the story has a slow release pace.

... Rating it low just because you don't agree with what the MC did is pretty ridiculous, I agree with that, but I think that if I drop a story at chapter 1, I have a good reason to do so, and as such, I have the freedom to give it an appropriate rating~

 

I can think of counterexamples. A decent enough, expected amount of novels do end timely. The overbearing silent male lead is a big cliché though, writing consistently interesting romance is hard, and when looking at the bigger picture I agree with you.

Some time ago I noticed how romance novels with a prominent backdrop are in general stronger than those without. As I was reading Our Glamorous Time, I felt like it carried a lot more flame/intensity than some others I recently read due to the business backdrop, despite the writing not being very explicit. This sort of coincides with what you say, since if there's a backdrop there's something the author can fall back to.

Most western romance I read also conforms to what you say, I don't feel it's specifically something eastern. There's a few big ML clichés there as well, sometimes similar to those here, and keeping romance alone interesting is something a lot of romance writers struggle with globally.

I do think not everyone would agree with your statement though. Some revel in the sugar, even if others would call it subpar.

 

At least he actually read the damn novel, some f**kers rated just from looking at the tags

 

Were talking about my precious time here right? So if an author wastes my time or the translation is tragic, then I'm going to rate it with a low score. The problem with these light novel is that some are very good and some are super poor , which leads me to give out 1 star or 5 start very rarely I find a novel that is inbetween those two ratings , I think I read maybe 1 or 2 in the previous year that warrant 2 star or 4 star rating instead of 1 or 5.

 

I like reading about female characters who get to do kickass things, and Romance novels is one of the most common ways to encounter them. The abuse thing is pretty bothersome, but there are some good ones out there that don't have it. In particular, I'd recommend the Tong Hua novels as they have some great writing. They're also really sad though.

 

Well I do agree one thing that there are many stupid reviews that I find that they should be the one writing the stories or hire the author.

 

There are some dumb reviews where they hate the novel just because it's a harem. I mean ffs there is a f*cking harem tag for a reason. Its like me giving 1 star to all yaoi genre novels.

 

by human nature we decide by what we see, and the whole "do not judge a book by its cover" is hogwash.

Lets say a new novel is posted up and there are no reviews on it or cover and the synopsis does not say much about the actual content. vast majority of people will opt for a wait and see stance until some people put up a review. For a translator this is a bad thing because they do not have access to advertising the platforms the original raw novel has to bring in the readers.

I have more problems with people just throwing out a review just to throw one out that has no actual connection to the novel.

I've given early reviews 1-5 chapters in for:
1. Translation is so bad it is either machine translated or the person does not know grammar at all. I also make sure to point the reason out and say that the problem is the translator not the novel and hope a real translator picks it up.

2. The author is an idiot, yes I have encountered novels the author was a true idiot that made poor attempts to sound smart and I dropped after one chapter. Later reviews of the people that made the mistake of reading further said this particular novel was so bad they regret not listening to the people like me that dropped after one chapter.

3. If there is little to no rating and the current chapter is 5 but the novel is good so far then I will give it 4 stars mentioning it has "potential" in hopes the translator does not drop it.

 

If you dropped a novel or show right at the start, that totally fine and reasonable to do. If the complaint is superficial or you couldn't get into it, then that's just an opinion and not a review.

 

Probably none of the people here are professional critics. Most will rate based on emotions. I've stopped caring a long time ago.