Cultivation Novels

[pyrak]

lol that's a reference to the sweat shop known as Web Novel.
They lock people into contracts which steal away their rights for pennies and force them to write at least 1,500 words a day for 3-5 years at a time.

You can't make this stuff up.

Considering how bad their user end stuff is (cough spirit stones (which is actually bullshit on several levels) cough) if it weren't for the fact that I'm pretty sure they have a near monopoly in the asian market, I don't know how they even manage to keep readers around. They're also stealing work put up on other sites, letting plagiarists put up other people's work on their site and of course claiming legal rights to properties that aren't theirs.

They pretty much scream "evil greedy coorperation out to make the fastest biggest profit possible be damned on anything else."

 

[pyrak]

I must be bad at cultivation novels. I can't even reach 100 chapters!

I've read one which recently (well, a few months ago) finished at 1585 chapters, I don't remember how many chapters it was at when I started reading it though.

 

[jabathehut]

Fair enough. I could understand it as a cultural break then. Just like I prefer "Go to hell!" more than "Are you courting death!!?". I'm not even Christian but I still prefer it. But like you said, cultural differences.

That said, I don't understand the nascent thing you mentioned. Also, I actually understand most of the colloquialisms. One of my bachelor's degrees involves a lot of Eastern history and knowledge so I've picked up quite a bit. I understand most of the random lines like those. My favorite for a long time was, " Speak of Cao Cao and he will arrive", which was basically "speak of the devil....." In the west. I also liked the historical story/origins that gave rise to the saying the first place.

My gripe was that most xianxia novels reuse the same ones over and over across countless authors.

I think that if authors want to use the hamfisted dialogue lines they have to fully understand the context. A lot of them use lines like "courting death" thinking its a super super serious thing to say or not understanding other lines.

me when the author says "The mantis stalks the cicada unaware of the oriole behind"

 

[jabathehut]

To be honest, I always found the premise itself of cultivation novels quite intriguing. The idea of cultivation and the different tiers has potential. It is just the execution that is piss poor, and I blame the Chinese authors for that.

Less the authors and more the publisher

 

[Discount_Blade]

Considering how bad their user end stuff is (cough spirit stones (which is actually bullshit on several levels) cough) if it weren't for the fact that I'm pretty sure they have a near monopoly in the asian market, I don't know how they even manage to keep readers around. They're also stealing work put up on other sites, letting plagiarists put up other people's work on their site and of course claiming legal rights to properties that aren't theirs.

They pretty much scream "evil greedy coorperation out to make the fastest biggest profit possible be damned on anything else."

B-b-b-but Middle Kingdom!!!!!

 

[Jaredman92]

I'm currently writing a cultivation Xuanhuan story right now and I couldn't help but laugh at your quotes. I actually pull some of the terms from a site.
I really try to focus on the 'fantasy' aspect rather than the stereotypical "YOU DARE" bent. Whether I succeed or not, I guess only time will tell.