Decline in moral standards in web novels

[2021]

I began my reading web novels in my early teens.(14 years old) Now I am 23.
From Chinese cultivation novels to Japanese lightnovels and even korean novels(translated). I have read more books than I could ever count.
Most of it was awesome, opening my mind to possibilities and thoughts that I could never come up on my own.
While at the same time, this is getting tiring. In the early days of translated web novels. They had quality in writing, character development and world development.
But now, it feels like morals are a thing of past.
The worst of all is the fact that low moral standard based novels are promoted extensively while real novels with substance are ignored. This might be my personal opinion. But I would like to hear hear more about this from webnovel authors and readers. Please comment.

Who needs character when you have action or smut

 

[aattss]

What comes to my mind.

The "average" book from five centuries ago is going to be better than the "average" book today because the book from five centuries ago was so amazing it ended up being remembered for five centuries and still talked about by by people today as compared to whatever you get when you go onto a random fiction site and click random novel.

Bad statistics lead to faulty memory. Are you going to remember a bad book for ten years?

If not a lot of people are translating WNs, then they're only going to translate the ones they like the best. It's when a lot of people are translating or looking for WNs that people start translating their eighth favorite WN or whatever.

People think subversion is cool. If everyone else thinks something is bad, then you're smarter and cooler than everyone else if you say that actually it's good, and any counterarguments are just sheeple.

 

[D.S.Nate]

I began my reading web novels in my early teens.(14 years old) Now I am 23.
From Chinese cultivation novels to Japanese lightnovels and even korean novels(translated). I have read more books than I could ever count.
Most of it was awesome, opening my mind to possibilities and thoughts that I could never come up on my own.
While at the same time, this is getting tiring. In the early days of translated web novels. They had quality in writing, character development and world development.
But now, it feels like morals are a thing of past.
The worst of all is the fact that low moral standard based novels are promoted extensively while real novels with substance are ignored. This might be my personal opinion. But I would like to hear hear more about this from webnovel authors and readers. Please comment.

Having written my story for years now I can say that this trend is true and though I'm not going to join the trend. I've just come to accept it. My story never really gets too much attention compared to what I see at the top. Partly because I've started out writing with the intent of getting a physical copy published and although my spark for writing was started with anime and games and will always be how I imagen my story it's also been influenced by the structures of the fantasy novels I've gotten into over the years and so my chapter length tends to average between 5 to 9k each.

I've considered shortening them but I feel it will compromise the kind of pacing I'm aiming for.

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

I'm not sure about that, there are more novels about cliche stories with righteous heroes saving the world than novels with low moral values.

I don't think the problem is the low morale, but just the difference with 'real' morale.

When a hero kills a man without remorse, but can't help to doubt about killing a woman and he ends up recruiting her in his harem, it can be considered 'good morale' but it's trash.

I prefer a MC killing everyone without differencing between age or sex. And this is just an example among so many others.

Imo, out of 10 new web novels getting released only 1 will be worth reading, the 9 others will just exploit the 'meta' to surf on what's popular and get more readers. Especially for Chinese and Japanese novels.

I ended up reading only Korean and Western webnovels recently, the quality is often better, you can find good novels and authors that don't follow the same clichés just to get a big reader-base while writing trash stuff.

Yep, I always say Western and Korean are far better than anything Chinese or Japanese. Occasionally, the Japs will create somehing wondrous, but its rare. They tend to drown in the same lame-ass cliche-land where Tsundere's that need a real beating dwell and where dull overly beta-oblivious male MC's ignore what's right in their face. And then we have the worst offender of all to me, "The Don't Ever Kill" crowd that causes me no small amount of rage. I can't even begin to describe how stupid that outlook is. Anyway, Koreans and Westerners have the best fiction as far as I'm concerned. Japanese to me are usually ruined by their choice in characters.

Whereas Chinese works are almost always better used as toilet paper if in print, and cautionary tales on how to get better at writing worse when digital.

 

[InceTagn]

I'm not sure about that, there are more novels about cliche stories with righteous heroes saving the world than novels with low moral values.

I don't think the problem is the low morale, but just the difference with 'real' morale.

When a hero kills a man without remorse, but can't help to doubt about killing a woman and he ends up recruiting her in his harem, it can be considered 'good morale' but it's trash.

I prefer an MC killing everyone without differencing between age or sex. And this is just an example among so many others.

IMO, out of 10 new web novels getting released only 1 will be worth reading, the 9 others will just exploit the 'meta' to surf on what's popular and get more readers. Especially for Chinese and Japanese novels.

I ended up reading only Korean and Western web novels recently, the quality is often better, you can find good novels and authors that don't follow the same clichés just to get a big reader-base while writing trash stuff.

Kind of funny. I saw an mc who killed a bunch of people because they were going to capture a wild bear.

Does anyone remember Jurassic Parc the old movies? there is an island where dinosaurs are living. Some rich people captured these dinosaurs, and the main protagonists sabotaged their plan causing the death of dozen of people.

I don't care about the moral value of the Mc, but sometimes they are just too dumb, too contradictory, too fickle.

And the author justifies their action in the most idiotic ways.
I often feel like I am being taken as an idiot.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Kind of funny. I saw an mc who killed a bunch of people because they were going to capture a wild bear.

Does anyone remember Jurassic Parc the old movies? there is an island where dinosaurs are living. Some rich people captured these dinosaurs, and the main protagonists sabotaged their plan causing the death of dozen of people.

I don't care about the moral value of the Mc, but sometimes they are just too dumb, too contradictory, too fickle.

And the author justifies their action in the most idiotic ways.
I often feel like I am being taken as an idiot.

In the US legal system there is something called the reasonable person standard. It‘s mostly used in liability suits. I try to use it when writing, thinking what is the most logical action a person in the scenario would take.

 

[BearlyAlive]

It's easy to see where the decline is comin from, tho. Blame it on the weebs!

Be it korean grind, japanese beta-harem or chinese murder spree, the market is oversaturated and thus most people go to the cheapest and quickest drug dealer to get their fix. Which is most of the time a dumbed down version of the already existing stuff, just with a new ingredient here and there. Which means characters without morals or brains, since they grind faster, get to the lewds faster and murder faster.

While the rare species of Ancient Weeb, the ones that liked to have fanservice sprinkeled in their stories instead of the other way around, might occassionally still produce something that is in essence more than just a cheap way for addicts to get high, they are declining more than ever since the market doesn't want them. Nobody in the slums wants a 5-star dinner if they can eat grease and drink piss-bear for a fraction of the investment.

 

[2021]

The drama of broken humans is like honey to people

 

[NobleTalon]

It's easy to see where the decline is comin from, tho. Blame it on the weebs!

Be it korean grind, japanese beta-harem or chinese murder spree, the market is oversaturated and thus most people go to the cheapest and quickest drug dealer to get their fix. Which is most of the time a dumbed down version of the already existing stuff, just with a new ingredient here and there. Which means characters without morals or brains, since they grind faster, get to the lewds faster and murder faster.

While the rare species of Ancient Weeb, the ones that liked to have fanservice sprinkeled in their stories instead of the other way around, might occassionally still produce something that is in essence more than just a cheap way for addicts to get high, they are declining more than ever since the market doesn't want them. Nobody in the slums wants a 5-star dinner if they can eat grease and drink piss-bear for a fraction of the investment.

true

 

[Katsuya]

Well, I mean, many people are now writing webnovels nowadays(won't say more then before) but yeah. As time goes on, people are getting worse and so are the ideas. People care about books as much as before, and so, ig the quality is getting worse cause of that.

To be honest there are many reasons. The interest of people nowadays, etc. Also, (this is prob the biggest reason) with webnovels, you can write whatever you want. You do you. so, because of that freedom, people... just do them.

 

[OsadaHiraga]

There seems to be an influx of Evil MCs these days. While I dont really care about MCs morality but please just make it a bit more interesting. Nowadays it's just a bunch of Edgelords showing the world how chuuni and edgy they can be. Also a bunch of seggs and stuff like that. If they're that orny, they might as well watch pron.

 

[Theirl]

well my opnion is that our world is getting more and more restritive, cancel culture in the west, the social norms in japan, the chinese social score... that make 'murder hobo' novels popular because its a type of scapism

 

[KittraMcBriar]

Hey, I think my cybernetic hooker murder hobos are very nice people, thank you very much.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

I have noticed that a lot of protagonists are becoming more bloodthirsty lately, but I don't personally see much correlation with real life morality. In terms of corporate media, they call it 'growing up with the target audience'.

 

[TheComedicOne]

Webnovel is just a place for Horny Virgins who can't help but imagine themselves in that situation as the protaganist of the story.

 

[taesijr123]

Imagine, being stuck in a world where your pp turns into a sword but in exchange you turn into a girl.
Where a royal battle between pp's swords will determine who will remain a girl and who will remain a boy.
For reproduction purposes and has these royalties.

Yes, I had this idea I had and the moral standards are ZERO.
but I never had the gut's or imagination to make it happen because it sounds so NSFW idk how to make it happen or post it without getting flagged.

It was finally time to discuss whether it is awsome or not.

 

[greyblob]

Imagine, being stuck in a world where your pp turns into a sword but in exchange you turn into a girl.
Where a royal battle between pp's swords will determine who will remain a girl and who will remain a boy.
For reproduction purposes and has these royalties.

Yes, I had this idea I had and the moral standards are ZERO.
but I never had the gut's or imagination to make it happen because it sounds so NSFW idk how to make it happen or post it without getting flagged.

It was finally time to discuss whether it is awsome or not.

its fascinating how common of an idea dick dueling is. I've seen at least 3 different people talking about it

 

[taesijr123]

its fascinating how common of an idea dick dueling is. I've seen at least 3 different people talking about it

Please, let me see where you found those people.
I wanna discuss whether it's possible to make an anime school isekai novel out of it.

 

[greyblob]

Please, let me see where you found those people.
I wanna discuss whether it's possible to make an anime school isekai novel out of it.

here on the forums actually, but I can't remember whom - my memory is horrible

 

[C_P_Tuck]

I began my reading web novels in my early teens.(14 years old) Now I am 23.
From Chinese cultivation novels to Japanese lightnovels and even korean novels(translated). I have read more books than I could ever count.
Most of it was awesome, opening my mind to possibilities and thoughts that I could never come up on my own.
While at the same time, this is getting tiring. In the early days of translated web novels. They had quality in writing, character development and world development.
But now, it feels like morals are a thing of past.
The worst of all is the fact that low moral standard based novels are promoted extensively while real novels with substance are ignored. This might be my personal opinion. But I would like to hear hear more about this from webnovel authors and readers. Please comment.

Welcome to the greatest complaint of any fantasy writer who publishes in serialized format. We spend hours sinking time and effort into our worldbuilding and character development, not to mention the many systems that we have to develop and maintain.

Unfortunately, while I commiserate with your suffering (albeit from a writer's perspective), there is no fix to this problem. As someone above mentioned, humans are the problem, and humans are the readers. If it isn't a depraved sex scene followed by a cheeky strong MC or an "UwU" type of interaction, then BOOM about 90% of the reader base on the site drops off.

TL;DR - Porn sells. You have to dig through the dirt to find the gold.

I began my reading web novels in my early teens.(14 years old) Now I am 23.
From Chinese cultivation novels to Japanese lightnovels and even korean novels(translated). I have read more books than I could ever count.
Most of it was awesome, opening my mind to possibilities and thoughts that I could never come up on my own.
While at the same time, this is getting tiring. In the early days of translated web novels. They had quality in writing, character development and world development.
But now, it feels like morals are a thing of past.
The worst of all is the fact that low moral standard based novels are promoted extensively while real novels with substance are ignored. This might be my personal opinion. But I would like to hear hear more about this from webnovel authors and readers. Please comment.

Now that I think about it, just switch genres. Avoid anything isekai or anime-themed, and pick up a good fantasy story. That'll have the worldbuilding and character development you're missing so much.

The world of stories isn't just anime and skill systems. Branch out your interests.