Nothing motivates me more to write than to read trash webnovels.
SH, NU, RR, WN—whatever. Mediocrity is everywhere. This isn’t news or an unpopular opinion. Everyone’s familiar with Sturgeon’s Law (90% of everything’s crap). Sometimes you dig up gold, but when do, not all of it is gold. Most of it’s shit—which isn’t good for my mental health, because I, for some reason, can’t stop reading trash. It’s a habit, it’s an addiction, it’s what turns me on.
Overused tropes, cliches, cardboard cut-out characters, lack of originality, failure to live up to potential, needless fillers, bloated descriptions to reach a word-count, overindulgence in escapism or power-fantasy, etc. I don’t need to list it all out. You all
know. You all also know the disappointment one feels, when, after investing 30 chapters into boring filler, something so stupid happens that you have to drop the story, annoyed as if betrayed by the author for having led you by the nose.
Once you’ve read webnovels long enough, a voice starts to grow in you, a whisper at first, soon yelling at you, indignant: ‘I can write better than this—
trash! Jesus Christ, just do it already!’ And so you do it—if you’re me. That’s how I got into writing at least, 5 years ago. I still write, and I’ve gotten a lot better than my former self (an arrogant amateur, who thought he was good?
Pah!), but I still haven’t done the one thing that got me into writing in the first place: which are the mistakes, still sticking out like a sore thumb, in the stories I read as a teen.
So I’m going to do what the title says. I’m going to rewrite the stories that’ve failed to live up to their potential.
It’s not a bad idea if you give it some thought. By doing this, I’ll improve, I’ll destress, I’ll actually pump out chapters (bye-bye decision paralysis!), and the harsh feedback (if they do come) won’t phase me much since I won’t have as much personal investment behind it, and I’ll actually learn something and improve. The only cons I see is that, it’s not very flattering to have your work ‘corrected’, even if you yourself admit that your work is jaded. So what to do? I’m going to correct the works of authors who can’t read english. It’s that simple.
On my journey to inner-peace, I’m going to start off with The Novel’s Extra. Why? Mainly because I have
notes lying around for it. And I’m about to read it for the 3rd time. Also, I’ve read the fanfics, and also a few derivatives (The Author’s POV, for example, explicitly admits to being heavily inspired by it and it shows), among other reasons.
If y’all have something against me for this, just know that, if you think about it, I’m making the world a better place
.
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