any thoughts on my unflinching attempt at a realistic isekai

[Just.Another.Adult.]

Please read as much as you want for reference, all critique welcome:

I, Human!

We've all dreamed of starring in our own isekai, but how long would you survive? Transported to another world, the only human surrounded by monsters, no one to turn to for help... this isn't just your average cut and paste by the number ecchi harem shounen comedy adventure. I, Human!...

www.scribblehub.com

I, Human! - or what it's really like to get isekai'd~

i have never asked for feedback before, so please feel free being brutal as fuck...
i'd like to address a few stylistic choices and specific questions before that though:

• it is written in first person present to be as immediate and authentic as possible. i don't want anything to feel planned, i want it to feel like someone struggling and scrapping through real events they have no control over, and i want the reader to feel like they are in the narrator's position as much as possible. - am i managing this effectively with the tense choice, or is it weird to read compared to third person past/present or first person past?
  
  
• i used to write like a pretentious modernist, but after reading George Orwell's essays, and finding out about his purposeful self limitation on style so that his work would be more accessible and readable for a wider audience, i am trying my best to do the same. this may have resulted in my over compensating and writing in a potentially boring and overly simplistic style. - have i gone too far, is it too easy to read, do i need to add more complexity to the vocabulary and grammar, or am i balancing things well, or should i make it even easier to read somehow?
  
  
• the setting is meant to be similar what it would be like if you or i, a generally average person, was dumped in the middle of Russian Ural Mountains or Tongass National Forest in Alaska (for non-English speakers). how fucked would you be waking up in the most remote, uninhabited parts of the world, surrounded by unforgiving nature, and if you do encounter anyone you're not going to be able to communicate. how long would you survive on what few practical skills you have? how long would it take to learn the language when you can barely understand it and are potentially viewed with hostility as a crazed outsider? - i know i have sped things up a little bit, the story would be too boring if i wrote a complete journal trecking hundreds of miles to the nearest anything, but is the desperation and anxiety coming across? is the relief at any small victory, finding shelter, starting a fire, etc hitting home?
  
  
• i separated out the prologue as CHAPTER 0, because i knew i wanted this to be a slow burn. i have a tendancy to waffle and draw things out way longer than they need to be, so making this first chapter an optional section for those that wanted things to kick off a bit quicker felt like a good idea. i am concerned that CHAPTER 1 has ended up being too slow though, i wanted it to kick off with action to draw in readers that don't vibe with drudgery, but i don't think i got it right... it's hard to have your cake and eat it. - does CHAPTER 0 work as a good prologue for building more atmosphere and tension for those interested in that sorta thing? does CHAPTER 1 kick off well enough with more of the isekai trope stuff for those looking something with better pacing, or do i need something more punchy/action-y in there? what can i do to improve their respective roles and the transition between?

might add more areas i want looking at later, but feel free to suggest anything that might need looking at.
can't think of anything else for now, so have at me~

 

[Deleted member 93348]

Tbh, fam, your novel has a lot more potential than I expected! Kudos to you for actually learning how to improve yourself as an author. Sadly, just like my first time writing, I’m afraid you haven’t ironed out the clarity of your story as much as it should’ve been.

Firsts things first, change your present-tense prose to past-tense; trust me, paragraphs will flow miles better this way. After all, there’s a whole bucket of reasons why Orwell never wrote in present-tense, so I suggest you reread all his rules in writing.

Speaking of paragraphs, please split them into smaller ones to improve readability, and I mean drastically. You don’t have to write an entire thesis to make your readers imagine it's all happening in one scene, but the opposite (paragraphs too short between pauses) isn’t any better. So I suggest you keep paragraph length varied enough to make the scene more coherent and concise.

You see the paragraphs I’ve written before this one? For now, I can keep it short because readers oughta deserve a breather from time to time.

Then, I continue with a much lengthier monologue—and contrary to what you may think—they’re not necessarily info-dumps but well-done expressions of the author's thoughts, instead. Now, do you see the em dashes (—) I just used? They improve readability even further, but please be careful not to overuse them in one paragraph—though at least three em dashes are good enough. You’ve probably realized by now that this paragraph is the longest I’ve written so far, and that’s the point. You spice things up to create a more fluid prose.

Once your readers’ eyes have exercised enough, give them another breather. Shorten your sentences as it goes. You feel me?

Anyway, I hope this insight will very much help you in the future, but just imagine I wrote the paragraphs in past-tense. Tbh, fam, I had tons of fun explaining all this to you. Thank you and good luck! ?

 

[RepresentingWrath]

reading George Orwell's essays, and finding out about his purposeful self limitation on style so that his work would be more accessible and readable for a wider audience, i am trying my best to do the same.

"Ugghhh..." groaning myself awake, my mouth claggy, thick with aerated spit.

It's only the second sentence of the story, yet there is already a weird phrase and a rare word. Then you proceed to over-describe the movements. The average length of a book is 100k words. If we look at the statistics page of your novel, we can see that your average words per chapter are 2200. Your prologue has seven parts, seven chapters. 15400 words spent on a prologue. Is this how you make a readable novel?

 

[Motsu]

Should I give my advice? Nah, I am too lazy.

 

[Just.Another.Adult.]

Tbh, fam, your novel has a lot more potential than I expected! Kudos to you for actually learning how to improve yourself as an author. Sadly, just like my first time writing, I’m afraid you haven’t ironed out the clarity of your story as much as it should’ve been.

Firsts things first, change your present-tense prose to past-tense; trust me, paragraphs will flow miles better this way. After all, there’s a whole bucket of reasons why Orwell never wrote in present-tense, so I suggest you reread all his rules in writing.

Speaking of paragraphs, please split them into smaller ones to improve readability, and I mean drastically. You don’t have to write an entire thesis to make your readers imagine it's all happening in one scene, but the opposite (paragraphs too short between pauses) isn’t any better. So I suggest you keep paragraph length varied enough to make the scene more coherent and concise.

You see the paragraphs I’ve written before this one? For now, I can keep it short because readers oughta deserve a breather from time to time.

Then, I continue with a much lengthier monologue—and contrary to what you may think—they’re not necessarily info-dumps but well-done expressions of the author's thoughts, instead. Now, do you see the em dashes (—) I just used? They improve readability even further, but please be careful not to overuse them in one paragraph—though at least three em dashes are good enough. You’ve probably realized by now that this paragraph is the longest I’ve written so far, and that’s the point. You spice things up to create a more fluid prose.

Once your readers’ eyes have exercised enough, give them another breather. Shorten your sentences as it goes. You feel me?

Anyway, I hope this insight will very much help you in the future, but just imagine I wrote the paragraphs in past-tense. Tbh, fam, I had tons of fun explaining all this to you. Thank you and good luck! ?

thank you, that really does help... i'm always unsure about paragraph length.

i've got this weird disconnect between what i read and how i am trying to write - philosophy crap like "the age of reason", but trying emulate light novels - so, my heart screams stream of consciousness walls of text, but my mind tells me i need to only group a sentence or two together then break it up.

you did a great job giving the advice AS examples too and i respect the skill in that too.

in regards to clarity, i want the plot to unfold as the narrator stumbles through, so it's really not meant to be clear at the start.

so, although the blurb says "or what it's really like to be isekai'd" and "how long would you survive", it's really meant to be more of a complete mystery from the narrator's perspective. it's just that i'm not going to shy away from the meta knowledge of intended readers around isekai as a genre, hence the narrator making direct reference and using that as part of the branding for it... for lack of a better way to explain it.

i will also admit, i'm not a planner. i have some specific characters and events i'd like to have happen, but stringing those bits together is very free form and undefined in advance. which is great for DM-ing and ad-libbing as a performer, but i am finding it makes my tendency to waffle and bloat the text even worse.

i need to go back and edit more out, but god i get precious about what i've written and start hugging each word like a parent being told to sacrifice their child... or y'know, a hoarder. what advice do you have for getting over that mindset?

please and thank~

"Ugghhh..." groaning myself awake, my mouth claggy, thick with aerated spit.

It's only the second sentence of the story, yet there is already a weird phrase and a rare word. Then you proceed to over-describe the movements. The average length of a book is 100k words. If we look at the statistics page of your novel, we can see that your average words per chapter are 2200. Your prologue has seven parts, seven chapters. 15400 words spent on a prologue. Is this how you make a readable novel?

i mean, that's why i'm asking for critique, innit~

i like Orwell and agree with some of his advice, but i'm also not trying to copy the guy's style or write a basic paperback.

in defence of the phrasing there, like i said, i don't want it ALL to be baby's first rodeo. as a reader i want to be challenged sometimes, so having an odd turn of phrase or a piece of lesser used vocabulary is something i'd want from what i read, and as a writer it keeps me interested in what i'm writing, rather than getting bored because it's all too easy and unvaried.

i also accept that i do waffle, so i'm looking for advice on how to curb that.

you've said that i over describe the movements thereafter, and although my intent is to - to an extent - make the text a bit of slog, i'm happy to trim the fat from it as well. i just personally like the idea of the text reflecting, in how you read it, the emotion of the piece.

so we have the narrator struggling to comprehend what's going on, getting anxious and emotional, overanalysing everything out of fear and uncertainty. what better way to embody that by making the text a little overwritten and dense with thoughts and unnecessary detail? that is what the character would be focusing on, every little damn thing. if there's a better way, i don't know it, so how would you improve it?

in terms of length, i'm not looking to publish, so it doesn't really matter to me what the average length of a novel is, considering some of the biggest/most popular webnovels on this site are 500+ parts/chapters and a million+ words.

i accept that the prologue bloated, and maybe starting with the fight in town would be a better start for CHAPTER 1. then CHAPTER 0 would be shorter, probably only around 5 PARTS, so 10k words. i definietely feel CHAPTER 1 is bloated at even 5 PARTS, but mushing the last 2 PARTS of CHAPTER 0 into it's start would be a better balance if i can trim out a load of unneccasary bits.

again, the point of CHAPTER 0 is to be completely optional for those that want a very slow burn atmosphere building section. CHAPTER 1 i wanted to be the true start and to kick off with more action, more of an instant plot hook, but i got bogged down in maintaining the uncertainty and directionless of the narrator.

i'm not trying to defend it all, but give a better understanding of why it is like it is, so that people can give more direct suggestions for improvement.

you've given valid criticisms, but no ideas on how to rectify them, so~

Should I give my advice? Nah, I am too lazy.

i mean, it would be appreciated...
kinda why i asked on an open forum afterall~

 

[RepresentingWrath]

you've given valid criticisms, but no ideas on how to rectify them, so~

Yes, and I did it because I'm not a great author. I'm a part of what you referred to as a wider audience. English is my second language. And in my opinion, it's great to learn an opinion of a simple reader. Not only it's hard to look at your own story from a reader's perspective, but you also aren't a part of a majority(my opinion based on what I've seen here).

i like Orwell and agree with some of his advice, but i'm also not trying to copy the guy's style or write a basic paperback.

in defence of the phrasing there, like i said, i don't want it ALL to be baby's first rodeo.

The point was that you wrote a whole, albeit small, paragraph about how you tried to reach a wider audience(here). Yet the SECOND sentence of your story, the SECOND one, is weird and has, err, a challenge. I can understand it if you add some weird phrases or rare words here and there and use them sparingly. But you literally greet a new reader(in this case, me) with weirdness and a necessity to google a word. Do you think this is how you reach a wider audience?

as a reader i want to be challenged sometimes, so having an odd turn of phrase or a piece of lesser used vocabulary is something i'd want from what i read, and as a writer it keeps me interested in what i'm writing, rather than getting bored because it's all too easy and unvaried.

This is why you aren't part of a majority, yet claim you want to reach it. Here you write about what you want as a reader. Are you sure the majority, the wider audience, wants the same thing? From my observations, the majority of LN\WN readers want and are used to the easy-to-understand language.

If you are bored writing easy-to-understand prose, I can't say much. Perhaps you shouldn't strive to reach a wider audience. I'm not bashing you here. I think you have a case of trying to fit your writing into the limitations of a web novel. And I think nothing good will come out of this. Because it's like authors who hate\dislike\neutral towards the popular genres, yet try to write in those genres because, well, they want popularity. Usually, they fail.

you've said that i over describe the movements thereafter, and although my intent is to - to an extent - make the text a bit of slog, i'm happy to trim the fat from it as well. i just personally like the idea of the text reflecting, in how you read it, the emotion of the piece.

so we have the narrator struggling to comprehend what's going on, getting anxious and emotional, overanalysing everything out of fear and uncertainty. what better way to embody that by making the text a little overwritten and dense with thoughts and unnecessary detail? that is what the character would be focusing on, every little damn thing. if there's a better way, i don't know it, so how would you improve it?

Yeah, the majority probably won't feel all of it. Kinda hard to bond with the narrator and go through his feelings when you need to google words. It's like watching a movie but pausing every couple of minutes to look up something. Will you experience proper emotions after such an experience?

You also mistakenly believe that emotions readers feel will align with the emotions of the MC. They won't. I don't know how to explain it properly. I will try to use an example from professional wrestling(staged one with fake wins\losses) as an illustration of what I mean. In wrestling, there are bad guys and good guys. Bad guys are the ones who draw in the 'heat' animosity of a crowd. And there are basically two types of 'heat.' The normal one, and go-home 'heat.' The normal one is when the fans are booing the character. But the go-home one is when fans are booing the person behind the character. And you(with your statement) say that both are the same when they are not. On paper, you might think that it's a good thing, the bad guy is hated, right? No. Such 'heat,' when people hate the person, won't generate profit. Same logic in your writing. You think people will bond with the character in feeling alienated and lost, while they will simply go away and drop your story in frustration.

in terms of length, i'm not looking to publish, so it doesn't really matter to me what the average length of a novel is, considering some of the biggest/most popular webnovels on this site are 500+ parts/chapters and a million+ words.

i accept that the prologue bloated, and maybe starting with the fight in town would be a better start for CHAPTER 1. then CHAPTER 0 would be shorter, probably only around 5 PARTS, so 10k words. i definietely feel CHAPTER 1 is bloated at even 5 PARTS, but mushing the last 2 PARTS of CHAPTER 0 into it's start would be a better balance if i can trim out a load of unneccasary bits.

again, the point of CHAPTER 0 is to be completely optional for those that want a very slow burn atmosphere building section. CHAPTER 1 i wanted to be the true start and to kick off with more action, more of an instant plot hook, but i got bogged down in maintaining the uncertainty and directionless of the narrator.

Write less, say more. That is all I want to say here. Try to write a novel that is 100k words long. Limit yourself in words, and you will probably understand why less is more. When you have an unlimited word count, you(I'm generalizing here) tend to write a lot of unnecessary trash. If you only have 100k words to tell a story, you will probably understand the value of words.

i'm not trying to defend it all, but give a better understanding of why it is like it is, so that people can give more direct suggestions for improvement.

I'm a shit author, but I'm a part of the majority. Here is my direct advice.
1. Look into your target audience. Who are the majority(wider audience), and what do they like? And compare it with what you write and read.
2. If you still want to reach a wider audience, you need to copy what the wider audience wants. Copy it, and modify it slightly.
3. There is nothing wrong with writing what you want to write. Popularity isn't everything. But, if you still want to be popular, you have to compromise. Write two stories, one for yourself and one for an audience.

 

[Just.Another.Adult.]

Yes, and I did it because I'm not a great author. I'm a part of what you referred to as a wider audience. English is my second language. And in my opinion, it's great to learn an opinion of a simple reader. Not only it's hard to look at your own story from a reader's perspective, but you also aren't a part of a majority(my opinion based on what I've seen here).

The point was that you wrote a whole, albeit small, paragraph about how you tried to reach a wider audience(here). Yet the SECOND sentence of your story, the SECOND one, is weird and has, err, a challenge. I can understand it if you add some weird phrases or rare words here and there and use them sparingly. But you literally greet a new reader(in this case, me) with weirdness and a necessity to google a word. Do you think this is how you reach a wider audience?

This is why you aren't part of a majority, yet claim you want to reach it. Here you write about what you want as a reader. Are you sure the majority, the wider audience, wants the same thing? From my observations, the majority of LN\WN readers want and are used to the easy-to-understand language.

If you are bored writing easy-to-understand prose, I can't say much. Perhaps you shouldn't strive to reach a wider audience. I'm not bashing you here. I think you have a case of trying to fit your writing into the limitations of a web novel. And I think nothing good will come out of this. Because it's like authors who hate\dislike\neutral towards the popular genres, yet try to write in those genres because, well, they want popularity. Usually, they fail.

Yeah, the majority probably won't feel all of it. Kinda hard to bond with the narrator and go through his feelings when you need to google words. It's like watching a movie but pausing every couple of minutes to look up something. Will you experience proper emotions after such an experience?

You also mistakenly believe that emotions readers feel will align with the emotions of the MC. They won't. I don't know how to explain it properly. I will try to use an example from professional wrestling(staged one with fake wins\losses) as an illustration of what I mean. In wrestling, there are bad guys and good guys. Bad guys are the ones who draw in the 'heat' animosity of a crowd. And there are basically two types of 'heat.' The normal one, and go-home 'heat.' The normal one is when the fans are booing the character. But the go-home one is when fans are booing the person behind the character. And you(with your statement) say that both are the same when they are not. On paper, you might think that it's a good thing, the bad guy is hated, right? No. Such 'heat,' when people hate the person, won't generate profit. Same logic in your writing. You think people will bond with the character in feeling alienated and lost, while they will simply go away and drop your story in frustration.

Write less, say more. That is all I want to say here. Try to write a novel that is 100k words long. Limit yourself in words, and you will probably understand why less is more. When you have an unlimited word count, you(I'm generalizing here) tend to write a lot of unnecessary trash. If you only have 100k words to tell a story, you will probably understand the value of words.

I'm a shit author, but I'm a part of the majority. Here is my direct advice.
1. Look into your target audience. Who are the majority(wider audience), and what do they like? And compare it with what you write and read.
2. If you still want to reach a wider audience, you need to copy what the wider audience wants. Copy it, and modify it slightly.
3. There is nothing wrong with writing what you want to write. Popularity isn't everything. But, if you still want to be popular, you have to compromise. Write two stories, one for yourself and one for an audience.

i will reply properly later, but i actually really appreciate your expanding on your points, especially the pro-wrestling comparison, i too am a mark~

 

[Just.Another.Adult.]

Yes, and I did it because I'm not a great author. I'm a part of what you referred to as a wider audience. English is my second language. And in my opinion, it's great to learn an opinion of a simple reader. Not only it's hard to look at your own story from a reader's perspective, but you also aren't a part of a majority(my opinion based on what I've seen here).

i really do appreciate having someone feedback as a "simple reader"... like i said, i'm from a more pretentious background, but that's not how i want to write. i do read LNs and enjoy them, it's nice to turn my brain off and not always be challenged, and i feel there's a way to write about a more challenging concept in an easier way... hence the reference to George Orwell. i don't claim to be part of a majority, and admit that i find it hard to look at my work more objectively, so again, thank you.

The point was that you wrote a whole, albeit small, paragraph about how you tried to reach a wider audience(here). Yet the SECOND sentence of your story, the SECOND one, is weird and has, err, a challenge. I can understand it if you add some weird phrases or rare words here and there and use them sparingly. But you literally greet a new reader(in this case, me) with weirdness and a necessity to google a word. Do you think this is how you reach a wider audience?

i do want to reach a wider audience, but wider is subjective. i have an audience of none currently, or not quite, i get some numbers, but no comments or follows or whatever to gage how my work is received. i'm happy my story is being read and not just sitting on my PC, and the point i was making was about how i've gone from writing like James Joyce or TS Elliot (really complex grammar and almost nothing but obscure vocabulary) to something almost approachable. that to me is already improvement, but finding what the next step is to improve the readability of my writing is important.

if part of that is removing even more of the rare words and complex grammar, i guess i have to, but i also don't know if you are quite the majority or average reader of english language pieces, which your saying that english is not your first language. i don't think the complexity of the grammar is much more difficult than highschool level and the rare vocabulary is just slang. i'm not having a go at you there, but as a reader of english translated LNs, i've come across harder grammar in Spice and Wolf or more obscure words in Jobless Reincarnation, so i don't think my style is that far off what i'm trying to now emulate, especially when my style was so much more complex, pretentious, and overwritten.

This is why you aren't part of a majority, yet claim you want to reach it. Here you write about what you want as a reader. Are you sure the majority, the wider audience, wants the same thing? From my observations, the majority of LN\WN readers want and are used to the easy-to-understand language.

If you are bored writing easy-to-understand prose, I can't say much. Perhaps you shouldn't strive to reach a wider audience. I'm not bashing you here. I think you have a case of trying to fit your writing into the limitations of a web novel. And I think nothing good will come out of this. Because it's like authors who hate\dislike\neutral towards the popular genres, yet try to write in those genres because, well, they want popularity. Usually, they fail.

i agree that LN reader want easy to understand language, and it's why i'd say most of what i've written is. having the odd word or complex grammar, even if it's the second sentence, doesn't seem like an issue to me. again, though, i admit that that doesn't mean i'm right, or that that is the opinion of the majority. i get that twilight or 50 shades are both pieces of shit, devoid of almost all literary flare and talent, and yet they started as webnovels and are some of the highest selling series of all time. i'm not saying i want to be that popular, far from it, so i can afford to be a little "alienating" by having bits in that are harder to read.

saying that, game of thrones or lotr are harder to read than what i've put out, and yet they are record breakingly popular, so again, there is the potential to reach a wide audience while still retaining more complex prose. again, i'm not saying that's my goal, but there's got to be a happy medium where i can write something i would like to read and enjoy writing, that includes some complexity and isn't entirely alienating to all readers, right?

i also, simply do not want to write like i used to anymore. i've grown out of that "look at me, i'm so smart, i can write so complex almost no one can read me" bullshit teenaged mindset. i'm not trying to break into webnovels as a way to get popular, but as a medium i actually want to work in as a writer... hence asking for feedback on how to make my work more appropriate for the format. i wasn't expecting to drop a couple of chapters and rocket to number one. it's all a learning curve.

Yeah, the majority probably won't feel all of it. Kinda hard to bond with the narrator and go through his feelings when you need to google words. It's like watching a movie but pausing every couple of minutes to look up something. Will you experience proper emotions after such an experience?

You also mistakenly believe that emotions readers feel will align with the emotions of the MC. They won't. I don't know how to explain it properly. I will try to use an example from professional wrestling(staged one with fake wins\losses) as an illustration of what I mean. In wrestling, there are bad guys and good guys. Bad guys are the ones who draw in the 'heat' animosity of a crowd. And there are basically two types of 'heat.' The normal one, and go-home 'heat.' The normal one is when the fans are booing the character. But the go-home one is when fans are booing the person behind the character. And you(with your statement) say that both are the same when they are not. On paper, you might think that it's a good thing, the bad guy is hated, right? No. Such 'heat,' when people hate the person, won't generate profit. Same logic in your writing. You think people will bond with the character in feeling alienated and lost, while they will simply go away and drop your story in frustration.

this is the part i most appreciate... i totally get what you mean about WWE creative thinking the crowd will react a certain way to a storyline or character push, only for everyone to fucking hate it (insert Roman Reigns joke). so i assume you mean here, my trying to make the text a bit more dense and overwritten to make it a slog to get through, so that it's emotionally draining for the reader, so that they feel as drained and worn out as the narrator, isn't going to work the way i want it... what it will do is alienate them, frustrate and bore them, and have a negative reaction to me as the writer and my writing style, not generate the appropriate negative emotional experience that the story is trying to convey?

if that's what you're trying to say with your wrestling comparison, and i'm understanding it right, then that is a very good way of describing it and i appreciate that. this comes back to the style i'm used to reading and writing (modernism) and wanting to incorporate tricks from that like "stream of consciousness" is probably too much for your average reader. it might work for one paragraph per novel, but not every few chapters, and certainly not longer than a couple of sentences.

Write less, say more. That is all I want to say here. Try to write a novel that is 100k words long. Limit yourself in words, and you will probably understand why less is more. When you have an unlimited word count, you(I'm generalizing here) tend to write a lot of unnecessary trash. If you only have 100k words to tell a story, you will probably understand the value of words.

so in terms of length, i get that writing less and limiting myself to 100k words in total will make me consider what i am writing more, and help me be less precious about deleting things... however, i'm still not intending to only write 100k words with this webnovel. most LNs are 50k words per volume. per volume they can vary in presentation, so one might write like i do and be broken down into only 5 chapters, but those chapters are broken down into maybe 5 parts each, only separated with line breaks or * * * or something. each part would then roughly be 2k words, making each chapter 10k words, and then the whole volume is 50k words... and that's the format i'm working with in mind.

the other way i've seen it done is a single volume of a lightnovel will have 20 chapters and each one is about 2.5k words, making the total still 50k words per vol. the end result is the same, and then they run for like 20vol, making the entire word count about 1mil, which is the same as the biggest webnovels on scribblehub. i am not aiming to write for that long, maybe only a half or third of that (300-500k words total). which is the same as 2/3 to 3/3 of the lotr books.

i use lotr as a comparison there, because i want the story to be a single continuous event. the narrator constantly thinking or acting, to make everything immediate. you don't get time skips in real life, not unless you're unconscious. the events of I, Human! are only meant to happen over the course of a few weeks/months, but if were following for every minute of that, except when the MC is asleep, then it makes sense to be longer than 100k words for that timeframe.

I'm a shit author, but I'm a part of the majority. Here is my direct advice.
1. Look into your target audience. Who are the majority(wider audience), and what do they like? And compare it with what you write and read.
2. If you still want to reach a wider audience, you need to copy what the wider audience wants. Copy it, and modify it slightly.
3. There is nothing wrong with writing what you want to write. Popularity isn't everything. But, if you still want to be popular, you have to compromise. Write two stories, one for yourself and one for an audience.

1) i don't really know who or what my target audience is. people who want to read a realistic survival isekai? the format is kind of irrelavent to me beyond webnovels are just how the medium works these days. as an english writer i'm not getting a lightnovel deal because i'm not japanese, and i'm not getting a paperback deal because i'm not writing the next harry potter. so i might as well get the idea out of my head, let people read it for free, and if they like it they like it. if i can reach any audience i'll be happy, but i do want to feedback to improve this, so i will take on board trying to keep things simpler, trying to be more concise and not overwritting things, and trying to format what i'm writing so it's better to read on a phone, rather than thinking everyone is reading this on PC... just because i'm writing on a PC.

2) i have no interest in what the wider audience is writing in general. i have ideas i want to write and people are either interested or they're not. look at 20th Century Boys, Welcome to the NHK, Monster, or even Chainsaw Man... i'm not saying my work is anywhere near as good or even anything like them, but they choose weird and interesting ways of looking at played out genre pieces and making them fresh and new again. they include weird and often complex topics and then give them nuanced and difficult to understand perspectives on them... and are still wildly popular. i know they are all manga that then became anime and any LN version is just a side thing based on the manga too, it's a different media progression, but the point stands. i want to write the topics and themes i want, i have my way of looking at and exploring them, so either readers vibe or they don't. i'm not looking to just churn out more of the same most popular pieces over and over to get popular myself.

3) again, i'm not looking to be popular, just find an audience. even if it's only 10 regular readers who drop the occasional comment, that'd be great. i would, obviously, like to reach more people than that, hence choosing to change my style and asking for suggestions on how to improve even more. just because my first attempt wasn't perfect, doesn't mean i'm not going to change the style up and trying to make it easier to read, but i will still have to keep little bits in there for me, even if they might be jarring for some readers. i think your suggestion on having multiple versions is the way to go though, so what i think i'll do is continue I, Human! as is, let every word that wants to get out, get the fuck out of me. then when i reach the natural end of it, editing each PART of a CHAPTER as i go, i will do a complete overhaul. the new version of the story will be the complete version edited down to the best version of itself it can be. more readability, more concise, more refined and focused and accessible. even if it takes a year to get out the 300-500k to finish this first verison, the second version should hopefully only take a couple of months to then edit and rerelease, and then would only be about 200-400k words. it's still going to be longer than your suggested 100k average novel length, but shorter than a full LN series.

* * *

that went on longer than i intended... but that's my propensity to ramble for you. anyway, thank you again for all your feedback. i did want someone to be brutal, and you were indeed blunt with me. i really do appreciate that, so thank you. when i get round to that revised edition i'm gonna put your username in the damn credits for helping me identify issues around readability and accessibility and such.

if you have anything else to suggest, please feel free to reply more, but know that i am grateful for everything you've said so far, even if i come off as a little defensive, i am taking on board what you're saying... it's just always hard to hear "you're not perfect" even though i know it already~

 

[RepresentingWrath]

if you have anything else to suggest, please feel free to reply more, but know that i am grateful for everything you've said so far, even if i come off as a little defensive, i am taking on board what you're saying... it's just always hard to hear "you're not perfect" even though i know it already~

At first, I thought of writing a long reply, but after reading more or your reply, I understand there is no need. I know that, usually, it's me who doesn't deliver the points well enough for another person to understand. So I need to give up sometimes. There is no need to reply to this.

On an end note, I will write a small prediction. With the way things are right now, you will struggle to get even 100 silent readers on SH. And you will be lucky to get a couple of comments.

 

[Just.Another.Adult.]

At first, I thought of writing a long reply, but after reading more or your reply, I understand there is no need. I know that, usually, it's me who doesn't deliver the points well enough for another person to understand. So I need to give up sometimes. There is no need to reply to this.

On an end note, I will write a small prediction. With the way things are right now, you will struggle to get even 100 silent readers on SH. And you will be lucky to get a couple of comments.

eh, i'll still reply... if you're saying that the demographics of the userbase of SH SPECIFICALLY are very reflective of you as the average reader here, not necessarily across all webnovel platforms or the LN readership as a whole, then that makes more sense. thanks again, whether you reply or not~