Cardinal Sin of Writing: Godmoding the Plot

[Anonjohn20]

Been reading a lot of fanfiction lately

I see your problem, you're reading trash. lol jk

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Totally fair. I just tend to have a hard time getting out of my head when it comes to things like this.

Understandable, but as such, we are just wasting time deliberating on something we can't really do something about.

Well, unless its somehow required reading for a class or something. Still remember being amused by dad's reaction to being forced to read Danielle Steele for a class when he was getting his Masters of Library Science degree... He hated that book almost as much as I hated Portrait of the Lady by Henry James. 400 pages of the character making bad decisions and suffering for it, and it looks like she may be about to start all over again at the end. Ugh.

I also have books and genres I hated, but I do try to understand that, while I may not enjoy it, others might do enjoy such works.

 

[Dragon_SAMA]

I Like Manhwa's like Kill the Villainess or
Villains Are Destined to Die or Lout of Count's Family and one of my favorites is A Transmigrator's Privilege.

 

[ArlindoFrancisco]

Well, i think everyone here knows that that casual readers don't really care for those kinds of things, they want the overpowered or super smart protagonist.

I get what you are saying for the fact that the first action of any MC would completely change the original story, just because it is another person... that is exactly what happens in the majority of those stories about someone going inside of a novel; the simple fact they are not the same person completely changes the original story... Villanesses stories as just this on steroids.

The average Joe being overpowered in an isekai has a lot of ways of being possible; the easier one is just his/hers common sense; they just think differently. The same way a magician in a civilized empire goes to a new continent and there are tribes, he is overpowered because he has more base knowledge about magic. Your average Joe knows how fire works so applying that to magic would make a simple fire magic into something really powerful only using basic knowledge that everyone knows. For the author to do that, he needs to do research to see if a normal person could know those things.

At the end of the day again, the casual reader doesn't care; they actually don't like MCs that are not overpowering when they should be, so if you do those kinds of stories, you should be careful to put restrictions on the MC.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I also have books and genres I hated, but I do try to understand that, while I may not enjoy it, others might do enjoy such works.

That awareness (though he did question their sanity) was the only reason my dad made it through that book (was 30 years ago so I don't remember which one). The only reason I did not tear apart Portrait of a Lady in class were that two of the women in the class (of less tjam 2- stidemts_ absolutely gushed over it. The teacher reluctantly agreed with me when we turned in papers on it, but it was one of his wife's favorites and a very popular novel at the time it came out, so he felt he had to include it in the class.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

That awareness (though he did question their sanity) was the only reason my dad made it through that book (was 30 years ago so I don't remember which one). The only reason I did not tear apart Portrait of a Lady in class were that two of the women in the class (of less tjam 2- stidemts_ absolutely gushed over it. The teacher reluctantly agreed with me when we turned in papers on it, but it was one of his wife's favorites and a very popular novel at the time it came out, so he felt he had to include it in the class.

Well, in any case, my point is that, we shouldn't think too much of stuff meant for entertainment. If it doesn't give you the happiness and satisfaction you're looking for, then it might not be for you, so stop torturing yourself with unnecessary stress and just drop it. Move on. There are far more important things you should be doing than hating and seething on something you don't like.

Also, class readings are required stuff, so yeah, we do have to go through it.

 

[beast_regards]

I think what readers are actually obsessed with is not reading dozens of chapters only for the plot to then fall apart because the Main Character flops at the end.

Readers treat action/adventure web novels like video games. No one wants to spend hours on a video game and never level up. The progress can be fast or slow, but readers need to see progress or they'll think they're wasting their time.

And honestly, that is the same for published works. Can you imagine if Harry Potter never learned a spell or if the girl from Twilight never ended up becoming a Vampire? people would HATE those books.

This is not quite true.

The "smart protagonist" always has immediate results, usually within the same chapter the problem is introduced, or the chapter after.