How are YOU going to fix the genre you hate or dislike?

[CharlesEBrown]

When I first heard the term "love triangle' after so long, my initial thought isn't Person A is loved by both B & C and is unable to commit to either.

My first thought was that and person B and person C might be freaky with each other.

Then my second thought is A loves B but not loves C, B loves C but not loves A and C love A but not loves B.

The first time I heard the term was relative to Superman - Lois Lane was in love with the man in the circus costume, while the man in the business suit, Clark Kent, was in love with her and she wanted nothing to do with him (for about 50 years, before she finally noticed him ... and then discovered they were the same person... of course, this is ignoring some oddball stories that slipped in).

 

[Golden_Hyde]

You know I used to avoid Isekai and LitRPG but here's how I fix the genre. Along with harem obviously.

For Isekai, for once one should treat it as a whole new world instead of something eerily familiar yet at the same time different, like a modern day Japanese nobody got thrown into a game world set in a certain era, tasked to defeat the demon lord yada yada yada. Make it either a second chance for the characters to do things right or treat it as a whole new adventure for them to discover a lot of things.

For LitRPGs, ignore the numbers. Hell, get rid of those damn things and start focusing on the technicalities; i.e how skills evolve and how it'll look like, job progression and how long does it take, skills that directly affect the character in one way or another, and so much more.

And lastly, for Harem. Treat your protagonist (whether they're straight, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual or otherwise) as a rubber band, because in reality, he/she/they are going to be treated by being stretched all over the place (figuratively). Emotional baggage, fear of unfairness, constant drama that may involve jealousy, you name it.

 

[PBJ_Time]

Genre I dislike: isekai

How I'd fix it: the protagonist starts a Bacon's Rebellion every place he visits and listens to this revolutionary banger.

 

[HotConsensualSalt]

If you are a smartass you can skip this step and go straight to showing your superior intellect. For those who aren't midwits, stick with me for a little bit.

So a small mental experiment, mkay? Let's not go crazy over here. Let's assume there is a djin somewhere on the internet, or was it Robin Williams? Anyway, there is someone who PMs you. Now, you think, this is an AI scammer again! Fuck 'em clankers! ? But the person starts by saying, "I will give you 1 million dollars if you write this story." ?The trick is, this persons asks you to write a genre you really dislike or outrights hate. ?

Before you start let me elaborate a little bit further.

First things first, what is a genre? To make it easier for us let's just use SH's genre list. You can also add stuff like Kingdom Building stories, Korean academy stories, Japanese villainess\villain stories, and Chinese cultivation. What is NOT a genre? BDSM, futanari, netorare, blacksmith MC, vampires, and so on. In other words, tags and tropes.

Second part. Since smartasses left us way back, I will talk to you, yes you! ? Let us talk one-on-one, mano a mano, face to face. Let's not try to weasel our way of this curious predicament, mkay? Let's not say, "Well, I hate harem, since I have to write it, I will simply make it into a setting without MC actually having multiple lovers." Let's not. We all write, we all can play with words and stretch the definition of a term to the point it blows up like a balloon. Since this is a mental experiment made for fun, let's think of how to fix the genre while still respecting it.

Phew, can't believen I've already finished. Now I can't wait to read, like, three replies in this thread! Two of which are going to be smartasses saying how they would've made different rules, and one person saying the didn't understand what to do. Bring it on lads!

Aight, I'm late to the party but I'm intrigued by the prompt. I fix a harem story by letting some members fall out of love with the MC and in love with each other. Letting their perfect harem devolve into a messy polycule where scenes with harem members include the tension of dealing with exes or members who love each other more than the MC

If that doesn't respect the genre enough, thev i fix LitRPGs by focusing extensively on the team dynamic and how much its members rely on each other, plan builds together, and deal with a shifting meta that threatens to obviate their builds. What happens when you wake up and find half your kit has been nerfed?

 

[L1aei]

Not a fan of the Sports genre, but if I were to write one, I'd probably create a concept similar to Angels in the Outfield.

 

[Nevafrost]

Anyway, there is someone who PMs you. Now, you think, this is an AI scammer again! Fuck 'em clankers! ? But the person starts by saying, "I will give you 1 million dollars if you write this story." ?The trick is, this persons asks you to write a genre you really dislike or outrights hate. ?

Ask AI to write the story and not read it. I'm not much of a masochist.

 

[GearMagical]

Fix my disliked genres? First, in LitRPG, the hero will never be the strongest player. Second, in a romance novel, the girl will also have to do something to make the guy love her, rather than just being a log. Third, the strongest mage will realize that his power means nothing and will simply study the world and help people. Fourth, in a horror story, it will turn out at the end that a human, not a ghost, was killing everyone, and the ghost actually wanted to save everyone. I don't know if that's funny or not? One could also add a fifth: a guy who gathered a harem of many girls realized he only likes one and didn't know how to tell the others, but then he simply realized that all the others were cheating on him and all this time he was just one of their harems of guys.

 

[Anonjohn20]

Second, in a romance novel, the girl will also have to do something to make the guy love her, rather than just being a log.

There are tons of these in the world.

 

[GearMagical]

There are tons of these in the world.

Are you a girl or a guy? Sometimes I might whine about girls' problems like many guys do. But girls also often whine about guys' problems. It is a way of venting, so to speak.

 

[DoodTheMan]

I'm not really a fan of litRPG stories, but I'm currently attempting to write one. I mainly dislike when the world is just inexplicably gamey, with menus, health bars, and experience points that are never or very poorly explained. It's also weird to me the idea that you could quantify a living person into hard-number data. What I've done to circumvent this so far is to establish that things like "menus" are magi-technical inventions of wizards and sorcerers, created for the sake of efficiency, and they are very much still in Beta. In that vein, while you can view a person's Stats, whether it be other's or your own, its not useful, because a person's Stat numbers are constantly shifting and changing, rising and falling with every heartbeat, and is effected by everything from how well you slept last night to how hungry/thirsty you are at the moment.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I'm not really a fan of litRPG stories, but I'm currently attempting to write one. I mainly dislike when the world is just inexplicably gamey, with menus, health bars, and experience points that are never or very poorly explained. It's also weird to me the idea that you could quantify a living person into hard-number data. What I've done to circumvent this so far is to establish that things like "menus" are magi-technical inventions of wizards and sorcerers, created for the sake of efficiency, and they are very much still in Beta. In that vein, while you can view a person's Stats, whether it be other's or your own, its not useful, because a person's Stat numbers are constantly shifting and changing, rising and falling with every heartbeat, and is effected by everything from how well you slept last night to how hungry/thirsty you are at the moment.

Mine doesn't even have menus, just a voice that talks to the character (and to the voices talking to other players in the game) and tells him what he asks if it knows and can answer, and what it thinks he needs to know.

 

[CrimsonGenius]

With donuts and coffee.

 

[autumnsugar]

Make it gayer. Tell me to write a harem? I’ll make it a gay one. Tell me to write a typical cultivation novel? Boom, MC is gay. Villainess revenge? Lesbians. I pretty much did this for my actual novel too. If I can add yuri/yaoi to a story it becomes 10,000 times more fun for me to write

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Imma make a horror cannibalism LitRPG good to read.

Hmm... tasty...