Hate might be a strong word.
Here. On another site i was on, we had a lot of "isekai" discussions round table.
we would get a lot of writers, asking questions about the genre tag of isekai, as with any other tag.
You publicly pitch your couple sentences, paragraph idea of what you;re thinking.
people go around round robin and give thoughts on iyt. A sounding board. brainstorming. call it what you will.
here's what I noticed...
its a fairly rigid genre system. you can say it doesn't have "rules" you sort of must follow, but... it kinda does. Now, the language that gets used can be very soft. "see, you need to understand. readers expect certain story beats, and you have to give them these things." I've also heard it said. "Isekai, is a contract. a promise. you say isekai, the reader better get the things he expects to see."
writers then produce a first chapter, which some will post up for ideas on it. its their treatment.
then here come the "rules".
--- no, no, no. the person just gets killed, that's it. Immediately. one or two sentences. that's it. no describing the moment, no lingering, none of that. They get truck-kun'd or whatever... done and move on. Then, no "traveling". Again, maybe a sentence or two, that's it. they just wake up there, and go about your story.
--- no, no, no. the person better not be ass-pulled to the other world for a specific purpose. They're just there, and that's it.
and yeah, writers will go ahead and *try* to do things, but... the results are the results. You basically take the rules and don;t vary from them. or you won't gain popularity.
the person pulled? all recommendations (rules?) are that they be no one special, no nothing to them. Just.... basically some losewr or nobody. Typically, they get OP MC powers quick or steadily. Its a rigid trope fantasy, for a self insert. with popularity at stake, there's not much wiggle room.
or can someone show me this totally ground breaking, trope destroying isekai that enjoyed big popularity.
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now that's just what seems to be the rules of the isekai genre game.
on top of that, we have to add the ever present "rules" of web-novel-ing in general.
and what do you end up with, by the time you're done.
the same situation as the old time harlequin romances.
fans typically reward the books that do what they're "supposed to do" for the genre.
critics? say they keep trying to read the genre, but its the same story every time, over and over again.
Me, I find soap operas... to be repetitive and boring.
fans though... they get withdrawal symptoms if they miss a single minute of "their soap".
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is anything I summarized here, wildly incorrect?
I don't know how or why, but certain types of stories, you are not allowed to "do much" with the basic formula.
other types of stories, you better do something original.
I was told, stick to mystery or investigation type things, off the wall originality might be well rewarded there.
but, not in many of the most popular web-novel tropes.
hey. I was there, I heard authors talking. Ones to do make money off this stuff.
they said it openly.
to get started? take a really popular web-novel.
read it slowly, outling the basics with no specifics as you go.
when you're done? write yours to that outline, inserting "your stuff" in for the left out specifics.
names, locations, time periods, weapons or fighting styles, things like that you can play with.
they make it sound like paint by numbers, but you have to write well to do it.
how did things get like this? I have no idea.
