005 Commentary Rant #1 - So Many Stories A Deluge of ####
“Hey Narrator! What’s up with defacing the installment title this time?”
Why I’m glad you’ve asked that exact question. Have you seen the latest updates these days? Have you?
“Of course I have. I only read/stalk this site way more than is likely to be healthy. Why?”
It’s the stories, dang it! It’s a veritable deluge of stories! A stream. A geyser. A blinking tsunami of stories. And the worst thing is, it only grows!
Just the other day (3/19/16) I counted 37 new stories. Thirty-seven, you hear! It used to be only a handful that one could feasibly read through in one sitting to check if they were worth following. When we first joined up on RRL, the fics were numbered in the latter one thousand, nine hundreds. Just the other month we’ve hit the five thousands. The latest few are numbering in the five thousand, eight hundreds.
At the rate RRL is growing, we’ll be hitting the seven thousand mark within three months! As little as one month if new fics continue to be posted as of late.
“So? What’s the problem. I only pick and choose the more interesting ones.”
That’s exactly the problem! There is so much being created that I CAN’T tell the good from the bad other than some judgment of grammar in the fiction blurb, the title itself, and any associated tags if the author even bothers to give an adequate bit for any of those three pieces. After reading so much, suffering so much disappointment when a story fails to meet even minimal expectations, and seeing stories crash and burn, I don’t even know what to do any more or even if I can keep reading new fics without losing any and all of my standards; other than grammar of course, can’t read what I can’t read.
“The bit is really winding up now. So, if you care not for this rant, readers, now is a good time to vacate your seats and do something productive with your lives. This isn’t going anywhere any time soon.”
And that’s not all! Everything looks so cookie cutter these days! LNs, reincarnation, harems, OP MCs, martial arts/those-chinese-WN-genres-crud-that-I-can-never-tell-apart, VR, wanton violence because reasons, illogical actions because more reasons, plotholes, more harems- THEY’RE ALL BEING REPEATED AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!
If I had a body, I’d be crying tears of blood by now.
Where is the quality?
WHERE IS THE ORIGINALITY?!?
WHY CAN’T I FIND SOMETHING TO READ???
orz
“You done now?”
No, but I need a breather before I go completely insane.
“But you don’t even… nevermind. Anyways, to any readers who are still with us so far, I’m going to be blunt and not sugar coat any of the following. You might not like me for this, you might even hate me, but feel free to. I’m just getting these words off of my chest.”
Ooh, ooh! J0nn0 is being frank now! … even if his name isn’t Frank.
“Just as Narrator said above, there is a deluge of content being created and posted to RRL these days. While that in and of itself is not the problem, the problem lies within the contents of this content. Apologies for the confusing terminology.
The majority of what I see these days falls into the general categories that Narrator listed previously and after having been around RRL for the better part of nearly two years and reading some LNs before that. By now, most of them have simply gotten stale.
When I look at a new story on the latest updates these days, I glance at the title, then expand the blurb out if I haven’t already read or checked it out previously and am thinking of giving it a once over. Next, I go through my checklist of things to answer the question, “Is it worth spending my time here, or is it better of used pounding away at little inane ideas in my head onto metaphysical paper.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Just so you know, my checklist is fairly simple to get a quick read out of me.
1. Is it interesting looking, both in blurb and/or title? If Yes, move onto #2.
2. Is the grammar readable? Is it actually understandable? If no, refer back to #1 and weigh interest against willingness to mentally auto-correct things.
3. Do I have the time? If yes, read immediately. If no, set on the back burner and read at a later time, probably if/when it updates again or when I’m bored.
My browser window has 20+tabs for #3 alone and my “Read Later” list is well over 100 stories by now. I’ll get to them eventually.
Even if I start reading something, it’s liable to get dropped for arbitrary reasons, either by me or the author. It all depends on the luck of the draw and whether or not I actually enjoy reading the work. I don’t mean to be rude, but a lot of things simply feel sub-par these days.
While I’m not saying for those particular authors to stop writing, I am saying that I’m not willing to spend my time reading them. Again, it’s a lot of cookie cutter scenarios, characters, situations, etc. and very little originality sometimes.
*Sigh* I think I’m losing track of myself again. Might as well get this over and done with before my head decides to scrap this entire piece...
Lastly, though I may sound hypocritical for saying this, in the words of Chuck Wendig, “Finish your s-”tuff! Though the full piece is very opinionated and harsh at times, Wendig does hit upon many several points that really irk me. (P.s. Don’t follow the link if you don’t like the occasional swear in a highly opinionated blog. It’s a blog, people write things because they can, not always because they think it’ll make people like them. Deal with it. It’s the internet.)
Part of me wouldn’t mind the developing stories so much if their authors would actually sit down and work their current story out instead of giving up, dropping it, and repeating the exact same mistakes in a new work. It’s like making a paper airplane. You fold it one way but it doesn’t fly so you crumple it into a paper wad. Instead of making a new design or changing what you did before, you simply do the exact same thing and wonder where you went wrong when that one doesn’t fly.
Whatever. I think I’ve said my piece. Maybe I took your spotlight for a bit, Narrator. Sorry about that.”
No problem, j0nn0. It’s good to get things off your chest once in a while. I think you summed up most of my gripes nicely. Well, I think that’s a wrap for this installment?
“Yep. See ya next time.”
Bye.
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Spoiler: Music and Notes
For all you thinking about and who are actually writing out there,[soundcloud]209315983[/soundcloud]
Writing time on this piece approximately one hour with very little editing. Posting time, local, 12:30 AM. Tell me if there’s any glaring grammar mistakes please.
P.s. I thanks if you actually read through all that. If you see this, hi there!
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*Disclaimer*
Spoiler :
Trending News (According to Narrator) is in no way, shape, or form endorsed by the RRL staff and should be treated as such. I repeat, my and Narrator’s word IS NOT the voice of RRL or its staff and should never be treated as an official source, ever.