Fiction genres in your languages?

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RyanSmallwood
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Sun Oct 10, 2021 7:22 pm

Cavesa wrote:You're doing a great job at the overview. I've heard about some of these trends before, but it looks like my info is rather outdated, so thanks for updating me. A random non-sinologist fantasy/scifi fan like me can notice just a few translations on the bookshelves (such as The three body problem), and that's it. This huge world of webnovels is rather hidden away from the external world. You need to already get through several "geek gateways" in the right direction. But it could actually be wonderful and fun material for language learners.

If you're curious to look into it more, the website Novel Updates catalogs a lot of translations for webnovel series, the "series finder" button on the side you can search by different countries/formats/genres/tropes and sort by things like ratings. Although ratings aren't always to be trusted, I've been burned a few times by some more highly rated stuff. Usually its best if you can find someone whose reviews seem to match up with your interests and see what other series they recommend. Some websites that do the translations unfortunately can have a lot of hoops to jump through and complicated subscription models to read the series, but more are starting to be made available in more standard e-book formats.
Cavesa wrote:
Some of these series go on for a really long time, and easily go longer than something like Wheel of Time.

:o :o :o Impossible! Do the authors also leave notes, for others to carry the torch and continue?

Hold me, or I'll crazily start learning Mandarin right away! :-D

Heh, in a lot of cases you'll be lucky if the author has completed their own notes while writing it. For the most part it seems like the authors are good at finishing their series, although not always in terms of what best suits the stories. Its pretty common for series to have long filler arcs, or "resets" where the character goes to a new realm/world and is suddenly weak again and then the author can kind of remix their old storylines with different window dressing. A lot of fans also complain about series having abrupt endings sometimes, where there's a lot of buildup and then not such good plan for how to tie it all together and resolve everything satisfactorily.

Its kind of the opposite problem as a lot of these huge unfinished English language fantasy series, where readers are unsure how many years until the next book or if it will ever be finished. Some better authors seem to have a better grasp of the format, and have a solid structure and goal they're working towards while only occasionally putting in filler stuff if they need more time to plan. I think some established authors are trying to start publishing on different platforms where maybe they'll have more control over the pace of writing and can keep things better organized. But I still don't really have a full overview of all the different options writers have, so maybe some are already doing this.
Cavesa wrote:Yes, and it is rather sad. The world of "traditional publishing" is actually much less sexist these days, even though there still a lot to do (female authors struggling more to be published, or being given stupidly romantic covers no matter tha actual story), but a typical reader of fantasy is a woman in many countries these days. In scifi, it may be a bit slower, but it is still happening. There are many more female authors, and men and women read the same stuff.

I find it sad and disturbing, that the new platforms and new ways of publishing are not fighting the barrier, but rather strenghtening it. I read both books typically marketed to males and to females. I refuse to feel ashamed about the "female books", even though it is very hard (because reading such books is considered stupid), but I mostly read "male books". I'm excited by authors, who simply don't give a damn and do not cater to the stereotypes for profit.

We've had a great opportunity, as a generation, to finally get rid of this stupid and harmful stereotype and we've messed up. In our fandoms, we are losing the battle for the very simple right to enjoy anything you want, no matter your gender, without being ridiculed or bullied for it. And that's affecting our youngest co-fans very negatively, with impact on the rest of their lives and culture too.

Yeah, I think in Chinese fantasy genres had a lot of different types of women characters and women as part of the readership, as least as early as the 1930s. The traditionally published books were still I think more dominated by male authors and had their own issues, but I think the writing of women characters in webnovels by male authors has gotten significantly worse, although it may be part of the more general trend away from character development in general. There's a lot of fantasy webnovels by female authors now, but it still seems like they can be restricted more to certain kinds of plotlines and tropes.

I just try to find whatever seems to have more interesting characters and storylines, but there's a lot of stuff that seems designed to find the easiest way to appeal to a certain audience at the expense of good writing.
Cavesa wrote:A pessimist might say, that we are observing the processus of dumbing down the books and the readers, in a downward spiral. Dumber readers, dumber books, etc. However, I still feel that's a phase. It's still very new, but I'd say there will be demand for more quality. And it will be found and created, and sought for. We will surely get some talents through these channels, who would never have been discovered otherwise. At least I hope so.

Yeah, I'm holding out hope for some things improving, there's a lot of aspects of contemporary webnovels I'm not a fan of, but I see certain authors improving in certain areas, so I'm hoping eventually someone can tie a lot of those different aspects together and come up with something much better. I think there's also enough dissatisfaction with certain tropes among the readership, that there's a lot of potential once someone comes up with a good alternative that can really take off. I'm not totally aware of the all the conditions leading to the current state of writing, but it seems like some authors are trying to find other platforms and models, so hopefully its a matter of time before there's some changes.

And as I mentioned, I've mostly stuck to easier authors so far, so potentially some people are already having more success that I just have to get around to reading them.
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Cavesa
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby Cavesa » Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:45 pm

Ezra wrote:The same goes for literature. In Soviet Union we had an official Writers' Union which gave certain benefits to its members but one had to comply with the official party line and certain requirements — not only pure ideological but aesthetical as well. On the other side, we had an underground current called "Samizdat" which published unofficial translations of foreign books, unauthorized novels of dissident authors and so on.

This left a certain mark on Russian book culture. First, we do not really believe that book piracy is bad (especially "old guard readers") - so ebook industry has to compete in much fierce conditions. Second, we do not see nothing inherently bad with self-publishing. First major platform for self-publishing was actually called "Samizdat" and claimed spiritual roots of the samizdat current. It lauched somewhere at the end of 90s, and it was the place from which absolute majority of the "old guard" of sci-fi and fantasy writers have started their writing careers (it did not allow to effectively monetize their works though due to many reason both technical and cultural).


We had the same Samizdat tradition under the communist totalitarian regime. But it has been mostly forgotten, it is very rarely talked about anymore, and I don't think it has left such a strong mark in the society. However, the Russians had been dealing with this for a few decades longer, which means one or two more generations, so it makes sense for you to feel it more strongly. The self published book gets more mistrust than the authority(=publisher) released one in our society, that's also different.

What did have a bigger impact and taught people that "piracy is not bad" were the 2000's, when we were offered to buy all those practical and tempting ipods, other mp3 players, kindles, but we were not offered to buy any content for them. So, people were basically told by the industry "here, give us money for the gagdets and either put them on a shelf to collect dust, or we'll call you a thief". This was badly combined with geoblocking, with treating us with disrespect because "you are a small market with specific needs", and all that. The "small market" disrespectful treatment combined with far too low salaries simply made piracy the norm. No wonder the publishers with ridiculously priced ebooks were struggling a lot at first.

However, the Czechs haven't embraced the app-reading platforms and webnovels. Again, being the small market has made all the difference. If natives of the huge languages want to share their graphomania (and occassionally very good stories) with a public, it's easy. They join such a platform and they are pretty sure that a tiny fraction of a % of the readers will admire them and give them the satisfaction. But a small language like Czech is simply very unlikely to sustain that. Plus the publishers devoted to the most demanded genres for this (such as fantasy, scifi, YA, romance,...) are very rather good jobs and publishing quite a lot of stuff. Not sure whether there is any official data, but I'd say our ratio published fantasy-scifi books per capita and year is very good :-)

The French and francophones, from what I'm observing, are right now finding their way to those platforms. A few newer ones pay for a lot of ads on the social media right now. I think the readers and writers will explore this option too. These nations don't have the same kinds of reader experience as the nations from former totalitarian regimes do, many people around here even trust media and publishers far too much imho (it's simply a different historical experience). But they have so many millions of readers, that a part of them can surely support such platforms.

So, this might explain why platforms like Author.Today and Litmir successfully rivaled traditional industry. Younger readers and writers perceive them as more natural and modern than traditional publishing houses. But for older readers and writers there is actually nothing inherently wrong with self-publishing either. After all status-wise, it was ability to print "real" physical books and sell them in "real" offline shops traditional publishers derived their authority from. But it is a very different game when we enter the world of digital books. That's why it was relative easy psychologically for the old guard to switch to new platforms: they just have to return back to their roots. Being an "officially acknowledged writer" was fun while it last but it is time to go home. Especially now when "home" pays so much better ;).


I have no doubts why the young readers like such platforms. I read one too, and it is very convenient and some of the stories are fun (but most bored me. But even the typical ones were fun for a while). But my heart cries a bit, that they are not forming a relationship with a traditional book in the same way.

We'll see, what will the "acknowledgement" and "respect" derive from in the near future. I still think being officially published on paper will be the top achievement for any writer and the top dream even for the people on the webnovel platforms. At least for some time. And for the rest, we'll need some new mechanisms, or we'll lose any track. It's not just about egos, it's also about guidance for those looking for certain qualities, certain kinds of books. I would hate to see my beloved genres dissolved in an ocean of "graphomania", with little to no way to find promising stuff.


On the other side, both platforms are also more "open-minded". They did not follow erroneous ways of publishers who thought they can charge you prices comparable with physical books and keep most of money to themselves. Instead these commercial successors of samizdat tradition adopted practices of app publishers: they charge 15%-30% and allow author to decide how much to charge. Samizdat tradition, ingrained in Russian culture, puts a certain limits to greed. These sites - first and foremost - are communities and depend on their reputation to be proper samizdats, and there is a pack of other self-publishing services ready to jump on their backs.


Yes, that sounds very good and as something these Russian sites could inspire others with.
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