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Light Novel Drivel: On Storiesonline turning into a Wattpad Clone

bugmenot69 🚫

Dear All,

I am a regular reader of Storiesonline (SO). I enjoy haremlit stories as well as stories with a liberal dose of intimate scenes. This post is partly a rant and partly a plea to users and moderators here.

In recent years, I have been troubled by a trend/meta that has been overtaking story sites. There seems to be an influx of stories that share similar tropes. I call these stories—and the genre they belong to—as Light Novel Drivel. Light Novel Drivel shares the following tropes:

1) These are light novel style stories. They will go on and on for 600+ chapters, stretching and twisting and dragging the plot along like a regular soap opera. (And don't bring Arlene & Jeff as a defense: these stories are nothing like A&J.)
2) The smut is not appealing to read and bores you as the chapters go on and on.
3) There is a System of some kind used as a plot device (i.e., a video game style interface that provides an advantage to the protagonist and their allies). Furthermore, there are the usual harem and power fantasy elements which are fine I guess.
4) The story often borrows a lot from manhwas and shonen anime.
5) The English in these stories is abysmal because it is poorly written and poorly translated by non-native English speakers. (Note: There are non-native authors who do a great job at producing well written and well translated stories. This isn't a dig at the entire group en masse.)
6) The story is likely AI generated and makes poor use of writing AI tools. In some instances, I have noted that the story includes the same phrase over 400+ times! (Repetitive words and phrases are in fact a strong indication of poor AI use.)

Now I know what some users will say. Just ignore and move on. I'd be happy to do so. But how do I ignore and move on when the home page is FLOODED with these type of stories? The same applies for the genre tags I search for.

It is impossible to ignore and search for good stories to read when I have to wade through the muck of Light Novel Drivel. This is the problem I am facing with Literotica. I am afraid that SO will face the same issue.

Suffice it to say that I don't want StoriesOnline to turn into a generic WebNovel or Wattpad clone. We already have Wattpad and WebNovel for Light Novel Drivel stories. There is a diversity of stories here from writers of various backgrounds and ages. I love that about SO: in fact I'd say that it is one of the strongest features of this site. I would like to see SO's ethos preserved while recognizing the need to add new lifeblood to the site. So please, let's gatekeep out Light Novel Drivel stories.

Replies:   sunseeker  GmFoGmD  bugmenot69  irvmull  tendertouch  Grey Wolf  Unicornzvi
      
sunseeker 🚫

@bugmenot69

Well I can't use A&J as a defence as I've never read it. It's description when it 1st came out didn't entice me to read it...and the same for new stories where the description reads like one of those awful asian reels from facebook or says it is ai generated

And I hardly ever read the homepage at all, mostly just using the updates, new stories, and other tabs.

SunSeeker

Replies:   Grey Wolf
      
Grey Wolf 🚫

@sunseeker

A&J suffers from some really questionable choices in the description, and from rather significantly changing style and focus a bit into the first book. If you like science fiction stories with a lot of characters and sometimes questionable levels of detail, it's a fair bit of fun.

I agree with @bugmenot69 that it doesn't fit the description here.

      
GmFoGmD 🚫
Updated:

@bugmenot69

How would you suggest this is fixed?

I appreciate what you're saying but how could it possibly be enforced?

I for one acutely despise incest stories but I wade through them anyways. I guess you could filter the home page if you were premier.

      
bugmenot69 🚫

@bugmenot69

Add a tag for Light Novels I guess.

That should, I surmise, attract the authors to use the tags to self-identify. And then, as you suggest, we filter the home page as Premier members.

In the case of incest stories, the site should really add the option to exclude tags. AO3 has this after all.

Replies:   Dominions Son
      
Dominions Son 🚫

@bugmenot69

In the case of incest stories, the site should really add the option to exclude tags.

This already exists for premier members.

Replies:   bugmenot69
      
bugmenot69 🚫

@Dominions Son

Excluding tags? Interesting.

      
irvmull 🚫

@bugmenot69

Is America transitioning to a "postliterate" society?

The answer is yes - reading comprehension is dropping dramatically.

See interesting article on this subject:
https://lawliberty.org/reclaiming-reading/

Enshitification runs rampant.

Replies:   bugmenot69  Grey Wolf
     
bugmenot69 🚫

@irvmull

It's cyclical. We can find concerns over the state of literacy in every century since the advent of the Gutenberg Press.

My desire is to steer clear of a specific type of popular fiction. Different strokes for different folks and all.

      
Grey Wolf 🚫

@irvmull

Data is all over the place on this. From the article you quoted:

Rose Horowitch cites the National Endowment for the Arts data that less than half of adults in 2022 read a book of any kind and only 16 percent of the population engage in daily pleasure reading.

The 16% figure is relative to a 28% figure in 2004 from the same source. Other sources, though, show a 48% figure in 2024. There have been similar reading panics recently, most of which seem somewhat questionable.

And the second quote in the article (time spent 'looking at a screen') misses the point, since the majority of pleasure-reading in the US (and virtually all SoL reading) is 'looking at a screen'). Nearly 1 in 12 Americans has an active Kindle device. Kindle Unlimited is running at about 300 million volumes read a year alone.

For libraries, in-person visits dropped in the 2000s and 2010s but has risen sharply in the 2020s. Not back to old levels, but that's nearly a no-brainer. Consider the vast difference in online accessibility of reference materials between 2006 and 2026. Circulation of paper books has taken a hit, but circulation of digital materials has risen sharply. The average American checks out ~6 books a year.

There are warning signs, I agree, but it's not the sort of glowing-red warning sign that '12%' would be, by any means.

      
tendertouch 🚫

@bugmenot69

As was already pointed out, excluding tags helps a lot.

Beyond that, though, fight the tide — write your own stories and post them for all to enjoy.

Replies:   GmFoGmD  bugmenot69
      
GmFoGmD 🚫

@tendertouch

This is a very inspiring answer - a call to arms, as it were.

Be the change you want to see!

      
bugmenot69 🚫

@tendertouch

As I already pointed out, you can't exclude a tag that does not exist. It needs to be created first.

Fighting the tide in the way you suggest is counterproductive.

More tags that could help to exclude: Isekai, System, Translated Work. A few more tags added would do the trick.

Being able to blacklist authors helps to a lesser extent.

In any case, got better fish to fry. It's no skin off my back if SO wants to become a Wattpad clone.

Replies:   Mementh
      
Mementh 🚫

@bugmenot69

Imho translated need to have 2 options.
1. Genllm/genai made, reviewed, touched
2. Pure human

      
Grey Wolf 🚫

@bugmenot69

To me, there's a big difference between most of those and:

3) There is a System of some kind used as a plot device (i.e., a video game style interface that provides an advantage to the protagonist and their allies). Furthermore, there are the usual harem and power fantasy elements which are fine I guess.

Gamelit itself is a fairly viable genre. So is haremlit. They may not be your cup of tea, but I would distinguish them significantly from 'bad AI' and 'bad translation', which seem like the really bad parts.

I'm over 600 chapters in my 7 books, and the plot certainly marches along (perhaps like a soap opera, perhaps not), but I don't otherwise fit, nor would I say that it's 'a defense' by itself. Some (very) long works are good. Some are not.

I'm in favor of tagging, but I'm not sure if tagging fixes it. And I can easily see some vociferous disagreement. The things most in need of tagging seem to be 'bad translation' and 'AI generated'. We have a tag for the second. What are the criteria for the first, and who tags it?

Replies:   GmFoGmD  bugmenot69
      
GmFoGmD 🚫

@Grey Wolf

I think the term "bad translation" would be mostly subjective; even if the translation has been undertaken poorly (or automatically using tooling like AI or online translators). Surely a "Translated Work" category - as OP suggests in another comment - would fit better? If we saw it attached to a story when browsing we'd all know what it indicates.

The issues would be:

* Authors would have to manually tag their own story as as a Translated Work, unlike the AI Generated tag which is added automatically after a review period of earlier stories.

* how big is this problem truly? It seems to have really gotten to OP and everyone in this thread knows what types of story OP is referring to, but as for the wider audience and traffic of SOL, is yet another category justified because, well, just because some folks plain don't like this kind of thing appearing here?

Replies:   Diamond Porter
      
Diamond Porter 🚫

@GmFoGmD

I'll add an issue to this list:

* The responsible authors who would use the "Translated Work" tag would use it to tag their hand translations of good erotica, while irresponsible authors would leave it off their machine translations of mass-produced garbage.

For example, Quasirandom has translated stories from Boccaccio's Decameron and poems from classical Latin authors. You don't have to like those specific examples, but consider whether you really want to filter out everything of that sort. What about translations of Casanova or de Sade?

Replies:   bugmenot69
      
bugmenot69 🚫

@Diamond Porter

Well that onus should fall on the reader. They should be able to decide, especially if they are Premier readers, whether they want to read translated works or not. I for one would love to read good translated works and having a tag would assist me in finding them.

As for the issue of irresponsible authors and their machine translations, well that's life. There will always be bad actors unfortunately. We can implement the system, then identify its flaws and mitigate accordingly.

      
bugmenot69 🚫

@Grey Wolf

You make some good points here!

I actually want to enjoy gamelit and haremlit. They seem to be right up my alley.

But there is a lot of issues with those genres that turn me off and break my immersion:

1) Bad AI writing is definitely an issue with gamelit and haremlit. I recall a story (600+ chapeters) where the phrase 'purple haired brat' was used to describe the protagonist over 400 times! To me, that's a good sign that a work is AI generated (or written by a hack writer).
2) Entire chapters full of progression infodumps! One chapter about the protagonist leveling up, another for the new skill points they gained, another for the new powers the System gave them. My goodness, I am an avid gamer. But the progression infodump chapters are such a drag to read!
3) Juvenile and outdated tropes borrowed from shonen anime. I love to read about power fantasies sure. But I hate that the protagonist seems like a neurotic teenage boy who dreams about living like Andrew Tate.
4) Terrible and laughable sex scenes. I am sorry but if you use the phrase 'Nine Thrust Doggy King' to describe a power move you use during sex, I can't take your work seriously!

Are these issues I identified bugs? Or are they a feature? I am cautiously optimistic that they are the former (or else I wouldn't create this post). If they are tropes that define gamelit and haremlit, then you are right: not my cup of tea.

Replies:   Grey Wolf  Big Ed Magusson  Mementh
      
Grey Wolf 🚫

@bugmenot69

1) Bad AI writing is definitely an issue with gamelit and haremlit. I recall a story (600+ chapeters) where the phrase 'purple haired brat' was used to describe the protagonist over 400 times! To me, that's a good sign that a work is AI generated (or written by a hack writer).

There are 'hack writers' who I strongly suspect have macros for that sort of thing. I've read some of them :) Not 600+ chapters, though!

There are at least a few Kindle Unlimited authors who I suspect are corporations / writing teams / etc. A book a week, pretty clearly not AI generated, but with notable differences in style between series (with several series ongoing at the same time). Some of them have go-to descriptions for characters that can be pretty grating. I suspect it's because they expect gaps between people reading not just volumes but even chapters, so they're constantly reminding people that so-and-so has purple hair and is a brat.

The other three are DNFs for me, pretty much. Although, so far, I've mostly avoided them from the descriptions. I suspect they're features for other people, though.

2-4 are not 'gamelit' or 'haremlit' tropes, in my opinion. 1 might be, but only to a limited extent.

Most 'gamelit' / 'haremlit' books seem to normal novel-length works (or limited series - 10ish books), in my experience. 600+ chapter open-ended is much more Xianxia & Wuxia, or sometimes 'web novel'.

Within that culture, I suspect (but don't know) that 2 and 3 are plusses and 4 is 'fanservice' (so also a plus).

Replies:   bugmenot69
      
bugmenot69 🚫

@Grey Wolf

Yeah I think you hit all the nails on their heads!

1) Interesting theory about the hack writer corporations (writing mills?). I can see how they can keep repeating the same points over and over. This was also an issue with Dragon Age: Veilguard. And Netflix execs (allegedly) want writers to keep repeating plot points. This is because people only half-watch the shows while doing chores apparently. (I think Matt Damon had talked about this.)

2) Yeah maybe you are right that they are not core gamelit and haremlit tropes. I seem to be unlucky and run into those tropes a lot for those genres!

3) Biggest nail you hit was those genre labels: Xianxia, Wuxia and web novel (I would add shonen anime and light novel as well).
That's it! I really dislike those five genres and all works that fall under them. I am concerned about those stories bleeding into SO and turning the site into a Wattpad clone!

Replies:   julka
      
julka 🚫

@bugmenot69

Biggest nail you hit was those genre labels: Xianxia, Wuxia and web novel (I would add shonen anime and light novel as well).

All of the xianxia I've seen here is basically around replacement-level or below - I would encourage you to not give up on the genre but also I think that reading any xianxia posted here is probably going to be a sad time unless you're doing it as some kind of quasi-scholarly documentary of the space.

Xianxia is really interesting when it gets into things like interpretations of daoism or how a state can be governed when detached immortal beings wander around, and really terrible when it focuses on how much qi somebody has accumulated in their lower dantian and how they are at level three of the nascent soul realm, making them an untouchable existence for those poor fuckers who are stuck at level 9 of the foundation realm etc.

Unfortunately, writing a story that features interpretations of the Dao requires knowing something about Daoism and writing a story about number goes up just requires knowing which of two numbers is bigger, so you can guess what most of the genre consists of!

      
Big Ed Magusson 🚫

@bugmenot69

There are at least a few Kindle Unlimited authors who I suspect are corporations / writing teams / etc. A book a week, pretty clearly not AI generated, but with notable differences in style between series (with several series ongoing at the same time).

Well... yes. There are readers in the LitRPG and HaremLit forums other places who continually complain that the books are too short and not being produced fast enough.

I know of at least one author who formed a team to placate these readers who just want "more, more more!"

When page count matters more than quality, that's what you get.

Replies:   Grey Wolf
      
Grey Wolf 🚫

@Big Ed Magusson

The ones I'm thinking of are not particularly short. I think what's happening is that it's hard to break in with a new name. Promising writers join the team and publish under the established name.

The stories I'm thinking of range from 'fairly good' to 'above mediocre'. Nothing outstanding, but it's not slop (AI or not), either. And it's possible that the writers in the team are 'fairly good' and writing up to their level.

If there's a problem, it's the way they're prompting the named author as writing a full novel-length' fairly good' book a week. It's so wildly unlikely that I have to believe most readers don't believe it. Why not credit 'author' and 'author 2' on the book?

It probably doesn't sell as well, but who knows?

Replies:   Big Ed Magusson
      
Big Ed Magusson 🚫

@Grey Wolf

James Patterson does the model where he brings on co-authors, who actually do most of the writing, but he actually credits them. I don't know what the royalty arrangements are, but I can see the appeal, if I were a writer trying to go pro in something he wrote.

So I think the issue is that these may be ghost written and uncredited. I wouldn't be surprised. I just don't know.

Replies:   Grey Wolf
      
Grey Wolf 🚫

@Big Ed Magusson

I was thinking of Patterson, yes. His model makes sense, I think.

I suspect 'ghost written' is a reasonable term, but that the 'ghostwriter' per series remains the same. The actual named author may well review everything (though probably skimming, not reading every word).

Replies:   bugmenot69
      
bugmenot69 🚫

@Grey Wolf

Steve Jobs has a lot of patents in his name because of the same "Patterson model."

      
Mementh 🚫

@bugmenot69

There was one that the protagonist knew he was in a workd he would leqve because he read a book of it...... 20 chapters of info dumping!

      
Unicornzvi 🚫

@bugmenot69

What you're describing is simply badly written LitRPG stories(LitRPG is the generally accepted term I've seen from both proponents and opponents of stories with a system of some sort). I'm actually surprised the site doesn't have that tag - I was sure I remembered stories being tagged with it.

Replies:   Michael Loucks
      
Michael Loucks 🚫

@Unicornzvi

The tag is `GameLit`.

Replies:   julka  Unicornzvi
      
julka 🚫

@Michael Loucks

I wonder if it's worth changing the tag? "Gamelit" is a broader term but "LitRPG" is seems wildly more popular and closer to the mainstream cultural consciousness after the success of stories like Dungeon Crawler Carl - if somebody's looking for DCC-but-smutty, I think they're way more likely to look for a LitRPG tag than GameLit.

Replies:   Michael Loucks  Grey Wolf
      
Michael Loucks 🚫

@julka

That would be a question for Lazeez. You might contact him using the link on the homepage and make the suggestion.

      
Grey Wolf 🚫

@julka

It's not a simple tag change. More likely, you would need to add 'LitRPG'.

'Dungeon Crawler Carl' - LitRPG, therefore also Gamelit
'Ready Player One' - Gamelit, but not LitRPG

Both are highly successful stories within the mainstream cultural consciousness, so there's no reason to favor one style over the other.

Without fixing existing 'Gamelit' stories, how do you know if you're miscategorizing something?

Replies:   Unicornzvi
      
Unicornzvi 🚫

@Grey Wolf

It's not a simple tag change. More likely, you would need to add 'LitRPG'.

If I was making the change I'd rename "GameLit" tag to something like "GameLit/LitRPG" or "GameLit & LitRPG"because while GameLit might be brouder term, the one everyone knows and looks for is LitRPG.

      
Unicornzvi 🚫

@Michael Loucks

Thanks.

      
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