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As the title suggests, on August 4, a blogger named Froggy Coon took the liberty of helping aspiring writers by providing a simplified plan for writing an easy novel. Quote: How to write a simple novel in five not very simple steps

As everyone knows, anyone can write a simple novel and become famous. But since satire is a cheap form of humor, that's not really the way I'm going to follow in this post. Let's say you (hypothetically) would like to write a light novel in English and publish it, how would you do that?

Step One: Determine what You are Actually Writing

Requirement number one for good writing: know what you want to achieve.

So let's define what a simple Novel really is. It's short fiction, and it should be easy to read. It is also intended for young and adult audiences. But then it would be pretty much your usual teen romance, so you want your light novel to attract the attention of an otaku audience. In short, you either want to be self-aware and meta-focused on anime tropes, or you want it to look like anime in tone and storytelling style. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to call it a light Novel.

It's easy to fall into traps at this stage. In fact, by writing a light novel in English rather than Japanese, you are writing for a dual audience: the one who cares about anime (obviously your most targeted audience), and the one who doesn't. If you just wrote for the first one, your book will suck. There is a reason why we don't have a mass market of Otaku English literature. Writing anime tropes in a story and deconstructing them, parodying them, discussing them, etc. requires the audience to really care about anime tropes in the first place. Most people who read books don't care about anime. They won't understand your jokes.

So, how do I attract a non-otaku audience while maintaining a style that visibly influences anime for abstract readers? A very good question.

Some Hints:

Don't try to write your prose in such a way that it resembles what you read on baka-Tsuki or other sites that literally translate light novels into English. Read books in your native English. Write in correct English. Find the story. If you are not telling your history of Japan and are not specifically trying to convey a foreign taste, do not use honorary titles or arbitrary Japanese phrases. Keep things clear for the non-Japanese reader. Step Two: Identify the tracks you want to play with

Personally, I hate using TV tropes. I think it's a shitty way to make up stories. But since writing a light novel can be an exercise in playing tropes, whether you're playing them directly, deconstructing them, or just talking to the characters, TV tropes are your friend here.

When choosing the paths you want to base your story on, keep in mind the dual nature of your audience. Try using easy-to-understand routes for viewers of movies, television and books. After you have chosen the trail you want to explore (for example, a magical girlfriend), think about what you want to do with the trail. How do you imagine it?

The most popular best light novels combine the study of their main path with a broader theme. Examples:

Oraimo: "the younger sister is playing eroge." - >sometimes we don't understand the people closest to us.

The Art of the Sword online ""players caught in an MMORPG for life and death." - >the game can be as "real" as reality.

Oregairu: "a cynical boy enters the club and helps people." - >it's not easy to communicate with people when you are who you are, but you can't count on changing to make friends.

Haganai: "a boy who has no friends joins a club with girls who also have no friends." - >Friendship can be as simple as mutual loneliness.

Sakurasu: "a boy takes care of a girl with such shortcomings as a "pet"." - >a device used to detect mental imbalances between characters; we all have our own unique talents.

Chunibyu: "a crazy girl with chunibyu meets a seemingly normal guy." - >study of chunibyu as a syndrome and criticism of escape.

Toaru Majutsu without a pointer: "a normal boy defeats enemies with superpowers." - >actively challenges our standards regarding what is considered "extraordinary" in society.

Think of it this way: by using tropes, you're trying to turn big intellectual topics into easily recognizable artistic techniques. You make your ideas available to a wider audience, rather than trying to push them away. As long as you don't think about using your trails to use trails, you don't have to worry about getting "beaten up".

There will always be people who don't like this narrative approach and who will criticize your story no matter how hard you tell it, but you're not writing it for them, so forget about them.

Step Three: Write This

Someday it will have to be done. A good way to really motivate yourself to publish a story is to join NaNoWriMo and write it all in a month. Anyway, just write it down on paper.

How to write easy-to-read prose:

This is your top priority when writing a light novel. You want your style to be easy to read and at the same time intellectually stimulating. Obviously, you need practice before you can write well in this style, but here are some tips to help you do it.

Use active verbs instead of passive verbs. for example, “he kicked the dog" instead of "the dog was kicked". Change the structure of the sentences, but make them mostly short. Use precise formulations. If you can express the same idea in fewer words, then do it. Limit your vocabulary. Until you have to spend more words to describe something more accurately, use simple words rather than a specialized dictionary. You don't want your reader to have to flip through the dictionary to understand what you're saying. Don't ignore the descriptions. Work with them in parallel with dialogue and actions. Descriptions of light novels should be largely visual and impressionistic, not whimsical and emotional. The average light novel consists of about 70% of dialogues. Use it to continue your story. Read the dialog box aloud and delete unnecessary or abnormal-sounding lines. Each chapter should move the story forward. Each scene should move the story forward. This should be the case in every sentence and, therefore, in every word. Avoid repetitions and tautologies. Finally, and most importantly, be interesting. If you are bored writing yourself, most likely your reader will be bored too. Who cares if it's good, as long as it's interesting. Serious. That's how shitty writers get popular.

How to be meta:

One of the most interesting literary aspects of a light novel is that the narrator mentally comments on the plot or other characters as they develop. That's how light novels become meta-informed, and why butthurt fans hate it when their favorite light novel gets an animated adaptation that never seems to explore what the main character thinks.

To write a good meta-story, first you need to understand your main character's head well. It goes without saying that it's easier when you write in the first person. It also makes it easier if you base the main character on yourself. Really. Don't be ashamed of it.

Once you decide that you understand the voice of your main character correctly, you need to put yourself in the place of the characters when writing the story and think about how they will mentally react to the events taking place. If they are crazy or cynical, the character probably shouldn't be impressed by what they see. If your character is a pervert, he should associate OPPAI and PANZA with almost everything a female character says or does. Simply put: consistency is key.

Even then, you won't reach meta status until you take a step back and think about what you're trying to do. Basically, you want two narratives to happen at the same time: a physical narrative and a meta-narrative. The latter is an alternative, a "second" reading of events.

Here is a short excerpt from Oregairu, which hopefully illustrates the double narrative (my own translation):

This quadrangular courtyard, spanning the boundaries of the school building as far as possible, is Holy Ground for the children in care. Boys and girls communicate with each other here during lunch breaks. After eating, they play badminton, waiting for the contents of their stomach to calm down. After school, lovers exchange sweet little things at a dark sunset behind the school building, enveloped in the scent of the ocean breeze and draped under the starry sky.

Cause vomiting.

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