Robyn Paterson's Blog, page 4

Unleash the Lord of Goblins Webtoon!

In October 2020, by total accident, I saw that Moonquill Publishing was looking for a scripter to turn the popular light fantasy novel Lord of Goblins into a webtoon. (Webtoons are vertical webcomics designed for easy mobile reading in the Korean style.) Looking for a fun creative challenge, I signed on, and as they say- “the rest is history!”

The basic story is about a revolutionary leader from a future European setting who is assassinated and wakes up in the body of a goblin mining slav...

Five Ways for Pantsers to Plan Their Stories

For some writers, the idea of plotting out a story is a nightmare.

To them, it just takes all the fun out of the writing.

For these people, known as Pantsers (as in “Fly by the Seat of your Pants”) or Discovery Writers, the whole point of the story is to go on an adventure with their characters and experience the story as it plays out with themselves as the story’s first audience.

So, planning the whole thing out first would defeat the purpose of writing the story in the first place...

A History of Light Novels: 2010 to 2015

The following is an unofficial English translation of a Japanese article about the history of light novels by a group called the Light Novel Research Institute. It is presented here for educational and research purposes only. The original Japanese text can be found here. This is an edited machine translation, so some titles or names may be incorrect.

Translator’s Notes: It seems like this attempt to create a chronology was largely abandoned by this point, which is why this document ends in 20...

A History of Light Novels: The 2000s

The following is an unofficial English translation of a Japanese article about the history of light novels by a group called the Light Novel Research Institute. It is presented here for educational and research purposes only. The original Japanese text can be found here. This is an edited machine translation, so some titles or names may be incorrect.

Summary of the 2000s

　In the first half of the decade, “Shakugan no Shana” and “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” were popular for their sto...

A History of Light Novels: The 1990s

The following is an unofficial English translation of a Japanese article about the history of light novels by a group called the Light Novel Research Institute. It is presented here for educational and research purposes only. The original Japanese text can be found here. This is an edited machine translation, so some titles or names may be incorrect.

Summary of the 1990s

In the first half of the decade, we were in the midst of a fantasy bubble, but after “Sorcerer Orphen”, people began to ...

A History of Light Novels: The 1980s

The following is an unofficial English translation of a Japanese article about the history of light novels by a group called the Light Novel Research Institute. It is presented here for educational and research purposes only. The original Japanese text can be found here. This is an edited machine translation, so some titles or names may be incorrect.

Summary of the 1980s

The 1980s was a time when TRPGs, such as Dungeons & Dragons, and fantasy RPGs, such as Dragon Quest, exploded in popular...

A History of Light Novels: The 1970s

The following is an unofficial English translation of a Japanese article about the history of light novels by a group called the Light Novel Research Institute. It is presented here for educational and research purposes only. The original Japanese text can be found here. This is an edited machine translation, so some titles or names may be incorrect.

Summary of the 1970s

Japan was in the midst of a period of high economic growth, when industrialization was advancing and there was a dream t...

How to Start an Isekai Story

Isekai, or “second world,” stories are a staple of light novels and webfiction for many reasons. They start with a natural hook that makes readers interested, and then they lend themselves to all kinds of fun, adventures and romance. Not only that, they’re instantly relatable because the main character is usually from our world, and so the audience has an instant bond with them.

And, with so many isekai stories being written, it’s no surprise that patterns started to appear as people kept tel...

Five Old Writer’s Tricks that Never Fail to keep Readers Reading

The greatest criticism you can say about a story is that it’s boring.

But have you ever wondering why that’s such a criticism? Why is it that when we encounter a story we don’t like our reaction is to call it boring? Why not just say “not to my taste” or “poorly put together” or “badly written”?

But no, the universal default criticism of a story is almost always that it is dull.

Image by Sammy-Williams from Pixabay 

The answer to this, of course, is pretty simple – stories are about ...

How to Make a Romantic Comedy (From the Light Novel Research Institute)

Since actual Japanese sources on writing light novels aren’t easy to find in English, I am sharing translations of some of the more interesting articles I have found during my current research here on my blog. Since my Japanese is poor, this is a machine translation done using DeepL Translation software and is presented “as is” with all the awkward phrasing and odd words intact. That said, it’s amazing how good translation systems are getting.

This particular article is from 2012, and was do...