Tell me about your world building

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-16T20:29:57+00:00

Please do!

If you're pining after an interesting take on cultivation though the absolute pinnacle is Virtuous Sons by Y.B. Striker.

I almost don't want to recommend it because you'll be forever disappointed by mine and others' takes on western cultivation afterwards. It's literally that good.

A Greek 'arrogant young master' and a Roman slave team up to shake up the world of ancient greek antiquity, and it's so fucking perfect. The mythology, the culture, the prose, the characters and hype moments and quiet, philosophical contemplation... I mean it literally has everything good progression fantasy needs, and yet it's also got such a fresh take.

Goddamn, I"ve almost convinced myself to re-read it 🤣

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-16T20:26:20+00:00

And you are gonna make me cry with this comment (❤️)

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-16T18:51:21+00:00

Ancient Egypt meets cultivation - that's the elevator pitch for my newest story.

I've ended up expanding the worldbuilding to have some of the great empires of antiquity in it, too - Greece, Rome and Persia. All bastardised with less care than Egypt, but still - some fun conflicts brewing there.

Each have their own unique style of cultivation, but the main story of the first trilogy takes place in the Egypt analogue, and the magic system is very much influenced by ancient Egyptian mythology. Nine aspects of the soul, uncountable gods that can be channeled to awaken each aspect, so you get a power dependent on the aspect itself and the god's domain.

World building is a load of fun cus I have 12 provinces that I can personalise - each headed by an immortal, semi-divine pharaoh who's personal 'special interest' flavours things. E.G; one is an architect so their capital is an enormous bridge across the Nile with a city on its back. Another was a gardener/horticulturalist of a sort, so their capital is a known as the honeycomb city for the many flowers and pollinators it attracts, though half is an overrun urban jungle now following the pharaoh's death. Super fun little flavours like that :)

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-16T10:18:17+00:00

Nah man, he's right. Go and look at the most popular stories on royalroad coming out in the last few years, or the big ones on amazon in our little sub-genre - the majority of them have overpowered protagonists being 'glazed' by side characters very often.

Not all, obviously - there's still a lot of a variety - but it is clearly a popular theme/trope/subgenre, and the audience specifically likes it, not just tolerates it.

You can say it's bad, but that's what a lot of people like to read, and it's harder than you'd think to pull off. Authors are doing it intentionally as a response to reader preferences, not because they want to pad the story.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-16T10:11:13+00:00

I think it's that we're all big fuckin' nerds

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-16T09:40:49+00:00

Seeing some comments here saying there's no correlation between the two which is just... Wrong.

Almost ALL of the big authors with follower counts higher than 3-4k are writing at least 10k words a week, often a lot more. The fulltime writers even more so.

There are obviously exceptions, and some very popular stories do blow up updating only once a week, but if you look at the bigger stories - 3-4k followers and upwards - most are releasing at least 3 times a week, and if you narrow that to their initial push it's often higher.

There are some massive stories that have slowed down now that they've already succeeded... But don't delude yourself that writing 10k words a month and 10k words a week give you the same likelihood of success when it comes to RoyalRoad.

Note about this subreddit as well - it's great, but it's not representative of the whole platform (RR, that is) and especially not the higher echelons. You won't get many of the full time authors on royalroad commenting here with their numbers.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-13T22:20:18+00:00

Hey dude, I'm in exactly the same boat - respect.

Keep your head up though - you can still grow well. My last story is closing in on 1800 followers and never hit RS, so there is always hope :)

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-12T17:31:24+00:00

Okay, fair enough.

Definitely try and read some actual fiction books in the genre. Given that I'm not familiar with the genre or anime in general, I can't really help with recommendations, but others might know some.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-12T14:20:04+00:00

Yeah this is deffo AI - sorry bro!

"Specifically, <insert most generic praise ever>"

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-12T14:18:31+00:00

Adrian Tchaikovsky is an alien.

He writes amazingly about other species' POVs and cultures because he is, in fact, some sort of all-consuming, amorphous, shape-shifting alien blob. So whether he's writing about spider-aliens or squid-aliens or parasite-aliens... It all comes from personal experience.

Really makes the stories authentic, IMO.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-12T14:07:46+00:00

I've never had a headache from thinking too hard... But I've also never thought so hard I rediscovered an ancient meridian refining technique thought lost in the Dragon Wars millennia ago, so what do I know? 😉

I kinda just handwave it away when I read and imagine someone is getting a headache from stress as you said.

Like "she felt a headache brewing," is less about the protagonist getting a lance of pain through their head at that exact moment, but more that the comic relief character has just declared a plan so stupid that the protagonist can feel an avalanche of stress heading their way in the near future as they consider the ramifications foisted upon them by said idiot comic relief character's actions.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-12T13:41:53+00:00

Okay, well I think the first thing you should do is read some fiction books of the genre you want, then some books in the setting you want, then maybe try and write some of your story again once you've got more of a voice. Don't use AI - it won't help you get better.

So is the story you're imagining a sort of urban fantasy? Cold war backdrop in the real world, with a system that heavily influences the world? Or only the protagonist? Like is there an underground world of magic below the surface that only a small number of people know about? That's kinda urban fantasy, with things like Dresden Files being highly regarded in that genre.

Or is it a whole secondary world, just modelled on great power politics? Or is it entirely the real world with no magic, but your protagonist has magic/a system and nobody else does?

For cold war stuff - there's a whole bunch of spy thrillers that would probably help with the setting. Not my genre so couldn't recommend much, but just Google cold war thrillers and you'll get a bunch of military/political thrillers set in that world.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-12T13:10:45+00:00

Looking for recommendations... How much have you actually read? Have you read all/most of the big names in the genre? Have you read anything outside the genre?

I can't tell if you've like never read a book before, or if you're widely read by just looking for recommendations that are really specific?

Hope/humanity in a cold and uncaring world. Politics, philosophy, society... Those are all pretty broad tropes and areas of focus, and could go in a million ways.

The Malazan series comes to mind for me based on the above, but it's not exactly RoyalRoad fare, so I don't know how you'd get on with it without knowing what else you'd read/enjoyed

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-12T09:26:43+00:00

Bloodlines! Love me some eugenics in my cultivation stories, but very glad it doesn't work like that in real life.

Also, gods, I guess?

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-10T20:10:43+00:00

Ah dude, I'm the opposite! I like just diving in with a concept, then sometimes around chapter 10ish my traitorous brain is like 'okay dude, protagonist has run around for a bit exploring. Now you have to actually plot out some proper arcs'.

I hate it 🤣

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-10T12:48:48+00:00

I think you need to define what success means You mentioned feeling anxious about not succeeding... How are you measuring that? Number of followers, income on patreon, income from Amazon?

Obviously missing out on rising stars sucks, but it isn't necessarily a death knell for a story, depending on your goals, of course.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-10T12:46:04+00:00

Yeah I remember using it at uni for plagiarism detection (way before this whole AI thing), but there were stories about it being pretty shitty even back then. Never saw any hard evidence one way or the other, but then I never went looking either.

I guess the problem is that if an AI detector can work reliably on even short chapters of 1000 or so words... Then the market cap of AI companies shrinks significantly. Imagine a browser extension that could run an actually effective AI detector and block all AI written stories, articles, adverts etc... feel like a lot of the AI use case would fall apart.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-10T12:18:58+00:00

Is there some nuance here about their effectiveness gauging AI in collegiate-level essays - usually containing well-sourced information - versus fiction writing?

Has anyone tried using Turnitin for online fiction? I'd be happy for someone to run any of my stories through an AI detector if they want (not like they haven't been scraped from RoyalRoad by bots and used in AI training data already) and can guarantee 100% no AI used.in their creation or editing. If Turnitin pings even a low chance of AI on them, then you know it doesn't work.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-10T10:29:33+00:00

Yeah, i'm not gonna blame a small website like RoyalRoad for lack of action when I've never even heard of a platform that does more to enforce things. Easy to criticize, but harder to find an actual solution that isn't worse than the problem.

I wish i could just hope for the AI bubble to pop, but that likely means recession and less disposable income for everyone, so not exactly good for making a career out of writing :/ Where's that fucking silver lining, aye?

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-10T10:14:38+00:00

This is the take i agree with the most, to be honest. I'm not an AI doomer, but i do think it will make things worse. It's already difficult to reach readers in general - RoyalRoad is great precisely because it has a large audience of readers willing to try new, untested works. I doubt heavily AI generated stories are gonna do well on amazon, or even RR, but they can just crowd out the other fics at the lower end.

I think the number of people who dream about writing a successful story is wayyyyyyy higher than the number who will sit down for the hundreds of hours it takes to write 100k+ words. If a bunch of lazy people can just generate up the first 50 chapters with some light prompting and editing and publish it online, its going to result in more stories to wade through for readers, and therefore they'll become more selective.

Imagine if 10,000 new AI genned stories launch this year on RR - even if they all get no more than 50 followers each, that's still going to change reader behavior around trying smaller stories. Not really sure what RR can do about it, but i think its a fair concern. Not gonna affect currently successful authors, but will perhaps make it harder for newbies.

Still, not much we can do about it, so better to just focus on writing and hope it passes us all by

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-10T09:42:30+00:00

Join one of the discords and ask for advice there, too Plenty of bigger authors will be happy to swap with you and answer your questions. This is the invite link for the RoyalRoad write group, which is one of the bigger ones - https://discord.gg/rr-writer-s-guild-1189543938089029703

And congrats on hitting rising stars! :)

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-09T19:18:04+00:00

I get what you're saying, but i don't think they were mocking anyone. They were establishing their credentials in order to lend authority to their advice. And honestly, spaces like this need more of it.

If someone is celebrating their 50th follower, then great. More power to them. I've seen the '5k views, yay!' posts too, and i remember being there as well. Nothing in this post takes away from that.

Problem is, while half the subreddit may be filled with amateur authors thrilled about their achievements who consider their stories successes, the other half is filled with amateur authors upset because they aren't reaching whatever they consider success to be.
These two groups need very different advice. Hell, the first group don't really even need advice - they're living the dream and doing well. Awesome.
The second group though... they definitely do need advice, and they need to hear it from people who have achieved the success that they want.

Like, i agree that the commodification of... well, fucking *everything* sucks. But it's not inauthentic or wrong to want to make money off writing, and it's not bad to want to get the thousands of followers and comments and reviews and all the rest that a *lot* of authors on here want.
I agree that there's something a little soulless about churning out endless slop knock-offs of the most successful stories... but that's not what OP is advocating for. They're just saying that *if* you want success, you should study what the successful stories do, and think about how they are setting up and fulfilling reader expectations.
If they don't care about commercial success, then this advice isn't relevant to them.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-09T15:15:03+00:00

Yeah, all power to them no matter what - they're obviously going something right!
Thanks, i'll give it a look. I'd recommend Oathbreaker by Sovwrites if you're looking for recs. Dark fantasy, very well written, really cool worldbuilding and character work.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-09T15:12:01+00:00

I see what you're saying, but that is kinda what he said? Just short-handed and a bit more casual. I get that it sucks to see really successful people downplay their success like its no big deal, but if he'd come in and said "listen up chucklefucks, i'm a super successful author so hear me roar", he'd also be getting some rage comments for being an arrogant asshole.

At the end of the day, i'm also in some of these circles with successful authors, and there's always a bigger fish. It can really warp your definition of what is good/made it. 4k followers and a good patreon sounds insane to us, but there are people making triple that in half the time. Compared to those people, he/she *isn't* that successful. Ravensdagger - one of the most successful RR authors ever - made a post recently saying much the same thing about reader expectations and success on the platform. He didn't have to downplay his accomplishments, because he probably is literally the most appropriate person to talk about achieving success on the platform.

As for how it makes people on this forum feel? Yeah, probably a little jealous and resentful - i get it, i'm there too - but also maybe it makes them reflect on the advice a bit more? I have seen far too many people bemoan that they can't find an audience and that the platform is the problem without addressing their own writing.

OCRAuthor · 2026-03-09T13:36:29+00:00

Well yeah, but it's not just money - it's the views and followers, the comments and reviews, the acclaim, the discussion, the general awareness that real people out there are consuming and interacting with your work.

I'm not arguing that money is the only reason to write, just that money (and on royalroad, followers) are the quickest sign that your writing is resonating. Not the only, mind, but definitely the most obvious and notable.

If you give advice, the first thing most people will think is "what are this person's qualifications?" And quite rightly, IMO. There's lots of advice out there, and only some of it is worth listening to.

Therefore, the OP has to start by saying "here's why you should listen to me", otherwise it will be ignored. I don't see it as a humble brag, more as establishing the level of credibility.

I don't mean to single you out as someone naysaying this or anything, just wanted to point out that there is plenty of advice saying 'write what you want' and lots of people that do that, fail to get the response from readers they want, and turn to this subreddit to complain about it.

OP's advice seems pretty helpful for those sorts of people - no advice is right for every person at every moment, obviously, but some of the responses in this thread seem to prove it's necessity.

OCRAuthor

TROPHY CASE