light novels are a form of short novel
that are very popular in japan
usually they not only contain lots of
words but anime pictures as well
in today's video i'm going to be talking
about how you can create your very own
light novel
i hope you enjoyed this video and it
helps you with your manga creations
hi everyone if you already know me my
name is midnight cross and on this
channel
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titled Having Faith which you might hear
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now if you're a native english speaker
and you're not natively from japan
then you may think it is harder to
create a light novel and it is
however there is something that's called
o e l n
which stands for original english light
novel
blood novels tend to be in series but
you can also create a one shot light
novel
light novels also usually come with
either black and white illustrations or
color illustrations to go along with
some of the words in the book
it's usually about three or four colored
illustrations but it really depends on
each individual light novel
so first of all let's get the technical
details out of the way this is stuff
like about
page size word count and so on so the
average length of a light novel is about
50 000 words
they are usually published in bangko
bond size which is about asic
size 10.5 centimeters by 14.8
centimeters
usually there will be multiple volumes
in a light novel series
they usually start off in japan by being
serialized in anthology magazines
before being collected in book form
similar to how manga is
some popular light novel magazines in
japan include dragon magazine
and dengeki bonko when you're creating
your light novel you might want to type
it in a program like microsoft word
so my first tip is to choose your target
audience most like novels are written
targeted towards a young adult audience
however you may also want to target it
for
younger teens or also for adults it's
really up to you who your target
audience is but you need to keep in mind
who that target audience is to make sure
the content in your latino suits that
audience
for example a light novel that is
targeted more towards younger teenagers
would probably be a lot less violent
than
a light novel that may be targeted
towards adults just for an example
so when you are writing a leitner well
you want to keep in mind who your target
audience is
and think about what they would most
like to get from your book and how you
can write your own lite novel in such a
way that it really appeals to that
audience
another thing i want to mention here is
when it comes to your target audience
you might also want to consider your
country now if you want to use
japanese jokes or japanese things in
there just keep in mind that outside of
japan
sometimes those jokes may not be fully
understood in order to get your light
novel
the most popularity and the most
understanding you probably want to
create a light novel that can be
understood
whether someone is in japan in your
country or in any other country in the
world
so when you're writing your light novel
you might want to stay away from you
know
slang from your country or extra jokes
from your country
and that way it can be understood to a
wider group of people
rather than just a small select number
of people my second tip is to choose
your genres
some of the most popular light novels
are isakai or fantasy however you can
choose those genres of course or you can
choose any other genre you like
there is just about any light novel for
any genre you can imagine
i recommend you choose what genres you
want to focus on the most in your light
novel
and then it may help if you look at live
novels in your chosen genre to see what
their writing style
is like and use it for inspiration
choose about two
or three genres for your light novel to
help you focus on what it may be about
and be able to keep that genre
consistently as you continue to write
your light novel
my third step to the process of creating
a light novel is to start with character
designs
even if it is a light novel with writing
the characters are still really
important and having good
designs and good interesting characters
is something that's really important
you also need to consider what role your
characters play in your light novel
and why they are there try coming up
with different characters with unique
personalities
my recommendation for creating a popular
light novel character
is to choose one aspect of their design
that makes them unique
for example shiro's rainbow hair or
okabe's lab coat
or there's also rem and rim with their
similar styles but differently coloured
hair
if you want to make your character
design appealing and interesting to a
wider audience
try and think of at least one aspect of
the character design that really stands
out or is different from a lot of other
characters
a lot of light novels usually show
images of the character designs at the
start
however this aspect is mostly so you
know in your own mind
what your characters are like and
especially if you give your character a
unique feature
it's something other characters in the
light novel can point out and describe
for example a character might always
wear a ribbon in their hair
and when they're suddenly not wearing
the ribbon in their hair there may be
something wrong like they
they may be sad about something and
they're not wearing the ribbon in their
hair
so that's just one example of a way you
can describe a character with a
mental image and then use it to describe
what the character does in their daily
life i also recommend you make notes of
your character's personality and traits
their traits and personality are things
that can really show in their dialogue
and make them way more interesting as
characters a bubbly character would talk
in a
much different way than an aggressive
character would just for an example
my fourth tip is to brainstorm plot
ideas and try and find ways to be unique
the next step of this process is to try
and get the ideas out of your mind
and be able to work with those ideas and
develop them further
for example you may want to create an
esa highlight novel however if you look
at the isekai
that you want to create like you have
your base ideas you want to work with
those ideas and try and develop them
further into
more ideas so you could look at the
ideas you already have and ask further
questions like
how do they get to this world what is
that world like when do they get to this
world what is their main
problem in the story what are their
goals and just continue asking yourself
questions and writing down notes based
off your questions
in order to slowly develop your ideas
further i recommend that when you're
further brainstorming you answer the
basic questions of who
what when where why and how and then you
slowly develop your questions further
and there's a lot of questions you could
ask yourself
based off those main questions you could
say who are your characters
what is the situation and so on you can
ask a lot of questions
just from those questions and you can
use them to
further develop new ideas alternatively
if you have too much
plot ideas and you want to sort of
narrow it down try
highlighting or circling the ideas you
really want to focus on
and consider how you can merge those
ideas together
in order to create something more
simplified for your light novel
it may even help just to highlight the
notes that you want to focus on because
during the brainstorming you may come up
with a lot of ideas that you're not
actually going to use
so if you highlight your ideas or circle
them and then move on from those ideas
it's going to help you to
look back over your brainstorming and
know what ideas you really want to focus
on a fifth step to creating a light
novel is to build your world
or write important locations now this
really depends on your genre if you're
writing in a genre like horror or comedy
then the world building may not be as
important than it would be in a fantasy
or isekai
it really depends on your genre if you
are having something that really needs a
whole lot of world building like
fantasy isekai or sci-fi then you may
need to go further into structuring your
world and making it a more
interesting world because you are
building a world it's a world that you
are creating
however if you are just having you know
something like comedy or horror or slice
of life
you may not have to world build as much
however it is important that you still
write down the important locations
in this part of the process i will
explain how to world build and also how
to
write down the important locations that
you may want to focus on
so if your light novel isn't fully
focused on world building
then just writing down a few key
locations can be helpful
so special buildings like school or home
or a park
can really help you to know what places
will be important in your light novel
for example if a light novel is set in
modern times then there may
only be a few key locations you really
want to show in your story
like the school the characters home
their friend's house and so on
now when it comes to something like more
complex world building
then there are various aspects to
consider more complex world building may
be used in fantasy or isekai
and not only do you need to consider
buildings but also the population of
that world
the work the currency and the magic
systems among other things
of course since this is a light novel
not everything will be explained
however it can help to have this in your
mind because it will help to
draw the readers into your fantasy world
not only that but the world in your
story should relate to your character's
goals
over the course of your character
achieving things in your story they
should explore the world you have
created
if you want to know more about world
building you might want to check out
this video where i go into all of the
details
and if you want to learn about magic
systems i have this video as well
my sixth tip to writing a light novel is
to build basic plot structure
a basic plot structure has an exposition
a rising action
the climax falling action and resolution
your entire plot should follow this kind
of structure
the exposition is how you start your
story so it's where you tell information
about your characters
the world and the main goal the rising
action usually focuses on your character
working towards their goals
in most like novels this may happen over
a few volumes
as your character goes on their quest
and meets other characters or goes on
other subplots
however with that i should also mention
that each volume
of a light novel should have its own
mini plot structure in each volume
now the climax is the main point of the
story it's usually where there is a big
problem
this is where the tension and conflict
that have been built up over the story
all lead to this moment it is the
biggest moment in the story
that all the other points have led up to
in a fantasy story this climax moment
may be where the characters suddenly
realize that their world is crumbling
and they don't know what to do in a
shonen the character
may feel defeated as the villain returns
stronger than ever before
now the falling action of the story is
where the problem resolves
it wraps up the previous point of the
story and helps bring things towards an
ending
and the resolution is the ending of your
story whether it's a good or bad ending
there is an ending that ties up the
points you've made during the course of
your story
so that is just the basic plot structure
of how you can plan a plot
i recommend you look at each of these
points look at each part of your plot
the exposition the rising action the
climax the falling action and the
resolution
and write down little notes of how you
want that area of your story to be
write down notes about what you want to
happen at that point in your story
now as i mentioned you should have two
kinds of plot structures
you should have a plot structure for
your whole story
regardless of the different volumes and
you should also try and consider a plot
structure
for each volume of your light novel that
you may have
each volume even if it may not conclude
completely
should still follow this same plot
structure in every volume
it should still have an exposition a
rising action the climax falling action
and
resolution in every single volume even
though
the main story will also have that same
plot structure
my seventh tip is introduce the main
problem at the start
introducing the main problem at the
start lets the readers know what the
character is really working towards
and it makes the readers interested to
know what happens next and see
how the character is going to resolve
that problem for example if you look at
the light novel no game in your life
you'll notice how
the main problem was not really a
problem for them but the main
situation in the story is shown at the
beginning when the two characters get
sucked into the game world that is just
one example and i'm sure there's heaps
of other light novel examples i could
use
however just keep in mind that when
you're writing your own like novel try
and get to the main problem as soon as
possible
or at least the main action as soon as
possible to really draw your readers in
so my eighth step to creating a light
novel is to divide your plot into
volumes
of course this only applies if you are
writing a multi-volume light novel
series and you're not just writing a
one-shot
now if you're dividing your plot into
multiple volumes as i mentioned before
they should each follow the same plot
structure as the main story would
the way you can do this is you can look
at the main plot you have
and write little notes about where you
want each volume to end you can even
just draw lines
where each part of the plot is and where
you would like to end each part of the
story
i recommend that when you're ending a
volume in your light novel series
you try and end it on a cliffhanger or a
plot twist because that is
something that will really make the
readers interested to know what happens
next if you leave it on something
unexpected or a plot twist it makes the
readers wonder what will happen
and the only way for them to find out
what happens next is for them to read
the next volume in your light novel
series
so my next step to creating a light
novel is to choose a narrator
and a point of view now if you look at
most like novels the narrator will
usually be the main character of the
story
and it will usually be told in first
person so i we
us since the view is in first person
it's a good way to bring readers into
the story
and make them feel like they are the
main character and experiencing the
events
there is also third person view which is
a little bit more difficult to write in
a light novel however it is still
something that is
very popular in a lot of light novels
third person is writing with he
she they them and so on starting with
those kinds of words
and describing it from a third person
perspective there is also a second
person but it is very rarely used
it's usually used in fan fiction reader
inserts so you might have seen it there
it's usually you your and so on it's
it's directing it towards the reader so
consider what kind of story you want to
tell
what character would be best narrating
it and what viewpoint it would be best
from
different kinds of viewpoints may be
able to emphasize various genres better
so i recommend you experiment with this
maybe try writing little paragraphs in
each person view
and seeing what suits your kind of genre
the best my 10th tip is
write a strong beginning usually with
some action or some conflict
now i talked a little bit about this
before but i will detail it a bit
further now
in a light novel you want to start in
the action as quickly as possible
so you could either start with a
conflict or introduce the problem
really early on i recommend you look at
popular light novels because they
usually start in this method
by introducing a conflict or a problem
and starting it at the very beginning
it makes the story more interesting a
lot faster
rather than slowly introducing the
characters and the world getting into
the action can keep readers interested
for longer
you don't really need to take the
beginning part of the story and use it
to
introduce the characters characters can
be introduced in the middle of an action
even if there is a conflict or an action
event the way the character reacts to
that
or how the character responds in those
kind of situations
really tells a lot about that character
so rather than introducing your
character and saying like hey
i go to school here this is my grade
this is my friends
instead you can sort of show those
characters in the moment
and say you know this is what happened
when everything changed and then there's
all these dramatic moments
and that really draws a reader in and
makes them feel like they are a part of
the action too
my 11th tip is get to the point as
quickly as possible
now by this i don't mean skipping
valuable character development or
valuable information to your story no i
don't mean that even if those
uh even if you add some slower moments
throughout your story
if there are moments that develop
character or crucial
to building up something in your story
then they are important
by this i mean make sure every moment
you add in your story
is important to the story make sure it
moves the story forward in some way
for example character development can
happen while the characters are working
towards their goal
world building can happen while your
character is getting to that destination
so you don't really need to have the
slower moments where characters might be
explaining something
or even moments where characters are
just walking to school or sitting in
class
you could still have those important
character development moments or world
building
even as your character is still
progressing in story
what i recommend you do is i recommend
you look at each scene you are writing
in your light novel and consider if it
is important to your story and how it is
moving the story forward in some way
in order to keep it fast paced and
interesting try and get to the action as
soon as possible
or try and make slower scenes something
with a little bit more action
and entertainment to keep your readers
interested my 12th tip
is write realistic dialogue for your
characters accents patterns of speech
and traits are something you should
really keep in mind when you are writing
the dialogue for your characters
this is why i think it's important to
develop characters first
when you are creating a light novel
because in this way you have an
idea of how their dialogue should sound
whether it be
cute dialogue blunt words calm speech or
so on
accents and speaking habits should also
be remembered
also keep in mind that with dialogue not
everything is explained
in our own dialogue we cut out a lot of
things which helps it to
feel more natural it might help if you
record your own speaking voice in a
natural conversation
and think about the things you say in
the dialogue in your story
try and cut it down and focus on keeping
the words as natural as possible
for example you might not have a
character saying
hi how are you today if it was in their
personality they might say
hi what's up or hi how's it going or hey
man what's going on you know so it
doesn't have to always be the same
kind of dialogue you can actually say a
lot about a character
by the way they say things or the way
they speak maybe your character even has
a sort of dialogue habit that they might
say
my 13th tip is use a mix of descriptive
wording and dialogue
now light novels are usually very
dialogue heavy there's usually a lot of
dialogue in light novels more
so than there is in western novels it's
one of the attributes of a light novel
however you want to sort of find a
balance you want to make sure that you
have enough dialogue so that you can
understand what the characters are
saying
but you also want to make sure you add
enough descriptive wording
in order to help your readers paint an
image of what's happening in their minds
you want to really find that balance and
make sure you have enough wording so
that your characters know what's
happening but not so much that it
becomes like a regular novel
so let me give you two examples the
first example is going to be something
without descriptive wording and with
just the dialogue
and then the next example is going to be
something with a mix of descriptive
wording and dialogue
so here is the first example without
descriptive wording
i'm sorry i'm late you're always late
i'd be more surprised if you arrived on
time
right sorry ma'am so from this dialogue
we can tell a little bit
but without the descriptive wording it's
sort of hard to know what actions are
happening
and where it's taking place it's hard to
know exactly what's going on
adding a little bit of descriptive
wording to this may help the readers to
understand the situation better and get
a better mental idea of what is
happening
here's another example with more
descriptive lines
i raced towards my classroom pulling
back the handle and hearing the familiar
creak of the door
i'm sorry i'm late mrs kettle looked up
and scowled you're always late she
muttered
i would be more surprised if you arrived
on time
and i'd be more surprised if you smiled
for once i thought before apologizing as
i always did
now remember that not everything needs
to be said as you might have noticed
from the second example
i took out the final lines of dialogue
and i replaced it with descriptive words
instead
instead of having the character say
right sorry man i wrote in the
descriptive word that the character
apologized as they always did
so that is a way to replace dialogue
with descriptive wording
and when you're writing your dialogue in
your like novel sometimes it can help to
take out lines of dialogue
and replace it with descriptive wording
sometimes it makes things sound better
and makes it more easier to read for
your readers
so when you are looking at your light
novel or editing the dialogue try and
find places where you might be able to
replace
certain lines of dialogue with more
descriptive wording in order to really
help bring your readers into the scene
and make them understand what is really
happening a lot better
a mix of both descriptive wording and
dialogue can really make a light novel
paragraph a lot more appealing my 14th
tip is cut out the unnecessary parts
if a part of the story is unnecessary or
it seems to slow down the story a bit
then you may want to cut it out if it is
not driving the story
as i mentioned before it's really
important to continually drive your
story
and so if there are parts of the story
that seem to slow it down
consider cutting them out in order to
make the story more interesting
and maybe replace them with scenes with
higher development or
more fast paced scenes if a scene is not
needed in the story then you may want to
remove it from the story and replace it
with a scene that is more necessary
tip number 15 is keep going through this
whole process until you have written
your light novel
it may take some time but remember to be
patient with yourself and have fun with
the process
it's about having fun and if you have
fun as you are writing your light novel
it's going to make it a lot more easier
to create it and also make the words
stand out more and make the words more
meaningful the 16th step to creating a
light novel and it is optional is add
illustrations they're usually
illustrations in a light novel not only
on the cover
but inside the book as well however if
you don't want to draw pictures it's
totally up to you
you don't have to have a light novel
with pictures inside it you can just
limit it to the cover art
it's really up to you and each
individual author how much art you want
to include in your novel
if you are adding illustrations try and
add illustrations to accompany various
parts of your novel
they can really add a lot to a scene you
also don't have to add the illustrations
yourself you can work with an artist
or collaborate with an artist in order
to make the illustrations for your book
there are places like people per hour or
upwork where you could pay for artists
to illustrate certain illustrations to
go along with your light novel
now the 17th and final step to creating
a light novel is to publish it
once you have gone through this process
and created your own light novel now
it's time to get people reading it and
get it out to viewers now there are
three ways to publish a light novel
there's online publishing
self-publishing and traditional
publishing
so you could post it online on a website
like wattpad
or you could create your own website and
upload chapters of your light novel
there
there are also forums where you can
advertise it like web novel or
on different subreddits you can
self-publish your light novel through
various self-publishing printers
including lulu barnes noble press or
print ninja
you can check out this video where i go
into all of the details on
self-publishing
now traditional publishing is much more
difficult especially for a light novel
if you want to be like a normal light
novel you can try sending it to a
japanese magazine
like dengeki bonko or toronto however
your best bet for traditional publishing
a light novel would be to find a small
publishing house in your own country
and send it there along with a resume
and a cover letter to address yourself
to that company
overall publishing a light novel in
traditional means can be a little more
difficult
however if you're willing to experiment
and try publishing it
through a more novel like way then it is
easier to get your light novel out there
obviously japanese light novels are a
little bit harder to publish in
a western world however if you want to
experiment with it
and of course you may be interested in
publishing it online and getting more
readers
that is the best way to slowly grow try
and build up your audience online
through posting your light novel
on an online website or on your website
and then
try and either self-publish or you know
traditionally publish your light novel
and get those copies out there and just
see and experiment with it because
it is more of a new medium in this kind
of
western world but it is something that
you might want to experiment with
and try and bring forth more original
english
light novels thank you so much for
watching my video today everyone i
really hope you enjoyed it if you did
please let me know
in the comment section down below let me
know what kind of light novels you're
creating because i would love to hear
about it
feel free to chat with me on any of my
social media at midnight x cross
because i would love to hear from you
again thank you so much for watching and
i will see you
in the next video bye
