Date Published: May 11th, 2025

How To Create A Successful Manga/Light Novel

In today's video, we're discussing the formula behind what makes your favourite manga, anime, and light novels successful! We are looking at 8 key tricks that these popular series use to help ensure that it will be well received by the readers.

#1: It Needs An Immersive World

A main factor that helps a manga or light novel be successful is an immersive world. The world itself is one of the factors to determine whether the audience would really enjoy the story.

What Makes A World Immersive?

The world needs to have unique characters, unique locations, and overall feel immersive, as though the readers could live and exist in this world with the characters.

For a world to feel immersive, you need to include:

Unique character types/classes/roles.
Unique animals or plants.
A power system (if applicable.)
A political system.
Jobs and education.
Cities and towns that feel distinct from each other.
Other smaller elements like currency, leisure, skills, and transportation.

#2: It Needs To Be OC-Able

OC-Able means that when a reader is experiencing that story, they feel like they could create their own original character based off that story.

How Do You Make It OC-Able?

To make it OC-Able, you need to create a ‘template’ that your readers could look at in order to create original characters based off your world. This ‘template’ needs to match the other characters within your world.

How To Create An OC-Able Template

Ensure that there is a template that your readers can follow to create their own characters (based off other characters in your story.) This can include character types/classes, school/job categories, power system ability types.

#3: The Main Conflict Is World Threatening

Another way to make your story more successful is to make the main conflict world threatening.
This doesn’t always have to mean ‘the world’ but it does need to put whatever means the world to your character at risk.

#4: Add A Hook In Your Character's Design

Another common feature in successful series is in the design.
Including a hook in the design is another element that takes your characters to the next level!

What Creates A Hook?

A hook is an element in your character’s design that is unexpected, which makes your readers ask more questions. They might be wearing something unique, or carrying a mysterious object, which helps to build curiousity towards the character.

#5: Follow Expected Formatting

The most successful series will typically have consistent structure and formatting. Here are some general formatting rules:

*These are just general publishing standards, and don’t apply to every book in this medium or genre.

Manga typically have around 200 pages, with around 9-10 chapters per book. English manga is usually published at 5” x 7.5”. 
Light novels typically have around 50,000 words, with around 16-30 chapters. English light novels can vary in size.
US Trade paperback comic books are usually published at 6.25” x 10.31”.
Most trade paperbacks for standard novels are around 6” x 9”.
Some genres may have more words in a single book, such as high fantasy, and science fiction.

#6: Lore Consistency

The most successful stories keep all the details consistent throughout, in order to ensure that there are no plot holes, and the readers can learn more about the world alongside the characters.

As you continue to create your book, make notes of any important lore so you can refer to it as you are creating your series.
This helps you to avoid plot holes or incorrect facts later on that might make your readers confused or ruin the immersion in your series.

#7: Characters Should Feel Believable

The most successful series have characters who feel believable. Even if the story is set in a world completely different to our own, the characters within it should still make choices that feel human.

#8: Include Unique Character Voices

Creating good dialogue and distinct voices is important, as the characters themselves can help to make the story successful.
In this, I am not referring to how the voice sounds out loud, but instead I am referring to how you write the dialogue.

How To Write Unique Dialogue

Dialogue is made up of the tone of voice, and their choice of words. Some characters may speak politely, or cruelly. Other characters might swear a lot, or use formal words.
Some other ways to make dialogue sound unique is to have characters use particular words often, stutter, shorten their words, or have a catchphrase or an accent.

*Note that these differences should be subtle. You want to ensure that the audience can still read the dialogue. Dialogue should enhance and provide information about the character, not distract from the story!

In Conclusion

While you don't need to follow all of these tips, applying even a few of these techniques can help you to create a book that feels both memorable and unique, a story that your audience will want to come back to again and again.

Tell us in the comment section which of these techniques are your favourite!