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[TheHivemind]

A question for the writers.

I assume that most, if not all, of you are male. Since a large chunk of the text consists of things said by female characters, how was it to write these parts?
Was it different than writing lines for a male character? Did you have difficulties with those?

I have heard of writers of books and manga having trouble writing lines for the opposite sex and sometimes consult the help of others for this.

Like Aura already said, it wasn't any more difficult than writing from the perspective of a nurse, or from the perspective of a blind person, or deaf person, or someone without legs/arms/whatever.

The secret to writing female characters is that women are not actually some mysterious puzzle. They are, surprisingly, almost exactly like males. If you want to write convincing female characters, make a convincing character and use female pronouns when describing her. It's like MAGIC.

I mean there's a little more to consider if you want to really write something that delves into gender politics (although a great shortcut for that is to just have nobody take anything seriously that your character says, and indeed have them be as patronizing as possible. A bit too on the nose, perhaps, but there you are), but the secret is there isn't any secret, writing a woman is identical to writing a man because gender isn't going to inform like, whether or not a character likes long walks on the beach or swears a lot or has a sore spot about a dead parent.

[Helbereth]

If you want to write convincing female characters, make a convincing character and use female pronouns when describing her. It's like MAGIC.

From As Good As It Gets (1997):
Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

I don't really have a question, but reading you and Aura's responses made me think of this little exchange. Actually, on second thought, I probably do have a question.

Some of the characters have some unusual quirks that go beyond their disabilities. Hanako's tile game gets referenced a lot, but there are others. Were any of them based on people you knew, or perhaps from some other source, or were they simply pulled out of the ether?

[Kulthozuer]

I assume you guys have already been asked a question similar to this before but, assuming one is planning on creating a VN or similar scale to such as Katawa Shoujo or another big one do you have any recommendations on how one would start to learn to write a story like this? Merely the writing part. I was wondering if you had any advise as to approach this in a successful manner. I already know things like to not just dick around and talk about stuff with my friends and that it will be hard work and take a long time but more stuff like what was the timeline of events in establishing the story what did you start with? I started with writing a setting a couple important characters and a main plot. Any input would be nice really.

[Aura]

I assume you guys have already been asked a question similar to this before but, assuming one is planning on creating a VN or similar scale to such as Katawa Shoujo or another big one do you have any recommendations on how one would start to learn to write a story like this? Merely the writing part. I was wondering if you had any advise as to approach this in a successful manner. I already know things like to not just dick around and talk about stuff with my friends and that it will be hard work and take a long time but more stuff like what was the timeline of events in establishing the story what did you start with? I started with writing a setting a couple important characters and a main plot. Any input would be nice really.

My first advice would be "Don't". If you have no experience as a writer, it's better to start small. Case in point: KS. We had to scrap a majority of our work and restart twice because it was too big and we were too inexperienced and we were learning too fast for our flimsy initial attempts to cut it. Compare: "Assuming one is planning on building a house on similar scale to such as the Empire State Building, do you have any recommendations on how one would start to learn to build a house like this?". It's just not a very good idea to start with something of that scale.

Anyway, this is how I understand storytelling: Start with the concept of the story. It's some combination of ideas about the plot, themes, characters and the setting, with emphasis on what the story is focused on. Slice of life stories require strong characters, fantastic stories need a lot of work on setting, mystery stories on the plot, mature/cerebral ones on the themes and so forth. However, all elements are important regardless of what the story is focused on. You build and expand the elements and the relations between them and the fifth element, structure. It's the backbone of the story, dictating the rhythm of the plot, the narrative. In visual novels specifically structure also involves coming up with the "game" flow, as in choice points and branching. This makes up the skeleton of the finished product. It has everything that's needed to understand what the completed story is. Then you write the outline following the structure, which is basically stripped down version of the final product and the guide for writing it. I've had outlines that are something like half the wordcount of the final text. Then finish by writing the actual story "over" the outline. Done. If you want to do something of KS's scale, repeat the process for as many times as you have separate "routes", except you already have the setting and most characters given.

[Kulthozuer]

My first advice would be "Don't". If you have no experience as a writer, it's better to start small. Case in point: KS. We had to scrap a majority of our work and restart twice because it was too big and we were too inexperienced and we were learning too fast for our flimsy initial attempts to cut it. Compare: "Assuming one is planning on building a house on similar scale to such as the Empire State Building, do you have any recommendations on how one would start to learn to build a house like this?". It's just not a very good idea to start with something of that scale.

Anyway, this is how I understand storytelling: Start with the concept of the story. It's some combination of ideas about the plot, themes, characters and the setting, with emphasis on what the story is focused on. Slice of life stories require strong characters, fantastic stories need a lot of work on setting, mystery stories on the plot, mature/cerebral ones on the themes and so forth. However, all elements are important regardless of what the story is focused on. You build and expand the elements and the relations between them and the fifth element, structure. It's the backbone of the story, dictating the rhythm of the plot, the narrative. In visual novels specifically structure also involves coming up with the "game" flow, as in choice points and branching. This makes up the skeleton of the finished product. It has everything that's needed to understand what the completed story is. Then you write the outline following the structure, which is basically stripped down version of the final product and the guide for writing it. I've had outlines that are something like half the wordcount of the final text. Then finish by writing the actual story "over" the outline. Done. If you want to do something of KS's scale, repeat the process for as many times as you have separate "routes", except you already have the setting and most characters given.

Thank you, I somehow thought your first advice would be don't. I am rather inexperianced I havn't written a lot however I have written a decent amount about the subject I will be writing about. It's not going to take place in the real world so I realized a lot of planning on the setting and theme would be important so we don't have inaccuracies in our world. I considered just stopping for those reasons you mentioned but I can't just quit something even if I suck at it. I've already given a lot of though to the broad outline of how I want it to start and how I want some of the paths to go and I have already started to more accurately develop and write down elements of the plot, setting and the main character. I thank you for your advice and I already was under the understanding that about half way through we would realize most of what we have sucks and have to majorly improve it but I'm willing to do that work even if it isn't half as good as Katawa Shoujo I want to do something interesting with some of my friends and I'm not able to be around them much anymore so this is perfect.

[helloooo]

Sorry that I made a whole new thread only to be directed to this thread. Anyway, I was wondering where the Shanghai is IRL -- both the inside and outside. Are the locations known?

Thank you all for this story

[Aura]

Sorry that I made a whole new thread only to be directed to this thread. Anyway, I was wondering where the Shanghai is IRL -- both the inside and outside. Are the locations known?

Thank you all for this story :mrgreen:

The outside is a ramen shop in Sendai, Japan. http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.25902 ... 8,,0,-7.39

Inside is not the same place, but I can't remember where it was from.

[Albert Wesker]

If i remember right, everybody did a little bit for every route, which route was harder to make?
Is there something that inspired you guys to make the game?
Also, what do you think about the fact this games changed some lives somehow?
And last: did you had in mind, at some point to make more routes?

Thanks, i must say this game is really a masterpiece

[helloooo]

Sorry that I made a whole new thread only to be directed to this thread. Anyway, I was wondering where the Shanghai is IRL -- both the inside and outside. Are the locations known?

Thank you all for this story

The outside is a ramen shop in Sendai, Japan. http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.25902 ... 8,,0,-7.39

Inside is not the same place, but I can't remember where it was from.

Thank you, very interesting! Hopefully someone will remember / recognize the inside for the sake of silly pilgrimages

[Aura]

If i remember right, everybody did a little bit for every route, which route was harder to make?
Is there something that inspired you guys to make the game?
Also, what do you think about the fact this games changed some lives somehow?
And last: did you had in mind, at some point to make more routes?

Thanks, i must say this game is really a masterpiece :)

1. Can't really compare the routes to each other in that way, especially since a gigantic majority of work for each was made by two or three people.
2. Not sure if you just don't know the history of the game or expect something else, but obviously the answer is this picture.
3. It's surprising for one, in a kind of hard to believe way, but I guess also the best possible feedback I can imagine.
4. I'm sure individual devs played with ideas of additional routes in their minds, but as a team, no.

[Shadowyeclipse]

I don't know if the Hanako writers are active on this forum, but I have a question:

I was listening to an interview with Cpl_Crud, (I know he didn't write the final route, however,) who said he based the Hanako route on the book Life of Pi.

I'm wondering if the Hanako writers knew of this, and adapted it to the story themselves, because the fact she is reading the book in her route seems like a bit of a shout-out.

[Truth]

So, I know I'm a little behind but three nights ago I finished every good ending (Just finished Hanako's for a second time)I found the game a week ago... I loved the whole game and was instantly absorbed into it, I'm even a little obsessed.... So my question is, even if its further down the road, will there ever be more to do in this world? Some way to revisit without just playing the same things? Please? I actually found myself sad at each end because I wasn't ready to be done with that person.

[OtakuNinja]

No there won't be another KS. Read the FAQ.

But you can play the bad/neutral ends and then there's a ton of fanfic to read.

[Aura]

So, I know I'm a little behind but three nights ago I finished every good ending (Just finished Hanako's for a second time)I found the game a week ago... I loved the whole game and was instantly absorbed into it, I'm even a little obsessed.... So my question is, even if its further down the road, will there ever be more to do in this world? Some way to revisit without just playing the same things? Please? I actually found myself sad at each end because I wasn't ready to be done with that person. :(

Pretty unlikely. None of us has much reason or motivation to do further KS material, as we are considerably less attached to the setting and characters than the fans are, and have nothing special to gain from doing it.

[Suriko]

I don't know if the Hanako writers are active on this forum, but I have a question:

I was listening to an interview with Cpl_Crud, (I know he didn't write the final route, however,) who said he based the Hanako route on the book Life of Pi.

I'm wondering if the Hanako writers knew of this, and adapted it to the story themselves, because the fact she is reading the book in her route seems like a bit of a shout-out.

Cpl_Crud wrote act 2, I did 3 and 4.

I've never read Life of Pi, and don't really know anything about it other than it involving a boy and a tiger on a boat (and even then, only thanks to Corner Gas), so it's safe to say it wasn't an influence.