Kulthozuer wrote: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.
<Aura> would you squeeze a warm PVC bottle between your thighs and call it "manaka-chan"
<Suriko> I would do it if it wouldn't be so hard to explain to my parents
