Fast-paced VN, EVN, Graphic Novels

[Nahilys]

Hi,

 

I am currently working on an English Visual Novel called Lost Winter Nights which has a very fast paced writing and I was wondering how the public would react to when our demo comes out. I am not a very big fan of Japanese Visual Novels because of very slow paced stories which tire me a lot since I am not a native english speaker. I am a student here in France to become a professional screenwriter and I have been noticing that stories can be told very shortly, simply but still be very interesting and fun especially with great art backing them up.
As the leader for the project, I was worried for quite some time that this type of writing may not be well appreciated by the community but I started to like it myself, as it feels actually more like a theatre play with dialogues for the most part. I have to admit that voice acting is a must for that kind of writing though, which is something we totally plan to have.

What do you guys people think of that kind of writing ? I could potentially show some samples from our writer to illustrate my words.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions on that matter

[Arcadeotic]

Fast-paced writing would definetly be something interesting, but in my opinion, it really doesn't transcend well to VNs

You need character development and hundred other types of development for it to be endearing, so I'd say it wouldn't work.

As a story? Maybe.

As a VN? I'd say not very likely.

We'll see though

It's an interesting prospect, to say the least

[Nahilys]

I think it'd be important not to be biased because of the name "Visual Novel". Let's just talk about let's say "stories".

14 minutes ago, Arcadeotic said:

As a story? Maybe.

As a VN? I'd say not very likely.

 

I am not sure I  understand the difference.

[Arcadeotic]

5 minutes ago, Nahilys said:

I think it'd be important not to be biased because of the name "Visual Novel". Let's just talk about let's say "stories".

I am not sure I  understand the difference.

Ah, sure, I'll try to explain.

Well, of course Visual Novels have many more variables.

Some stories work because of their fast pacing, like some comedic ones and some that purely base on the action

On VNs however, they're usually the kind, that slowly builds upon its story, characters, etc., etc

Basically, you can write a fast-paced story, but it usually is shadowed by the ones, which build up more steadily

 

PS. You asked opinions about integrating this type of story into a VN, EVN or a graphic novel, thus I said it like that

[Nahilys]

Sure. I understand your point, thank you for sharing it. I do use the Visual Novel name just because we are using the same presentation (Background + sprite + textbox).

As a quick example, our demo will feature the whole Introductory Chapter of the story which is a total of 6 days ingame for a total of around 18 500 words (18 422 at the moment, few more to be added). The final game is meant to last 10 weeks. People say a 200k words story is pretty good, although we mostly have dialogues and not much narration nor description (by choice).

[Arcadeotic]

I see

Those numbers do look good

[Black Sands Entertainment]

1 hour ago, Nahilys said:

Sure. I understand your point, thank you for sharing it. I do use the Visual Novel name just because we are using the same presentation (Background + sprite + textbox).

As a quick example, our demo will feature the whole Introductory Chapter of the story which is a total of 6 days ingame for a total of around 18 500 words (18 422 at the moment, few more to be added). The final game is meant to last 10 weeks. People say a 200k words story is pretty good, although we mostly have dialogues and not much narration nor description (by choice).

Our first 10k words only cover the first 24 hours. And I consider my game extremely fast paced.

[Nahilys]

3 minutes ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

Our first 10k words only cover the first 24 hours. And I consider my game extremely fast paced.

I think that also all depends on how long your whole story is meant to last ?

[Fred the Barber]

I wrote a nice reply and then the forum software ate it . This one is more relevant anyway:

From my (admittedly limited) observations, long VNs which are perceived to drag by some people, but are perceived by other people as very good, tend to use most of that "slow" time to help the reader bond with the characters. After all that time spent doing slice-of-life things, such a VN will then take you on some largely emotional journey with those characters, the goal obviously being that that emotional journey is made more impactful because of the bond formed earlier. These VNs tend to be more about the characters than the plot; any of the longer Key VNs makes a good example of this approach.

On the other hand, heavily plot-oriented VNs don't have a need to do this, and a good one will tend to be faster-paced as a result. I'm currently in the middle of Steins;Gate, which is pretty long but doesn't hesitate to keep the plot moving; it doesn't drag at all, for me. The couple of Steampunk series VNs I've read (Inganock and Gahkthun) also seemed fairly fast-paced to me. That said, my tolerance for character exposition slice-of-lifey stuff is very high, so I'm probably not a good barometer for this.

At any rate, the only thing you should be worried about is making sure your goals are achieved. It sounds like you're mostly plot-focused, so I'm sure you have that covered. But if forming a strong emotional bond between the reader and the characters is also important to you, that's the part that's a little more at risk, so take steps to make sure that's working out with the way you've written it. I'd strongly suggest having some uninvolved people review and tell you whether specific aspects, like that, work for them or don't, before releasing a demo. Demos tend to get taken pretty seriously as being representative of the finished product, especially with regards to non-technical aspects. For better or worse, people will forgive a demo that's slow or buggy, but have a much harder time forgiving one that's poorly-written.

Regarding voice acting, good voice acting can certainly help with building a strong identity for characters and increasing their emotional impact, but bad voice acting will hurt even more than good voice acting would have helped, and your costs will probably increase substantially either way. So, be careful with that one; as long as you do it well and can afford it, I think it's a good idea, but just be aware that it's a risk.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

Just now, Nahilys said:

I think that also all depends on how long you whole story is meant to last ?

It really depends on what you mean by pace. Time in game can jump 20 years in 1 chapter. Doesn't mean its fast paced.

I say mines is fast paced because it has short to the point chapters, little to no internal dialogue, and a focus on discovery.

I dont know what you are defining fast paced.

[Arcadeotic]

Oh yeah, Steampunk series is a good example of a of a fast-paced VN, but gets enough development jammed in, so you grow attached to it and care for the story

[Nahilys]

I first started this thread because our scenes last around 2 min at average reading speed (250 to 850 words/scene) which is more like a movie scene speed in comparison to VN I've read/tried where a single scene can last for very long. I wanted to know how would people react to such writing which is a style we kinda like within the team. It makes music composing a bit difficult cause we wouldn't want to change the music every 2min, but I think we found a good way to deal with it

@Fred the Barber We indeed focus mostly on the plot. Thank you a lot for your detailed opinion !

[Black Sands Entertainment]

5 minutes ago, Nahilys said:

I first started this thread because our scenes last around 2 min at average reading speed which is more like a movie scene speed in comparison to VN I've read/tried where a single scene can last for very long. I wanted to know how would people react to such writing which is a style we kinda like within the team. It makes music composing a bit difficult cause we wouldn't want to change the music every 2min, but I think we found a good way to deal with it

no way. best to make a motion comic.
 

 

Botheirng with VN format with 2 minute scenes is just silly.

[Nahilys]

 

15 minutes ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

Botheirng with VN format with 2 minute scenes is just silly.

Due to a lot of dialogues, we believe voice acting will slow down the whole thing.

Also, I like your reaction altough I am not sure I understand it. What is wrong in reading shorter scenes in your opinion ?

[Black Sands Entertainment]

Just now, Nahilys said:

 

Due to a lot of dialogues, we believe voice acting will slow down the whole thing.

Also, I like your reaction altough I am not sure I understand it. What is wrong in reading shorter scenes in your opinion ?

2 minutes is like a quest update. I play a lot of RPGs so anything under 2 minutes if nothing more then an update to me.

[Nahilys]

9 minutes ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

2 minutes is like a quest update. I play a lot of RPGs so anything under 2 minutes if nothing more then an update to me.

I am not sure I get your point, but I understand that it's definitely too fast for you. We'll remember that. I did edit my previous post cause I felt lile using words numbers might be better.

I didn't do it on all scenes, but I can't find any going over 900words. Some of the first ones are hardly around 300 words.

While reading it myself, I think of it more of an anime kind of pacing rather than a book, which makes me like it, especially because they're mostly dialogues. I'm currently working on a developer demo with a few scenes of my choice so people can have a better idea of its writing.

[Darklord Rooke]

6 hours ago, Nahilys said:

I am currently working on an English Visual Novel called Lost Winter Nights which has a very fast paced writing and I was wondering how the public would react to when our demo comes out. I am not a very big fan of Japanese Visual Novels because of very slow paced stories which tire me a lot since I am not a native english speaker. I am a student here in France to become a professional screenwriter and I have been noticing that stories can be told very shortly, simply but still be very interesting and fun especially with great art backing them up.
As the leader for the project, I was worried for quite some time that this type of writing may not be well appreciated by the community but I started to like it myself, as it feels actually more like a theatre play with dialogues for the most part. I have to admit that voice acting is a must for that kind of writing though, which is something we totally plan to have.

What do you guys people think of that kind of writing ? I could potentially show some samples from our writer to illustrate my words.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions on that matter

Screenwriting is different from novel writing because on the screen, the narration is told completely by pictures whereas in VNs, unless you have a big budget, you can't do this. Although Telltale does this sort of thing very well. Scripts and novels are fairly different, although there are novels which tend to have minimal narration.

I can't tell without looking at the writing. I like it best when stories shift pacing to better suit it's needs, though. It's like when people write in present tense (mostly found in young adult novels) because it increases immediacy, and yeah it does increase immediacy, but doing it for the whole novel is a serious 'con' for a lot of people.

Pacing tends to increase during action scenes and decrease during atmospheric, suspenseful scenes. One of the ways to do this is through manipulation of detail. Imo, building an atmosphere is, for example, requires a lot of detail in the narration whereas a fast paced action scene would tend to have less detail. The fact that your novel is all 'fast paced' makes me suspect that just means 'light on detail.' I could be wrong, but that's just the hunch I get. 

Japanese VNs tend to go overboard in the other direction, slowing things down to glacial pace. But how do they do this when narration of external events in most VNs is minimal due? Internal monologues which go on and on and on, and scenes which do nothing. It makes me suspect the writers are getting paid 'per character' so they're gonna include as many characters as possible because they have a family to feed, and looky looky, 3 billion Japanese characters! 

So yeah, look at ALL that speculation  And none of it will matter because the writing hasn't been shown, so nobody can tell  

[Nahilys]

4 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Screenwriting is different from novel writing because on the screen, the narration is told completely by pictures whereas in VNs, unless you have a big budget, you can't do this. Although Telltale does this sort of thing very well. Scripts and novels are fairly different, although there are novels which tend to have minimal narration.

I can't tell without looking at the writing. I like it best when stories shift pacing to better suit it's needs, though. It's like when people write in present tense (mostly found in young adult novels) because it increases immediacy, and yeah it does increase immediacy, but doing it for the whole novel is a serious 'con' for a lot of people.

Pacing tends to increase during action scenes and decrease during atmospheric, suspenseful scenes. One of the ways to do this is through manipulation of detail. Imo, building an atmosphere is, for example, requires a lot of detail in the narration whereas a fast paced action scene would tend to have less detail. The fact that your novel is all 'fast paced' makes me suspect that just means 'light on detail.' I could be wrong, but that's just the hunch I get. 

Japanese VNs tend to go overboard in the other direction, slowing things down to glacial pace. But how do they do this when narration of external events in most VNs is minimal due? Internal monologues which go on and on and on, and scenes which do nothing. It makes me suspect the writers are getting paid 'per character' so they're gonna include as many characters as possible because they have a family to feed, and looky looky, 3 billion Japanese characters! 

So yeah, look at ALL that speculation  And none of it will matter because the writing hasn't been shown, so nobody can tell  

Still very interesting thoughts that I'll be able to think about & talk with our writer

I should be able to release a developer demo in the incoming week so we can talk a bit more on that matter !