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Are there any English VNs with exceptional prose?


Zodai

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Recently received some feedback on a draft of mine, and while it wasn't quite what I was asking one of the things noted was that the writing, while technically sound, felt generic - upon further analysis formulaic was another term used by a team member.

While it's not something I've noted personally, I'd like some examples of more exceptional prose/narration in order to base it off of.  If I knew Japanese, I would likely jump to Dies Irae, but I don't know nearly enough for that, and I'm writing in English to begin with.  If it's translated, something with exceptional quality in both the meaning, technical soundness, and especially the flow and impact of the words themselves outside of the dialogue.  NVL, first person preferred.

 

Is there anything that comes to mind?  How is the prose good in particular?  What does it accomplish and how does it tie in with the other elements of the story?

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I'm not a writer, but isn't looking for a work/style to mimic only going to make things worse? Go from generic and formulaic to being in danger of being a clone? 90% of Japanese fiction is recycled. Not that the problem isn't worldwide but Japanese writers cater to fans with some pretty single minded tastes. Probably the easiest way to breath some originality in a script for a western audience is to *not* look for Japanese inspiration. Especially a OELVN that tries hard to mimic a Japanese VN.

That's not to say you can't use Japanese character archetypes or tropes but use them sparingly and focus on telling a story that is your own. If your own experiences or fantasies can't serve as inspiration talking to the people around might serve as a catalyst to spark an idea.

Just my 2 cents. Which isn't even worth that much considering I don't write myself.

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Using translated VNs as a model to improve your writing is probably a bad idea.  Most releases employ literal translations by translators and editors who aren't professional fiction writers.

Using OELVNs as a model won't be much better since, again, most groups don't employ professional fiction writers.

You're probably better off reading popular fiction novels, honestly.

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I never read any exceptional prose in VN. Good prose is something you spend years to create, and decades (at best) to become anyone whose prose could be considered as "decent". While typical VN is a set of tropes, mix together and throw them in, translated (or created) by a person who never wrote anything decent before. So max you can get from VN is a good story / sex scenes / feels. About Dies Irae - complexity does not mean it is enjoyable.

So it is as sanahtlig told - if you want to get anything decent - read good books.

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some people believe that a good and complicated prose makes a good vn (I won't give names but people that are consider gurus in this vn world), in fact they gave a lower score to some vns just because it has a simple writing style, I don't agree with this at all, if something is good it is good no matter how complex the writing style is. At the end of the day if the story is bad no matter how good the prose is the story will still be bad. 

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I thought the Planetarian translation had a great style, lots of hard but colourful words, giving some great moments of contrast

Just my opinion/2 cents worth

 I do agree that books are still probably a better bet, although I guess a great author wouldn't necessarily be great at writing for a VN, so it would still help to have some insight in what makes great prose for a VN.

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Reading ordinary fiction or books of your choice is probably the better way. You shouldn't aim at reading something released by a third part. Who knows what's lost in translation and how the translator interpret something? 

Sadly I can't recommend anything and I don't feel confident suggestion anything. Writing is an art I am not confident in and my knowledge of VNs overall is that they don't excel at devouring me as a book could. But I totally understand if you don't want to read. That's sadly something a lot of people dislike.

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2 hours ago, Zodai said:

While it's not something I've noted personally, I'd like some examples of more exceptional prose/narration in order to base it off of. 

First thing to do - get away from VNs. I would wager the same rule applies for aspiring Japanese fiction writers also, VNs aren't the kind of place you find exceptional prose. If the prose in VNs were exceptional, they'd make a living off only that prose.

2 hours ago, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

I'm not a writer, but isn't looking for a work/style to mimic only going to make things worse? Go from generic and formulaic to being in danger of being a clone? 

Most authors start off mimicking their favourite writers ... kinda. It's a natural stage in a person's development as a writer and one of the first steps toward developing your own style. A person reads a lot to get an understanding of what works, what doesn't, what they enjoy, and how they pull that off. This includes mimicking stuff you think is awesome, and shunning stuff you find terrible.

2 hours ago, Zodai said:

I'd like some examples of more exceptional prose/narration in order to base it off of. 

You're going to have to narrow it down. 'Exceptional' is a subjective term, it tends to differ from person to person. What you're really after is how writers build the sort of effects you want to create, in an effective manner, because different styles are created with an end effect in mind.

Some authors use adjectives and adverbs so powerful that a single word is all it takes to produce a clear image. It should be noted that these adverbs and adjectives are often not in standard use and it takes someone with a pretty complete control over a language to do this. Someone with this sort of control (and it's rare) can create vivid images with short, punchy sentences. 

Some authors prefer a smooth, flowing, conversational style. Some authors seem to require the reader to hurl their novel across the room in frustration, and they'll craft complex sentences which are hard to decipher. Each style benefits from different techniques, which is why you read extensively when you're young so you have an understanding of different styles and the techniques used to create them. To be honest, if you're asking for examples at this stage it's an indication that either a) you haven't read enough or b) you haven't paid enough attention or thought enough about what you're reading. 

Then you go away and find authors whose style matches what you desire to create and you mimic, then you find other authors who do something slightly different and you mimic them also, then after a while you take the best points and you make your own style. However, nobody else can find this 'exceptional' prose for you, that's your homework as a writer. My heros are Pratchett, Adams, those kinds or writers. I also model my style off some romance novels cause I like a kind of flowing style (which you more often find in women authors.) During this process, I've learnt to identify stuff which is 'undesirable' to me, analysed what made it 'undesirable' and learnt to stay away from those practices. Nobody else could identify this stuff for me, it's a personal process because nobody knows what you like.

Bad writing is always the same, making the same sorts of mistakes - however good writing is good in different ways. Different writers will give you theories, very few of these theories will be iron clad rules but most of these theories will be what works for them. It's hard to copy, because what works is different for different people. Your homework as a writer is to develop your own style through research and study. This is why everybody's first advice to writers is the same - 'read everything and read widely. After you think you've read everything, read some more.'

... Except for VNs. Don't read those. There are some OELVNs written by professional authors, but you'd be better off reading their books rather than their VNs. Studying prose in VNs will give you a limited education and appreciation of prose. Reading writing advice from different authors doesn't count - it's good as a supplementary material, but you need to think about stuff yourself.

Good luck :) 

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17 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Most authors start off mimicking their favourite writers ... kinda. It's a natural stage in a person's development as a writer and one of the first steps toward developing your own style. A person reads a lot to get an understanding of what works, what doesn't, what they enjoy, and how they pull that off. This includes mimicking stuff you think is awesome, and shunning stuff you find terrible.

I hear what you're saying. It's just the OP started off by saying their writing was viewed as generic and formulaic. This got me in the mindset that it was the plot or characters themselves that needed attention. I can see where mimicking another writers style in search of your own would be a natural thing. Insomuch as we do as we learn spoken language growing up. Our mannerisms are influenced to one degree or another by the family and friends around us. But copying the style *and* the plot elements/characters would be more akin to a fan fiction, right?

/shrug. I do agree with most of what everyone has said. It's just that if perfecting your style really is the work of a lifetime then it seems the OP should put priority on writing something interesting?

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Well, obviously and as has been said before, if what you want is to get a taste of the range of possibilities of the english language, you're better off reading Nabokov, Woolf or Shakespeare than even the best translated VNs like Grisaia or Dra+Koi.

But the thing is, and that's pretty obvious, you don't write a visual novel like you write a novel. Not that visual novels have bad prose or w/e, it's just that for two media with two different ways of delivering text, the approach to writing has to be different. In particular if your VN is going to be in ADV format.
Therefore it would actually be good for you to read visual novels in order to see what kind of writing techniques are used. The issue is that I'm not sure there are really a lot of good samples in EVNs. There is definitely a whole range of available interesting prose and techniques in japanese VNs, but you don't write in japanese like you write in english either so it's all kinda useless to you.

So yeah, idk. Maybe the best thing you could do is to read theater. Theatrics is probably what's closest to ADV dialogs. Reading great english prose books certainly can't hurt anyway. But contrary to previous advices I wouldn't say to avoid VNs, because you need to understand the medium you're using too.

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3 minutes ago, Down said:

So yeah, idk. Maybe the best thing you could do is to read theater. Theatrics is probably what's closest to ADV dialogs. Reading great english prose books certainly can't hurt anyway. But contrary to previous advices I wouldn't say to avoid VNs, because you need to understand the medium you're using too.

That's actually a good point. VN scripts certainly have more in common with theater in that the stage/set provides a visual component. Learning to write vivid descriptions of the Story's setting is only going to help the artist or story boarding? At any rate the player isn't going to experience it firsthand.

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A lot of people say the same thing – “writing VNs is quite different to writing novels.” I would say it’s a quarter truth. There ARE some differences, like having better and fuller control of where you end a screen, and less narration of external events due to background images, but the basics are the same, and 99% of what is needed to write VNs can be learnt better in the novel world than in the VN world. After which, you just apply different techniques to produce the same effects.

For example: Question – with the ability to describe external events largely taken away through the use of background images and sprites, how would you slow down the pacing of a scene? Answer – You can still describe changes in the environment not revealed with static background images, or focus on internal dialogue. Question – But wouldn’t ADV format cut down on your ability to write long pieces of external narration, even if you could technically narrate changes in the environment? Answer – Most people get around this with either an ADV/NVL blend, OR a greater focus on internal dialogue which is, in essence, dialogue. These are applications of standard novel techniques.

Dunno, I don’t really see the virtues to be honest :P. I can’t think of many prose techniques which stem from the Visual Novel landscape that I’d actually like to employ. Overuse of ellipses? Well you can do that with novels, but you actually learn more (and better) alternatives if you choose to read novels and not VNs. Timing is a little different due to the box/page thing, but eh, all that does is encourage the writer to use less prose, and that’s hardly a new technique. ADV does exclude the ‘he said,’ ‘she said’, lines … which is actually kinda irritating cause you can slot those words in the middle of a sentence to slow down the pacing: 

“I suppose,” she said, as she gazed out the window, "but I’d rather have the option.”

As you can see, the pacing of the sentence has slowed using that interjection thingy. ADV cocks this up, but you can still get around it by selecting different techniques. I bet most VNs would use ellipses here:

NameGoesHere: I suppose … but I’d rather have the option.

It’s not like it’s a new or grand technique or anything. You’re more limited in what you can do, and you might choose different techniques to apply to VNs than what you would in novels, but what I’m trying to say is that learning to write novels gives you a more rounded writing education, imo. What writers actually need to learn from VNs is how you compose a narrative using pictures, but that won't help your prose any.

Of course, a lot of prominent people disagree with me, but eh. I suppose that’s just another example of how there’s no ‘right or wrong’ in writing, I guess.

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Oh, one more thing.

@Zodai: Join a writing group with at least one, preferably more qualified writers on board. Then write something (not your VN,) get feedback, and listen to what they say. Quality feedback, in depth critiques, and encouragement is what you’re looking for (invaluable and hard to find,) useless cheerleading is what you’re trying to avoid.

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Lol I don't think anyone is really disagreeing with your input Rooke. Probably just a matter of degree.

If I had to make an analogy that suits my perspective it would be about programming. You can write a unreadable, gnarly, mess of a code base for a program and it still can be functional. Difficult to fix bugs (edit)? Yes. Difficult to maintain (continuity in a series)? Yes. But if at the end of the day it provides it's intended function, it can be tolerated somewhat. Well so long as they endeavor to improve. Unlike writing fiction there really is a "best practice" for most things in programming. Well ignoring different design philosophies.

I recently read an article about IBM researchers claiming their work would lead to the holy grail of universal translation via AI (more specifically embedding NVRAM into a CPU designed for simulating neural nets). I had a good laugh considering the opinion of machine translation in this community. But one thing occurred to me. If an AI can be taught to translate, it stands to reason that it could also be taught to write original works. I'm not even a writer and it sent a shiver down my spine. Not from a robot overlord perspective but from the standpoint of both programming and writing fiction. What type of horrific writing do you think an AI trained with the best the internet has to offer will be like? Code produced by an AI? Garbage in, Garbage out. You better be feeding it some prime examples.

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11 minutes ago, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

 If an AI can be taught to translate, it stands to reason that it could also be taught to write original works. I'm not even a writer and it sent a shiver down my spine. Not from a robot overlord perspective but from the standpoint of both programming and writing fiction. What type of horrific writing do you think an AI trained with the best the internet has to offer will be like? 

Unfortunately it's already made massive inroads in the field of journalism [1][2][3]. That an A.I can write journalism articles well enough to confuse ordinary readers, and when members of the public were presented with an article written by a person and one written by a machine they couldn't tell the difference, it starts to scare you. That being said, writing Journalism is more formulaic than writing fiction, but some fiction is incredibly formulaic (prose wise) so we may not be too far away 0.0

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/28/computer-writing-journalism-artificial-intelligence
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34204052
[3] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/03/artificla-intelligence-robot-reporter-pulitzer-prize

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With everyone having given you the customary advice, I'll do my usual thing and mention Actual Sunlight (Also on Steam, but I'm too lazy to add another link). Actual Sunlight is pretty close to a VN and has some nice NVL-style writing. It's also about a guy with crushing depression so you might be a bit out of it by the time you finish, but hey, that's part of the fun!

Quote

Due to explicit language, Actual Sunlight is not appropriate for players under the age of 18.

It also deals with extremely mature themes, including depression and thoughts of suicide. Similar to other forms of art that tackle these issues, Actual Sunlight can be an extremely powerful emotional experience – before downloading it, please first consider what your reaction to a book, film or piece of music in a similar vein might be.

I don't think it'll kill you if you're under 18 or anything though.

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also suggesting you try out "one thausand lies", as it really delivered language-wise, especially when considering that its actually non commercial. cant await the authors/writers next work(s), if there´re going to be any.

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11 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

Using translated VNs as a model to improve your writing is probably a bad idea.  Most releases employ literal translations by translators and editors who aren't professional fiction writers.

Using OELVNs as a model won't be much better since, again, most groups don't employ professional fiction writers.

You're probably better off reading popular fiction novels, honestly.

The problem, is that writing for VNs is different than writing a book. I know that at least Dischan struggled with that for a while. As one of their writers was a good writer for books, but he didn't write in a way that accommodated VNs very well. When writing a visual novel, you have to take into account that audio and visuals will accompany the writing. In particular because of visuals, you don't need to describe things quite as much as your would for a book. 

Furthermore, how writing is presented is very important as well. Will you mostly use textboxs, or go for full screen text, or will you use a different style all together (Like how Narcissu and Swan Song use neither of the typical styles). If you present text differently, you can write differently. Swan Song is written more like a novel, and the way text is presented in that VN works with that. Swan Song would be a very different (a worse VN), if it used the same exact script but in textbox format. 

 So the gist of my point is that simply being a good fiction writer for pure text media, won't necessarily make you a good VN writer. You need to see good writing in the medium you are planning to write for. 

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3 hours ago, Zalor said:

 So the gist of my point is that simply being a good fiction writer for pure text media, won't necessarily make you a good VN writer. You need to see good writing in the medium you are planning to write for. 

But topicstarter had a question was about exceptional prose in VN? Your point is not related to prose per se. This is "good VN realisation" (which have a good use of specific VN features), not "good prose". As Rooke already explained, prose is essentially same (no matter in VN or in book), so I really doubt anyone have issues with their prose, but they definitely could have problems with using different features, needed in VN (like the ones you mentioned). But no one ever argued about that! :)

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