It's Research Time Do me a Solid?

[Gahaha]

This Is Personal Market Research For My First Book That Is About to Be finished. I'm Happy with My work thus far and I know description and interaction is the ideal balance. but, i personally find descriptive writing boring. so I keep it to a minimum. But, I am willing to change my writing style. a bit. for my next book depending on results. The First One is To far along and almost completeto make any big changes to on my own. lol thanks for your time guys

[Kaguya]

Try to make threads with non-misleading names, if possible. 

I gave my vote- good luck to you.

[Diamon]

I guess it would be mostly interaction between characters for me, since I often consider the narrative part to be some kind of private dialogue between the reader and the main character.

But from time to time, a good description is needed, I'd say it's important when you have to make your reader visualize something (and there's no sprite /CG ofc) by himself, and it can be pretty good during emotional scenes, when there are a lot of feels but not much for the characters to say. 

[monkeysrumble]

A balance is always good. Though I lean towards characters and how they interact with each other I think that in order to have a masterpiece you need a full realized world with full realized characters. Being overly descriptive of just the immediate setting can be boring to read. However I love learning the systems of the fictional world like how magic works (if there is any), the politics, the technology. They are both reliant on each other to make a good story.

[Gahaha]

Try to make threads with non-misleading names, if possible. 

I gave my vote- good luck to you.

 

Sorry about the misleading name thing. I just wasn't sure what to call this. I'll be more direct next time. I also agree. with you about the world Lore aspect don't worry that's in there just not all at once lol. 

 

A balance is always good. Though I lean towards characters and how they interact with each other I think that in order to have a masterpiece you need a full realized world with full realized characters. Being overly descriptive of just the immediate setting can be boring to read. However I love learning the systems of the fictional world like how magic works (if there is any), the politics, the technology. They are both reliant on each other to make a good story.

[Flutterz]

Sorry about the misleading name thing. I just wasn't sure what to call this. I'll be more direct next time. I also agree. with you about the world Lore aspect don't worry that's in there just not all at once lol.

You can change the topic title if you edit your first post and click the full editor button.

[Gahaha]

I appreciate your assistance I'll keep changing it until the name is acceptable lol 

 

You can change the topic title if you edit your first post and click the full editor button.

[Zenophilious]

I generally prefer a balance, but if I couldn't have that, I'd rather have character dialogue.  I found The Lord of the Rings trilogy very hard to read because of Tolkien's obsession with describing every little detail of every setting; I ended up skipping most of the unimportant descriptions because if I didn't, I'd get bored and space out.  I also adore character development, even if it's just one character's psyche reacting to traumatic events around them.  I love learning about the character's mind and how it works, and seeing a mind change fascinates me.  I also love feeling immersed in lore, though; my go-to example is the A Song of Ice and Fire series.  It really feels like the world it's set in is real, at least to me, and that it already existed long before you started reading it, you just happened to start observing at the time the books began.  Too little lore leaves the reader to question the legitimacy of the world, and too much bores them.  I've had both experiences.  It's hard to find the right balance of lore.

 

Thanks for being honest about the reason behind this thread.  I don't care if I don't get anything for it, I just like being helpful.  I would have been a little put off if you'd disguised your reason for asking it, but since you didn't, I don't mind answering it at all.

[Flutterz]

Oh, I guess I should also respond to the topic. I prefer a mix because if your visual novel is all descriptions then you clearly aren't doing a good enough job with CGs, OSTs and so on. Show, don't tell. But at the same time VNs aren't movies, even something like Muv-Luv which conveys a ton of information through graphics and music needs descriptions because there's a limit to what you can show.

Edit: and now I've made an even bigger fool of myself because the topic is about books. >.<

But in books as well, I really like it when conversations also carry information about the world, it seems to me like you convey a lot more by having a character talk about some detail you want to point out rather than simply pointing it out. But once again, there's a limit to what you can achieve with that, so some descriptions will be necessary.

[Zenophilious]

Edit: and now I've made an even bigger fool of myself because the topic is about books. >.<

Don't worry, it says stories in general, not just VNs or just books.  Your opinion is still important  :3  *hug*

 

Believe me, I've done much stupider things before.  Don't feel bad about that.

[Flutterz]

Don't worry, it says stories in general, not just VNs or just books.  Your opinion is still important  :3  *hug*

 

Believe me, I've done much stupider things before.  Don't feel bad about that.

FOR SHAME. I hath not paid due attention to the OP and must now commit sudoku to repent for my SHAMEFUR DISPURAY.

[Zenophilious]

FOR SHAME. I hath not paid due attention to the OP and must now commit sudoku to repent for my SHAMEFUR DISPURAY.

Liked for making me laugh like an idiot.

[Nosebleed]

It really depends on the genre in my opinion. 

Some genres require a lot of description (sci-fi for example) and others require more character interaction (novels for example)

Some books have a ton of descriptive text but still have their big share of dialogue as well.

I read a book once that had a whole chapter only with descriptive text. Literally 50 pages about how a house looked like inside and outside down to the curtains in each bedroom.

But then the next chapter was focused solely on character interaction.

That descriptive text really helped picturing the following scenes in the next chapters since most of them happened in that house.

(It was a 650 page novel by the way)

My personal opinion is: don't describe something thoroughly if you won't use that a lot as an element in the story. If you find descriptive text boring then keep it to a minimum, a book is personal after all and should always reflect the author's tastes and writing style. But you should probably put some effort in the descriptive text when it's a common thing in your story or something that the characters revolve around.

 

I gave my vote. I wish you good luck 

[Darklord Rooke]

A mix is needed.

 

Also, work hard to make on your prose, and definitely try to make it interesting. Dialogue is comparatively easy, it's the descriptive passages most writers don't do well at. 

[Gahaha]

It really depends on the genre in my opinion. 

Some genres require a lot of description (sci-fi for example) and others require more character interaction (novels for example)

Some books have a ton of descriptive text but still have their big share of dialogue as well.

I read a book once that had a whole chapter only with descriptive text. Literally 50 pages about how a house looked like inside and outside down to the curtains in each bedroom.

But then the next chapter was focused solely on character interaction.

That descriptive text really helped picturing the following scenes in the next chapters since most of them happened in that house.

(It was a 650 page novel by the way)

My personal opinion is: don't describe something thoroughly if you won't use that a lot as an element in the story. If you find descriptive text boring then keep it to a minimum, a book is personal after all and should always reflect the author's tastes and writing style. But you should probably put some effort in the descriptive text when it's a common thing in your story or something that the characters revolve around.

 

I gave my vote. I wish you good luck 

All of Your Opinions and votes are most helpful. This one though was Particularly enlightening. I feel like I will need to set up one or two chapters like that. Not sure if it would be 50 pages lol but, I'm coming up to a really important setting in my book soon.  I take every and all opinions into consideration so please feel free to keep posting if you guys wish

[Tom]

i vote everything because any concept can be good aslong its done well

[Gahaha]

I generally prefer a balance, but if I couldn't have that, I'd rather have character dialogue.  I found The Lord of the Rings trilogy very hard to read because of Tolkien's obsession with describing every little detail of every setting; I ended up skipping most of the unimportant descriptions because if I didn't, I'd get bored and space out.  I also adore character development, even if it's just one character's psyche reacting to traumatic events around them.  I love learning about the character's mind and how it works, and seeing a mind change fascinates me.  I also love feeling immersed in lore, though; my go-to example is the A Song of Ice and Fire series.  It really feels like the world it's set in is real, at least to me, and that it already existed long before you started reading it, you just happened to start observing at the time the books began.  Too little lore leaves the reader to question the legitimacy of the world, and too much bores them.  I've had both experiences.  It's hard to find the right balance of lore.

 

Thanks for being honest about the reason behind this thread.  I don't care if I don't get anything for it, I just like being helpful.  I would have been a little put off if you'd disguised your reason for asking it, but since you didn't, I don't mind answering it at all.

I had meant to reply to this one sooner, but I had to go eat dinner and kind of forgot, my apologies No problem man I completely get that with most people the net and honesty does not totally mesh lol Hell, I'm keeping my local secret but, ya know? To me a forum really does represent community, and communities are supposed to come together. So yeah I may not be an expert in a lot of things in fact. I'm downright stupid with many subjects. lol However, I will still do something to help the people here if I can. And in Turn I will continue being straight when I need your opinions on things.

[Zenophilious]

I had meant to reply to this one sooner, but I had to go eat dinner and kind of forgot, my apologies No problem man I completely get that with most people the net and honesty does not totally mesh lol Hell, I'm keeping my local secret but, ya know? To me a forum really does represent community, and communities are supposed to come together. So yeah I may not be an expert in a lot of things in fact. I'm downright stupid with many subjects. lol However, I will still do something to help the people here if I can. And in Turn I will continue being straight when I need your opinions on things.

It's fine.  I'm capable enough to find other things to do until people reply to my posts.  I would have been bored out of my mind ages ago otherwise  xD

 

If you want to talk stupid, ask me to do any part of math that's above Algebra 1.  I'll happily hand you back a paper full of random marks and failure.  I'm terrible at math, and I'm proud of it.  That's what calculators are for, anyway.

 

I understand about not saying where you live.  I don't care if people know what country (and state) I live in because the odds of anyone actually tracking me down are so low it's not even worth trying to calculate them.  That's just me, though.  I'm not suspicious of people that are the opposite.  I can still appreciate honesty, though, and I salute you for it, sir.

[Yukiru]

I would go with neither of them, character development is the most important element to me, even a story with only one character suffering a terminal illness and thus staying in a white plain room would be interesting to read if the development is well done, it would actually be awesome.

 

Anyway i gave my vote to the third option.

Sometimes description is really important, like when a certain loli was chopped in half and carried around.

And character dialog is also important, like when a certain dislikable character outwitted a witty character because of the power of love.

[Gahaha]

Hmm, I see You do make alot of good points. Plus you reminded me of something. Yet another book project I had about pretty much that very thing just a guy in a white room passing his time but, was to worried people would find me insane. so I buried the idea in the back of my head. I was and still kind of am a very shy person in spite of my age. Its only recently, I decided to at least start holding nothing back in my writings. Thanks to you I got an idea to  after my current books which i plan to make in into a series. God I Love This Site lol

 

I would go with neither of them, character development is the most important element to me, even a story with only one character suffering a terminal illness and thus staying in a white plain room would be interesting to read if the development is well done, it would actually be awesome.

 

Anyway i gave my vote to the third option.

Sometimes description is really important, like when a certain loli was chopped in half and carried around.

And character dialog is also important, like when a certain dislikable character outwitted a witty character because of the power of love.

[Yukiru]

Hmm, I see You do make alot of good points. Plus you reminded me of something. Yet another book project I had about pretty much that very thing just a guy in a white room passing his time but, was to worried people would find me insane. so I buried the idea in the back of my head. I was and still kind of am a very shy person in spite of my age. Its only recently, I decided to at least start holding nothing back in my writings. Thanks to you I got an idea to  after my current books which i plan to make in into a series. God I Love This Site lol

Writers should write for themselves so write to your heart content. ^^

[The Major]

Voted. Good luck with your book!

[Darkshine]

I think that you should describe the setting in a neat orderly way, keep it complex in your words but not to complicated so that we the readers can grasp the story so we can understand it because the story is not just for you, also you should only do this when neccessary when you can describe it better than the characters, you need to use the characters to fill in the rest also the most of what your trying to say and also to keep them the center of attention and keep the readers interested in them you can set your point across through them.

 

Well this is just my opinion so feel free to listen to me or not and good look with your writing. 

[Gahaha]

Oh wow I didn't think anyone would respond now Nah please feel free to speak your opinions I may not of noticed till now but I'm still as grateful as ever, I will defiantly try what you suggested after I go through the editing. plus now that I'm going to also be helping on a visual novel. Well I must admit this is the busiest I have been in awhile lol Please feel free to speak your mind anytime. guys

 

I think that you should describe the setting in a neat orderly way, keep it complex in your words but not to complicated so that we the readers can grasp the story so we can understand it because the story is not just for you, also you should only do this when neccessary when you can describe it better than the characters, you need to use the characters to fill in the rest also the most of what your trying to say and also to keep them the center of attention and keep the readers interested in them you can set your point across through them.

 

Well this is just my opinion so feel free to listen to me or not and good look with your writing.