Planning a Story Question?

[Fenrir34]

I'd like to know how people plan their games. Do you first write out the story like a novel, make the characters first, do an outline, or just go with it. I'd like to know because I need help making these games. I keep getting really bad writers block and it sucks. If you have any tips, that would be great

[Lockvia]

I usually do a whole storyboard, to know what I'm doing for each route and then write the dialogue parts for it later. The coding tends to come last for me.

[Asceai]

I guess I sort of do an outline. I write out the story on paper, one line per scene, and just cover the important things that happen. I then use this as a reference when typing out the scenario.

This way if the story doesn't 'work' for whatever reason I find out before I've written 10K words of it =P I also mark off lines in the outline after I type them as scenario so I have a good idea of how much I've done and how much I still have to do.

[AWSalmon]

Plot overview, then outline flowchart, then writing.

The plot overview should contain absolutely everything about the story. Setting summary, theme summary, main plot summary, main characters personality summaries, main characters' development throughout the story or major conflicts related to your theme that they struggle with, minor character summaries, branches/endings, main scenes or events summaries, and on and on. Anything relevant to your story should be in here. Ours is eleven pages long and it still needs to be expanded.

Then you outline everything in a flowchart, basing everything off of your main plot summary and keeping in mind everything else from your overview so you keep consistency. If there's something you want to change as you come across it in the outline, change it in the overview first and check to see if your change affects anything. Add as much detail to each scene in your outline as you can, short of actually writing the scene itself. It helps you keep track of what exactly is going on in your story and will help you fix consistency errors in the outline itself.

Then you write for a bit with another writer looking over your shoulder so they can offer their opinion on what you have, you break after a dozen or so scenes when you hit a nice stopping point and get to editing the thing to fix any major problems.

That's how we're doing it anyways. It seems to be going pretty well.

[Tawwny]

I start off with lots and lots of daydreaming. Next I'll type up a short premise, write out a detailed outline while adding in characters, leave it for a day, make a second version of the original outline where I tighten or expand on scenes while more clearly defining the characters, let that sit for a couple of days, and then work on my first draft. I usually end up making about three to four drafts before I'm satisfied ^^

I think letting your drafts sit for at least a day and then coming back to re-read it with fresh eyes could help in finding issues you may have not seen before or give time for new and/or better ideas to arise and further improve your story.

[Fenrir34]

I usually do a whole storyboard, to know what I'm doing for each route and then write the dialogue parts for it later. The coding tends to come last for me.

So you kind of writer it like a book, then go to the dialogue, then do the coding?

[Fenrir34]

I guess I sort of do an outline. I write out the story on paper, one line per scene, and just cover the important things that happen. I then use this as a reference when typing out the scenario.

This way if the story doesn't 'work' for whatever reason I find out before I've written 10K words of it =P I also mark off lines in the outline after I type them as scenario so I have a good idea of how much I've done and how much I still have to do.

Outlines really have helped me out, especially when I'm stuck with a scene . But sometimes, it doesn't do it for the whole story. Still, I enjoy having an outline for every path and the main plot

[Fenrir34]

Plot overview, then outline flowchart, then writing.

The plot overview should contain absolutely everything about the story. Setting summary, theme summary, main plot summary, main characters personality summaries, main characters' development throughout the story or major conflicts related to your theme that they struggle with, minor character summaries, branches/endings, main scenes or events summaries, and on and on. Anything relevant to your story should be in here. Ours is eleven pages long and it still needs to be expanded.

Then you outline everything in a flowchart, basing everything off of your main plot summary and keeping in mind everything else from your overview so you keep consistency. If there's something you want to change as you come across it in the outline, change it in the overview first and check to see if your change affects anything. Add as much detail to each scene in your outline as you can, short of actually writing the scene itself. It helps you keep track of what exactly is going on in your story and will help you fix consistency errors in the outline itself.

Then you write for a bit with another writer looking over your shoulder so they can offer their opinion on what you have, you break after a dozen or so scenes when you hit a nice stopping point and get to editing the thing to fix any major problems.

That's how we're doing it anyways. It seems to be going pretty well.

I'll try this and see if it helps me. Thank, it looks like it could work really well especially for someone who might have writers block

[Fenrir34]

I start off with lots and lots of daydreaming. Next I'll type up a short premise, write out a detailed outline while adding in characters, leave it for a day, make a second version of the original outline where I tighten or expand on scenes while more clearly defining the characters, let that sit for a couple of days, and then work on my first draft. I usually end up making about three to four drafts before I'm satisfied ^^

I think letting your drafts sit for at least a day and then coming back to re-read it with fresh eyes could help in finding issues you may have not seen before or give time for new and/or better ideas to arise and further improve your story.

Maybe I should do this strategy when I'm writing a character path. It's hard to write a game when you don't know your character well enough or what you want them to do in your story. Thanks

[Asceai]

I guess I sort of do an outline. I write out the story on paper, one line per scene, and just cover the important things that happen. I then use this as a reference when typing out the scenario.

This way if the story doesn't 'work' for whatever reason I find out before I've written 10K words of it =P I also mark off lines in the outline after I type them as scenario so I have a good idea of how much I've done and how much I still have to do.

Outlines really have helped me out, especially when I'm stuck with a scene . But sometimes, it doesn't do it for the whole story. Still, I enjoy having an outline for every path and the main plot

Yeah, this is more of a per-route thing. Something I should have mentioned is that I basically write a linear story, then extend it with alternative paths later.

[Fenrir34]

I guess I sort of do an outline. I write out the story on paper, one line per scene, and just cover the important things that happen. I then use this as a reference when typing out the scenario.

This way if the story doesn't 'work' for whatever reason I find out before I've written 10K words of it =P I also mark off lines in the outline after I type them as scenario so I have a good idea of how much I've done and how much I still have to do.

Outlines really have helped me out, especially when I'm stuck with a scene . But sometimes, it doesn't do it for the whole story. Still, I enjoy having an outline for every path and the main plot

Yeah, this is more of a per-route thing. Something I should have mentioned is that I basically write a linear story, then extend it with alternative paths later.

Oh okay. So you kind of start with something like a prologue or single character path, then add more that can go with the story?

[Asceai]

Oh okay. So you kind of start with something like a prologue or single character path, then add more that can go with the story?

Basically, although I have a clear idea which part of what I'm writing is the trunk and which part is the route. I just focus on what a single playthrough, making all the 'right' choices for that route would end up seeing. I then go back and extend it when adding the next route, and so forth. Flowcharts would probably be more valuable if I was writing a story that was entirely based around a complicated path structure, but I find it easier to write if I'm just writing events that come after each other- less danger of forgetting what is happening, the state of the minds of the characters etc. and I don't need to constantly refer back to previous scenes.

[Fenrir34]

Oh okay. So you kind of start with something like a prologue or single character path, then add more that can go with the story?

Basically, although I have a clear idea which part of what I'm writing is the trunk and which part is the route. I just focus on what a single playthrough, making all the 'right' choices for that route would end up seeing. I then go back and extend it when adding the next route, and so forth. Flowcharts would probably be more valuable if I was writing a story that was entirely based around a complicated path structure, but I find it easier to write if I'm just writing events that come after each other- less danger of forgetting what is happening, the state of the minds of the characters etc. and I don't need to constantly refer back to previous scenes.

Oh okay. I get it. That's a pretty good way to keep the whole story in tact and not let go all over the place. Thanks

[AWSalmon]

I'll try this and see if it helps me. Thank, it looks like it could work really well especially for someone who might have writers block

Tawwny mentions daydreaming as the very first step in her method of creating a story. That's something I forgot to add to mine, but aside from the actual writing, daydreaming is probably the most important thing you can do. Before you try writing down your story in any serious way (and I don't mean writing those little one-off scenes you'll sometimes write just because you want to see how a character will react in a certain situation, or you just like the character. I mean writing directly for your game) you definitely need to have a solid grasp of the story in your head. Trying to force yourself to come up with a setting for a story or a whole character backstory right now is only going to leave you with weak results. So before you start planning out your story on paper, take all the time you need to just play out the story and build up the characters in your head.

Once that starts feeling solid, then go ahead and start writing that stuff down.

[Asceai]

Yeah, I admit I don't really count that as 'planning'. It obviously needs to happen, but in my posts I was more referring to the planning you do _after_ you've got the whole VN sitting in your head =P

I just write down all my ideas as they come to me so I don't forget them, and reread them occasionally, allowing my subconscience to do most of the actual work for me.