I'm not a writer. ಠ_ಠ

[lemonokashi]

I began working on my fourth otome game about a week ago. It's going to be about 100,000 words long, but most of it is centered around gameplay. So far I'm only 13,000 words in, but I have come to realize I CAN'T WRITE. I'm horrible at it, which is alright because I'm an artist. I'm a student, so I can't afford a professional writer, but would anyone be willing to look over my writing and edit it to sound more professional? If anyone is interested, I can give beta-testing rights and credit. I'm truly sorry that I can't offer more.

Intro to the game:
Once upon a time there were four Kings and a Queen. Although they all shared neighboring kingdoms, the Kings considered themselves enemies. Each of the kings wished to marry the beautiful queen and join her in ruling her kingdom. When all of their kingdoms were threatened by a great evil, the kings were forced to join forces to save their people. A search began for any citizen who could find a method to defeat the evil. A wizard came forth, promising that with the four king’s lives, he could forge a weapon powerful enough to defeat the evil once and for all. The four kings willingly agreed to give their lives for their people and the beloved Queen. A sword was forged with the power of the king’s lives. The queen, now ruling over all five unified kingdoms, took the sword and plunged it deep into the heart of the beast. The kingdoms lived in peace from that day on, while the sword was displayed as a symbol of strength in the castle.If any evil threatened the kingdom, the sword was said to protect the kingdom once again.

The actual gameplay takes place 500 years later, when the castle is being raided by invaders. The current princess escapes form her room and tries to take the sword to defend herself, but the moment she touches the sword it shatters and the four Kings are released. You can probably figure it out form there.


At this point you may have noticed I am essentially illiterate. I could really use some help. ಥ_ಥ

[fleet]

I'm unsure why you say you can't write; your background piece is very clear and concise. Is there something specific that you have difficulty with, such as dialog?

[lemonokashi]

My writing is extremely boring.I don't think anyone would enjoy playing a game with my style of writing, so although I can easily map out dialogue and plot, my actual script comes short of satisfactory. I also stumble across grammatical errors quite often.

[SimonLayton]

My writing is extremely boring.I don't think anyone would enjoy playing a game with my style of writing, so although I can easily map out dialogue and plot, my actual script comes short of satisfactory. I also stumble across grammatical errors quite often.

You can always fix the errors when you're in the editing stage. You're doing fine with your writing style, really, assuming the intro is from the actual script. It doesn't sound too bland or too flowery. If the writing have "thy" and "thou" in it, though, that's a different story.

Anyone can be a writer, really, so don't say you can't write. :) If you're still not comfortable with your style, you can ask someone to look over it, and it doesn't have to be a proofreader or a beta-reader.

[Applegate]

I think writing is still an acquired skill. When you first started out drawing, no doubt you thought it wasn't good and that people wouldn't like it.

Rather than posting a summary, could you try posting samples of your work so anyone interested have an idea of what they have to work with?

[Beccyluo]

I honestly don't see what you see >w< I think the writing's fine; it's clear, concise, and neither too bland nor too purple. And damn. The plot. I love it so much! It sounds extremely interesting, and I'm really curious about how things will turn out.
If you feel you have problems writing something, I'm always available :) Given, I'm not a great writer either, but one more person's opinion should at least be of some help. Just message me and let me know; I'll try to do whatever I can in my available time :) Good luck on this project! It sounds really promising.

[KiloTango]

For something that should be like a summary, what you've written is totally fine!

The most important things if you want to be a better writer are a) WRITE WRITE WRITE and b) READ READ READ. Also I guess c) ANALYSE.

Find stuff you like, in novels, comics/manga, film, TV and games. And obviously VNs. As VN's have an audiovisual and timing component, you want to look at things that move as well as things where the reader has full control over the time. Find stuff you like and stuff you don't, and figure out what it is about those things that makes you like or dislike it. Look for stylistic and structural things, for what works and what doesn't. Also read outside of your comfort zone, as you'll learn things you wouldn't otherwise. Also look at what things work or don't because of the format: what things could only be done in a comic, or only in a book, or only in a game etc. Figuring out that will help you see what things can only be done in a VN, and that will really help you use the format to tell the story as well as the actual words.

Remember that there's more than one way to tell a story, and more than one voice that is appropriate for a VN. The key thing is finding the voice that suits your story, your characters and most importantly yourself: the ideal is to write the thing that only you can write. Don't assume you're doing it wrong just because it doesn't sound exactly like everyone else's writing: if only one writing style was 'right', people would say 1984 was terrible because it doesn't read like The Great Gatsby and that A Clockwork Orange was terrible because it wasn't like Jane Eyre.

(If you're writing first person or a strongly embodied third, have a good long think about your narrator/focal characters, how they see their world, how they speak and how much their external self different from their internal self. That will give you strong signposts for the kind of language to use. On the other hand if you're using a very objective narrator, it'll be more just how informal/romantic/dry you want to make it. I'm way more about the 1st person and embodied narrators though so I'm sure others can advise better on objective ones)

One other tip: If you're really worried, then write a 'Zero draft' first. This is the draft you write at speed, that NOBODY sees. The one you do to just get the story down in words, so it's all out there and you can see the shape of it without worrying how good the actual words are. The edit you do of that becomes your first draft, but having that freedom to just get to the end can be very helpful as sometimes you don't really know what the story and characters are truly about until you have it all down. Editing is more of the writing process than you'd think and if you let yourself get to caught up in it at the start you never get to the end.

Now write write write!

[Omniknight]

If you are willing to cope with 2000 words per week (roughly 300 words per day,) I will volunteer to write for you with all the experience I have gathered over four years of ardurous training.

Sincerely,

The Omniknight