Making a new VN, where to start?

[moocowrules]

So I have been planning a VN for quite a long time, I have a basic outline of the story and what is going to happen. I have this one problem, when I start writing I have trouble trying to write what is visually happening without pictures or in depth detail, but without the writing I have trouble drawing the CG for the scenes, so to put it short. Where to bloody hell do I start?

~ Moo

[chickandnugget]

Have you ever written/read a script for a play? That's pretty much the way I write for VN's.

I write a short-medium description for the setting at the beginning of each scene, then introduce the characters and any narrative description/action (if any) in italics/parentheses before each line of dialogue.

You already have an outline, so that's good. Maybe consider making that basic outline a detailed one, and writing out bullets for everything that'll be happening in each scene.

If you have trouble visualizing, I also sometimes just find related illustrations/pictures and keep them up beside my document for inspiration.

[moocowrules]

Wow, quick reply.

Thanks my dude, that was very helpful. I was just advancing very slow, I think it took me like a month to do the prologue of the story due to that issue. I will give it a bash and come back later to tell you if it worked or not.

~Moo

[Mammon]

If you're talking about that there are too many things happening in the story that need visual aid or even animation, then describing it may not even work out at all. A story in a VN needs to be much heavier on dialogue, narration, character expression and actions that are so simple, relateable and easily described that they don't need visuals. And for the few scenes that won't suffice you'll get CG.

On the other end of the indie story developing format is the webcomic: Each block can be considered a small CG displaying an action, stance or idea. However, their dialogue needs to be much more cropped and simple. They can't use long and dscriptive paragraphs like the ones I'm currently using because that's at least 3 blocks per paragraph of static standing around and talking. Their ideas need to be delivered in a single sentence.

You really need to look at your project and try to visualise it in practice. I don't mean you visualise the story as if you're the viewer watching it unfold, I mean seeing your story in a VN format. No visualising it in animation or video format, no adding CG, trying to tell that story using nothing but static sprites of characters and words. Nothing but the tools you have.

I myself have made a few stories that I loved and really thought out, but which I cannot make in a VN format ever because they simply rely too much on things like perspective, situation, fight scenes, camera angles, etc. If I understood your OP correctly, that's your problem as well. Your story relies too much on what is visually happening and what you will need to display. You'll need to dedicate A LOT of words just to describing what is happening and you don't feel like your descriptions will reach the reader with the exact scene that you envisioned.

Or I'm completely misunderstanding what you meant and you're just not too sure how to properly describe things without sounding vague or creating a wall of text that makes your story drag on. In which case listen to ChickenAndNugget and try relying on your backgrounds.

If I'm not mistaken about your question however, you'll need to bend the story to the medium rather than the other way around. You need to condense the actions happening in the scene into something that can be placed in a single CG, or try to do it with nothing but talking. You have the sprites and their expressions, and you've got a near unlimited amount of words available. Just not visuals.

So ask yourself: your story. Can you make it without using visuals at all, just with words and character sprites? Can you make a scene without relying on more than one CG, and preferably none at all? Can you encapsulate the moments that cannot be decribed with words in just one photo? Or do you really need to show a lot to actually get your story across?

Edit: I see you posted a reply while I wrote this, and what chickenandnugget said was what you were talking about. Welp, just look at the time difference between our posts, I just wasted at least half an hour of my life. Yay!

[Anyubel]

I would suggest sketching some of the scenes that you would want to happen in the vn, write a few annotations on the side and write the scene that you have in mind. Drawing scenes up should probably be able to help you out with brainstorming other specific scenes as well, and then you can come up with a more in depth, coherent outline as to how the story progresses and redraw the sketches to fit your story better.

Sketches don't really take too long, so if you do a few sketches here and there, it shouldn't be too bad.