Best way to start recruiting? - Keeping a team together?

[RotGtIE]

RotGtIE - I'm curious is there a reason that you write in novel format first instead of a screenplay first?

It's a better practice. For the author, writing without also trying to build all the screenplay directions puts you in the mindset of the novelist and forces you to be attentive to nothing but the storytelling. I find this extremely important when it comes to pacing the flow of a scene. The way I see it, I can always write something decent first and then mangle it beyond recognition with stage directions later, but trying to do it all at once rips me out of the writer's seat and puts me in the director's chair, which is not a great place to be when writing prose. For the audience, they're only going to see the end product anyway, and that largely consists of text supported by other assets. Focusing on making the text be able to stand on its own when first writing it ensures that at least the story will be written as well as it can be, and that's what the audience is going to be primarily engaging with, so they will notice very quickly if it is not as good as it should be, especially when compared to all the supporting assets.

Also, doing this sets you apart from the crowd. Lots of devs like to skip the novel-writing part of the visual novel and jump right into a screenplay. I find that this shortcut-taking approach shows up blatantly in the quality of a finished product. It doesn't lead to a good result - cutting corners generally doesn't.

Actually, you don't seem to label the characters at all. Which is weird since your sample is ADV. Unless you don't want people to see the names of characters?

I use the tag ADV to denote text displays which only cover the bottom quarter of the screen. I plan to use the NVL tag for text which covers the whole screen. I realize this is not exactly what is done with most ADV-style text (where the ADV block is usually labeled with the name of the character who is speaking) but I use the nomenclature this way because the whole script is written in the novel format and therefore doesn't use ADV speaker indicators, but rather conventional dialogue tags and other traditional dialogue writing methods. So in short, the only choice for me to make in the screenplay is NVL or short-bottom-screen-NVL, which I label as ADV for simplicity's sake.

[Fluxx]

Hmm. I'd like to see how that works in ADV, would you be able to tell who is speaking?

What would you suggest for someone that uses traditional character tagged ADV with a mix of NVL during heavy exposition moments?

[RotGtIE]

Hmm. I'd like to see how that works in ADV, would you be able to tell who is speaking?

There are two angles on this: prose and VN. From a strictly literary standpoint, ensuring that the audience knows who is speaking is a factor of the writer's skill in a text-only format. Traditionally, you use dialogue tags when it might otherwise be unclear who is speaking, but once you initiate a dialogue between exactly two speakers, it is actually fairly easy to have them volley their lines back and forth with little or sometimes no dialogue tags. This is just something that you will get used to as a novelist - if you write well, the audience will know what is going on without having to always be hit over the head about it.

A VN makes this easier, because visual assets can indicate who is speaking at which times, but I strongly advise against relying on this, as it gives you an excuse to phone it in while you are writing your script. DMB is filled with tons of stage directions which chiefly serve to shut up one character's sprite while getting the other to open their mouth for their line (an excruciatingly tedious process), but the script itself is completely non-reliant on these visuals. The intent is for the assets to enhance the script with their presence, not to replace the job of the writer to tell the story properly.

What would you suggest for someone that uses traditional character tagged ADV with a mix of NVL during heavy exposition moments?

Off the top of my head, I would probably use the tag ADV "Character": text to display in the conventional ADV format, and the tag NVL: text for fullscreen text. G-Senjou no Maou switched between ADV and NVL sections frequently, and did a good job of it. I can certainly recommend the approach.

As a matter of personal taste, I prefer not to tag even ADV blocks with names, as I feel that it is the writer's task to use proper literary techniques to ensure that it is clear who is speaking. A writer shouldn't be content with allowing an illustrator or a GUI to do the writer's job.

[Fluxx]

There are two angles on this: prose and VN. From a strictly literary standpoint, ensuring that the audience knows who is speaking is a factor of the writer's skill in a text-only format. Traditionally, you use dialogue tags when it might otherwise be unclear who is speaking, but once you initiate a dialogue between exactly two speakers, it is actually fairly easy to have them volley their lines back and forth with little or sometimes no dialogue tags. This is just something that you will get used to as a novelist - if you write well, the audience will know what is going on without having to always be hit over the head about it.

I understand that. I thought the use of dialogue tags in a small text box would look weird.

Off the top of my head, I would probably use the tag ADV "Character": text to display in the conventional ADV format, and the tag NVL: text for fullscreen text. G-Senjou no Maou switched between ADV and NVL sections frequently, and did a good job of it. I can certainly recommend the approach.

As a matter of personal taste, I prefer not to tag even ADV blocks with names, as I feel that it is the writer's task to use proper literary techniques to ensure that it is clear who is speaking. A writer shouldn't be content with allowing an illustrator or a GUI to do the writer's job.

Okay, so you still wouldn't use names, I'll think about it.

I'm sure if I could do that without using dialogue tags at all. It would be impossible to do that in novel format.

[mard]

There are two angles on this: prose and VN. From a strictly literary standpoint, ensuring that the audience knows who is speaking is a factor of the writer's skill in a text-only format. Traditionally, you use dialogue tags when it might otherwise be unclear who is speaking, but once you initiate a dialogue between exactly two speakers, it is actually fairly easy to have them volley their lines back and forth with little or sometimes no dialogue tags. This is just something that you will get used to as a novelist - if you write well, the audience will know what is going on without having to always be hit over the head about it.

A VN makes this easier, because visual assets can indicate who is speaking at which times, but I strongly advise against relying on this, as it gives you an excuse to phone it in while you are writing your script. DMB is filled with tons of stage directions which chiefly serve to shut up one character's sprite while getting the other to open their mouth for their line (an excruciatingly tedious process), but the script itself is completely non-reliant on these visuals. The intent is for the assets to enhance the script with their presence, not to replace the job of the writer to tell the story properly.

That I definitely agree with. Objectively, the image assets and gui are there to enrich the story. When it come to indicating who is speaking, narration, and having the characters have a developed individual aspect to their speech should be what you aim for first. Make it so without names for the text box, and without movements like that in the sprites, the reader can essentially follow along with the story,and keep track of the characters interactions. Have the sprites give a face to the characters, and their movements make them feel like real people the readers can relate to, but don't rely on them to allow the reader to keep track of the story.

Basically have the story carry along the sprites, rather than the sprites carry along the story.


edit: forgot quotes in the BBcode.

[tohtamish]

Hello all,

I can share my own experience. Do some work by yourself and greatly. Mayby just a writer - but make as a writer one great and finished script. Secondly... Don't try to earn money at the beginning. Generally, don't try to earn money by creative work so fast, don't think about money at the beginning, or, otherwise, it makes your dreams very heavy and hard, you lose ability to create, well it concerns all creative works. Do the job and money will catch up later. If you think about money - you suffer, you cannot finish even small things and move very slow and with pain. Plan you work and devide it into pieces, especially for artist. Don't load artist with all script, show to him only small steps. Do it by steps.