Sweet Dreams (TEXT ONLY DEMO) (feedback appreciated!)

[Itriedisuck]

Hi peoples, I just started on a VN a month or so ago, working on it here and there when I had time... It became what I am showing you now, called "Sweet Dreams". I haven't shown too many people (although I did post it in the ideas page a little while back), and I'm not sure if the idea is as good as I imagined it. So far, I have only written a part of it, although I am looking for an artist... But I really would like to see what you guys think. The only notes I really have to put on this are, one, I will not describe someones voice to a bear going through a meat grinder in a final project... that was just because I couldn't think of anything at the time, and second, I will fix the transition between day 1 and day 2. So, leave me any feedback you want, it's all greatly appreciated.

[Khadrian]

Hello Itriedisuck (haha, your name XP),

So i decided to give this a try as someone else who has released a 'text only' demo, because I was curious to see how someone else handled it. Well my first thoughts are that you should re-read it yourself to find some, if not most, of the basic spelling and grammar errors. My opinion at a glance would be that the story concept is a 7/10 (breaking 7 in my rankings requires a lot), but the the writing is self is maybe 3-4/10 (Apart from the grammar and spelling mistakes, the sentences just didn't flow together well). All in all I believe that you can do a lot with this idea if you practice your writing a little more.

Now, on a less-critique and more-suggestion note, as someone else who's currently working on a story with a Japanese school being a major setting, while not actually having ever attended one, I would definitely suggest lots and lots of research. Also, I noticed that you're encountering some of the same problems I did when I first started working on my story, though in somewhat of a reversed order, and I would like to give you some notes on that as well:

-Firstly, you're not using honorifics; To be honest I think that was a good decision on your part. It actually took me a few edits to decide to remove them myself, but if you're targeting a western audience then using western name ordering and such I feel is a good idea.
-Secondly, the uses of Japanese words/phrases can be confusing for people that don't know them, and it might be best to assume that you're readers won't. I understand that there are cases when using a Japanese setting where Japanese words are required, for example I used 'Kitsune' and 'Yokai' in my story, but if you do that it's a good idea to help the reader understand the words meaning, such as "Kitsune, a fox--" or "Yokai? You mean like ghosts and monsters?" The meanings might not be exact, but it serves to help the reader understand. Words like "Tamagoyaki", "Itadakimasu", and "Shinai" could be changed to something like "Fried eggs", "Let's eat!", and "wooden/bamboo sword". In the case of "Shinai", after declaring it a bamboo sword any further references to it can be simply "sword" to keep it from sounding cheesy.

On a story-unrelated note I wanted to see how long the demo was before I read it to make sure that I had the time, so I opened the script file (hopefully you don't mind). Well the first thing I noticed was that it was rather cluttered, which must make it difficult to read/edit. I think it might be helpfully to use some white-space to help separate the dialogue of different characters or something similar to make it easier for you to read when you need to.

Well that's all I have to say at the moment, hopefully you find it at least somewhat helpful.

[Itriedisuck]

lols, well, I will be the first (well technically the second.....) to admit that I am terrible at grammar and spelling.... however, that aside, I really appreciate you taking a chance XD I really just started writing this with no research, with the exception of playing the Fate and Tsukihime VN's... I had debated making it in america, but I hate the way our names sound in stories..... Well, I will take what you said into consideration, thank you for the feedback!