Too Much Narrative?

[greenace]

I'm writing a script at the moment and I'm literally writing scenes that are just full of actions/narration and monologue with little dialogue. Is this bad?

Should visual novels have more dialogue than monologue and narrative?
It's just, my main character doesn't talk much and neither do the people they meet.
They have this weird kind of silent bond...

So my question is, when does narrative become too much?
Do Visual Novels need to be full of bubbly talkative characters for them to be interesting?

I'm just afraid of boring eventual readers...

Thanks! ^w^

Edit: Excerpt removed.

[fleet]

There is no right or wrong amount of narrative or dialog in a visual novel. Once I wrote a kinetic novel without any dialog or narrative. The only words were the title screen, end screen, credits page, and playing instructions.
Write the VN the way you want to write it. People do not have the same tastes; some will like it, some won't.
Do your best and have fun.

[RotGtIE]

An excerpt would be most useful in allowing us to determine whether there is a problem, and what that problem is. Otherwise, we can only offer generic advice, which may or may not be as helpful as you need it to be.

[greenace]

An excerpt would be most useful in allowing us to determine whether there is a problem, and what that problem is. Otherwise, we can only offer generic advice, which may or may not be as helpful as you need it to be.

A excerpt has been added.
Thank you. ^^

[greenace]

There is no right or wrong amount of narrative or dialog in a visual novel. Once I wrote a kinetic novel without any dialog or narrative. The only words were the title screen, end screen, credits page, and playing instructions.
Write the VN the way you want to write it. People do not have the same tastes; some will like it, some won't.
Do your best and have fun.

This is some pretty sound advice.
I guess all we really can do is try out best and hope that someone else will appreciate it too.
Thank you.

[RotGtIE]

Alright, I think I can work with this.

First and foremost, if you're worried about whether the content of your scene is affecting your writing, then don't. There's nothing about what you're writing which is hurting your prose. That's the good news. The bad news is that your writing is being hurt most by your decision to use an unconventional format. The very good news is that this is a technical issue, and that's a lot easier to correct than non-technical problems. So let's get to it.

When you take on the task of writing a story for a visual novel, you must understand that you are taking on the role of a novel writer. Even though this is going to wind up in a computer program, and even though the text may be presented to the viewer in ADV form with accompanying visuals, you are not released from the obligation to write your story as though you were writing a novel. It's very common for new creators to want to take shortcuts and get right to the format they want to be presenting in right away, but that should be seen for what it is; a lazy desire to skip an otherwise lengthy and sometimes dull process. Because of your formatting, you are creating problems in your writing. Your use of quotation marks for everything makes it unclear which portions are being spoken by characters in the scene and which are simply being narrated to the audience. It's difficult to discern who is the narrator/protagonist because of this, let alone who is speaking at any given time between multiple speakers. You might be switching tense in the middle of your scene, but it's difficult to tell because you use quotation marks for every line, spoken or otherwise. These and other issues will solve themselves when you accept that you must write your story first as a novel.

The least technical but most noticeable problem is in your typical approach to writing sentences, and this would be what I would call bullet-point writing. Just like it sounds, it's what happens when you want to get straight to the point and wind up writing very short sentences which do exactly that. He did this. Then she did that. Then he said this. Then she said that. Then this happened. Then that resulted. This is a very stilted and jarring way to deliver a story, and it makes for an unpleasant read to the audience. Again, I suspect that this problem is caused or at least exacerbated by your decision to write in an unconventional format. Without standard paragraphing to provide you with an idea about what the pacing of your writing is, you don't really know until you pull back and take in the big picture. I think you did that, and I think that's why you grew concerned. You saw this problem and couldn't quite put your finger on where it came from. I think the simple answer is that it came from a shortcut-taking approach to formatting which spread to a shortcut-taking approach to telling the story in and of itself.

Your scene isn't coming across the way you wanted to, but it's not because of any of the things which are happening in it. You've got more than enough going on in this scene that it can be told well. The problem is that you tried to take shortcuts the whole way through, and so the result is that the whole narration turned out to be one big shortcut itself. My advice would be to take a step back, calm down, and start writing properly as if you were creating a novel. Worry about how you will turn that into a VN after you get your story written properly. Take your time and do it right, because the cost of trying to get things finished quickly is having to redo them, which is more time consuming than measuring twice and cutting once the first time.

[greenace]

Alright, I think I can work with this.

First and foremost, if you're worried about whether the content of your scene is affecting your writing, then don't. There's nothing about what you're writing which is hurting your prose. That's the good news. The bad news is that your writing is being hurt most by your decision to use an unconventional format. The very good news is that this is a technical issue, and that's a lot easier to correct than non-technical problems. So let's get to it.

When you take on the task of writing a story for a visual novel, you must understand that you are taking on the role of a novel writer. Even though this is going to wind up in a computer program, and even though the text may be presented to the viewer in ADV form with accompanying visuals, you are not released from the obligation to write your story as though you were writing a novel. It's very common for new creators to want to take shortcuts and get right to the format they want to be presenting in right away, but that should be seen for what it is; a lazy desire to skip an otherwise lengthy and sometimes dull process. Because of your formatting, you are creating problems in your writing. Your use of quotation marks for everything makes it unclear which portions are being spoken by characters in the scene and which are simply being narrated to the audience. It's difficult to discern who is the narrator/protagonist because of this, let alone who is speaking at any given time between multiple speakers. You might be switching tense in the middle of your scene, but it's difficult to tell because you use quotation marks for every line, spoken or otherwise. These and other issues will solve themselves when you accept that you must write your story first as a novel.

The least technical but most noticeable problem is in your typical approach to writing sentences, and this would be what I would call bullet-point writing. Just like it sounds, it's what happens when you want to get straight to the point and wind up writing very short sentences which do exactly that. He did this. Then she did that. Then he said this. Then she said that. Then this happened. Then that resulted. This is a very stilted and jarring way to deliver a story, and it makes for an unpleasant read to the audience. Again, I suspect that this problem is caused or at least exacerbated by your decision to write in an unconventional format. Without standard paragraphing to provide you with an idea about what the pacing of your writing is, you don't really know until you pull back and take in the big picture. I think you did that, and I think that's why you grew concerned. You saw this problem and couldn't quite put your finger on where it came from. I think the simple answer is that it came from a shortcut-taking approach to formatting which spread to a shortcut-taking approach to telling the story in and of itself.

Your scene isn't coming across the way you wanted to, but it's not because of any of the things which are happening in it. You've got more than enough going on in this scene that it can be told well. The problem is that you tried to take shortcuts the whole way through, and so the result is that the whole narration turned out to be one big shortcut itself. My advice would be to take a step back, calm down, and start writing properly as if you were creating a novel. Worry about how you will turn that into a VN after you get your story written properly. Take your time and do it right, because the cost of trying to get things finished quickly is having to redo them, which is more time consuming than measuring twice and cutting once the first time.

Thank you for giving me an honest critique. I agree with everything you said. I was trying to write the story in a simple way and I guess that was lazy of me. I shall try to rewrite this scene as if it is part of a novel.
I will try and make the sentences longer too.

Thanks again!

[Katy133]

I'd recommend reading the novel (even just excerpts from it) The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. What's fascinating about the novel is that it's almost entirely just narration, yet it's one of the most entertaining, cleverest, and funniest novels I've read. It's told through the character Holden Caulfield's perspective, which is why it works (he has such a recognisable personality--He's intelligent and snarky/witty, but extremely introverted). If you pay attention to what he thinks versus what he says through dialogue... he really doesn't say much through dialogue (mainly things along the lines of "Yes, sir," and "Uh, well, I guess...").

Here's an excerpt:

Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pency Prep is this school that’s in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard about it. You’ve probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hot-shot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on the horse’s picture, it always says: “Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men.” Strictly for the birds. They don’t do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn’t know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came to Pencey that way.

And yes, there's hilarious lines like that all throughout the book. It's amazing.

Seriously, go read it. It'll teach you how to write narration that is filled with personality and isn't boring.

[eternalwishess]

Despite its popularity, the game Nameless ~the one thing you must recall~ had way too much unnecessary dialogue and trivial scenes that did not contribute to the storytelling. It made the story a lot longer than it should be. It would be nice if those scenes actually contribute to character development or progress. It got so bad to the point where I couldn't handle reading something that was at a standstill so I quit the game after being not too far into it. I'd say I didn't like it, but it's one of the more well known visual novel games out there and appeals to a lot of people.

In conclusion, I'd say it's just about personal preference and your audience's interest will fluctuate throughout it all, but if it's your cup of tea to write in that style, I'd say go for it. If you throw in a joke here or there relative to the character's relationship/chemistry, it would definitely make things more interesting. If it sticks to the main story even just a tiny bit, you will be fine.