Point of View in VNs/Dating Sims

[n0tgin]

Hi all.
So, I've mostly been active in the art-creation part of the forum, but now I want to get into writing and making my own short little thing. But before I begin to write, I want to know your thoughts on POVs in VNs/dating sims. I know there are other threads similar to this one before, but they were quite short and I want to talk about it a little more.
Basically, I just want to know what you guys prefer to read and/or write in and if/how it affects your experience? And also, to all of these questions, why?
Personally, I've never written anything for a VN/dating sim before, so I don't have any thoughts on writing, but I prefer third person narration simply because I prefer my protagonists with a bit of personality... Nevertheless, I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Right, you can also recommend writing you like in different POVs, I need samples to study after all!

[RotGtIE]

I prefer third person narration simply because I prefer my protagonists with a bit of personality... Nevertheless, I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

The primary advantage of first person narration is that it is able to develop the narrator's personality better than every other character by projecting their thoughts directly onto the prose itself. Narrators are capable of communicating opinions to the reader while leaving every other character completely unaware of these thoughts, which is valuable when a scene demands subtlety in the interaction between the narrator and another character, but not in the tone of the scene which is meant to reach the reader. The advantage of the third person, by contrast, is that it is able to convey a much greater amount of information and it is able to do so with much more assured accuracy than the thoughts of a narrator can. However, the third person narrator is telling the events of a story from something of a bird's eye view, which puts an inescapable distance between the perspective of the narrator and that of the characters involved.

Some stories switch between narrators to solve the problem of distant perspective while still conveying accurately a volume and specificity of information which cannot be available to a single narrator who is directly involved in the plot. This can be done by head swapping between characters involved in the story, or in switching between a single narrating protagonist and a third person narrator. The simpler solution is in the latter, as switching to the perspective of a completely different character for narration is a monumental task for reasons which are not immediately obvious. First person narration grants the writer the power to put the audience directly into the perspective of the narrator, but this comes at the "cost" of acclimating the reader to the narrator's mind. Apart from being privy to details about the narrator that no other character can know, the reader gradually forms a connection with their position as the narrator's shadow, and having the reader jump from this comfortable position to the mind of another character can be an extremely jarring one. Everything the reader has come to know about the former narrator (even if this head swapping is merely a temporary diversion) suddenly becomes null and void when they are in the mind of another person, and everything they do not know or are not accustomed to about the new narrator makes it much more difficult for them to empathize with them, even while having the supernatural ability to invade their mind.

An author would have to be fantastically skilled to pull off a head swap in their prose while making their reader both comfortable enough with the new narrator as well as familiar enough with them to be able to empathize with their position as well as they did with the previous narrator. You may be able to lead in to this by first using third person narration to give the new narrator-to-be some time for the reader to acclimate to their private moments and thoughts before you switch to narrating directly from their first person perspective. This way, you can ease the reader in to the notion that they will be seeing events involving this new narrator absent of the first narrator's observation or even presence, which will make it less of a shock when you finally bring the reader directly into the perspective of this new narrator.

Since the type and source of narration can be switched during the course of a story, it is best to see them as tools with different strengths and weaknesses, and in addition, each "problem" or story element which calls for narration affects which method is the most appropriate "solution." Even the act of deciding whether or not to even use more than one narration method is itself a choice which carries advantages and disadvantages associated with the method of narration chosen. The long and short of it is simple: if you need more personality and for the audience to empathize more directly with a character, use a first person narration from that character's perspective, but if you need to convey more information and audience sympathy with any particular character involved in a scene is not a high priority, a third person narration is a better choice. If you need to conceal a significant amount of events from the reader and maximize their connection to a character, you can use an exclusively first person perspective for the entire duration of the story to accomplish this. If you have a wide cast of characters or many group entities and no clear favored perspective that the audience is intended to empathize with, but many complex events which the reader must be privy to, then an exclusively third person perspective would best serve your needs in this regard. More likely, you will find some need for different narration perspectives and types at different points in your story, and will be able to accomplish your goals by mixing things up as required.

[MoonByte]

In theory, all ways of writing are legit.

First person may make the player emphasize stronger with the main character since they can literally look into their thoughts and feelings. It feels more private, thus the emotional issues of the MC often resulting in a bigger impact on the player since they usually identify with the MC after a while (taken that the MC is not obnoxious and annoying).

Second person is rare, but if played smartly, it can result in the same as first person, maybe even stronger. The character usually loses personality, on the other hand do the actions and words become more meaningful since they literally represent the players desires. Achieving to date the character the player wants also often feels better since it is THEM that dates the character, not a person that they watch.
It shouldn't be too unpopular as well, after all, "Reader x Character" Fiction is quite popular on places like DeviantArt, showing that there is a audience interested in this kind of experience.

Third person keeps distance to the character, though it of course justifies personality and behaviour from the main character that can differ greatly from the player. Seeing that most games and novels have a third person attitude, it is also something that most players are most likely used to and will not find problematic unless forced to play a unpleasant character.

____________________

A quite cool variation may of course be MIXING it with a Bait-and-Switch Main Character (something that I have only once seen in a game and thrice in a novel).
You start the game with "Lisa" in third person, talking about her, what she does, introducing the story.
And then she goes missing/dies/whatever and the game switches to First Person as the ACTUAL MC, "Louis", takes over the story.
It is rare, so chances are usually that nobody will expect this and find it intriguing, if well done

In the end, it is also a bit of a thing of personal preference. I love writing novels in First Person, but with games it depends on the story and character. I find Horror Games in Second Person (or First for 3D games) a lot more effective while I can accept romance in any way.
So it is also depends a bit on the genre, what emotions you want to evoke with your game and what you personally believe will be the most effective to that end.
And - of course - what you feel most comfortable with writing. I had talked with some other people that wrote on novels and a few felt highly uncomfortable of just thinking writing their story in Second Person, so if Third Person is the one you write best in then you may consider this to be sure that the quality is high.

[Katy133]

First-person is the most common POV used in EVNs. I also tend to write in first-person (as I'm used to it).

It's not that I prefer reading stories in one particular type of VN. It's that each type helps to tell the story in a different way:

First Person: (I talked to him.)
Things to consider:

1. It's personal (you can read the character's thoughts)
2. What the player sees is limited to what the player character sees.

Examples:

1. The Catcher in the Rye (A novel where the main character is a witty, intelligent young man surrounded by people who thinks he's a simple-minded teenager)
2. The Jeeves & Wooster series (Novels told through the POV of an "upper-class twit" in the 1930s. His narration style is hilarious. There's also a TV series adaptation of it.)
3. The Blind Griffin (An EVN where you play as a girl from the 1920s who discovers she has magical powers).

Third Person (She talked to him.)
Things to consider:

1. Can vary between impersonal (narration does not describe the characters' thoughts), personal (narration describes the main character's thoughts), or omnipresent (narration describes the thoughts of many different characters).
2. You can see things that the main character can't.

Example:

1. Break Chance Memento (An EVN where you follow the life of a young man who becomes a time-traveller).

Second Person (You talked to him.)
Things to consider:

1. Saying "you" repeatedly can feel very repetetive (read some examples that use second-person POV to help guide you).
2. I've found the second-person POV tends to be used mainly for thriller stories, due to it's inherent "cold but personal" style.
3. You can choose whether to decribe the character's thoughts or to never do so.

Examples:

1. The "Choose Your Own Adventure" Series (this 90s book series has been credited as helping the popularity of VNs in the West).
2. The Wars (The beginning of the novel, as well as other short segments, involves "you" going to the library to research the main character, who died before your birth).
3. Blink & Caution (A thriller novel that alternates between second person and third person).
   Save the Date (An EVN where you're trying to go on a date with a woman, only to replay moments over and over to try and save her life).

Also consider:

Unreliable narrators: The narrator is not giving a 100% truthful account of the story because a) They embellish things to brag or make their questionable actions look better, b) They're crazy and viewing the world through the eyes of madness, c) They aren't taking the story seriously as they're telling it, d) They are too young/immature or their perception is in some way limited in some way.
Examples:

1. Nerd Do Well (Sections of Simon Pegg's autobiography hilariously involve narration describing Pegg as a Batman-like superhero).
2. Urban Runner, specifically, Retsupurea's Let's Play video series of the game (The main character's narration is very inconsistent with what the player sees. And it's perhaps unintentional. It get's to the point where one of the LPers says, "I'm beginning to see a lot of Unreliable Narrator tropes here!").
3. Forrest Gump (In both the film and novel, Forrest helps invent many iconic inventions, meets people who are or become famous, and treats it all as if it were everyday occurrences).

When the narrator is not the main character/player character: The narrator is instead another character who (possibly because they are supernatural/imaginary) follows the main/player invisibly (or sometimes, is only herd/seen by the main character).
Example:

1. Cupid (EVN where the narrator is the ghost/memory of the main character's mother).

Hope this helps!

[hoihoisoi]

Personally, I use a combination of the third and first person point of views in my project. The reason for this is because I'm trying to convey a different message to the reader from different viewpoints.

For the third person point of view, I use it more to describe the scene itself and also any general information about the location, an item in the scene or an emotion that the characters might be feeling through their expressions and so on. The narrator is basically looking at a picture and saying what he sees and then also supplementing that with any relevant facts about the place or characters such as historical information or financial information and so on. So you can say the narrator for me is a guy who has all in the information in hand, knowing everything about the characters and the environment so much so that he is able to tell you relevant things right off the bat from a detached point of view.

For the first person point of view, I use it more for character development. The characters thoughts, feeling and opinions are expressed from the characters themselves making it more personal and relatable to the reader. Writing from this point of view gives you the ability to 'comment' on the situation in the eyes of the character thus letting the reader know the rough thought processes of the character in question which then explains why the character does what he does.

So for my project, I normally interchange between these two different writing styles depending on the purpose of the sections I'm writing. Of course there has to be a clear divide between the sections or readers will be confused to why you are suddenly jumping from one viewpoint to another. (Via a transition or something of that nature) It can be messy if not managed well enough though.

I haven't tried the second person point of view so I can't really comment on that unfortunately. X(

[eibunka]

I have a followup question about narration in dating sims in particular.
Let me start out by saying that VNs are a very new medium to me, and I know nothing about how they are written. I'm basing my experience mostly on reading "choose your own adventure" books as a child.
So,
I'm translating a dating sim from Japanese into English, and the Japanese is entirely in the first person.
It makes sense to me that the spoken dialogue (dialogue signified by quotations) and inner dialogue (dialogue signified by parentheses) of the character would be in the first person, but the narration (literally what is happening in the story) is also in the first person.

So here's how it would look if it were translated from the Japanese using the same points of view:

"No! Don't don't come any closer!" (spoken)

(I'm so afraid!) (internal)

I cannot move my feet because I am frozen in fear. (narration)

Is this acceptable? To me, the narration would be much more engaging and natural if it was in the second person (i.e. "You cannot move your feet"). As it is a dating sim, I assume the character should vicariously represent the player, in order for the player to "experience" what the character experiences in the game. To me a first-person narrative in this situation backfires, as it sounds like the character, not the player, is having the experience. What do you think?

But then again, I know very little about the medium, and if it is a decided stylistic choice of the author and also an acceptable stylistic choice in the medium, I must respect it and translate it as is.
I am open to all insights. Thank you very much.

[Zelan]

I have a followup question about narration in dating sims in particular.
Let me start out by saying that VNs are a very new medium to me, and I know nothing about how they are written. I'm basing my experience mostly on reading "choose your own adventure" books as a child.
So,
I'm translating a dating sim from Japanese into English, and the Japanese is entirely in the first person.
It makes sense to me that the spoken dialogue (dialogue signified by quotations) and inner dialogue (dialogue signified by parentheses) of the character would be in the first person, but the narration (literally what is happening in the story) is also in the first person.

So here's how it would look if it were translated from the Japanese using the same points of view:

"No! Don't don't come any closer!" (spoken)

(I'm so afraid!) (internal)

I cannot move my feet because I am frozen in fear. (narration)

Is this acceptable? To me, the narration would be much more engaging and natural if it was in the second person (i.e. "You cannot move your feet"). As it is a dating sim, I assume the character should vicariously represent the player, in order for the player to "experience" what the character experiences in the game. To me a first-person narrative in this situation backfires, as it sounds like the character, not the player, is having the experience. What do you think?

But then again, I know very little about the medium, and if it is a decided stylistic choice of the author and also an acceptable stylistic choice in the medium, I must respect it and translate it as is.
I am open to all insights. Thank you very much.

While second person is definitely a common trope for VNs, especially dating sims, it's certainly not the only one that can be used. While addressing the reader as "you" does make it more personal, as you rightly pointed out, the problem that sometimes arises comes from trying to tell the player how they feel about a certain situation.

Say I'm playing an otome dating sim written in second person, and I'm introduced to the love interests Danny and Ringo. Danny is a dark-haired, bespectacled nerd who is a bit of a romantic and wants to be a teacher when he grows up. My character finds out upon meeting him that his favorite book is Frankenstein and he's a huge nerd when it comes to superhero movies - especially Spiderman. As a player, I'm currently about 3 seconds away from swooning, because ho-lee crap this guy is practically perfect when it comes to my tastes. The character, on the other hand, is *kinda* interested in him, but not overly so, because the VN doesn't want to favor one guy over the other. At this point, I probably won't be too bothered by the disconnect between my feelings and the protagonist's feelings.

However, that will change when Danny and I have to head to our separate classes and I run into Ringo. Ringo is the poster boy for teenage popularity. Tall, blond, well-muscled, he plays three sports for the school (fall soccer, winter swimming, and spring baseball!), tries to wow me with some suave pickup lines (Hey, baby, did it hurt when you fell from heaven?) and gives off the impression that he's a confident guy. He's very much a gentleman, carrying the protagonist's books, escorting her to class, and wishing her luck dealing with evil Mrs. McMillard for math class. The protagonist giggles as she sits down in her seat - she's a little into this guy Ringo, too. But I hate Ringo with every fiber of my being.

That's a little bit of an exaggeration, of course. The point is, though, that in my perspective, nerdy dudes are fantastic and popular dudes are usually pretty boring. Furthermore, if the writing isn't handled well, that "confidence" that I mentioned earlier can easily stray into "cocky," which is a huge turn-off for me. If the VN was written in first person, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem - the story is happening to someone else, and I can understand why she might be interested in Ringo, and also not as hype over Danny. However, when the VN tells ME, Zelan, that I am equally attracted to both Danny and Ringo, there's suddenly a huge disconnect between how I'm supposed to feel and how I actually feel. This is where second person can get annoying.

Say that another scene takes place during lunch. Some sort of misunderstanding has occurred, and Ringo and Danny are now in a fistfight as the student around them cheer, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" as students will. The VN tells me that I have not joined the chant because I just want them to STOP fighting - I'm afraid one of them might get hurt! After all, I'm equally interested in both of them!

Yeah, no. I'd be cheering right along with the rest of the students, screaming, "Go on, Danny! F*** 'im up! F*** THE B**** UP!" because I hate Ringo with a burning passion. Depending on how much he annoyed me in his previous scenes, I might even have jumped into the fight myself, and Danny and I are now beating Ringo up with perfectly in-sync kung fu ripped straight from Kung Fu Panda. As a bonus, I've found out that my gorgeous nerd isn't afraid to back down from a fight and now I'm even more into him.

That is extremely different from what the VN tells me I'm feeling.

Second person isn't necessarily bad, but it forces the reader to adopt a certain personality when reading it as the VN tells the reader exactly what they should be thinking and feeling in that moment; this likely means that your readership will be limited to people who have a similar personality. First person, as you said, doesn't have that same personal feel, but it means that a person is more comfortable reading it and empathizing with the protagonist without that forced perspective of "This is all happening to YOU."

tl;dr Both points of view are perfectly viable, second person's common pitfall is the personality going against the reader's personality, I'm a sucker for guys in glasses and hate popular kids, and you should leave it in first person per the original form (although if you're really uncertain you could ask the creator about it).

[eibunka]

Zelan,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. It has cleared things up for me nicely. Having researched a little further about readers identifying with a first-person narrative, I stumbled upon 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight, and some bells went off. If those books were written in the second person, I think it would alienate a lot of people who would otherwise be comfortable staying slightly disconnected on a conscious level, "well, that wouldn't be MY decision," but totally engrossed in the parts they relate to. Just as you have said.
So I guess I'll have to give up MY fantasy of writing more "choose your own adventure" style dating sims, and heed your excellent advise.
Thank you thank you!

[Zelan]

No problem! I'm glad I could help. ^_^ I had a lot of fun writing that, actually. I wish Danny was real now.

And hey, you don't have to give up on your fantasy just yet! Like I said, second person is a completely viable option. It would just take practice to do it well, and even then, no matter how well you do it, your readership is going to be limited by nature. That's not necessarily a bad thing (after all, "limited" could mean "limited to millions of teenage girls"), it's just not always desirable.