Outlining Initial Panic

[IsaiahKey]

Hello! So tonight after I got off of work, I decided I want to map out the choices of my first attempt at a VN. Because I'm me and I like to bite off huge projects that might take a long time to complete, I know it's going to be complicated.

So I did start outlining, and I sort of immediately hit a panic. I'm not screenwriting (in an attempt to distinguish from writing the code in Ren'py I am starting to call the actual dialogue and narration screenwriting and saving scriptwriting for when I go to edit and include cod), but I just realized how complex this can get.

So my question for you all is, how do you get over that initial hurdle of working on your VN? I'm staring at my screen, and I have things out mentally mainly, but I just need to take that last step to really start this progress, to tell myself that I'm willing to devote my free time to this.

For the record, this is what I'm staring at. I kinda like how I've decided to organize my choices for this bare bones outline.



For the record you can't see the first few lines, aka the introduction

[RotGtIE]

If you find yourself staring at your screen absentmindedly, that's a pretty good sign that you might be lacking direction. Judging by your screenshot, I'd say I'm certain that's your problem right now.

A visual novel is primarily a story told by you, but I notice that the choices you are presenting to the player are simply possible options that a decision-making entity could conceivably make given a number of options. This seems sensible on the surface and from a standpoint which is not very focused on a narrative, but as your role in the creation of a VN is that of a storyteller, such indecisiveness just won't do.

Take, for example, your "rejection" choice. After five words describing what happens as a result of the choice, you declare "game over," essentially a fail condition which sends the player back to the point where they were to make that choice. It's clear that you don't want the player to "reject" and have no plan set for what to do or where to take the story if such a "rejection" is chosen by the player. This is not just a meaningless choice - like some of the comical ones found in VNs which don't actually affect a story's outcome but don't halt its progression either - it's a choice you don't want the player to actually make and you don't want to provide for the possibility of its selection. That's fine - your story clearly isn't about what happens when the deal presented is simply rejected. But what isn't so fine is that you for some reason feel obligated to present such a rejection as a choice while knowing in your heart of hearts that you have absolutely no plans to expand upon that possibility. You are the conductor who will be taking the audience on this journey, and it's up to you to be clear about what you will allow them to do and what you are prepared to show them.

What I think you need to do is take a step back and turn your attention to the bigger picture of your outline. Usually when I start an outline, I make a "header" or "purpose" section for a scene where I briefly describe the intended function of a scene as it relates to affecting the reader or advancing the plot, followed by the "body" or "summary," wherein the details of the scene are described in further detail before the prose itself is written. I think you may need to do this for your main story arc and all the possible arcs you will be presenting. Figure out what your routes are going to be, what the narrative theme of each route is going to be, summarize what each route or arc is going to contain in order to fulfill their stated purposes, and then come back down to this level of detail where you are bringing decision points to the audience within the prose itself. That way, you will be able to clear out any meaningless choices or decisions which don't really help you to convey the story you want to write, as those seem to be bogging you down and obstructing your ability to actually write the story you may be aiming for.

Leaving aside the method of outlining, you mentioned that this is your first project and that you are biting off something big. I'm sure you understand that others will advice you to attempt a smaller project so that you can have a better chance of getting one done at all rather than leave a large project hanging. While I agree with the philosophy behind this approach I don't necessarily agree with its most common prescription of actually producing a short-duration VN - rather, I think it would be best to narrow your scope. That may be through a shorter story, but I think it can also be through a VN which has fewer routes and choices, or even a kinetic one. It's easy to forget that kinetic is still an option in VNs and going kinetic relieves you of a huge burden during development. It means that, for the same amount of effort you can devote to a project, you will be able to flesh out a single route far more than you would be able to for two or more, to say nothing of assets beyond the actual plot outlining and prose writing. Narrowing your scope to make your project feasible doesn't have to mean shortening the length of your story, and in the same vein, going kinetic is not your only option for narrowing the scope of your project to make it more attainable. I think it would be helpful for you to start thinking laterally about what you can pursue to make your project one which is feasibly within your means to complete.

That's about all I can offer you. Step back, take in the big picture, narrow your scope, and define for yourself what your story (or stories) is supposed to be about. Then once you've outlined things for yourself from a distant perspective, focus in on increasingly detailed, smaller pictures within your big picture outline until you're comfortable cranking out prose without having to worry about where your story is going to go next. Once you get your big plans laid out, the little details tend to fall neatly into place.

[Parataxis]

Not going to lie, Outlining can be pretty complex, especially if you have a lot of options all the time. The secret is to realize that good visual novel writing is a magic trick: you want to give your audience seemingly as many meaningful options as possible while also creating to least writing possible for yourself.

I tend to start by breaking things down into modules. Collect some part of your story together into an "event" or a "chapter" and decide what the possible entry states and exit states are. I tend to keep it to 2-3 of each to prevent it from being too complicated. Know that you can have tones of little branches inside this chapter but in the end you have to begin at one of those states and end at another. For now, reduce your outline to the simplest possible diagram showing how the player gets from a beginning state to an ending state.

For example, "Chapter 2" of my VN is about the main character tracking down a lead in her friend's murder and encountering an important NPC named Gerty. The player got one of 2 alternate leads on the mystery in the previous chapter depending on what choices they made, and specifically whether they met the character Jiminy. Meanwhile, no matter what the player encounters Gerty halfway through the chapter who wants to beat the player up for trespassing and the player can either chose to fight her to try and talk their way out of the situation. Here is an outline of the chapter:



Now there are other choices in the chapter, including how you try to convince Gerty and what you do when you find your lead. And these things all have affects, whether to point values or small dialog splits. But these are the choices that result in distinct new scenes or a different flow to the chapter. This chapter is designed to be 20-30 minutes of gameplay.

I find it much easier to outline things this way because you can tackle one thing at a time instead of trying to take on everything at once. Also by limiting the number of entrances/exits to the modules, it forces you to think about how to recombine different series of events rather than just letting them branch away from each other forever.

[IsaiahKey]

First off, thank you for the lengthy and detailed answer! I do really appreciate it, but (there's always a but with these sort of statements, aren't there?) -

I actually do have a direction I'm aiming for. This is a story I've been working on for over a year but never could find the right medium to tell it. I've tried traditional novel writing (too restrictive), roleplaying (too adaptive of other people's needs), and even an attempt at a first person, present-tense journal/blog (too much stress! And again, restrictive).

I wasn't staring absent-mindedly; it's mostly a nerves thing - the blank page syndrome of any writer (or artist!) I think. I've written in prose for about 11-12 years now, and I've never outlined or written in a more screenplay-esque manner. What I ended up doing was turn on a Rooster Teeth podcast and while they talked, actually went even more general, focusing solely on the choice tree I'm creating. The goal is to use this tree to then write my outline proper, and from there write the script and pull out all the assets I'll be needing to create.

Now, for something I need to address real quick, and I think explaining the premise of my VN might clear something up!

Take, for example, your "rejection" choice. After five words describing what happens as a result of the choice, you declare "game over," essentially a fail condition which sends the player back to the point where they were to make that choice. It's clear that you don't want the player to "reject" and have no plan set for what to do or where to take the story if such a "rejection" is chosen by the player.

So, what is up with that rejection choice up there? You know it's tied to a deal, and that if you reject it, it's Game Over. You're right; I have no intention on extending that choice out because in that choice, the player character (PC) passes on.

Debitum Naturae opens up with PC dead. They wake up in the middle of a snowy street lit by car headlights, and they meet Seeper - a special type of ghost with the unique ability to "prevent" death. But, there's a catch. If PC wants to continue living, they have to make a Deal (capitalization intentional) with this ghost, binding their two souls together and opening PC to a world beyond that they'd ever believe. Congratulations, you are now known as one of the Bound. What will you do with your second chance at life?

This is a choice that will occur over and over again as you play the game. Whenever PC dies, Seeper will be there, willing to make the Deal again, letting you choose to continue or to say "no, I'm done." If it seems odd to start off in the middle of a scene, so to speak, and to give you a restart screen so quickly, that's sort of my goal? It establishes an important mechanic in the story right off the bat - the ability to Deal and come back from the dead - and personally, my favorite stories always start out with me asking questions and having to continue on for the answers. My only hope is the rest of the story and world are interesting enough for such a hook.

It's even in the name of the game! Debitum Naturae means debt to nature, and nature creates life, so the debt is death. The entire story revolves around this idea of balance and three "main" branches that you can go down and sometimes even go back to in the same game.

Leaving aside the method of outlining, you mentioned that this is your first project and that you are biting off something big. I'm sure you understand that others will advice you to attempt a smaller project so that you can have a better chance of getting one done at all rather than leave a large project hanging.

Ah, I had a feeling this would come up, and I wonder how much of it was my horrible attempt at explaining in the initial post. I was a bit loopy from working so much this week, and of course it's not over! So come Friday I may be completely unintelligible.

The main reason for me taking on such a big project, besides it being quite an old story of mine whose ideas and themes I've been working on for awhile is...rather personal. I won't get into all the details, but I'm at a low point in my life and this visual novel brainstorming and researching has helped me keep focused and optimistic about my future. So while you truly do have solid, good advice in what you've said about narrowing my scope, I won't be. Well, I will be making a kinetic novel eventually; I have a plan for several stories that revolve in this universe. But for now, I want to work on this, and even if sometimes I balk a little at how intense it's going to be, I know I'll be fine if I take it in small chunks.

Thank you again for your wonderful message, and I will be bookmarking the advice so that I can read it in the future!

Oh and there's been another reply while I was writing this!

I tend to start by breaking things down into modules. Collect some part of your story together into an "event" or a "chapter" and decide what the possible entry states and exit states are. I tend to keep it to 2-3 of each to prevent it from being too complicated. Know that you can have tones of little branches inside this chapter but in the end you have to begin at one of those states and end at another. For now, reduce your outline to the simplest possible diagram showing how the player gets from a beginning state to an ending state.

This is actually super helpful! I think it'll be helpful if I break my paths down into chapters - that way I can have this strong entrance and exit points that limit the choices and branching down to a manageable level. I thought about dividing it into "days" but the actual timeline is still a bit fuzzy for me; in some timelines certain events can all happen in a week, but other things might take in-game months to happen and require smooth transitions so the story doesn't stagnate. If I go with just chapters though...that would make things much, much easier to look at .

So would making a chart similar to the one you are showing. I can use the script style when I'm building up a bulkier outline, I think, but the flowchart seems the best way to handle keeping track of the options and how they tie into each other!

[psy_wombats]

I used to use paper and pencil flowcharts but they quickly became very tangled and difficult to revise. I recommend software like Twine (https://twinery.org/) or I've also seen strong endorsements for articy:draft for interactive stories (http://www.nevigo.com/en/articydraft/overview/).

[MoonByte]

To go from my personal experiences:
I find it more difficult to make a VN when I have the story first in comparison to having the gameplay first.
My current "jam" game was started by thinking of the endings and then building the entire gameplay around that. I was done in a week, even though the game isn't that small. My former "abandoned" games all started from the story and I usually got lost in it to the point where I lost interest.
Naturally, especially negative past experiences increase the chance for the panic you describe, as people don't want to invest time into something that will fail eventually. So important is not only a proper work structure, but also looking back at the SUCCESSFUL parts. You can be optimistic and totally ignore the failures, at least while in panic mode

For a general workflow, I'd recommend to start with the gameplay to have some structure that you can wrap your game around.
Do you just want choices (answering to questions) to matter or will there be a map where certain places give you bonus points? Like, what do you want to offer gameplay-wise.
If you have multiple endings, then look at what makes them different and what you would need to measure for those endings (like affection for the love ending and the hate ending, maybe certain True-variables for the "Saved the cat" ending or whatnot). These give you also a good structure because you know what kind of choices you should have (After all, it is kinda unfair to judge affection by "Favorite Colour?"). Building a game around the choices that you then designed keeps the story in a certain frame and you "only" have to fill it with words.
That would - in my opinion - be a quite simple way of planning and especially avoiding that panic of not getting forward. After all, you can always just make some sections shorter, if you have lost inspiration about what Character X should say in that part. Nobody but you would know that it was intended to be longer.

Other than that:
Take breaks. Staring for hours does NOT help. There is a reason why the saying "Sleep over it" exists. When you work on something, then do something else for a while and come back to it the next day, you have a fresh mind and fresh eyes. You will notice what you did wrong and can correct it. This is especially important at the beginning because the longer you work at a project, the higher the risk that you will be "blind" towards structural problems of the game. The earlier your rough gameplay is good, the better.
Also, your breaks can be anything. Watch a movie that fits your game or watch some freaky cartoon, doesn't matter. Sure, the first may give you inspiration, but if you're the type that would end up thinking about the game the entire time you watch it, then rather take the cartoon unless you dedicately decide to research.

Finally, if you get REALLY stuck, ask for opinions on what you already have. It might not help, but I found that strangers often see issues that I didn't realize. It can be a family member, a friend, a total stranger, whatever. As long as they are honest, it might help.

[hoihoisoi]

Well, firstly, from the outline of it all, it looks like you're planning to have a pretty expansive project, which in turn brings up some pretty big issues in terms of that drive to complete it all. If I had to work on such a project, I'd start out with only the main story line first, meaning, I'll probably write out the entire script from the get go giving the player no choices to choose from. After you've done that, you can then go through the second part of the process, which is adding the second route of the game. Similarly, you want to complete the entire script for the second route of the game before moving on. And you do this so on and so forth until you've got everything you want.

Using this method of completing one route after another, gives you the rough outline of how the story is going to flow and also gives you that motivation to complete the second route since you've already seen the first one come into fruition. However, the biggest issue with this way or writing is that, if you suddenly find a plot hole while writing the second route, you may need to go back to the first route to edit some parts of it. This may cause issues such as distractions and just overall confusion if too many contradictions or plot holes arise at once.

Then again, everybody uses a different style to write so this is just my take on it. To me, this methodical way of completing each and every section is what I feel works for me and my writing style, so it's really dependent on your writing style and how you like to structure your story.

Hope this helps you and good luck with your project!

[IsaiahKey]

Lots of awesome replies to look over today! I actually saw these last night, but work is seriously draining me right now (yay overtime and end of the fiscal year).

So, taking in all of your advice, as well as my own previous methods of plotting, I came across my solution:



Post it notes! In my graphic design courses, we had a project where we pinned a big sheet of paper to the wall and began to mind map. After that, we would sit and begin sketching ideas on post it notes, then stick them up on our sheet. People would go by and mark the ideas they liked, or overlay another post it to make a small correction. And I used to use index cards all the time when I was having trouble with regular prose.

So now I have a quick and rough way to map out my choice tree, and from there I can create my outline proper. Right now, I'm focusing on 4 main objectives: choice triggers, choices, game exits, and path rerouting. The triggers are just short explanations of what happens, while path rerouting means a certain branch is being tied to another. Going down the different paths will actually trigger different dialogue and affect how people treat you, but that will come with deeper planning and writing.

Once my choice tree is done, I am going to work on developing each route in more depth. I've read a lot of conflicting ideas on the matter, but I think I'll be able to better focus on the unique aspects of an individual path to the end goal, and then jump to the next one and focus on those unique aspects.

But this is a really good start, and I really, really appreciate all the help!

[psy_wombats]

Haha, looks good, a lot more practical than software any day. Although I think if I tried that I'd run out of vertical real estate.