Question regarding wordcount / length.

[LordShiranai]

I am hard at work on a VN script, and while I feel I'm making good progress, I'm having a problem tying word count to play time.

At current estimate, my script may end up at about 80,000 words per play through. This means that while it is certainly not an epic, it is going into what I consider to be published novel territory. I feel that this may be too long, considering that the length of many other OELVNs seem shorter.

The major problem I have is my reading speed is above average. I generally read at between 750 and 1000 words per minute (depending on the complexity of the text), which makes 80,000 words less than two hours to me. Considering that the average person is said to read at about 200-250 words per minute, I'm concerned that some players may find the game a bit wordy.

At the same time, I find it probable that that visual novel fans are used to reading, and thus may go through text faster than average. I don't wish to compromise the story for these players in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator (especially if the L.C.D. won't even be playing the game).

I'm trying to look through my outlines and figure out ways to tighten the story to get the word count down a bit, but I'm curious as to what others feel about word counts. As a frame of reference, I would like the game to be about four to five hours long for the first play through, on average.

[yummy]

Don't you worry that much about your word count.

It's true that many OELVN have had less than 50k words on average, but that does not mean your VN should do that much.
There is actually no rule about this.
Plus, I always say the story ends too soon once I become a fan. I don't think I'm that different from others ^^

All I'd say is that 80k words leads generally to a good gaming time average.

[kinougames]

o_O I'm not sure you actually read between 750-1000 words a minute...it's said the human brain at best can handle 500 words a minute. ^^;

[LordShiranai]

o_O I'm not sure you actually read between 750-1000 words a minute...it's said the human brain at best can handle 500 words a minute. ^^;

It's difficult to do without training, which I actually received when I was a teenager. One of the first tricks is to get yourself to stop "voicing the words in your head." I also feel that building my vocabulary helped me achieve higher speeds.

I will admit that the 1000 limit is a very high end number, and I probably can't hit it as frequently as I used to be able to during tests. At that speed you WILL lose comprehension, but the lower the "grade level" the writing is, the more it won't be a significant comprehension loss. I cannot read the Silmarillion at 1,000 WPM, for example. Most VNs are not written at that level.

When I'm reading my own stuff back, I do need to slow down to check for errors, naturally.

I have heard that there are people that can read 2500 words per minute, though I'm not sure they can do it with 85% or better comprehension.

[Lekhaka]

I do not think 80,000 words would be too long if you can retain the reader's interest.

That means a good and consistent plot/word density...

[sake-bento]

One of the great laments I hear about EVNs is that they're much shorter than their Japanese counterparts. People like a long game (provided it is a good one).

[Auro-Cyanide]

I think it depends on how it is written. If the word count directly equates to the length of game play, fair enough. If too many words are being used to explain something that could be said in a fewer amount, or even better, with a visual, then you may want to reconsider some bits. Visual novels are kind of like comics, sometimes you have so say things with words, other times with images. The most crucial part is to communicate the idea as fully and clearly as possibly while holding the audiences attention. I feel that many visual novels often tell more then they show and can have a tiresome amount of text in some scenes. Balance is a good goal. In that, writing a visual novel is different from writing, say a book. Anyway, what I am trying to say in a very round about way is, economise your language, both written and visual.

[LordShiranai]

I think it depends on how it is written. If the word count directly equates to the length of game play, fair enough. If too many words are being used to explain something that could be said in a fewer amount, or even better, with a visual, then you may want to reconsider some bits. Visual novels are kind of like comics, sometimes you have so say things with words, other times with images. The most crucial part is to communicate the idea as fully and clearly as possibly while holding the audiences attention. I feel that many visual novels often tell more then they show and can have a tiresome amount of text in some scenes. Balance is a good goal. In that, writing a visual novel is different from writing, say a book. Anyway, what I am trying to say in a very round about way is, economise your language, both written and visual.

You are likely correct. I feel that a lot of my more descriptive text can probably tossed out if there are art assets in the game which show it for me. I probably don't need to use text to show the reader that there is a large red table on the far side of the room if a picture does it for me.

[IceD]

We are prone to write more than it is needed. If you really have the feel, where the fragment has been written on a whim or sticked by force, it means it isn't neccessary. Toss them out. Don't be too descriptive - make sure readers only have the correct feeling and let their imaginations run wild, don't do it for them; too much descriptions make everything a lot worse than lack of them.

Don't bother yourself with wordcounts and limits - you should be able to conclude everything at one point and feel your work is finished, there isn't even a single proper way to describe good writing. Everything depends only on you.

[Auro-Cyanide]

I think it depends on how it is written. If the word count directly equates to the length of game play, fair enough. If too many words are being used to explain something that could be said in a fewer amount, or even better, with a visual, then you may want to reconsider some bits. Visual novels are kind of like comics, sometimes you have so say things with words, other times with images. The most crucial part is to communicate the idea as fully and clearly as possibly while holding the audiences attention. I feel that many visual novels often tell more then they show and can have a tiresome amount of text in some scenes. Balance is a good goal. In that, writing a visual novel is different from writing, say a book. Anyway, what I am trying to say in a very round about way is, economise your language, both written and visual.

You are likely correct. I feel that a lot of my more descriptive text can probably tossed out if there are art assets in the game which show it for me. I probably don't need to use text to show the reader that there is a large red table on the far side of the room if a picture does it for me.

The thing to ask yourself is "Does the player need to know there is a red table in the corner at all?" Obviously images can say a lot very quickly, that is what they do. But humans are very good at imagining things. You say warehouse, and a warehouse will pop into their minds without you even describing anything. Physical descriptors can be pretty pointless unless they directly relate to something. The player doesn't really need to know there are two doors to the left and one to the right unless they are going to have to pay attention to it at some point. Otherwise it is useless information and wasted words. A more useful way to use words with an image is to describe the mood. The words tend to work better with an image this way, especially if you focus on strong, emotional and short sentences that describe an intangible experience.

And yes, you will likely chuck out most of the descriptors, but they will be useful reference for your artists or yourself. So they are not really wasted. Just take care not to double up on information or have excess text if you can help it.

[kinougames]

o_O I'm not sure you actually read between 750-1000 words a minute...it's said the human brain at best can handle 500 words a minute. ^^;

It's difficult to do without training, which I actually received when I was a teenager. One of the first tricks is to get yourself to stop "voicing the words in your head." I also feel that building my vocabulary helped me achieve higher speeds.

I will admit that the 1000 limit is a very high end number, and I probably can't hit it as frequently as I used to be able to during tests. At that speed you WILL lose comprehension, but the lower the "grade level" the writing is, the more it won't be a significant comprehension loss. I cannot read the Silmarillion at 1,000 WPM, for example. Most VNs are not written at that level.

When I'm reading my own stuff back, I do need to slow down to check for errors, naturally.

I have heard that there are people that can read 2500 words per minute, though I'm not sure they can do it with 85% or better comprehension.

No matter how much training you receive, neurons in the brain DO have a firing limit that can't be surpassed. You can't just focus on reading, no matter how hard you try to, as your eyes are picking up the white of the paper in between words, your skin picks up the touch of the air and dust and whatever else, your tongue is tasting the inside of your mouth and your nose will pick up other scents. These are things you cannot stop from happening.

Furthermore, doing more research on the subject, there seems to be only one person recorded who can actually reach nearly 100% comprehension by speed reading at approximately 500-700 words a minute, and this is a person who can read two pages simultaneously, one page with each eye, due to a lack of corpus callosum. Very, very high end numbers for 100% comprehension are in the 400s, the maximum a graduate student can skim (not actually read, but skim) is about in the 600s. Most of these seem to agree...once you hit above 700, and especially nearing 1000, your comprehension drops to 50% which is considered completely unuseful.

[LordShiranai]

I believe that I've gotten some valuable feedback in this thread, and I appreciate the feedback and advice provided. My tendency is to over-think things. Since this is my first VN project, I'm second guessing everything I do despite the fact my story paths were mapped out before hand.

As far as pure game length, it probably isn't a good idea for me to fixate on "hours of game play." This is my first project, and it would serve me better to focus on making it enjoyable for the player.

(It would probably derail the thread to discuss speed reading techniques any further, since it is an academically controversial topic. If anyone is interested in the subject, the Wikipedia articles on Speed Reading and Subvocalization are starting points, although both articles are severely lacking.)

[Anima]

This is my first project, and it would serve me better to focus on making it enjoyable for the player.

Well, that's quite a worthwhile goal. But you should also make it something you enjoy. Not only the great satisfaction of a finished project, creating the project should be fun on it's own.
If you like long stories, then by all means write a long story. Same goes for highly descriptive text. There are authors who got away with it, Tolkien being the poster-child for this style.

When it comes to reading speed though, I find myself slowing down considerably with VNs. Maybe a combination of only having a few sentences displayed at once and distraction by the art. Not that I mind the distraction. So I do not think that difference in raw reading speed has a big impact on the length and enjoyment of a VN. Besides, who said that long stories are bad? I rarely buy novels under 400 pages, there are simply to short, barely lasting a workday. Although we did no read any books longer then 150 pages in high school, there were deemed to long for the students...

[neowired]

From my personal experience, (all the sound, transitions, graphic, menus, other shit included) the reading time of a visual novel is much higher than the reading time of the pure script

I'm not an awfully fast reader, I'm a somewhat hardcore reader. I mainly read fanfiction, lately. I've read fanfics surpassing not 80 000 but rather 300 000 words, I've seen a fanfic which was 1 000 000 word long (I only read about 1/2 of it ; p before I got bored)
I read loads of various shit, weather you read 200 or 400 words, weather it takes you 4 hours or 20 hours to read a story, I don't think a veteran reader cares as long as the story is good.

I don't think any sensible reader would be turned off by the text being too long, what you should concentrate on is for the text to be interesting. As long as it's interesting, the longer the better.
In case of a game, there are also the game aspects, as long as the whole game is interesting/fun, the longer the better. (Point in case MMORPG, you go and play for months or years, doesn't even need a story in such a case)

Now, what you need to consider is the amount of content, graphic/sound/gameplay are you able to accumulate. Writing a book is much faster and less work-intensive (theoretically) than making a game out of it (of similar quality). You need to keep in mind your time and human resources.
(My "novel" was only about 10 000 word, but the work on all the aspects was so intensive... it was much harder than I imagined it would be, and much more time-consuming)

[Cielocchi]

From my personal experience, (all the sound, transitions, graphic, menus, other shit included) the reading time of a visual novel is much higher than the reading time of the pure script

I agree. The visual aspect of visual novels does a lot to distract you from the actual writing, resulting in longer reading times xD

Personally, I don't think word count says anything at all about the quality of your story. I have read awesome short stories of only 1000 words or less, and fought my way through insanely boring 5000 word texts xD In the end, it all depends on how many of those 80k words actually contribute to the story...or don't. Useless descriptions and whatnot, it has been mentioned here already.

Besides, even if it takes longer to play (which would be great IMHO...most OELVN's are way too short for my taste), if it's good then nobody will complain. And if they do, it will be because it was over too quickly x,D So don't worry too much =>