What Are Some Common Visual Novel Clichés?

[ZennyZenZen]

Idk about other people, but I HATE passive main characters. These are your boring main characters that simply go with the flow of the story, but don't actually do anything significant. This is usually popular with harem anime and visual novels.

I understand that making the main character passive makes him more relateable to the reader. I totally get that. I do that myself with my stories.

But always give this character something that makes him different from everyone else. An interesting and unique personality trait, hobby, inclination, and so on.

Lord knows how many times i've watched a harem anime where all the girls are in love with the main character for no apparent reason. In a way, it's kinda encouraging readers to just stay at home and play these games that offer unconditional love.

I understand that love happens. And that it's confusing. And it can happen to anyone.

But I know for a fact that all the girls in a classroom is not going to fall in love with a boring no-life main character who sits at the corner of the classroom. Maybe one, sure. But not all the girls in a story is going to actually like that boring guy.

And I also understand that these stories are supposed to be away from reality. But I hardly find those stories interesting. Sometimes even annoying.

There has to be even just a hint of realism for everything. Nothing is all candy and flowers. What makes a good story is having multiple elements for it. If there's sweet, then there should be bitter, salty, sour.

Point being.

The cliche of passive uninteresting protagonists is something I can't stand, and is something I fight against.

[agentyoda]

A lack of voice for characters frustrates me. Even when people say they wrote a character "in their own voice," that's often not the case. The writer's voice is much more exciting than the boring character they wrote; they have personality, habits of speaking, actions they do (or don't do) when they speak, emotions they show (or not), and so on; but the character is always very boring, direct and gives a general response to things. If they had a character with the writer's own voice, they would be interesting; it's the lack of any voice that's off-putting.

[ZennyZenZen]

A lack of voice for characters frustrates me. Even when people say they wrote a character "in their own voice," that's often not the case. The writer's voice is much more exciting than the boring character they wrote; they have personality, habits of speaking, actions they do (or don't do) when they speak, emotions they show (or not), and so on; but the character is always very boring, direct and gives a general response to things. If they had a character with the writer's own voice, they would be interesting; it's the lack of any voice that's off-putting.

i'm sorry. I can kinda sorta get the message but could you be a little bit clear? I think i know what you're talking about but i'm not sure.

[agentyoda]

A lack of voice for characters frustrates me. Even when people say they wrote a character "in their own voice," that's often not the case. The writer's voice is much more exciting than the boring character they wrote; they have personality, habits of speaking, actions they do (or don't do) when they speak, emotions they show (or not), and so on; but the character is always very boring, direct and gives a general response to things. If they had a character with the writer's own voice, they would be interesting; it's the lack of any voice that's off-putting.

i'm sorry. I can kinda sorta get the message but could you be a little bit clear? I think i know what you're talking about but i'm not sure.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. Here's an example of having no voice (take this example with a grain of salt, since it's only a few lines; voice becomes clearer with more dialogue):

A: "What would you like to do today?"
B: "Let's go to the movies. Any you want to see?"
A: "Yeah, Movie X. That sounded good."
Then we went to see the movie. [insert movie description here]

Basic dialogue; they're just moving from logical point to logical point, and constructing appropriate dialogue. This is not written in their own voice; it's voiceless.

Here's an example which, though it doesn't have it's own voice yet (not enough dialogue and character and such), is headed on the right path:

I yawned and leaned against the pillar, closing my eyes.
A: "This is lame. It's a Saturday afternoon, and we don't have anything to do..."
B: "Well, there's a new movie out yesterday; something about aliens, I think."
A: "Aliens suck. No go."
B: "Huh? Why?"
A: "Because yes."
B: "Why do you never give me an actual reason...?"

I will be the first to acknowledge that my examples aren't the best...but there's (hopefully) a clear difference: the first proceeds from idea to idea without expressing them in the context of a person's habits, thoughts, values, actions, etc. The second includes that in slight doses: we get a value reaction when aliens are mentioned; a reference to a habit A has of not answering questions directly; a possible character point for A, if the writing, once extended, shows that he uses "lame" a lot and complains often...

Even if A's voice is actually the same as the author's (as in: maybe he records himself, asks his friends what his subconscious habits are like, etc.), it's still a character voice. It's not voiceless.

[Akai85]

Cliches:

- First day of school
- Moving to a new town
- Having to do something because of some responsibility/financial obligation/obligation (example: bring sucess to bakery before evil corporation buys it.)
- Making lunch for people (how often does this actually happen? Can't speak of japan since manga and anime are a little different but in other cultures. I've never seen this once.)
- Looking after a character in a vulnerable state, usually while sick.
- Protag thinking to themselves they're completely ordinary and boring or wondering why people like them.
- Love interests that fall under archetypes but do so badly. For example a person who acts like a tsundere but quickly switches to be lovey dovey. Tsunderes are bad at communicating their feelings so to have them repetitively beat up the protag or do other stupid things is annoying. A character like this should worry about their communication skills and gradually build them up. Tsundere behaviour is a defence mechanism to hide the shyness and vulnerability these characters feel. It's not an excuse to make an asshole character.
- Fantasy - broad but saving the world. Any vague variation of saving the world counts. Vague plot.
- Running out of archetypes and thus using character quirks or hobbies as a way of making interesting characters. This never feels natural. For example we've got a guy who likes shoes. But he likes them a lot. He talks to everyone about shoes whether they're listening or not, follows the blogs of shoe makers and has a vintage shoe framed on his wall. While there can be people extraordinarily passionate about a subject having multiple characters like this in a game doesn't feel realistic. And it's very common to use the quirk as a crutch rather than fully realising the character.
- Don't be a weeaboo.
- Using "um" and "uh" too much when the character isn't meant to be passive gives off the wrong impression. It's even worse when all the characters do it even if it doesn't match their personality.
- Writing angst badly.
- Forced drama. Drama for the sake of drama. Artificial obstructions to halt the progress of a relationship or event. (Example: Suddenly his old girlfriend appears and I will sneak away because I feel excluded despite knowing we are already dating! Suddenly his parents want his to marry a rich princess which really should have come up earlier since he's aware of his own family situation!) That kind of stuff just feels like you're punishing the reader.
- Overdoing jealousy and possessiveness. Unless a character is meant to be overly jealous and possessive this is just...
- Tough girl who is embarassed of her feminine side. Example liking cats, eating sweets or some other inane thing that is completely normal for both genders.
- Forced humour. I don't know how to explain this properly so just read some bad fanfiction. Shouldn't be too hard to find.
- Never mentioning the parents or other friends of the main characters. Parents and primary school friends/internet friends/cousins/whatever are normal parts of everyday life. Please don't leave them out.
- Don't invent bad excuses to dress up. Like balls when the setting makes no sense for there to be a ball.
- Pairing up glasses and a mean or cold character is becoming pretty common. I almost never see sporty guys with glasses or the typical best friend character with glasses for example. This isn't really a cliche but since in real life many people wear glasses it would be nice to see a little more variation.
- People realising that they're in love way too quickly. (W-why is my heart beating so fast? Could it be I'm...) Not like this can't happen but it's overused. It's also kind of jumping to conclusions.
- Being naive and innocent to the point of seeing the good in everyone and believing them, even obvious troublemakers. Again, not impossible but overused.
- School uniforms. Note that I don't mean uniforms themselves but certain western settings with characters in uniforms that stylistically look very japanese through the use of accessories/styling and garments. Something always feels off about this.
- Protagonists always wearing bland clothes. It's because their personality doesn't stand out but still, it isn't unusual to see girls wearing earrings and other accessories. It feels a bit weird when the protagonist is always wearing clothes that do nothin to characterise them, yet everyone else is.
- Don't obscure the eyes please. Eyes are awesome.
- Main character is remarkably innocent considering their age. To clarify I mean things like not picking up on obvious innuendo and things. Although if the main character is so gullible they also don't pick up on jokes or sarcasm this wouldn't be so strange.

Err well, can't think of anything else right now though I know there's heaps more stuff I didn't mention. There's also more genre specific cliches like the alluring woman with a mysterious background in film noir/action and things like that. Cliches themselves aren't bad but using them incorrectly is. It's also important to understand the differences between tropes, conventions and cliches. Cliches are called such because they are overused. This doesn't mean they can't be used anymore, just that using them should require more though and consideration than other elements. Understanding cliches and how to use them to strengthen your story will make it more successful.

I can't think of one story I enjoyed and found unique yet didn't remind me of something else. Whether this be through style, characterisation, setting, plot conventions etc. Doing the maths and establishing cliches as things that exist not in a vacuum but because of this and in spite of this and relating to this etc. will allow you to use even the most overused cliches. For more information on this tvtropes will mention aversions, subversions, deconstructions and detailed descriptions of straight examples of tropes in their database so that could be a good reference for you. I also find it rewarding when cliches are acknowledged in the work themselves and then explored or subverted.

I think the best advice is just to play a lot of vns in your chosen genre to see what elements pop up again and again. I've played quite a few otome games so I can immediately tell when something has been cobbled together out of what the author liked out of other peoples work or when they've done the math and planned out the elements and how they fit into the story. Once you've exposed yourself to enough media this stuff becomes increasingly more and more obvious. (I suspect the growing critiscm for ya novels has to do with the fact that a greater amount of ya novels are being produced and thus these things are becoming more obvious. Also because some ya sucks but that's another story lol.)

I hope this helps!

[ZennyZenZen]

A lack of voice for characters frustrates me. Even when people say they wrote a character "in their own voice," that's often not the case. The writer's voice is much more exciting than the boring character they wrote; they have personality, habits of speaking, actions they do (or don't do) when they speak, emotions they show (or not), and so on; but the character is always very boring, direct and gives a general response to things. If they had a character with the writer's own voice, they would be interesting; it's the lack of any voice that's off-putting.

i'm sorry. I can kinda sorta get the message but could you be a little bit clear? I think i know what you're talking about but i'm not sure.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. Here's an example of having no voice (take this example with a grain of salt, since it's only a few lines; voice becomes clearer with more dialogue):

A: "What would you like to do today?"
B: "Let's go to the movies. Any you want to see?"
A: "Yeah, Movie X. That sounded good."
Then we went to see the movie. [insert movie description here]

Basic dialogue; they're just moving from logical point to logical point, and constructing appropriate dialogue. This is not written in their own voice; it's voiceless.

Here's an example which, though it doesn't have it's own voice yet (not enough dialogue and character and such), is headed on the right path:

I yawned and leaned against the pillar, closing my eyes.
A: "This is lame. It's a Saturday afternoon, and we don't have anything to do..."
B: "Well, there's a new movie out yesterday; something about aliens, I think."
A: "Aliens suck. No go."
B: "Huh? Why?"
A: "Because yes."
B: "Why do you never give me an actual reason...?"

I will be the first to acknowledge that my examples aren't the best...but there's (hopefully) a clear difference: the first proceeds from idea to idea without expressing them in the context of a person's habits, thoughts, values, actions, etc. The second includes that in slight doses: we get a value reaction when aliens are mentioned; a reference to a habit A has of not answering questions directly; a possible character point for A, if the writing, once extended, shows that he uses "lame" a lot and complains often...

Even if A's voice is actually the same as the author's (as in: maybe he records himself, asks his friends what his subconscious habits are like, etc.), it's still a character voice. It's not voiceless.

So basically. Super simple dialog is bad. Lengthy lively dialog good. Okay.

[Shoko]

Everyone else seems to have pointed out the cliches already.

Common mistakes? Bad writing, horrible art, using the same licensed music as everyone else, not bothering to change the GUI, not using SFX, not using transitions, and an unspellchecked script.

[Googaboga]

^Unless you're talking from a strictly commercial stand point I have to disagree with those examples ^^;, except the last few. If you are talking commercial you can ignore the explanation as to why I disagree X3.

Anyways, if a project could have high quality/custom everything it most likely would. There are very few amazing artists/writers/musicians/etc who do a shoddy job because they don't care. Or very few people who have talented people offer to do things for them but turns them down because they don't think it matters. And, obviously, there are very few people who have the budget to commission everything.

Meaning that if a project doesn't have a custom soundtrack/amazing art/etc a large portion of the time it's because they don't really have another option (or they are doing it just for practice/experience). Saying that it's a mistake seems wrong in my opinion. After all, if not having it is considered a mistake that tends to imply that basically a professional standard is same the standard they're being held to. Which is discouraging and not very productive. Because again, they most likely didn't have that level of quality/use pre-made assets because they weren't trying hard enough.

That's not to say that free games can do anything and it can't be criticized. All I'm saying is, for example, if someone uses a song that a lot of other projects have used it would be better if people critiqued them on how well they used the song rather than the fact that they used it at all.

[Shoko]

^Unless you're talking from a strictly commercial stand point I have to disagree with those examples ^^;, except the last few. If you are talking commercial you can ignore the explanation as to why I disagree X3.

Anyways, if a project could have high quality/custom everything it most likely would. There are very few amazing artists/writers/musicians/etc who do a shoddy job because they don't care. Or very few people who have talented people offer to do things for them but turns them down because they don't think it matters. And, obviously, there are very few people who have the budget to commission everything.

Meaning that if a project doesn't have a custom soundtrack/amazing art/etc a large portion of the time it's because they don't really have another option (or they are doing it just for practice/experience). Saying that it's a mistake seems wrong in my opinion. After all, if not having it is considered a mistake that tends to imply that basically a professional standard is same the standard they're being held to. Which is discouraging and not very productive. Because again, they most likely didn't have that level of quality/use pre-made assets because they weren't trying hard enough.

That's not to say that free games can do anything and it can't be criticized. All I'm saying is, for example, if someone uses a song that a lot of other projects have used it would be better if people critiqued them on how well they used the song rather than the fact that they used it at all.

I doubt the idea "if they could, they would." Just because you may have access to high-qualities assets/a big budget doesn't mean you can use that well. I'm not saying that they don't care necessarily, but that it looks like they don't care. You can do far more with no budget than what I see most amateur VN-makers utilize.

I didn't say they needed amazing art or a custom soundtrack. You can do a lot with middle of the road art. And there's lots of free music sources out there to download from beyond's kevin macleod's horrendously overused catalog. I consider things that make a visual novel bad to be mistakes, unless something like bad art deliberately enhances the story. And I never said I was holding someone to a professional standard, just a decent one. Things like custom GUI, a not-overused soundtrack, and good writing are just the basics to what I consider good. My professional standard would be the standard Japanese VNs have, which very few EVNs have ever achieved. I'm not going to criticize an indie VN for being indie, just that it didn't do what I think indie VN makers should be capable of. And if someone doesn't try very hard, and I point that out, the only thing being discouraging is the truth. I'd rather see people care about VNs making VNs as opposed to those who don't.

That's not to say that free games can do anything and it can't be criticized. All I'm saying is, for example, if someone uses a song that a lot of other projects have used it would be better if people critiqued them on how well they used the song rather than the fact that they used it at all.

I hear Kevin Macleod songs everywhere. In youtube videos, in student projects, in presentations and definetly other VNs. When someone uses one of his songs that I've heard a thousand times before in different scenarios, it totally disconnects me from what's happening. It reminds me of all the other times when this song was used in those scenarios, forcing me to acknowledge this is a scene with yet another Kevin Macleod track, not just a scene. It's a completely valid criticism.

[Googaboga]

To be clear, my interpretation of what the 'mistake' part of the topic was supposed to be about was inarguable, non-opinion based, and avoidable/feasibly fixable errors. That's why I don't agree because I interpreted it as those being overall incorrect. I'm not saying they're the best things to have or that they shouldn't be critiqued. I'm saying you haven't immediately done something wrong if you have them, like you would if you had a glitch in your code or something.

I doubt the idea "if they could, they would." Just because you may have access to high-qualities assets/a big budget doesn't mean you can use that well. I'm not saying that they don't care necessarily, but that it looks like they don't care. You can do far more with no budget than what I see most amateur VN-makers utilize.

Misusing/poorly managing resources is certainly a mistake, I'm not arguing that. Not having a certain quality of assets isn't a mistake. Quality is, most of the time, intentionally at the it's at level or at a level they didn't want because of mistakes like misuse and such.

If one project was a big group of talented people who could come together to make something amazing but it all fell apart and the end product isn't nearly as good as it could have been and then another group is a couple of people just starting out but doing everything they can and their project turns out as the same quality as the other; only the first of those projects made mistakes. The smaller group simply wasn't in a position to have better quality than what they did. Now, they can still be critiqued for what wasn't great but there is a difference between a real mistake and just not being as experienced/talented as other people.

I didn't say they needed amazing art or a custom soundtrack. You can do a lot with middle of the road art. And there's lots of free music sources out there to download from beyond's kevin macleod's horrendously overused catalog. I consider things that make a visual novel bad to be mistakes, unless something like bad art deliberately enhances the story. And I never said I was holding someone to a professional standard, just a decent one. Things like custom GUI, a not-overused soundtrack, and good writing are just the basics to what I consider good. My professional standard would be the standard Japanese VNs have, which very few EVNs have ever achieved. I'm not going to criticize an indie VN for being indie, just that it didn't do what I think indie VN makers should be capable of.

As I mentioned before, something that can be considered bad isn't generally a mistake itself. It's normally just what they can do or the result of mistakes.

Not to mention that 'bad' is subjective, so it can't really be used it as a bar to decide what's truly incorrect. It's fine if you have personal standards and something is wrong for you, but it's just not wrong overall.

And if someone doesn't try very hard, and I point that out, the only thing being discouraging is the truth. I'd rather see people care about VNs making VNs as opposed to those who don't.

People who didn't try hard weren't part of the topic. If you want to tell people who didn't try hard that they didn't try hard, that's fine. Though I'm not sure how you'll know they didn't try hard. The level of quality is not a very reliable indicator of how hard someone tried. Unless you know what they can do from personal experience or because of past work they've done.

I hear Kevin Macleod songs everywhere. In youtube videos, in student projects, in presentations and definetly other VNs. When someone uses one of his songs that I've heard a thousand times before in different scenarios, it totally disconnects me from what's happening. It reminds me of all the other times when this song was used in those scenarios, forcing me to acknowledge this is a scene with yet another Kevin Macleod track, not just a scene. It's a completely valid criticism.

If you are giving an opinion on a game you're definitely free to explain that you really don't like hearing the same song, but it's not a factual error. If your choice is between a less fitting but less common song and a more fitting but often used song there is no official correct answer.

If you're saying that not putting in much effort to find pre-made songs is a mistake, then that's a very valid point. But 'using the same licensed music as everyone else' is still a problem that's based on opinion/personal experience rather than what's right and not right.

[Shoko]

To be clear, my interpretation of what the 'mistake' part of the topic was supposed to be about was inarguable, non-opinion based, and avoidable/feasibly fixable errors. That's why I don't agree because I interpreted it as those being overall incorrect. I'm not saying they're the best things to have or that they shouldn't be critiqued. I'm saying you haven't immediately done something wrong if you have them, like you would if you had a glitch in your code or something.

Most things people consider mistakes are usually subjective (i.e http://www.scriptmag.com/features/scree ... cene-sucks). Cliches are the same. You probably should've used 'technical mistake' if you didn't want people to understand it the way it's used in criticism all the time.

Not to mention that 'bad' is subjective, so it can't really be used it as a bar to decide what's truly incorrect. It's fine if you have personal standards and something is wrong for you, but it's just not wrong overall.

You could say that about virtually anything, but that doesn't mean we still don't make standards that generally indicate whether a work is good or bad. You can't really argue for bad writing, bad art, annoying music and no GUI for their own sakes for example.

And if someone doesn't try very hard, and I point that out, the only thing being discouraging is the truth. I'd rather see people care about VNs making VNs as opposed to those who don't.

People who didn't try hard weren't part of the topic. If you want to tell people who didn't try hard that they didn't try hard, that's fine. Though I'm not sure how you'll know they didn't try hard. The level of quality is not a very reliable indicator of how hard someone tried. Unless you know what they can do from personal experience or because of past work they've done.

I didn't mean I was actually saying "You didn't try hard." You said that it was discouraging to hold hobbyists to a 'professional' standard, which I considered decent art. If I point out someone's art is bad against that standard, them feeling discouraged for whatever reason (such as realizing they didn't work hard enough on the art), that was only because they accepted my criticism and judged themselves for it. Hopefully through that process better art and artists are made.

I hear Kevin Macleod songs everywhere. In youtube videos, in student projects, in presentations and definetly other VNs. When someone uses one of his songs that I've heard a thousand times before in different scenarios, it totally disconnects me from what's happening. It reminds me of all the other times when this song was used in those scenarios, forcing me to acknowledge this is a scene with yet another Kevin Macleod track, not just a scene. It's a completely valid criticism.

If you are giving an opinion on a game you're definitely free to explain that you really don't like hearing the same song, but it's not a factual error. If your choice is between a less fitting but less common song and a more fitting but often used song there is no official correct answer.

Sure, but there will be plenty of people who tell you made the wrong choice if you choose the overused one. That it was a mistake to make that choice.

If you're saying that not putting in much effort to find pre-made songs is a mistake, then that's a very valid point. But 'using the same licensed music as everyone else' is still a problem that's based on opinion/personal experience rather than what's right and not right.

Which brings me to the point again that what most people consider mistakes are subjective. Technical mistakes are not, general mistakes are.

[Googaboga]

The word 'mistake' does not immediately mean subjective. So I could say that you probably should have said 'these are mistakes in my opinion' to avoid confusion in this topic. But what does it matter? Neither of us did clarify originally because, I'm guessing, neither of us assumed we needed to. Trying to decide which assumption about the use of the word is the better assumption is a moot point.

And because we are/were talking about different things, there's no reason to defend sides anymore. The only reason I did last time was because, at the time, I wasn't positive you did mean it as subjective only. I thought that might be the case so I decided to explain my assumptions. All that needs to be said now is that, yes, we were talking about different things. Which means, neither of are responses are relevant to what the other was talking about.

Sorry about getting into a pointless disagreement. No harm done?

[Rozume]

I think it's counterproductive to avoid cliches. Cliches are everywhere, and if you try to completely avoid them you'll find yourself in a dead end. In fact, by trying to avoid cliches you might run into the things you've been trying to avoid.

Instead of avoiding cliches completely, try twisting them around and making them into something different. That's how you make a trite idea seem fresh and interesting.

Everyone will have their opinion on the matter, so do what feels right and natural for you.

I hope this helps!

[Chocopyro]

I think it's counterproductive to avoid cliches. Cliches are everywhere, and if you try to completely avoid them you'll find yourself in a dead end. In fact, by trying to avoid cliches you might run into the things you've been trying to avoid.

Instead of avoiding cliches completely, try twisting them around and making them into something different. That's how you make a trite idea seem fresh and interesting.

Everyone will have their opinion on the matter, so do what feels right and natural for you.

I hope this helps!

I couldn't agree more.

[n0tgin]

Well, cliches are basically tropes which are used in such a typical way that it's predictable and boring.
Tropes are nice, cliches are not. I don't think I've seen enough cliches to talk about VNs, I've seen tropes though. These aren't exactly tropes, just things I find common and dislike in stories:

New kid on the block
OK I don't hate this trope. I just dislike it when the new kid knows literally NOTHING about their new environment and does NOTHING to fix that. I feel like this is often true in stories with a school setting. I mean, gossiping is something that people actually do in social environments, you're bound to hear it whether you like it or not. Also, why don't people ever ask about the place they're new to??? Asking makes things a lot easier. Ask. See that shady kid everyone keeps gossiping about and telling you to stay away from?? Ask.

Soft-spoken = shy
No. Some people are perfectly confident, they just choose to speak like that because that's how they were taught to speak. Some are more reserved by choice, please stop associating speaking sensibly and with manners and delicacy as a thing that only shy people do.

Rude/overbearing tomboy who is into sports 'n' video games
Being into sports/video games/'guy stuff' (which is ridiculous anyway because it's the 21st century, why is doing these things still making you a 'tomboy'?) does not equal the fact that you have the manners and tact of a 7 year old.

Best friend characters to the heroine who disappear after like 2 lines in the game
As soon as the romance route kicks in, it's like, your friends disappear? Where have they gone? Have they been sucked into the black hole of non-romantic plot lines? I find it weird that when the romance starts, your friends don't even appear anymore, like they don't matter as much to the protagonist as the love interest is. I'm not saying I expect much if it's a romance VN, but would a call asking if the protag is OK or asking where they've been be too much?