Now, question the first, in terms of writing I'm somewhere in between a pantser and a planner. I generally pants the first, initial concept of a project, and follow that thread until I feel like I'm reaching the end of what made that initial idea flow, and then use that first pantsed part to build up a more traditional plan. I've already done some pantsing, getting the feel for the characters and setting, and am starting to think about how I'll plan the story. This leads to my question as to how you guys write your stories? Not the creative aspect, but, how do you organize it? Is there a way of formatting it that will make the coding easier later on? Or are you better off writing and then coding in stages rather than finishing the writing completely first? I was thinking of using the table of contents function in word to keep things organized and in one document, but that's still kinda clunky, are there any tricks or tools you use to organize things? I've got a pretty visual brain, so making a chart with all possible routes/variations is helpful, and having one on my computer that I can edit more easily would be better still.
Question the second, how big of a project would you recommend a newbie like me tackle? I know that's an ambiguous question, but, I know me, my ideas tend to snowball, and so do my projects once I get stuck in. I know that logistically, the smaller the project, the smaller the potential problems, but, I've barely started writing and I'm already thinking of mechanics and things that would make the project better, but I have absolutely no experience beyond the renpy quick tutorial. I suppose what I'm really asking is, what is more complicated than it seems? Are there things you can do in visual novel games, that I should hold back on until I have more experience? How big is too big for a va game?
Thanks for reading this novel of a forum post, thanks in advance for all your advice
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