Today's crazy idea: "The gutter -- can it work in visual novels?" Long post is really long.
Sorry.
First, it's important to understand what a "gutter" is. In this article on Wikibooks --
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Creative_Writing/Comics -- there's a summary of Scott McCloud's _Understanding Comics_, including his definition of 'the gutter' in comic book terms. Scroll down to the Chapter 3 part to read it.
According to the author, comics would not be the same if there were no gaps between panels. McCloud is also equating breaks between panels with the split-second gaps that divide individual frames of any film, TV show, or animation. (Elsewhere in the book, he states that if you break down filmed media into frames, it would be like reading a slow-paced comic.)
So how does this apply to VNs? Well, let's think about what users see and experience in visual novels:
Typical VN: there is a still image, with dialogue or narration below it. There is rarely any animation. In a pro VN, the dialogue is spoken until the player pushes a button.
Words-over-image style VN: in Kana Little Sister and quite a few of the doujin games that were fan translated by the Insani groups, dialogue and/or narration appear on top of the still image.
In both of these cases, the "frame" is defined as a brief segment of dialogue/narration. When the user presses return (or a mouse click, or a controller button), the next frame appears. In most VNs, the picture on screen doesn't *often* change from one frame to the next. A moment goes by, and nothing changes. To use another McCloud term, this would be a moment-to-moment transition. Changes within a single scene are often fairly insignificant -- a person's pose will switch, or a new character will leave/enter the scene.
The pictures in a VN will almost always change from scene to scene. And to use another term from _Understanding Comics_, they would be scene-to-scene transitions.
Okay, here's the point of all this... a visual novel in which the on screen characters don't move or react is kind of like a comic in which all the characters stay in place and talk. Yes, I know it might take a lot of time and effort to include plausible movement from frame to frame. But if it makes the experience more appealing, then maybe it'd be worth it.
It might be a good idea for a VN to include the following:
1. More uses for "gutters" between frames of a visual novel. I don't know of many VNs which have one illustration per frame. I wouldn't mind seeing more. The characters and scenes don't need to change drastically from moment to moment, especially if not much is happening on screen. In fact, they honestly shouldn't emote so much that it becomes annoying. But it would be interesting to see a VN in which the characters are not just standing around doing nothing during scenes.
2. More of the frame-to-frame transitions mentioned in _Understanding Comics_. These can include...
2a. Action-to-action. Important in a story where quite a bit is happening. Combat could be shown in the same way that it is described.
2b. Subject-to-subject. In the same scene, showing one character and then the next. If the main character is holding a dialogue with two or more people, this would be quite useful.
2c. Aspect-to-aspect. Basically, a "wandering eye" perspective. As if the main character or camera is examining a scene, or merely looking here, there, and everywhere. McCloud noted that this is relatively rare in comics written in English. And to be honest, I haven't noticed many aspect-to-aspect transitions in the manga I've read, but maybe that's just genre tendencies...
2d. Non-Sequitur. This makes sense mostly in stories that aren't supposed to make sense. (Whoa.) For example, if Panda Samurai were a little more wacky than it already is, then the writer could justify something completely out of place, like making the head of Abraham Lincoln appear.
...So yeah, it could help expand the world of VNs if characters and backgrounds gradually change through the course of a scene, so that there's a natural progression, like in quality comics and movies. And it might not hurt if there's more transitions than just "a moment goes by" and "in the next scene."
Whattaya think?
Seems like it has room for equal fun and drama, though it sounds like it should be somewhat light-hearted... but maybe that's just me :3
