Lemma Soft Forums

Hey everyone~ Thanks for taking the time to read this!
What writing software do you all use to write your scripts for visual novels?
I normally use word, but I'm dealing with a very choice-heavy game and it gets really confusing to keep all the branches in check, even when I use the bookmark + hyperlink feature.
Does anyone have any programmes that they use that you would recommend?
Thanks again!

I personally just use google docs, with a lot of bookmarks, links, spreading things out across multiple documents, and leaving myself a lot of notes. But you might also try using twine, which I've had some fun with in the past. It's actually an engine for text-based interactive fiction, and it's pretty easy to learn how it works and set up your writing in it with a bunch of branches and variables. Here's what one little game I made for my friends once looks like in the editor, for example:

I use OneNote, since it syncs across multiple devices and you can arrange "pages" in a hierarchical way. But I've also been looking for a better solution.

I've been thinking about trying Scrivener. But at least in terms of keeping track of multiple branches, I kind of wonder if the best solution might not just be a physical corkboard or whiteboard.

@parttimerstorier:
Oh, twine! I had a look at it before because someone recommended it on Reddit and twiddled around with it for a bit but it was a little too confusing for me (and iirc there wasn't stuff like highlights, tables etc available). Thanks for the recommendation tho!

@ghostclown:
I tried one note for a bit as well but the customisations for the table designs etc etc isn't as fanciful as word's (plus word's webpage layout is actually almost like one note in a way, and you can use the bookmark and hyperlink feature to jump to another part of the document so that's handy e.g. "jump part 2", you could add a hyperlink to part 2 to jump to another part of word that has the part 2 script in it). It's handy for most visual novels but unfortunately that's not quite what I'm looking for either because the one that I'm making at the moment has something like 30 different choices all at once with interlocking dialogue and diverging then remerging routes.
I've never tried scrivener, might give it a shot. Thanks!!

If you're going to use Scrivener and you're on a Windows machine, I recommend grabbing the beta version of Scrivener 3. The beta version will expire soon, but you can just treat it as a demo and a better way of doing it than the actual demo they offer. It's outdated in a lot of ways; the dealbreaker for me was that it looks like absolute garbage on a high DPI monitor.

If you're on a Mac, you can just get a regular demo of Scrivener 3.

Actually, if anybody has any good Linux recs, it would be nice to write more on my Linux machine.

@ghostclown:
Thanks for the tips!!!

I like Scrivener a lot. It is such a helpful tool to keep your notes on the various characters, background lore, key locations, and I like that the chapters are handled as cards and can be easily shifted around when you want to adjust the pacing of your story.

I use the tabletop version of Drawio on Diagrams.net. It is free too.

Thanks everyone for the recommendations!

Late to the party, but those who are interesteed in a free alternative to Scrivener, you could try Manuskript. It's anopen source program with a similar structure, although still in development so there can be hiccups.

there are three things that I absolutely use: A) Manuskript, an open source, free to use application which can help you arrange your content in a neat manner, B) eduhelphub, a professional editing service, C) grammarly for better sentence constructions. A combination of these three is an absolute lifesaver, imo.

I imagine you’re probably not looking for suggestions anymore, but I didn’t see what I use mentioned so I thought I’d just add it for anyone else browsing these sort of threads.

For planning/plotting I use Notion. It used to have a limit on the amount of ‘lines’ you could write on the free personal plan, but last year they removed that and now you can write as much as you like even on the free plan! I like it because you can make wikis, or normal documents; you can put pages within pages, link to other pages, add tags and categories, all that good stuff that makes navigating a visual novel with branching paths so much easier.

With writing the actual script, I do it in a spreadsheet. It’s easier to keep track of it line by line and make sure each line isn’t too long and all that in a spreadsheet than a normal word document or equivalent.

I've been flipflopping what tools I use trying to find one that fits my workflow the best. Now I use several:

I use Notion to create virtual wikis for my projects where I write down ideas in a scratchpad, collect bookmarks of inspiration and track progress (you can create kanban boards and tables to track things within Notion).
However, for the scriptwriting I use Google Docs and link these within the Notion wiki, as Notion can be quite slow! (plus there's no offline mode). I like how documents and spreadsheets created in Google Drive don't count towards your free storage limit.

I like the concept of Scrivener and it's great how you can customise its workflow to suit you (it's like a virtual ringbinder!). I'd use it but don't feel confident in investing money into a piece of software where the Windows version lags considerably behind the Mac one in terms of development - version 3 has been out for Mac for a few years; Windows version 3 has been in beta for at least over a year!

Thanks everyone for the recommendations!! I appreciate it.

I like how documents and spreadsheets created in Google Drive don't count towards your free storage limit.

Oh wow I never knew this, that would be really helpful!

AsHLeX wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:11 am Thanks everyone for the recommendations!! I appreciate it.

I like how documents and spreadsheets created in Google Drive don't count towards your free storage limit.

Oh wow I never knew this, that would be really helpful!

Looks like they're scrapping that in June. Bummer