Possibilities for Innovative and

Unique Writing in Visual Novels

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Considering there aren't many professional writers in the visual novel writing
field nor any actual literary tradition, the Western Visual Novel scene finds
itself in need of stories with as much impact as the Japanese titles
Steins;Gate, Clannad and Fate/Stay Night - which have gained adaptations to
other media as well as great reception, sales-wise included. This is not to say
the West hasn't produced great titles such as Katawa Shoujo (my absolute
favorite visual novel), Cinders and Long Live the Queen, but we still lack titles
capable of interacting and affecting other media.

It may take a certain cultural approach and healthy business practices to

consolidate an industry, even moreso if we're talking about a niche genre in
games. However, we must also study the intricacies of the medium in order to
create diversity in both form and content. As visual novels are all about story
and said story is told as a novel, the most immediate question is: does good
writing in literature equal good writing in VNs?

I figured I'd raise some points about how writing in visual novels can be more
effective, taking advantage of the medium and the kind of experience that it
is. After all, the notion that "visual novels are all about art and text with music
mixed in" is thrown around almost nonchalantly, but what does this
actually mean for the writer? How does the interaction between art,
text and sound affect the writing?

Now, I'm going to talk about the most basic interactions between a reader and
a book, a player and a game. Pardon me in advance for saying things that will
make you go "well, duh!", but the intention is to deconstruct our relationship
with the medium to a level from where we can build something entirely new.

Character x Narrator

I don't intend to encompass all kinds of novels in this analysis. For the
purposes of this article, consider the most popular kind of narrative-driven
novels, the best-sellers.

In novels, the story happened. In visual novels, the story is happening. The
verb tense used in the prose doesn't change that, but, rather, the fact that
most books use past tense and most visual novels use present tense probably
comes from how writers noticed the action, in a visual novel, is an action, not
an impression. No matter how detached and descriptive a narrator is in a
book, you'll always see the impression of an event, whereas VNs show
events on a screen, much like movies. This is innate to the presentation.
If you promote the visual experience to the same status as the text, you bring
stories to the present. Illustration in books comes with a hidden "kinda like
this" tag, almost an afterthought. In visual novels, however, they are part
what is going on, even if it's just a sequence of static pictures.
This probably makes writing in VNs closer to screenwriting (which,
unsurprisingly, are also written in the present tense) than one might think.
Indeed, the notion that events are scripted instead
of described places a lot more emphasis on characters than on
narrators - even in first person narratives, which means the reader has
more freedom, so to speak, to evaluate what is going on by themselves.

What this means for the writer: Literature loves their unreliable
narrators as a modernist feature. In visual novels, however, the narrator is
always unreliable because the reader always has other points of reference.
To be perfectly practical, it doesn't matter whether a character thinks another
character is beautiful: we can judge that by ourselves because we can see
them. On addition, action has the upper hand against impression: in
novels, speech is often followed by a statement about the situation, who said
it or what was the impact of said speech in the action's flow. This is
unnecessary in VNs - unwelcome, even - due to the fact that we already know
who said what. In other words - while in a novel the narrator
aggregates the dialogue to create a flow, in a VN the dialogue is the
flow.

How a writer can take advantage of this: Describe things that

arenot happening on the screen in order to induce confusion on the reader;
subtext can be delivered without the need of any internal monologues as the
situations carry themselves forward, dramatically speaking; speaking of
internal monologues, these can be delivered while something else is
happening. On screen, we see the animation of a character speaking and
trying to get your attention, but the text reads the thoughts of the protagonist
towards his favourite bubblegum flavours; character non-verbal interaction
can be shown on one level, but talked about on another level, leaving space
for less physical descriptions and more feelings towards them; you can turn
impressions into actions like in comic books by materializing a particular
quirk of a character or a special expression without repeating yourself, thus
allowing for more fluid characterisation.
Textbox x Screen

In the last point I talked a little bit about the duality of textbox and screen,
but let's expand that. A book is, more often than not, a series of textboxes the
size of pages. A movie is, more often than not, a series of screens that last for
one frame each. Visual novels are something in between, which means both
dispute your attention. Generally speaking, you can't look at an element
on screen and read at the same time, so either you end up flickering your eyes
between one and the other or you finish reading and then pay attention to
what's on screen.

The two most common textbox formats are ADV (in which the box occupies
only a part of the screen; see Katawa Shoujo, Clannad, Ever17) and NVL (in
which the textbox fills almost the whole screen or the whole screen; see
Fate/Stay Night, Tsukihime, Kira Kira). Be aware of how each approach
deals with your attention: ADV gives primacy to the screen and NVL steals
this primacy to the textbox. This is obvious, but think about the effects of
switching back and forth. This is important because it's in full control of
the visual novel and can anticipate moments of climax, resolution, bursts of
surprise or deep thought - in fact, the effect of break is created
regardless of the content.

The human eye is automatically drawn to movement and, for that reason, not
displaying the text in a huge chunk of text is more interesting.
However, consider the possibility of what you can't read being just
as important as what you can read. Intentionally drawing a reader's
attention to a specific point on screen and away from something else
constitutes a great part of the experience. Take the player out of control
of his own reading, challenging them to gather the information
they want. This means that a writer can make a character speak so fast the
protagonist and the reader can't understand it, pretty much making the
interaction matter to both on the same level and putting them on the same
shoes by force.

What this means for the writer: Text is form as much as it's content.
There is a certain character in Fate/Stay Night that speaks really strange in
his first appearance and this is shown both by voice and by text. The eerie
impression, then, comes from both angles and make him a truly terrifying
character. So the writer must pay attention to the fact that what's written may
be the most important, but where it's written, for how long and how much is
written are important factors to be considered and played with, so as to catch
the player's attention all the time and to whatever you want.

How a writer can take advantage of this (aka cheats & tricks): You
can animate text or blend it to the background. Cave! Cave! Deus Videt
Episode 0 does a great job in using text as a graphical element and so should
you. After all, your prose may be enhanced by the gorgeous visuals, but are
also competing with them for the reader's attention at any given time.
Knowing this, articulate strategies with your art department to always have
full control and knowledge of where the player is looking at. Or, at the very
least, a pretty good guess. This way, you can, for example, display text outside
the customary box and for only a fraction of seconds, engaging the player in
active reading. This is particularly effective in mystery and horror visual
novels.

Rhythm
Text in visual novels has a certain flow, a certain variation of expectancy and
information, bait and reward. Of course, all text does, not only fictional. It's a
basic element of style in writing. However, there is a very interesting catch in
visual novels that must be addressed: the flow belongs to the writer.

So, what, isn't it the also case with literary prose? Turns out it isn't. Rhythm
and flow in literature belong to the reader. Simply put, they decide the
speed, what to anticipate and how to balance the search for information with
playing along the normal read order. If one wants, one can read the last page
of a book before anything else simply because it's their way to do things. This
is extremely important because any attempt at style is an attempt to change
how the player reads. In visual novels, this can be enforced. However, it is
also a responsibility.

This can go as far as reading speed. Sure, it can be adjusted in the settings
panel, but the difference between one word and the next basically can't. Once
again, it's the perfect opportunity for a writer to control or predict the habits
of the reader for maximum emotional impact. On the other hand, the writer
must ensure that one piece of text leads to the next seamlessly,
prioritizing text dynamics over proper grammar. The length of each
paragraph and each line has to be measured according to the information on
screen and how much you want the reader to read all of it. And, in the case
of having to break a sentence down, you have to choose where to
break it down not according to grammatical rules, but according to
what makes reading flow better.
Consider the following excerpt from a hypothetical Huniepop fanfiction I'm
totally not writing:

I make a bet with myself - if she's got red eyes, folded arms and glares at
me, I'll treat myself to two slices of pie later. I deserve that much if I have
to deal with angry Audrey, which is always. I open the door, only to find
out I'll probably need the whole pie though.

It would be more correct to either keep it all in one box or break it after
"which is always". However, any piece of information could come after that -
which pie Nikki prefers, how annoying Audrey is when she's angry etc., so it's
better to purposefully break it down after "I open the door,", comma
included, because it gives a clear understanding that the next box will reveal
what Audrey is like today, thus anticipating the next chunk of text. This is
taking advantage of how textboxes work, serving information in small doses
meaningfully instead of simply slicing your prose as if it was cheese.

What this means for the writer: It means segmentation is an

intrinsic part of visual novel prose. Since the reader will be doing an
awful lot of clicking anyway, it's in the writer's best interest to make
meaningful use of it - and that means making them want to click instead of
seeing it as a nuisance or a need. Make auto-read useless.

How a writer can take advantage of this (aka cheats & tricks): You
can - no, you must break down text in a certain point that anticipates the next
piece of information; you can see your prose as music lyrics, having an innate
rhythm that no one can bend. It might be nice to study rap dynamics and flow
in order to better understand how to deliver the right line at the right
moment, singling it out. Metrics are in your favour too, because they work in
this environment. Do think about how much control you'll have over what
and when the reader/player will be reading your prose.