Best Storytelling Perspective?

[Haberdashery Haven]

For context, I'm working on a mostly text-based, female protagonist HTML game. I've been writing it in first person, but I run into issues where I still want to have scenes without the protagonist always being present. It feels weird to have her narrating a scene that she's not in, since obviously she wouldn't know what was happening...yet it also seems like it would be weird to switch to a different perspective, since she's the one narrating the story. Hopefully I'm making sense.

I'm wondering if people have thoughts on what you tend to enjoy the most...first person? Third person? Something else?

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

First person.
Mc should tell the story from his/her perspective, and the other characters from their own.
I also don't actually like switching to other characters, preferring more to always stay with the main character.
I think switching, especially switching often, may screw up the immersion. Especially if you really managed to 'get into' the character.
But i get the necessity, if you want to have scenes without mc present.

 

[Gwedelino]

I would say that it greatly depends of yourself and how you prefer to write.

I prefer third person because this is how I tend to write my stories.

This is just my point of view, but I also think that games using a third person point of view are usually better written.

It's possibly because I know I won't have to read a lot of internal monologues.

 

[Jinsoyun]

Just as a reader:
+1 to writing the way that makes you comfortable. Readers can feel it when the writer is out of their field and something is off.

Also, there is a reason why a lot of comic books and visual novels have a "meanwhile" section, when the narration switches focus from the protagonist to show what the villain is up to. As long as it is well separated and marked, it should not be a problem for most readers.

But if you want to keep your protagonist as narrator and the story makes it plausible, there is the option to use something like "later i found out" and tell the scene in past tense. It's a bit trickier, but it is a useful technique.

 

[Deleted member 5410619]

Personaly i dont like knowing stuff my character doesnt know.

But if you have to add it.
Make it clear(For example a different color dialog and a narrator going: Meanwhile at the evil male base.)

Alternativly:
Add an option that let people follow other people perspective.
I think there is a game here on f95zone but i can not remember the name.
Where you have the same story shown from 4 persective.
The chuck.
The mother.
The daughter.
And the playboy.
I thought it was a nice way to play a game but the story was bad so i never got far.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

I think using a "meanwhile" section would work fine for scenes where the MC is not present at all. The complication I ran into last night was a scene with 4 characters, where the MC gets upset and leaves the room. I want to show the conversation between the other 3 characters after she's gone...seems kind of weird to say "meanwhile..." when she literally just left the room, and it's only going to be a minute before her fiance follows after her.

I don't know...the answer might be to just not write scenes like that.

I toyed with the idea of using dual protagonists, but this is my first time doing anything like this and I'm not sure I want to take on that level of complication.

 

[woody554]

I use first perspective, but I cheat by having mc eavesdropping on the girls and reading their diaries to show their thoughts. for example a cool & calm milf might seem unresponsive to 'accidentally' seeing your big dick, but later you eavesdrop on her while she's confessing to her friend "Oh God. It's so fucking BIG!"

other than that I only show images without any text. I never write out the thoughts of anyone but mc.

 

[Ophanim]

I do feel like third person is probably best if you yourself are unsure, just because it's so flexible, although second does have its charm for a certain brand of self-insert porn game. You've identified one of the core limitations of first person, and pretty much the reason most novels are told in third person, which is that most plots require moments where you step outside of the MC for five goddamn seconds in order to develop other characters

First person works primarily for heavily personal, internal character developmenty psychological stuff where the character's mentality and perspective on the world is so important to the narrative that it takes front and center by effectively becoming the narrative. You could argue that, from this perspective, first person is when a single character vores the entire narrative structure.

Second person is like First, only you have no 4th wall, and it tends to make the entire story feel like a CYOA gamebook to people over a certain age, or just like a really awkward roleplay to others. This is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it can be very immersive by means of self-insertion... on the other hand, it can be powerfully alienating for the same reason. It works so long as your assumptions about reality as a writer, and the reader's assumptions about reality, align. Otherwise, it's just first person with an extra cognitive step, where 'You' in the story is their own separate character from 'You' and... it kind of falls apart.

Third person is the most flexible, I think, in that it can either be tied to a one character at a time (third person limited) or be a floating perspective that may have insight on anyone present in the story, and even 4th-wall-breaking knowledge of the story scenario as a whole (third person omniscient). Limited works largely like first person, but with the option to follow someone else for a bit, like when GRRM changes character every chapter. Omniscient makes developing the villain of a fantasy story (A famous problem for doorstopper fantasy books), for example, dead simple. Because you can literally just give insight on what they're doing whenever it would be spicy to know that their plot is moving along... but also can at worst put you outside anyone's perspective and give you no insight on any of them beyond the surface level.

Honestly though, whichever one does what you want it to, that you can also write.

 

[Nagozo]

I understand your hesitation to switch perspectives, and I have no idea if it'd be a stylistic misstep that people would hate you for, but I feel it could be a useful tool to mark when you're switching to characters that aren't your protagonist. If those sections are marked well it could probably work, especially since you're working on a game instead of a novel.

Alternatively, you could stick to your first person perspective and have other characters relay the information to your protagonist (e.g. in later conversations). That allows you to filter & colour their impressions of the events, keeping in line with the limited viewpoint.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

I understand your hesitation to switch perspectives, and I have no idea if it'd be a stylistic misstep that people would hate you for, but I feel it could be a useful tool to mark when you're switching to characters that aren't your protagonist. If those sections are marked well it could probably work, especially since you're working on a game instead of a novel.

Yeah, I do want to make sure not to agonize over this too much. Otherwise it just turns into another excuse to procrastinate, and I've got plenty of those already. It's not a piece of serious literature, it's just a porn game that hardly anyone will ever read.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

It's not a piece of serious literature, it's just a porn game that hardly anyone will ever read.

Doesn't mean porn can't be serious my guy.
It all depends on you. If you ain't willing to dish the effort your game will reflect that, porn or no porn.

 

[Y0GG]

So if you're writing fetishes for your focus audience. I find that 2nd person perspective really gets the reader/player into the game since the actions are ascribed to the reader.

It is a bit trickier to write since most fiction is written in 1st or 3rd. So you don't have a lot literature to reference.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

Doesn't mean porn can't be serious my guy.
It all depends on you. If you ain't willing to dish the effort your game will reflect that, porn or no porn.

You're right of course, and I do want it to be good. I just don't want to get caught up on every small detail at the expense of making progress overall.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

So if you're writing fetishes for your focus audience. I find that 2nd person perspective really gets the reader/player into the game since the actions are ascribed to the reader.

I agree with this, and I've played examples where I thought it was done well. In my case though, I have a female protagonist for what I expect to be a mostly male audience, so I don't think most players will be self-inserting in that way.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

You're right of course, and I do want it to be good. I just don't want to get caught up on every small detail at the expense of making progress overall.

Up to you of course, but personally i believe that many small details can have rather big effect when they accumulate.
But you can work on them later, too.

 

[OldMoonSong]

Personaly i dont like knowing stuff my character doesnt know.

This is one of my pet peeves as well.

It's annoying to switch from first person POV, immersed as the character, to third person in some far-away scene with other characters without the MC because "there's some plot point the **player** needs to witness in order to drive the narrative forward but the MC isn't allowed to know yet". Annoying but it's mostly just a storytelling shortcut.

For me, the worst pattern is first person perspective with random interjectuons of the thoughts of other characters. These are reeeaallly egregious offenses to the principles of writing. Maybe it grinds my gears so bad because--unlike a writer taking a shortcut in narrative delivery by changing perspective to cover critical information tbrough remote scenes--these "mind-reading" interjections are usually done without the author even realizing they're breaking the perspective and immersion.

 

[MissFortune]

Some far-away scene with other characters without the MC because "there's some plot point the **player** needs to witness in order to drive the narrative forward but the MC isn't allowed to know yet". Annoying but it's mostly just a storytelling shortcut.

It's hardly a shortcut, though (it's actually harder to write this way). You can't just drop a player into a story-critical moment with zero foreshadowing, and you can't foreshadow in first person if the player character isn't there or related to the events in that moment. I mean, anything marginally complex has to do it this way unless you want a bunch of "how the fuck did that happen?" from players/viewers. That's why most competently written shows/movies do it this way.

AVNs are one of the few mediums where typical fiction writing standards are bent to fulfill self-insertion.

 

[Wankyudo]

It's hardly a shortcut, though (it's actually harder to write this way). You can't just drop a player into a story-critical moment with zero foreshadowing, and you can't foreshadow in first person if the player character isn't there or related to the events in that moment. I mean, anything marginally complex has to do it this way unless you want a bunch of "how the fuck did that happen?" from players/viewers. That's why most competently written shows/movies do it this way.

AVNs are one of the few mediums where typical fiction writing standards are bent to fulfill self-insertion.

Agreed 100%

Ain't nobody wants an M. Night Shyamalan game where you get "twists," sprung on you with zero context of anything going on so you're left scratching your head in confusion. Those "meanwhiles," aren't storytelling shortcuts. They are world-building necessities.

 

[Eagle1900]

Up to you of course, but personally i believe that many small details can have rather big effect when they accumulate.
But you can work on them later, too.

I completely agree with you... the little details make the difference more often than not. if instead of curing them you let them go, the whole project will come out haphazard and therefore suboptimal. if you have to do something, better do it perfectly

 

[woody554]

you can't foreshadow in first person if the player character isn't there or related to the events in that moment.

of course you can. this is what chekhov's gun is all about. this is what foreshadowing in general is all about.