Others Game concept \ Writing issue

[Syploore]

Hi all. I'm currently working on the script for my VN and have run into a few creative challenges. Maybe someone has experienced something similar and can give me some advice. I have a complete picture in my head of what the game should look like, what should be in it and how to properly implement it. I have a map of the first chapter and I know how to get there. The only problem is the dialogue writing.

Every time I sit down to write dialogues, I am filled with enthusiasm and motivation, I write them and as I write, I really like my dialogues, jokes, informativeness and the rest. But! After a day or two, when I go back to the dialogues and reread what I've written, I start redoing everything. I don't like my dialogues anymore, they seem stupid and hard to believe. The jokes become unfunny, and instead of continuing to write dialogue to advance the story, I take the time to redo everything I've written before. And so every time.

Perhaps the reason is my lack of confidence and inexperience in this. I want to know if there are developers who have also experienced this and maybe someone can give me some good advice.

P.S I'm sorry for the bad English, it's my second language and I don't know it well enough.

 

[Winterfire]

Read books, fan fictions, and so on. You will notice that the dialogues feel natural, while they are not something that you'd normally find in real life, yet they feel familiar enough. That's what you should aim at.

Other than that, jokes may be too much (if your game is full of it, then it becomes annoying), no one wants to hear daddy jokes every sentence or so. Of course, a character might have such a personality, then it would be fine, which brings me to the next point... Write a detailed character sheet of your character.

Once you have a clear view of each character's personality, what they like and dislike, the relationship they have with the other character they are speaking to and so on, you can imagine easily how their conversation goes on each topic, and how one would speak differently than the other.
An old teacher would be more strict and professional, a younger one would be easy going and easy to speak with, a dwarf inkeeper in a fantasy setting would be hard to read.

 

[Syploore]

Read books, fan fictions, and so on. You will notice that the dialogues feel natural, while they are not something that you'd normally find in real life, yet they feel familiar enough. That's what you should aim at.

Other than that, jokes may be too much (if your game is full of it, then it becomes annoying), no one wants to hear daddy jokes every sentence or so. Of course, a character might have such a personality, then it would be fine, which brings me to the next point... Write a detailed character sheet of your character.

Once you have a clear view of each character's personality, what they like and dislike, the relationship they have with the other character they are speaking to and so on, you can imagine easily how their conversation goes on each topic, and how one would speak differently than the other.
An old teacher would be more strict and professional, a younger one would be easy going and easy to speak with, a dwarf inkeeper in a fantasy setting would be hard to read.

Thank u for u quick response and for advice.

 

[fyl3toys]

Also after you written the dialogue put it away. Then next time don't go back to review it just write different dialogue for the same scene. Then put that away and go back later to compare them. See what you like and what you don't.

Also read the dialogue out loud. If you can speak it and it doesnt sound dumb to you you're heading in the right direction.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I want to know if there are developers who have also experienced this and maybe someone can give me some good advice.

Every single ones of them. Even professional writers that sell tons of books still experience feeling this time to time.


With time and experience, you'll learn how to do most of this in one go, but for start it's better to split it step by step. So, what you need first is to know how the scene insert in your story, this will give you the feeling of the scene, and so its tone. By example, you don't write a filler scene like you write a romance one. And you don't write the said filler scene in the same way, depending if it will be followed by a sex scene or a scene full of mystery.

Then, you write the full dialogs, without caring if it feel right or not. It's your draft, it's only role is to tell you what will be said during the scene.
Once it's done, you proceed character by character. Each one have its own personality, its own motive and goal, this mean that each one have also its own way to say something.

By example the same dialog between MC and a girl secretly in love with him:
[Note: It's still raw dialogs, they are an example of the difference between the two more than effectively thought dialogs]

- Firstly the shy princess:
MC "But, I'm just a guy like any other you know. I have nothing special."
girl "Don't say this, you're smart, and also handsome... I'm sure that all girls are secretly in love with you. How could they not ?"
MC "Oh, you think I'm handsome ?"
girl [blushing] "Hihihi..."

- Secondly the independent rebel:
MC "But, I'm just a guy like any other you know. I have nothing special."
girl "Yeah, of course. Mister smart and handsome play the normal card. And you believe someone will believe you ?"
MC "Oh, you think I'm handsome ?"
girl "In my dream I think it. In *your* dream, I meant in *your* dream !"

- Thirdly the motherly figure:
MC "But, I'm just a guy like any other you know. I have nothing special."
girl "Don't be like this, those sad thoughts don't suit you. You're a smart and handsome young man, I'm sure you'll realize it one day."
MC "Oh, you think I'm handsome ?"
girl "Of course you are sweety."

And so on, each girl say the same, but each one say it accordingly to her personality, mood, as well as accordingly to what they want to achieve by doing it. In real life we don't pass our time weighting our words, but it's what you've to do as writer.
Also don't try hard to have dialogs that would totally fit the reality, because this is not reality. You don't have an actor playing the line, therefore you can't rely on the vocal tone, facial expression and global gesture to carry the whole meaning of the dialog ; therefore everything rely on the words you'll use.


Once you've rewrote all the dialog lines for each character, it's time to make them fall together.
By example, when writing the dialog lines for the independent rebel girl, you'll probably tend to be more harsh than it should. This mean that her lines and MC's ones will not really match and that you'll have to soften a bit the tone of her dialog to not make the scene looks like they were having two different discussion.
For this, like fyl3toys said the best way is always to play the dialog out loud. Side note, this also help to find when it's not anymore a dialog, but a suit of monologues ; therefore to have a better pace for the scene. Unless told to stay shut the whole time, it's really exceptional in real life to pass two minutes silently listening to someone ; you at least agree, or disagree, punctually with what is said.

It's the difference between that:
girl "Listen, since you'll left for college in three days, there's something I have to tell you. Do you remember our first encounter ? I was going home from school with all my books, and you helped me pick them after I felt on the ground. This day, I carried all of them because I wanted to go home and kill myself. It's probably stupid, but I wanted to keep everything in order, to not be a burden for my family even once after my death. This day, your smile, the fact that you helped me, that you was the first person to help me since years, it changed my life. Not only you helped me to carry my books, but before you left you said that you were hoping to see me the next day. It's why I didn't killed myself that day. I had no real hope, I've been betrayed so many times in my life, but you were so nice that I wanted to give this a chance... And the next day you were here, coming to me once you saw me, talking with this smile that never left your face [...]"

and this:
girl "Listen, since you'll left for college in three days, there's something I have to tell you."
mc "I don't left forever you know, I'll come back often."
girl "I know, but it's something that I want to tell you since so long... Do you remember our first encounter ?'
mc "Of course, you felt on the ground, and I helped you pick up your books."
girl "And you also helped me carry them to my dorm room. You see, if I had all my books with me that day, it's because I wanted to kill myself once at home."
mc "Oh..."
girl "It's probably stupid, but I wanted to keep everything in order, to not be a burden for my family even once after my death."
mc "I had no clue, I'm sorry, really."
girl "Why ? Why are you sorry ?"
mc "Would have I known, I would have done more. I don't know, invite you for a coffee, a movie, anything to ease your mind."
girl "Don't worry, it's what you did. You were the first person to help me since years, don't you think that by itself this wasn't enough to ease my mind ? And what you said before you left..."
mc "I hope to see you tomorrow"
girl "Exactly. And you said it with this smile that never quit your face. I didn't gave too much hope to this, I've been betrayed so many times in my life, but I wanted to give this a chance."
mc "And the next day I ran to you once I saw you."
girl "You ran ?"
mc "Well, you know, I didn't had friend in high school at this time."
girl "didn't knew."
[...]

Both examples say exactly the same thing (well except MC loneliness), but the second one is way more natural.

A dialog is a ping-pong game between all the protagonists. But not in the way that each line said by one of them imply a line by another one. A dialog isn't split by lines, but by information carried. Each time someone give a new information, someone respond to it, giving or not an information by itself.
When there's more than two persons involved, you can decide that one of them will be the referee, either in the strict meaning of the word, or in that way that he punctuate the dialog, staying shut most of the time, and talking only to introduce a change in the discussion (tone or topic), or to conclude it.
In this case it will be either a "one against many" game, or a "many against many" one. In the first case, you'll have one character that do most of the discussion, while changing time to time the character that will talk back. In the second, the character will change anytime the information is relevant to him ; therefore the discussion will not be led by a person, but by its topic.


As final note, like Winterfire implied, you are not a comedian in some dark room trying to make laugh the fee people still awake so late in the night, so don't over do it with the joke. In fact, unless the character itself have a joke to say and it's relevant to the scene (it's almost never), do not tell joke at all.
You can want to make the player smile, even laugh if really you want, but it's not by telling joke that you'll achieve this. Look at the comedy movies/shows that are successful. They rarely have joke, it's a comic of situation.
By example, put a shy girl (that own a cat) in the middle of a discussion full of involuntary innuendo:
MC "Well, you can show me where you live."
girl "Why not ?"
mc "and this way I could also see your pussy."
girl "Er... You want to see my pussy ?"
mc "Of course, I'm a pussy lover you know."
girl "Well..."
mc "Don't worry, I'll be gentle, promised."
girl "It's not that I don't want..."
mc "I'm sure he want me to pet him."
girl "Oh yes he want but I'm not sure if I'm ready for this."
mc "Ready for this ? What are you talking about ?"
girl "what are *you* talking about ?"
mc "Your cat of course. You always talk about him, but I've never seen him."
girl "My cat... I also talk about my cat... of course I talk about my cat, what could I have been talking about except my cat..."

 

[fyl3toys]

Now that's some well thought out instructional help right there.

 

[NoseBleeds]

I can confirm that every writer I've met, including myself, has had this exact problem. A few years ago I would constantly be rewriting the same script every day for weeks. Every time I read something I previously wrote I would be disgusted by it. I would tell myself that it was garbage, worthless, unusable and that I was a failure to have even considered writing that. I have since learned to not be so hard on myself and only make small corrections here and there when rereading my script. My advice will be the same as what has already been said by others, but hopefully, this post adds a bit more to the conversation.

First off, you should think of your dialogue the same way you should think of your scenes. A scene is supposed to have a purpose. If a scene doesn't say anything or doesn't contribute to the story or characters in any way, it shouldn't exist. You don't need to stick to this notion as strickly when it comes to dialogue, just be sure to keep it in mind. It's easy to lose the attention of the audience when a character is talking a lot without actually saying anything.

The worst piece of advice I got from my creative writing class was to "listen to people talking in real life". In theory, this sounds like a good idea, but in practice, it's all but helpful. This is because real life and entertainment are really different. In real life, people start a topic, abandon it, go on tangents, forget things, say "uh" and "um" a lot, etc. It's more of a loose collection of ideas being told, rather than an actual conversation. In entertainment, it's all about refining reality and giving it purpose. For this reason, you should take inspiration from fiction rather than reality. Personally, it's TV shows that help me out the most for dialogue.

As previously stated, you should give each character a "voice". Everyone speaks in a slightly different way. Two people can say the exact same piece of information, but they will announce it slightly differently. Whether it's in tone, expression, sentence length, sentence structure, punctuation, use of contractions, etc. try to take that into consideration. It's subtle and can sometimes seem like a tedious detail, but keeping this in mind when writing from the perspective of another character can be very helpful.

You should most definitely act out your scenes in real life. Be expressive and emotive. Use body language. Do whatever you can to fully put yourself in the shoes of whoever you're writing and sometimes the dialogue will write itself. It may seem a bit embarrassing at first, playing pretend all by yourself, but I have found it to be extremely helpful.

You don't have to stick to a strict A-B-A-B dialogue structure. Switch it up a bit! A-B-B-A. A-A-A-B. etc. Take into account what the scene is and who is leading. For example, if you have a character who is very chatty, they will most certainly be leading the conversation or at least replying with multiple lines. On the opposite end, if you have someone who is more antisocial or reserved, they will be more reluctant to reply or respond and when they do it would generally be in very few words.

Finally, take a break! Working on the same thing for an extended period of time can alter your mood or give you a different mindset, typically a negative one. Take short but frequent breaks. For me, I find I work best when taking a short 15 min break every hour. This gives your mind a well-deserved rest and improves productivity. It's like how sleeping helps you improve. A song you're having trouble playing on piano one day can seem like a piece of cake the next day. This works in a very similar way and the people who I've recommended doing this to have mostly had positive results.

All that being said, good luck with your project! I hope it all turns out well for you and you accomplish everything you've set out to do!

 

[Syploore]

Thank you all so much for great advices. This is going to help me a lot.

 

[osanaiko]

Thank you all so much for great advices. This is going to help me a lot.

Once you have your dialogue written, ask your fans for help to review / playtest. If you can find someone to help regularly review and be your "editor" it can really improve the story/dialogue.

An editor will help by pointing out any problems they see:
- sentence is hard to understand
- character says something out of sync with their personality
- a new topic is raised that is inconsistent with the fictional world

and if you are not a native speaker, they can also help with:
- help you to use "natural" language (like a native speaker would say things)
- insert idioms
- and also help check spelling, grammar and tone

It can take some time to learn to work together well, but I think for some developers it can be a big benefit.

I of course am telling you this because "editor" is a role I play for several game developers. It took me some time to get better at the work, but now I really enjoy helping them.