Random written scene(s), Feedback appreciated

[ririmudev]

I got sidetracked while planning primarily MxF stuff, and wound up with a FxF scene (writing only). It's a bit cut-up, but basically: I'll give two snippets on lore, two character overviews, a non-H scene, and a somewhat H scene. Fair warning: there's 5 pages worth of writing. I'm happy to receive feedback - haven't done much writing the last few years.


Alraune:
The dominant race for hundreds of years, they have control over forests and agriculture. Alraunes developed a ruthless society to maintain power and prestige. Practically all are wealthy, and they're monitored to behave properly. Those out-of-line are re-educated, sometimes never to be seen again. The majority look down on other races. They are very concerned with the rise of the succubi, and take increasingly drastic measures in opposition.

Succubus:
Historically dismissed as lust demons, their fates changed by the historical figure Lilita del Valle. She believed that science could liberate her kind, and developed an early way of obtaining energy from non-sexual means. The succubi are now the most technologically advanced and are contending with the alraunes for power. Succubi are often shrewd and educated, and actually have low rates of sexual activity.


Titania Busch:
Alraune heiress to the prestigious Busch family, she is tough as nails, and through hard work and business savvy took control of a family company a few years earlier than originally planned. Even her powerful father once said, “I’m glad she’s not my enemy.” She lives in the alraune capital, Edenia.

Zelda La Croix:
Succubus CEO of a fast-growing company. She has first-rate people smarts and is well-versed in history. She is passionate about life and inspirational as a leader. Zelda is generally proper and measured like most succubi today, though she enjoys a bit of chaos as well. She lives in the succubus capital, Quad Lakes.


Scene 1:
Titania: Greetings, Madame La Croix, thank you for meeting with me.
Zelda: Of course, I welcomed the invitation of an esteemed business partner.
T: Yes. I make certain to meet with the CEO of significant business partners. Since you’re the new CEO, I wanted to make sure you could be trusted.
Z: Ha, that’s a good one.
T: Hm, it seems you understand.
(The understanding being that neither side could trust the other)
T: So, I understand you’re quite the historian. Would this be succubus history or broader?
Z: Well, succubus history is well-mixed with world history. I’ve certainly been interested in alraune history, even human history.
T: No need to mention us and humans in the same sentence. Anyway, at least your kind has had something to be proud of this era. Though we’d rather you never challenged our power, I can at least recognize strength where I see it.
Z: Perhaps. But it’s a bit of shame what we lost. We were once a passionate race. There are tales of our romances with humans, lamia,… all the races.
T: Sounds inefficient to me. A focus on power gives the best chance of long-term survival.
Z: Ha. I like power too. Perhaps I’m just greedy and want it all: power, passion, love, even hate.
T: …even hate?
Z: You’re curious?
T: Who wouldn’t be? Answer the question.
Z: Hate is always interesting. Why would she hate him? Why would they hate us? Why would I hate you? Wouldn’t you want to know the answer?
T: You’re crazy. Why would you hate me anyway?
Z: Hmm… don’t know, I probably wouldn’t. Those were just rhetorical questions.
T: Sigh, I question how the succubi could be strong with someone like you as a leader. Actually, how do you get along with them? They are a lot more measured.
Z: As am I, to the extent necessary. I should ask how you get along with your people?
T: Fine, thanks. There’s nothing I need to disclose to you.
Z: Very well. If there’s ever anything you want to disclose to me, the name’s Zelda La Croix.
With that, Zelda turned and took her leave.
T: (Wow, what an exit. She is crazy though)


Scene 2:

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[kytee]

Your writing is better than 95% of the writing for the games on this site, however that isn't saying much. I have very high standards for storytelling so I'll give you feedback on what I think you can do to improve an, in my opinion, okay script. I have to preface the following by saying the above because what you have now will be considered 10/10 writing by people on this forum but if you hold that same script in front of anyone outside of the adult VN industry, it falls flat. That being said, improving your script will only make people like me happy, the ones who are truly anal about storytelling. The significant majority of people on here will not see any differences in the changes you do make if any, so take what I say however you will.

Firstly, there are some small grammar issues. Nothing major but you should be able to find them on a second read through.

The backstory on the races are fine but I think it needs to be fleshed out a bit more or more detail needs to be revealed about the 2 scenes or the world building. I say this because you would assume the Alraune, who you say are powerful and look down on others, are very unlikely to cooperate with other races to the extent that the scenes show they do. Which leads me to my next issues.

Being that the two characters shouldn't like one another because of the past between their races, nothing is shown of the two characters to allow the audience to know that these two don't share the same grudges their races share against one another. If that is your intention of course. If they are supposed to dislike one another, it doesn't come off as such, at least to me and may be too subtle by how you're writing it.

Next issue is the purpose of scene one. Every character in every scene wants something, or they should want something if it's well-written. However, that scene came off as just random bickering with tidbits of world building mixed in and, by the end of it, accomplishes nothing and doesn't move the plot forward. Logically, based off of the background of these two characters, they should either want to help one another or try to find information to destroy one another.

What I feel can help this scene is if a previous scene was an advisor to Titania begging her to make a good impression on Zelda because they have something crucial to her business's success. This way Titania has to play down her tough side to get on the good side of Zelda. If Zelda knows she has something Titania needs, she can use her people skills to dance around the topic to wear down Titania's patience to cause her to do something rash, which she can use for leverage for her own gain. If Zelda doesn't know what Titania wants, she'll end up using her people skills to prospect for her desires. What these two scenarios do to create interest from the audience is they play on the conflict of desires between the two characters and highlights the irony between their most prominent personality traits. Titania is very tough and usually gets her way but she's never fought against one who can chip away at her like Zelda can, Zelda who plays the game much differently than Titania. Also, I find the whole "opposites attract" thing works pretty well when it comes to building romantic and sexual tension.

I'm not going to comment on scene 2 since I feel like there's too great a jump in story to justify critiquing it, since most of my feedback will be based on what the audience doesn't know.

One tip I have is not to think of VN script writing as writing dialogue for a novel, it's much more similar to writing dialogue for a movie. The adage "Actions speak louder than words" rings more true here than ever. I haven't seen a single visual novel use their character's facial expressions and actions to reveal thoughts and feelings.

For example, say we have two characters at a diner with plates of food. Before they eat, one character says to the other "You sure you want that?".

Depending on how it is said and the look on the face of the character who's saying that, it can mean different things.

If the guy is holding a gun, we take that line to mean "You eat it I'm gonna shoot you."

If the guy says it with a questioning look on his face, we take that line to mean the other guy is on a diet or has problems with food.

If the guy says it with a pained or scared face, we can take that to mean he knows its poisoned but cant warn his friend directly.

That's all the critique I have in my tonight, so that's all you get

 

[Sole]

The lore bit conveys very little about either race and practically nothing about the world overall, also it's a bit incoherent due your use of tenses, here's more or less everything I gathered from reading your prompt.

Part 1: sounds like generic primitive big bad race vs generic underdog marysue race

Alraune:
They've apparently been the most powerful race for hundreds of years(is this a long time in your setting?), either their territory consists primarily of forests and farmlands or somehow having knowledge regarding forests and farming is a very big deal in this setting, they lack empathy and they're power hungry fame seekers. They're prosperous compared to who knows what(wealthy is a relative term), they're monitored by some great unknown as a species, and forced to behave in some specific nebulous way or face either fixing or replacement. They dislike the succubi's recent nebulous ascension and do what ever they can to stop it.

Succubus:
A historically insignificant abnormally horny race, has their fate changed by Lilita del Valle, a succubus that believed she could harness more power through science than she could through just being a succubus, she created a method of obtaining energy from non-sexual means, and paved the way for succubi as a whole to eventually become most technologically advanced race. Now the succubi as a race are also nebulously very powerful just like the Alraune, also they tend to be smart, educated, and not really interested in sex despite historical precedent uptill very recently.

part 2: sounds like it's from an entirely different time period, given that terms like CEO are being used instead of guild master, maybe this had more to do with a misunderstanding of the first part's time period on my part due to primitive tech/science info, or it all just being purely historical exposition not current events.

Titania Busch:
Generic "Mary sue character" description, but born into the position of being a big baddie. (Maybe focus more on giving her a personality by this I mean likes/dislikes/motives instead of on her potency)

Zelda La Croix:
Generic "Mary Sue species canon fodder", on the "good" side (a lot of very generic meaningless descriptors paired with the like most succubi comment just makes this character come off as canon fodder, your descriptions of the succubi are what makes her feel like she's canon fodder to a mary sue species. As far as advise don't use a character's character bio to exposit about their race unless your refering to a specific different subsection to what's "common" instead of the race as a whole, and also what I recommended in the other character bio)

part3: the dialogue feels awkward and forced like your trying to force exposition/character introduction/character motives all into a scene's dialogue, a rather egregious case of telling instead of showing. My advice pace yourself, there's no need to rush into getting it all done at once think about what's most important for you to convey either first or best, then think of some scenarios that would convey that naturally, just focus on that at first, than slowly come up with ways to weave the rest of what you want in your story into it don't feel forced to do it all at once. You could also brainstorm some scenarios that work with each individual category separately and then consider which scenarios blend best with what you want from the other categories.

 

[Deleted member 1706148]

Good luck with your script! I'm not good at giving feedbacks so i'll just leave that part to the experts.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Scene 1:

It's far to be bad, but sometimes you uselessly repeat yourself, which make the scene too heavy.
It also isn't natural enough. The discussion flow softly, but here it feel more like a tormented torrent.
And you also tend to forgot about the context, which lead to sentences that shouldn't have been said.

You should not just write, but also recite your text. Then correct it until the moment it feel natural and fluid enough to your own ears.


Here's a rewrite (with my neither this good capabilities, nor this good English) of the first scene :

Titania: Greetings, Madame La Croix, I'm glad to finally meet you in person.
Zelda: How could I have refused the invitation of such an esteemed business partner ?
T: Obviously... I make certain to meet with all our significant partners. Since you're the new CEO of [Name of Zelda company], I needed to make sure that you could be trusted as much as your predecessor.
Z: Obviously...
T: I see that you understand.
Z: (Yes, I understand, you'll never trust me. Well, like if I will myself.)
T: So... I heard that you're quite an historian. Do you limit to succubus history, or do you go further ?
Z: Well... As you surely know, Succubus history is well-mixed with world history. Therefore, you can't have an interest for it without also having an interest for Alraune, or even Human, history.
T: Don't mention us in the same sentence than those Humans... please.
T: At least, your kind have something to be proud of this era. Though we'd preferred that you never challenged our power, I can recognize strength when I see it.
Z: Proud ? Perhaps, but the price for this is too high. We were once a passionate race... A so passionate one, that every races have tales about our romances with them. It's a shame that we lost this passion.
T: Passion is inefficient for a long-term survival, only a focus on power can give the best chances. Isn't it because of this, that Lilita del Valle had to use her science to find a new source of energy for your race ?
Z: Don't be mistaken, I like power too... Perhaps I am just greedy, wanting it all: passion, love, even hate, and obviously the power.
T: Even... hate ?
Z: Is this so surprising for you ?
T: Who wouldn't be surprised ? Please, explain it.
Z: Hate is always interesting. Why would she hate him? Why would they hate us? Why would I hate you?
T: Hate me ? Why would you hate me ?
Z: I probably wouldn't, but who know ? After all, hate is just the other face of love. If I come to love our partnership, I can also come to hate you. But anyway those are just rhetorical questions.
T: Sigh... How do you get along with your fellows ? They are a lot more measured than you seem to be.
Z: As am I, to the extent necessary. Should I ask you how you get along with your people?
T: Fine, thanks. There’s nothing I need to disclose to you.
Z: Very well. If there’s ever anything you want to disclose to me, the name’s Zelda La Croix.
With that, Zelda turned and took her leave.
T: (Wow, what an exit. She is crazy though)

The detailed "how and why" all those changes :

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[MarshmallowCasserole]

On the surface level, you should probably deal with tautologies.

Then you need to have your scenes have a lot more 'meat' than they do. Having your characters follow trough with their motivations, emotional and intellectual levels will help with that. For example, in your scene 1 Titania's stated goal is to gain some trust. She has specifically arranged a meeting for that purpose, which means she must have something prepared for Z, be it either a carrot or a stick. Instead, she has none and settles for some idle chatter and shallow banter. How is that a good use of her time (and by extension ours)? This scene conveys next to nothing in the way of actual information that was not stated earlier in the worldbuilding infodump.

 

[ririmudev]

who you say are powerful and look down on others, are very unlikely to cooperate with other races to the extent that the scenes show they do.

I hope to expand on this in due time. The basic idea is that with the new succubus tech, they do have stuff of value, and Titania wants to make a deal to gain advantages over her alraune competitors.

One tip I have is not to think of VN script writing as writing dialogue for a novel, it's much more similar to writing dialogue for a movie. The adage "Actions speak louder than words" rings more true here than ever. I haven't seen a single visual novel use their character's facial expressions and actions to reveal thoughts and feelings.

Well, I'm a bit notorious for not watching movies the last few years. But, I'm at least familiar with show-don't-tell. The core problem here might be that I don't yet have a plan for visuals. I'd like to eventually, but first I want an underlying story at least partially fleshed out.

Every character in every scene wants something, or they should want something if it's well-written. However, that scene came off as just random bickering with tidbits of world building mixed in and, by the end of it, accomplishes nothing and doesn't move the plot forward.

A good point to keep in mind - I'll try not to forget.

Being that the two characters shouldn't like one another because of the past between their races, nothing is shown of the two characters to allow the audience to know that these two don't share the same grudges their races share against one another. If that is your intention of course. If they are supposed to dislike one another, it doesn't come off as such, at least to me and may be too subtle by how you're writing it.

I'll try to remember to be clear on this. What I have in mind is similar to things between U.S. and China - yes there's trade tensions, but at the personal level, there isn't (hopefully) that much animosity. Lol, I guess the Alraunes are the U.S. and the Succubi are China.

What I feel can help this scene is if a previous scene was an advisor to Titania begging her to make a good impression on Zelda because they have something crucial to her business's success. This way Titania has to play down her tough side to get on the good side of Zelda.

My first conception of Titania is that her only significant flaw is being too by-the-book. She is very goal-oriented, and so she wouldn't need anyone to tell her to make a good impression. But then, dealing with the succubi behind the scenes blatantly goes against being by-the-book. I have some thinking to do.

I'm not going to comment on scene 2 since I feel like there's too great a jump in story to justify critiquing it

Oops - that's a failure on my part in the OP, since scene 2 is what I wanted the most feedback on, and everything else was just context so that it wouldn't be completely out of left-field.
Thanks very much for the critique, I appreciate the time you took to share your analysis and recommendations.

The lore bit conveys very little about either race and practically nothing about the world overall, also it's a bit incoherent due your use of tenses

Yes, there isn't much lore at this point. Regarding tenses, I'll remember to pay closer attention.

is this a long time in your setting?

Good question.

somehow having knowledge regarding forests and farming is a very big deal in this setting, they lack empathy and they're power hungry fame seekers

I suppose that would argue for a more medieval instead of modern setting. Most aren't too interested in fame, just want to maintain power.

prosperous compared to who knows what(wealthy is a relative term)

Compared to the other races (right now there are just alraunes, succubi, oni, lamia, and humans)

they're monitored by some great unknown as a species, and forced to behave in some specific nebulous way or face either fixing or replacement

This might be a misunderstanding - the alraunes self-monitor, like a prestigious family would want to keep it's members in line, just a bit more extreme.

and not really interested in sex despite historical precedent uptill very recently

Good restatement overall, though I'd leave out the last part. They are not really interested at present and I'm not sure if that will change significantly by the end of the story. Perhaps only a few would change.

given that terms like CEO are being used instead of guild master

Fair, I hadn't considered that CEO would sound out of place.

Generic "Mary sue character" description, but born into the position of being a big baddie. (Maybe focus more on giving her a personality by this I mean likes/dislikes/motives instead of on her potency)

Well yes, the hard work will be in developing the characters over the course of events and such, so I wouldn't expect too much from the description. But, yes, as far as description goes, mentioning motives would be an improvement.

As far as advise don't use a character's character bio to exposit about their race unless your refering to a specific different subsection to what's "common" instead of the race as a whole, and also what I recommended in the other character bio)

Sounds fair.

the dialogue feels awkward and forced like your trying to force exposition/character introduction/character motives all into a scene's dialogue, a rather egregious case of telling instead of showing. My advice pace yourself, there's no need to rush into getting it all done at once think about what's most important for you to convey either first or best, then think of some scenarios that would convey that naturally, just focus on that at first, than slowly come up with ways to weave the rest of what you want in your story into it don't feel forced to do it all at once

Yeah... there isn't a rest of the story, so it probably has to feel forced. Since I haven't previously written H-scenes, I wanted to practice a bit. In the scheme of a story, I probably wouldn't have a scene like this near the beginning, at least for characters the reader is supposed to care about. To be honest I don't even know if Zelda and Titania are major characters yet - there's still a lot of planning to be done.
Thanks very much for your time and perspective, and I appreciate seeing your understanding of what I presented.

Good luck with your script!

Thanks, I appreciate it.

you are also a very insightful person, you have qualities that you keep hidden, what else do you keep hidden Zelda La Croix ?!

I kind of like this line, I wonder if I can work with this somewhere.

the dream appeared to me in a dream and we communicated.

I don't plan on anything dream- or magic-related, but it's interesting to see you take it in that direction.

T: you fell in love with him, didn't you?
Z: ..mmph .. I like him.

For things like that, I'd expect Zelda to be more honest and open. I can see Titania as more likely to give a hmmph response.

You should not just write, but also recite your text.

Fair, and noted.

I really fail to understand what you wanted to express in the first sentence

That's fair... it references ideas I haven't really mentioned. I included the brief descriptions for alraunes and succubi, and omitted the one for humans. The first line of that is, "Physically weak and often engaging in rumor, humans are sometimes ridiculed even by the nicer races." Still, it's a bit contrived to have Titania take some kind of offense here.

Not a fan of the opening "Ha", really not a fan. What is it supposed to express ? Her surprise ? Her agreement ? A moment of reflection ? It's unclear

I'm happy to join the fight against lack of clarity and will reflect upon my actions accordingly.

Too direct, even for simple curiosity. Once again you forgot the context. She can't order to some having an equal position

Agreed, I thought it was over the top, and I need to revisit. I don't conceive the two positions as exactly equal at present... Titania's side is supposed to have slightly more leverage, but I'm not sure what that looks like yet.

[Context ! No she isn't crazy. Well, Titania can thought it, but she'll never say it. If she were to the point where she felt the need to say it, she would end both the meeting and the partnership with Zelda's company. Nobody want to have a business partner that have someone crazy as CEO

I'd like to rework this whole part. I suppose I didn't expect "crazy" to come off as strong as it did, but I probably should have.

(The understanding being that neither side could trust the other)
[If this a narration, sorry but it's not a good one. Here you talk to the player, do it directly

Besides being poor narration, I think it's also wrong - there needs to be some level of trust for a deal to proceed. I do need to take a step back and focus on the goals of this scene. It's the first meeting after Zelda replaces the previous chief, both want to gauge what the other is like, and probably Titania wants to see if the overall leadership direction is the same as before. (I also need to figure out what's the point of these two characters in the first place, and also what the story is even about. Little things like that.)

I'm absolutely not a fan of this, but changing it would change the script too much.

The script will probably be changed much in this part. There was something in there I wanted to explore with the hate thing, but I don't really like how it turned out, and I don't feel compelled to revive it.

Thanks very much for your time - I have a lot to chew on. I'm surprised at how much the initial business partner scene fell short, since I'm pretty sure I've made similar complaints when reading other stories. Well, there's no shortcuts; it takes time to nail all these things down.

 

[HopesGaming]

Like people already have said- be careful of too much info right out of the bat- also known as info dumps.
The whole first scene feels more like an explanation of everything rather than a story/character development scene.
The dialogues feel a bit too informative instead of dialogue filled with personality.
Example
"
T: So, I understand you’re quite the historian. Would this be succubus history or broader?
Z: Well, succubus history is well-mixed with world history. I’ve certainly been interested in alraune history, even human history.
T: No need to mention us and humans in the same sentence. Anyway, at least your kind has had something to be proud of this era. Though we’d rather you never challenged our power, I can at least recognize strength where I see it.
Z: Perhaps. But it’s a bit of shame what we lost. We were once a passionate race. There are tales of our romances with humans, lamia,… all the races.
"
Even without visual at the moment, it's still better that the reader can deduct tensions and world-building naturally throughout the story instead of having it all explained by one person.

Another small issue is the star itself. Story rule 101 is to engage the reader right off the bat. Make them question what is going on, make them feel like this is something special.
Right now after the first scene, there really isn't anything that makes you go- damn what is going on, I want to read more.

Lastly, and this is kind of a repeat of the first, be mindful of informative talk and try to make it fluid instead like anne O'nymous mentioned.
Informative talk is fine from time to time but it should be used sparingly and especially not at the start too much.
Make the dialogue short and compact to add fluidity. The main objective for this is to create personality and character depth.
This is usually what is recommended in normal story lessons but it is actually a lot more important in adult stories than it is in normal stories. With normal stories, people go in to read. That is the whole point.
With adult stories, however, it is not always the case. Many skips to important events or times if they do not feel the story.
That is why it is essential to have a good start to lure them in.

But those are all small things and your writing itself is great. I wish you the best.

I haven't seen a single visual novel use their character's facial expressions and actions to reveal thoughts and feelings.

You need to play a bit more story-focused game as there are a few out there that heavily use the renders to portray how a character feels.

 

[anne O'nymous]

That's fair... it references ideas I haven't really mentioned. I included the brief descriptions for alraunes and succubi, and omitted the one for humans. The first line of that is, "Physically weak and often engaging in rumor, humans are sometimes ridiculed even by the nicer races." Still, it's a bit contrived to have Titania take some kind of offense here.

Then include this in what she say, not totally of course, but enough to give an idea to the player. Something like : "Don't mention us in the same sentence than those weak and talkative things... please."
It give hints about the way others races look at Humans, and also about the fact that Alraune are the dominant race since so long. Titania don't say "humans", but "things" ; her own race stand on the top of the hill, and humans aren't even at the bottom of it yet. Plus, like Zelda don't react to this, it imply that it's frequent for people to think so little of humans ; so frequent that everybody stopped to react, except humans themselves perhaps. Which comply with the fact that even the nicer races don't really like them.


Like I implied, the narration should be limited to its strict minimum, which include universe's context, races' descriptions and all. It's better to let it be seen in the dialog, than directly saying it.
Firstly because it involve the player a little more, he have gather the information, to think about them ; like I said, he have to build a puzzle with the piece he collect into the dialog.
Secondly because it's less boring than the usual narration which, like I said, tend to look more like a science documentary. You goal as author is to entertain us, and science documentaries are all what you want, except entertaining. You've to tell, not to explain, and even less to describe. Therefore, avoid it as much as possible.
Thirdly because it's the context of the universe. It mean that everybody act, react, and talk according to it. To take a extreme as example, you just need to listen to someone long enough to understand that it's a racist ; it's part of his life, of his personality, it will be shown by the words he use, by the way he talk about people that aren't like him. The same apply here. If people think so little to humans, they can't describe them just by saying "humans", and since it's something more or less natural in this universe, "things" is a word that can be used without problem.
In the end, you need to forget everything you know about the truth, to write the dialog from the point of view of the person who'll say it. To keep my previous example, if you write the dialog line of a racist, and make it use the word "African", then you failed ; it's what they are, but it's not how the speaker see them, and so it's also not the word he would use.


Thing about real life. If you enter into an unknown place, you'll not find someone at the entrance that will explain everything to you. You'll learn by looking at the other people, and sometimes by being told that you messed it. It's later, after few visits, that you'll start to understand everything, by putting together the pieces of knowledge you've accumulated.
It's the same for a game. If the player know everything right from the start, you deprive him of the pleasure to discover the universe, and to speculate about it. And you'll also deprive him of the pleasure to be surprised because his speculation were wrong, or pleased to discover that he was right.
In addition to this, those speculations are part of the discussions around the game, therefore it keep the thread living. And a living thread is one of the best advertisement for a game ; if people talk this much about the game, it's surely because its an interesting one.

Agreed, I thought it was over the top, and I need to revisit. I don't conceive the two positions as exactly equal at present... Titania's side is supposed to have slightly more leverage, but I'm not sure what that looks like yet.

Titania is surely in a higher position that Zelda. She's from the dominant race, and she's the CEO of the company that permit to Zelda's one to exist by using their services. But the important part here is that she's the CEO. Therefore, she also knew that she need Zelda's company as much as Zelda need hers.
Personally, Titania know that she's higher, but practically she know that she need to treat Zelda has her equal if she don't want to complicate the situation. As much as Zelda know that she need to show a little more respect to Titania and make herself appear a little lower than her.
Both are the CEO of a company that surely isn't the only one on its field. They don't want to see the other leave them for the concurrence.
As for what it looks like, for Titania I would say "confidence", since she have the upper hand, but with a touch of humility, to not risk to involuntarily loose Zelda support. No hesitation, unless it's really necessary (like for the "hate" thing), but she don't put herself or her race too much on the top, especially when it's a direct comparison with Zelda or her race. In the same time, she try to found common points with Zelda and her race ; some king of, "since we aren't this different, we are meant to works together".
As for Zelda, it's just humility ; a humility that will conflict with her pride. As I see her through your dialogs, she think that Succubus deserve the best place (all races have tales about them, and they are romance tales, unlike the probable horrible tales that other races can have about Alraune), but that this can't be achieved unless they retrieve the passion they lost. Therefore, she humbly wait for the right time, staying near to the top, but doing her best for her presence to be forgot. Sometimes her pride speak first, but never with excess. Exactly like her exit ; it's enough to say "I worth at least as much as you", but not enough to be offending.
After, the difficult part is to translate all this into the dialogs

I'd like to rework this whole part. I suppose I didn't expect "crazy" to come off as strong as it did, but I probably should have.

Don't you have a race of passionate ? Humans should probably be seen like this, especially by Alraune.
Instead of, "you're crazy", it can be, "don't try to imitate Humans". It's softer. For Titania it still mean the same, but it's weighted by the fact that it's just an attempt of imitation.

Besides being poor narration, I think it's also wrong - there needs to be some level of trust for a deal to proceed.

I hesitated to add a "fully" before "trust", which would probably be better ; "I trust you to be a qualified and competent partner in this business, but I'll still keep an eye on you, to unsure that it will effectively be the case".

(I also need to figure out what's the point of these two characters in the first place, and also what the story is even about. Little things like that.)

More seriously, this scene is a good exercise for your writing skills. They both need to make compromise between their personality and their need to collaborate ; and both need to be shown, in a way or another, in the dialog.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Right now after the first scene, there really isn't anything that makes you go- damn what is going on, I want to read more.

It's probably due to the fact that I rewrote it, and so involved myself a little more, but I have to disagree. Zelda is clearly a hot blooded redhead, and I want to know more about her

But, more seriously, and more globally, what you say is far to be wrong and make me remember something I didn't said, something that you've mastered yourself : The few first scenes of each characters are decisive. They must be intriguing enough to make the reader want to know more about each one of them.
Wilfred in the car, both boring and living, who later appear to be in a position which is the total opposite of what one could have expected from what he said at this time.
Luna... is it really necessary to say that her, "I killed you ? I'm sure that I already killed you", is so much of an invitation to a wonderful journey. And later her tour of the house, which give so much keys about her personality, but even more questions.

After having talked to each character only twice, we already want to follow them. If not because we've already fell in love with them, because they are intriguing and we want to know them better.

Make the dialogue short and compact to add fluidity. The main objective for this is to create personality and character depth.

And also to keep it realistic enough.
Lately I said that WVM writing make me think about a book for teenagers. One of the reason behind this is the long monologues. By example, there's a scene where there's three characters (the MC, his girlfriend, and his best friend forever), and they take turns to say their 5 minutes monologue.
It's sensible subject, they talk about what they thoughts and felt for the others, about how they perceived what they did in the past. There's no way that in real live it can happen like this. There's 100% chance that, even without being an effective interruption, you'll have some, "you were wrong", and other, "oh, I didn't know", with some, "so sweet", in between.
Honestly, I almost gave up at this time ; and I'm glad that I hadn't.

This is usually what is recommended in normal story lessons but it is actually a lot more important in adult stories than it is in normal stories. With normal stories, people go in to read. That is the whole point.
With adult stories, however, it is not always the case. Many skips to important events or times if they do not feel the story.
That is why it is essential to have a good start to lure them in.

The character's personality is also important because adult games rely on the feelings of the player, more than any other kind of story. Whatever if it's love, hate, pity, or who know what else, players need to feel something for them ; you need, as writer, to trigger those feelings.
ririmudev , look at what I said at start of this comment regarding Zelda. I already love her, and it's what you have to achieve. Like I said, it don't need to be necessarily love, you've the right to make us hate Titania by example ; it will change nothing, we will like to hate her, we will ask for more scenes with her, because we will want to see her and say, "rhaaa, I hate her so much".
And like you can't control the feelings that the player will have (some can really love the arrogant coldness of Titania), it add a dimension to your game ; a dimension where the player is the only master, his own feelings.

But well, all this are just words. Turning them into dialog lines is another thing.

She has already honestly opened herself to Titania, indeed, she has told her more than she had to say.

I Agree to this. Zeda could have stopped at "we were more passionate", it would have been fit with the context. Everything she said after this is her speaking openly about herself.

 

[ririmudev]

Not sure if anyone will notice due to my radio silence, but I was wondering... where might I find a good discussion of story fundamentals? More specifically, I'm not really comfortable with how to present a basic story in terms of POV. There are plenty of VNs here, but I think you can forgive me if I'm cautious to follow most of the examples...

I know I want a few good dialogues between characters, but I can't imagine that carrying the whole story. So for everything else, I'm not sure about 1st vs 3rd person (maybe even 2nd person), and I'm not sure what things to consider in terms of: when a narrator should be the main character, or an impartial 3rd party, or something else. Any suggestions would be welcome.

(More general update: I am back to basics, focusing on exploring a male MC, since it's more practical to start with what you know... although sometimes I think I'm more of an NPC.... Anyway, the characters mentioned previously are not forgotten, and will be revisited sometime before 2077, for what it's worth).