The thread is about a style of narrative style I have rarely seen anywhere other than video games. Let's say we have a conversation between 3 or more people, let's say 4. It'll go like this in traditional writing:
''Andrew started off our regular hang out with his trivial story.
"What's with all those parents who think naming their kids after celebrities are cool, anyway?"
"No kidding?" I responded
"Yeah, no kidding, Paul. There's a guy whose surname is Jackson, and his kid's first name is 'Michael'."
"Wow!" Ed exclaimed "Doesn't he realize how creepy that is?" and let out a brief laugh along with Max.
"How?" I asked.
"Well..." Max decided to explain in Ed's stead "That child is now having the name of a child molester, dude."
Andrew and I laughed at the realization.
"Oh, the irony." I said while still laughing "Don't tell me he is also black."
"No, wait." Andrews said "That kid IS black, dude."
And we all burst out laughing out loud.''
Now, in a video game, primarily the Visual Novel genre (though other genre also use the same style, like Planescape Torment), the same conversation would go like this:
Andrew started off our regular hang out with his trivial story.
Andrew: "What's with all those parents who think naming their kids after celebrities are cool, anyway?"
Paul: "No kidding?"
Andrew: "Yeah, no kidding, Paul. There's a guy whose surname is Jackson, and his kid's first name is 'Michael'."
Ed: "Wow! Doesn't he realize how creepy that is?"
Ed and Max let out a brief laugh.
Paul: "How?"
Max: "Well... That child is now having the name of a child molester, dude."
Andrew and I laughed at the realization.
Paul: "Ha Ha Ha... Oh, the irony. Don't tell me he is also black."
Andrew: "No, wait. That kid IS black, man."
And we all burst out laughing out loud.
For a video game, with its interactive nature, it's totally fine to see a name label on each dialogue line to let you know whose line is this (the other alternative would be using distinctive font face and font color for each character). What I'm questioning here is this: Is this style of writing is acceptable in pure literature?
The closest writing style on paper that I've ever seen is movie script, where narrative is sparse (and if they're there at all, is written in 3rd person) and each line of dialogue is preceded by the name of the character to let actors/actresses know which line is his/hers. The style I'm referring to is what you'd find in a textbox-interface Visual Novel (text-over-image-interface Visual Novels use traditional writing), which unlike movie scripts: also use for first-person POV, narrative voice is prominent, dialogues preceded by speaker's name except in the case you want to keep the name a secret (eg the protagonist is approached by an unknown character whose name is revealed in a later part. Unlike movie scripts, we can't write his/her name into the story at that point, can't we?). When written on paper, does it take the readers out of the story? Does it break the narration flow? Does it lose the readers' suspension of disbelief? Does it feel superfluous to write in characters' names that don't serve as narration voice nor character voice? Does it feel redundant to repeat that every time there's a conversation just for the sake of informing the readers who is speaking this line?
I don't know, that's why I'm wondering. This is the first time I asked anyone about this (Was I the first to bring up this topic?) so I've got only my own subjective view. Does anyone feel the mentioned annoyances if this style of writing is applied on paper?
Oh and my subjective view is this: As covered in Looney Toons's document, section "Narrative Voice vs. Character Voice", you have to make it clear who's speaking what in one way other another. Now traditional writing can do a fine work between 2 characters, ie until:
Quote: "You can lose the reader after four or five exchanges unless you're careful."
And:
Quote: "And trying to make it work for three or more speakers is *very* difficult unless they all have *very* distinctive patterns of speech."
You have stumbled upon this problem at least once, both when writing and reading (oh, come on, admit it). This can occur even in professional and/or published material: You follow a long conversation where the writer started omitting the speakers' name because he feels they are redundant, the conversation is heading into convoluted topics (hey, that's the reason they're long in the first place), your attention span started losing. The characters are exposing plot twists so important that just who, among the speakers involved, is the one that spoke those expositions is very critical to know, thus you have to backtrack a few lines to identify the speakers, ruining the narration flow. In these delicate cases, printing errors, such as quotation and punctuation marks placed in the wrong place can give you a totally different story!
You can see in my above example. Traditionally, I have to pause the dialogues to insert the speaker's name if he did not previously participate in the ongoing conversation. A 3rd character butts in, you have to identify him; a 4th character wants to have his 2 cents, you have to identify him; the conversation switches back to the original speakers, you have to identify who among those 2 is talking. This is a nightmare when you just started a story where your 4 characters (at first sight) are Average Joes until you write more text to develop their personalities. Yeah, sure, when you are a long way into the story and have established to the readers which character talks in what way, it's a whole lot easier, but even then you can't be sure the readers won't get lost at some point.
Now, with visual novel writing style, there's less text to read (I assume we all dislike Purple Prose and/or verbosity in general) while making the story easier to read and keep track of. And you can still craft fantastic stories with this writing style. There are also some creative uses with this style if you can be confident that your (targeted) readers are intelligent enough. You can say a lot by having a character says nothing at all, for example, let's say 3 characters discusses something about a 4th guy named Jack. He is nearby, but the 3 are talking behind his back, maybe accusing him of something. Then suddenly after those 3 left, you see a line like this:
Jack: "........."
Very subtle, you didn't tell anything to the readers, but by throwing that line in, you can expect the readers to assume that Jack has overheard the conversation. Or has he? Maybe he hasn't, but then why is that line there? Jack did remain in place and only left after those 3, right? - I, as a reader, would wonder. (and if the chapter ends with that line, I'd be eager to read the next one)
Now granted, video games in general also leave a lot of narration to their sights and sounds, so when applied on paper, you'd have to write more text to describe the sights and the sounds to make a scene lively. You can't just literally use the same writing style, you have to adapt it to make it work. Maybe there're more processes than that to make this style of writing work on paper. I've never seen any pure literature work (ie as opposed to writings in other media) written this way, so I can't be sure.
Then there's also the risk that the readers are put through the mentioned annoyances. Since this is a subjective view, I'm gonna say I'm totally fine with it. A story is still largely the same when converted to visual novel writing style anyway, the main differences lie in conversations (which take lesser text than narrative voice in everything I've read so far). Name tags before each dialogue, are totally fine with me. On paper, I'll just see them as the name labels like in video games (half serious: it's like you're playing a game while reading, lol!).
But of course, with all that said, my thoughts are insignificant compared to the other writers and readers.
The thread is about a style of narrative style I have rarely seen anywhere other than video games. Let's say we have a conversation between 3 or more people, let's say 4. It'll go like this in traditional writing:
''Andrew started off our regular hang out with his trivial story.
"What's with all those parents who think naming their kids after celebrities are cool, anyway?"
"No kidding?" I responded
"Yeah, no kidding, Paul. There's a guy whose surname is Jackson, and his kid's first name is 'Michael'."
"Wow!" Ed exclaimed "Doesn't he realize how creepy that is?" and let out a brief laugh along with Max.
"How?" I asked.
"Well..." Max decided to explain in Ed's stead "That child is now having the name of a child molester, dude."
Andrew and I laughed at the realization.
"Oh, the irony." I said while still laughing "Don't tell me he is also black."
"No, wait." Andrews said "That kid IS black, dude."
And we all burst out laughing out loud.''
Now, in a video game, primarily the Visual Novel genre (though other genre also use the same style, like Planescape Torment), the same conversation would go like this:
Andrew started off our regular hang out with his trivial story.
Andrew: "What's with all those parents who think naming their kids after celebrities are cool, anyway?"
Paul: "No kidding?"
Andrew: "Yeah, no kidding, Paul. There's a guy whose surname is Jackson, and his kid's first name is 'Michael'."
Ed: "Wow! Doesn't he realize how creepy that is?"
Ed and Max let out a brief laugh.
Paul: "How?"
Max: "Well... That child is now having the name of a child molester, dude."
Andrew and I laughed at the realization.
Paul: "Ha Ha Ha... Oh, the irony. Don't tell me he is also black."
Andrew: "No, wait. That kid IS black, man."
And we all burst out laughing out loud.
For a video game, with its interactive nature, it's totally fine to see a name label on each dialogue line to let you know whose line is this (the other alternative would be using distinctive font face and font color for each character). What I'm questioning here is this: Is this style of writing is acceptable in pure literature?
The closest writing style on paper that I've ever seen is movie script, where narrative is sparse (and if they're there at all, is written in 3rd person) and each line of dialogue is preceded by the name of the character to let actors/actresses know which line is his/hers. The style I'm referring to is what you'd find in a textbox-interface Visual Novel (text-over-image-interface Visual Novels use traditional writing), which unlike movie scripts: also use for first-person POV, narrative voice is prominent, dialogues preceded by speaker's name except in the case you want to keep the name a secret (eg the protagonist is approached by an unknown character whose name is revealed in a later part. Unlike movie scripts, we can't write his/her name into the story at that point, can't we?). When written on paper, does it take the readers out of the story? Does it break the narration flow? Does it lose the readers' suspension of disbelief? Does it feel superfluous to write in characters' names that don't serve as narration voice nor character voice? Does it feel redundant to repeat that every time there's a conversation just for the sake of informing the readers who is speaking this line?
I don't know, that's why I'm wondering. This is the first time I asked anyone about this (Was I the first to bring up this topic?) so I've got only my own subjective view. Does anyone feel the mentioned annoyances if this style of writing is applied on paper?
Oh and my subjective view is this: As covered in Looney Toons's document
, section "Narrative Voice vs. Character Voice", you have to make it clear who's speaking what in one way other another. Now traditional writing can do a fine work between 2 characters, ie until:
Quote: "You can lose the reader after four or five exchanges unless you're careful."
And:
Quote: "And trying to make it work for three or more speakers is *very* difficult unless they all have *very* distinctive patterns of speech."
You have stumbled upon this problem at least once, both when writing and reading (oh, come on, admit it). This can occur even in professional and/or published material: You follow a long conversation where the writer started omitting the speakers' name because he feels they are redundant, the conversation is heading into convoluted topics (hey, that's the reason they're long in the first place), your attention span started losing. The characters are exposing plot twists so important that just who, among the speakers involved, is the one that spoke those expositions is very critical to know, thus you have to backtrack a few lines to identify the speakers, ruining the narration flow. In these delicate cases, printing errors, such as quotation and punctuation marks placed in the wrong place can give you a totally different story!
You can see in my above example. Traditionally, I have to pause the dialogues to insert the speaker's name if he did not previously participate in the ongoing conversation. A 3rd character butts in, you have to identify him; a 4th character wants to have his 2 cents, you have to identify him; the conversation switches back to the original speakers, you have to identify who among those 2 is talking. This is a nightmare when you just started a story where your 4 characters (at first sight) are Average Joes until you write more text to develop their personalities. Yeah, sure, when you are a long way into the story and have established to the readers which character talks in what way, it's a whole lot easier, but even then you can't be sure the readers won't get lost at some point.
Now, with visual novel writing style, there's less text to read (I assume we all dislike Purple Prose and/or verbosity in general) while making the story easier to read and keep track of. And you can still craft fantastic stories with this writing style. There are also some creative uses with this style if you can be confident that your (targeted) readers are intelligent enough. You can say a lot by having a character says nothing at all, for example, let's say 3 characters discusses something about a 4th guy named Jack. He is nearby, but the 3 are talking behind his back, maybe accusing him of something. Then suddenly after those 3 left, you see a line like this:
Jack: "........."
Very subtle, you didn't tell anything to the readers, but by throwing that line in, you can expect the readers to assume that Jack has overheard the conversation. Or has he? Maybe he hasn't, but then why is that line there? Jack did remain in place and only left after those 3, right? - I, as a reader, would wonder. (and if the chapter ends with that line, I'd be eager to read the next one)
Now granted, video games in general also leave a lot of narration to their sights and sounds, so when applied on paper, you'd have to write more text to describe the sights and the sounds to make a scene lively. You can't just literally use the same writing style, you have to adapt it to make it work. Maybe there're more processes than that to make this style of writing work on paper. I've never seen any pure literature work (ie as opposed to writings in other media) written this way, so I can't be sure.
Then there's also the risk that the readers are put through the mentioned annoyances. Since this is a subjective view, I'm gonna say I'm totally fine with it. A story is still largely the same when converted to visual novel writing style anyway, the main differences lie in conversations (which take lesser text than narrative voice in everything I've read so far). Name tags before each dialogue, are totally fine with me. On paper, I'll just see them as the name labels like in video games (half serious: it's like you're playing a game while reading, lol!).
But of course, with all that said, my thoughts are insignificant compared to the other writers and readers.
P.S: Hello everyone, guess that was a bit late...
edited 28th Jun '11 10:10:10 AM by Aqua