scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/7camq3.md

## [D] Rationally Writing 38 - The Medium of Prose Fiction

* Author: u/DaystarEld  *Pokémon Professor**
* URL: http://daystareld.com/podcast/rationally-writing-38/
* Score: 12

* Created: 2017-11-11T20:02:07

### Post:

[Link to content](http://daystareld.com/podcast/rationally-writing-38/)

### Comments:

> **u/Kuiper** [+5]  (5 hours later)
> 
> On the topic of illustrations in prose fiction: Japanese light novels (not to be confused with manga) are prose novels that include full-page illustrations inserted every few pages or chapters.  Usually, these illustrations are provided after the fact: the author writes a prose novel, and an illustrator comes in after the fact to add illustrations of key moments in the story, meaning that these images are not contextually essential to the story.  In fact, when I read Japanese light novels, I tend to ignore the pictures, mostly because when I'm immersed in a text-based narrative, interrupting the reading to look at an artist's rendition of a scene is more likely to break my immersion than enhance it.  (There are also people who read light novels in formats that exclude the images entirely, as is often the case with fan translations that provide only the text without including scans of the pictures as they appeared in the original Japanese printing.)  This style of "illustrated YA novel" seems to mostly be a Japanese phenomenon.
> 
> On the subject of Japanese prose fiction, visual novels (which originated in Japan but started crossing over to the west during the 00's) are an interesting case.  Visual novels usually take the form of software that run as an executable on a computer or game console, though there are some web-based visual novels.  One of the things that's interesting about visual novels is that the player progresses through them line-by-line, allowing the creator to provide a more directed experience, e.g. cues for music changes and sound effects or visual effects can be tied to specific lines in the story.  Awhile back I wrote a [blog post](http://www.route59games.com/how-visual-novel-writing-is-different/) about some of the more subtle ways that writing for visual novels differs from writing for other forms of prose.
> 
> On the subject of formatting complications, one genre of writing that seems to deal with this a lot is litRPG, which focuses on telling stories with a videogame-like progression.  It's common for authors to use brackets to connote anything pertaining to a gaming HUD-like interface, e.g. "[15 exp gained]".  Formatting can get a bit messy for many authors who like to include stat tables (sometimes showing them just when characters "level up," others providing them as updates/reminders at the end of every chapter), and one of the things that's become apparent is that many websites like fanfic.net and formats like Kindle are really bad at handling tables in a consistent way; Kindle tends to have lots of issues where tables won't "fit" correctly if readers are using a certain font size on their device, among other problems, and the Kindle product family is large and old, forcing you to support a lot of legacy hardware which doesn't handle things the same way the newer Kindles do.  This has led to some authors just putting putting their tables as PNGs in the text, rather than trying to insert a properly-formatted table, though some Kindle authors shied away from this because Kindle passes bandwidth costs onto the author, and putting a bunch of PNGs into your ebook is a quick way to increase the file size of your ebook tenfold or more.  (I'm not sure if Kindle still handles bandwidth costs this way, though my understanding is that Kindle Unlimited doesn't charge authors for bandwidth costs in the same way, and Kindle Unlimited has become one of the more popular channels for commercial litRPG.)

>> **u/DaystarEld** [+3]  *Pokémon Professor* (9 hours later)
>> 
>> Great points, thanks for bringing those up! I've always considered visual novels to be more belonging to the "comic" genre than the "prose fiction" one, but the line obviously tends to blur at things like light novels, which I'd say definitely lean more toward prose fiction and which I totally forgot about when discussing novels with pictures in them, since I never read any with the associated pictures included :)

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+1]  *Time flies like an arrow* (9 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I've always wanted to write a visual novel, the problem is that I'm crap at art, and so I'd be stuck using assets that weren't quite what I wanted (or trying to rope an artist friend into making a lot of art for me).

>>>> **u/Kuiper** [+2]  (16 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> You could always go onto a recruitment board (I believe [Lemmasoft](https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewforum.php?f=58)  is still the most active/popular one) to try and find an artist who'd be willing to work with you. 
>>>> 
>>>> You might run into issues if you're a writer trying to recruit artists, since "writer seeking project/partners" tends to be the most abundant sort of post, but it can be easier if you're willing to fill other roles in the project (like doing the direction/coding yourself).  Also, as a writer with a bit of a pedigree and a portfolio, you'd have a leg up on most of the random writers who show up on the recruitment boards; in addition to demonstrating your abilities as a writer, being able to show that you've completed several large projects shows that you're less likely to flake, which is one of the biggest challenges of working on a multi-month project with several internet strangers.  If you did post on a recruitment board, it would probably be worthwhile to link to your Goodreads page, which would help communicate that you're a person who finishes projects, plus provide a cache of ratings and reviews that speak to your credibility and capability as a writer.  (Of course, prospective recruits would probably want to actually read your writing, but your Goodreads page can provide a nice way to for people to quickly verify that you're worth evaluating as a prospect.  One of the things that makes it harder to join projects as a writer rather than artist is that it often takes people longer to evaluate whether a writer is someone that they might want to work with, whereas when it comes to art people can often make this evaluation within a matter of seconds.)
>>>> 
>>>> You could also try creating a visual novel using placeholder assets to create a sort of proof-of-concept and then look for an artist once the project had been substantially completed, which would make it a much lower-risk option for prospective artists; having a semi-complete project greatly reduces the risk of you flaking, and it also would allow them to sample your writing and see what kind of project they'd be attaching themselves to before making any kind of commitment.  Some artists might find this less appealing, since a mostly-finished project wouldn't give them the chance to be as involved in the creative process (and could lead to them having less latitude when it comes to things like character designs), but if you want to have total creative control over the project, this could be the way to go. 
>>>> 
>>>> Probably the easiest low-friction way to initiate yourself into the VN development community would be to participate in [NaNoRenO](http://www.route59games.com/what-is-nanoreno/), which is a NaNoWriMo-style 1-month game jam. (It starts in March, so you'd probably want to hit the recruitment board some time in February.)  It's a good chance to dip your toes into the scene, since it's relatively low commitment, and the low stakes and relatively small scope of the event make it a time when people are willing to try experimental projects with people they haven't worked with before.

>>>> **u/CouteauBleu** [+1]  *We are the Empire.* (10 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> You could try to go for a more sparse, minimalist art style, like Homestuck and Prequel (still would take some time and effort before it looks like anything but crap).

> **u/DaystarEld** [+3]  *Pokémon Professor* (15 seconds later)
> 
> Hey everyone, this week we discuss the unique aspects of the various mediums of prose fiction, and how new technologies introduce new opportunities and challenges. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Timestamps
> 
> 5:03 Technological limitations
> 
> 11:01 Conventions
> 
> 16:45 New Media
> 
> 19:27 Music
> 
> 24:45 Subjectivity
> 
> 31:45 Mediumception

> **u/Makin-** [+2]  *homestuck ratfic, you can do it* (2 days later)
> 
> Cool insights, but I gotta say I'm disappointed none of the references made more than a 5 seconds aside, especially Homestuck, which is a perfect example for what works and doesn't.

>> **u/alexanderwales** [+1]  *Time flies like an arrow* (3 days later)
>> 
>> I have unfortunately never read Homestuck; I do occasionally read things specifically for this podcast, but that seemed like a huge time commitment, and I'm already keeping up with too many serials on top of books coming out.
>> 
>> I know Homestuck does a lot of multimedia, and fully leverages the variety available to it, but not much more than that.

>>> **u/CouteauBleu** [+1]  *We are the Empire.* (3 days later)
>>> 
>>> Have your read Prequel Adventure?
>>> 
>>> It's a Homestuck-inspired story with many of the same tools and conventions (second person narration, userbase commands, mix of text and images, flash minigame interludes, etc), but shorter, denser, and more focused thematically.
>>> 
>>> It uses its tools in really neat innovative ways too, much more than Homestuck does.

>>>> **u/DaystarEld** [+1]  *Pokémon Professor* (6 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> I did not know about this, maybe I'll check it out before I try homestuck again :)

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