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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG4WcRAgm7Y I'm in the planning stage for a mod to a video game, specifically a visual novel, and I'm at the point where I need to start outlining the story beats. I've found that Dan Harmon's adaptation of the Hero's Journey has both been a good match for the intent of the story, and a good way to plan it out. That said, I'm having a bit of trouble characterizing a protagonist where the protagonist is literally the player themselves, or I guess the reader. I don't want to write any dialogue for the reader, I want the reader to bring their own motivations to the story. It helps that the entire premise of the mod's story is to wrap up a lack of resolution in the original game, so there's an existing conflict - but it's hard to write the You and Need sections when I have zero control over the reader as a character. Is it a bad thing to just forge ahead with the assumption that the protagonist has XYZ motivation and conflict, when the protagonist is the reader? Or are readers willing enough to suspend disbelief and take on that motivation for themselves?
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Jan 3, 2021 17:50
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| # ¿ Apr 18, 2024 13:39 |
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sebmojo posted:How defined are they, either by the story or their actions? They're not very defined, and where they are defined, it's via their actions in-game rather than established backstory or internal dialogue. They're the one who installs the mod, they're the one who makes choices in the story to help the characters resolve their arcs, they're the one whose actions contribute to things going wrong towards the end, and they're the one that pays a price to put everything back together. The only assumptions made by the game/story are that the player has a vested interest in seeing the characters again, and later, that they are willing to pay a price for said characters' well-being. No other assumptions about the player - gender, age, reason for starting the mod, what they want out of the mod, etc. - are made. The advantage of being a game is that you can Show rather than Tell who the player-protagonist is. I'm hoping to use that by railroading their actions, at least unless I decide to blow up the scope and add multiple endings or more choices or some poo poo. Did that help answer the question?
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Jan 3, 2021 21:36
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