Devlog #6: Kinda Slow but Made Progress

Hi everyone^^ I made a little more progress on my VN~ I'm up to chapter 2 and still have some more things to add in!

Writer Burnout

I just want to say that it's been really hard for me to write in past few days, I ended up getting a writers burnout from a mixture of things and I thought I would share with you all my solutions!

I realized that I didn't have any idea what my character's personalities were

I spent some time researching for the right personality for my characters. I'm someone who has a more easier time designing characters rather than deciding their personalities. I wanted to make sure they didn't have the same personality and sometimes as a writer it's tempting to do self inserts.

I love going to personality-database.com to research for MBTI types from existing characters!

Cherry Blossompunch  - 14th May, INFP, Taurus, A-, 172cm, Chaotic Neutral

Berry Powerstrike -  23rd August, ISFJ,  Virgo, O, 171cm, Lawful Good

All I really needed to know was the character's MBTI type but got a little carried away, after knowing their MBTIs, it was a bit easier to imagine their tone of voice. 

I've been writing and have been feeling unsatisfied with my work, I made many drafts and didn't feel hooked on my own story

Every time I felt like this I stopped and took a few days break to enjoy other hobbies. Sometimes it takes time to work things out and your brain is probably running dry on creative ideas, you need to feed it something and it can be anything. Our best ideas are so random sometimes. 

After I played interesting games and looked at other visual novels for inspiration, I thought about structuring my story other ways. 

Then I remembered that if I was going to explain my story to someone, will they be able to understand it? That's when I started to think differently about my work.

I realized I was overcomplicating my story and I can keep it rather simple.

Finding ways to be productive and enjoy writing again

It's so weird that something that interests you can feel tiring overtime, I think it's important to make what you do enjoyable so you can stay motivated! 

I was able to lessen my burnout after doing writer sprints. I highly recommend for other writers to do it. All I did was jolt as many ideas I could about the chapter then rearrange those ideas. I ended up expanding more and more onto it which was amazing. I think it's great too and if you have a timer you can have a fresher mind while editing and add more unique ideas~ 

I starting using obsidian to type my drafts, I find it's easier to switch between chapters in my story without having to exit pages like in word/google docs. Obsidian has a lot of plugins and it's free to use^^

I use google docs or notepad++ to format my code/check my grammar and paste it in Renpy. I like using google docs still as a backup copy of my code!

I like to listen to music while I work, today I was listening to music from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney~