Needs help recruiting people for VN project

[Azurelorochi]

I'm currently trying to develop a VN in japanese on my own, but is currently facing several troubles

Firstly though my japanese skills is good on the level of being capable to read average light novels and talk daily conversations without any difficulties, I am regardless not a native speaker and thus I would make some mistakes when writing, and so I'm looking for some method to contact japanese gaming college teachers or some other experienced individuals who can be my editor, I don't mind foreigners if they have japanese skills equal to native speakers along with experience in editing VNs, though as you can see the combinations would add up to be pretty rate

Secondly I am skilled enough to draw the CGs for the VN for myself, but when it comes to coloring I just couldn't make the shadowing right, I've tried reading manuals and watching tutorials on several sources but still I find shading the CGs to be difficult, I have tried recruiting some artists from pixiv but all attempts just result in being declined or receiving no reply whatsoever, so it would be better if I could find an alternative source where I can recruit some artists to do the shading in my CGs for me

As I have seen how hard it is to persuade artists for free in pixiv, I am willing to pay some money for the artist but as I am still a university student(albeit in a university where I can't find any teammates for this project) I don't have much money to waste so if anyone could tell me the average cost I need to pay for the artist I would be thankful for your help, though for the editor I'm currently positive that asking someone to help would not be too hard once I can contact them so if possible I would prefer having someone who is willing to work for free

[Vaikyuko]

1. Wrong idea. You don't develop something outside of your native language. It is a terrible idea in every possible way. Look at Katawa Shoujo. It is a visual novel which was primarily developed by English speakers for an English speaking audience, but once the thing became relatively popular people became willing to do translations for it. Do it in your own language, because it's easier to grasp the slippery nuances. Once it's popular, someone else will see to it that it gets translated. Don't kid yourself into thinking you can produce a product which will be popular in a language in which you aren't fluent. The native speakers will see it in your writing.

2. Saying you're a university student and you can't pay much if at all is irrelevant. If you want quality, you will likely have to pay for it, unless the person has a personal investment. Consider it like this. If someone came up to you and said "I have an amazing idea for [product] and I need your skills to make it!" would you be remotely thrilled if it was, say, a lawnmower? No, you probably wouldn't, and you most likely would desire compensation.

3. What kind of programming knowledge do you have? Are you capable of using any established engines like Ren'Py? That's a far more pressing issue than artists. You can have all the art in the world, but without proper coding it will just be random pictures you have commissioned.

4. What kind of personal skills do you bring to the table? Are you a published writer seeking to establish yourself (I assume not, since you say you're a university student) in the world of visual novels? Why a visual novel in particular? If the story is that powerful but you're having issues finding artists or editors, why not write it as your own personal story and attempt to get it published? There's lots of questions here you need to ask.

I would love to see more indie games succeed, but you need to ask yourself harsh questions in order to proceed at your best. Do you intend to sell this for money? If not, what's the incentive for an artist or editor with no personal interest to work for limited or no money? Given this is a primarily English speaking site, and you mention Pixiv and that you have some knowledge of Japanese, why not post this sort of thing on 2ch where it would get far more notice, or even a more "mixed language" area like Sankaku?

[Azurelorochi]

1) I am developing this in japanese because I have personal reasons for doing so. I am not a sloppy speaker who cant tell the differences between 'ore' and 'boku' when its used in dialogues, I am verbally fluent in japanese. Literacy and talking may be two different levels but I am 95% capable of handling this on my own, I just need another person to fill in the 5% by doublechecking whether or not I am using the best word for not situation(repeat: not just the 'right' word, the 'best' word, even many authors who are native speakers needs help in this part because dictionaries aren't good enough to tell which word works best)

2) I am not saying 'because I am poor I'm willing to pay as much that I dont need to starve', I do have a sufficient amount of money in my bank account, certainly enough to pay a 'fair price' for a 'fair quality'. And I am willing to pay all of it if necessary, but I am saying that as a university student I cannot afford to waste money in unnecessary fashions, that's why I'm asking for the average price I should be ready to pay, otherwise not knowing this average price would make me a soft target for people to cheat on my payment. Not to be paranoid but by finding people on the net I can't simply expect everyone to be perfectly nice.

3) I am capable of using ren'py and numerous sound editing programs, I can draw, I am skilled enough in photoshop to edit photos on the net to make into BG of my VNs. I already have my musician friend made all the BGMs and SEs I need. The only thing I'm missing is the colors in my pictures, and I have spent this past 5 months trying to recruit over 60 pixiv artists, of which none worked out so indeed this had already turned into something ugly.

4) No offense but I dislike how you instantly dismiss 'university students' to be inferior to actual authors of mangas/novels. There are several successful authors who had their work made into anime who started writing even at younger ages than me, and I myself is confident enough that I can write a proper story that have better details, depths and believabilities in my plot and characters than many other simple-minded mangas and novels that are made into popular animes.

5) In case you never noticed, 2ch had a lock that prevents any non-japanese IP from posting in it, and I have already posted this identical topic in Sankaku and several other anime forums to maximize my search

[Vaikyuko]

Please don't assume I'm being rude or trying to put you down. These are all the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself. After all, if I read your post carefully and still had to ask these questions, what does it say about your pitch? People will have first impressions and since you haven't posted any content from the game here, it's difficult to get an artist interested.

1. Personal reasons for doing so are fine, but I hesitate to say it is a good idea at all to write in that language. You might be fluent enough to speak it one on one, you might be fluent enough to write in it, but anything short of absolute fluency will be apparent and will hurt the piece. Needing an editor is one thing, but needing an editor for fluency checks as well as consistency checks is going to set off alarm bells for people. I would still strongly suggest writing it in your native language and getting a native language editor to read it, even if they aren't a professional editor. Don't make the mistake of assuming (if you do write it in your native language) that you don't need an editor, either, because everyone does. Saying you need someone to check for semantic values ("which word works best") does not inspire confidence in someone looking to sign onto the project, no offense intended.

2. I understand that, but you have to look at how the request will appear. To some people it will look like "I want free work but if you demand it I'll pay you" so a lot of people will be skittish about it. Usually there is no set standard price for artwork and it depends on the level of quality you need. Artists go on a case by case basis and will not necessarily be financially successful though many are. They may not be capable of working on a project free, and they may not be affordable if they are required to charge high amounts for their valuable time. If an artist is successful or skilled, they will likely cost more in time or money than a less experienced artist, as well.

3. This is the kind of information which should be displayed in your pitch to an artist or other person. If you have examples, like a BGM or piece of the script you are willing to share, all the better. Seeing parts of a finished game will inspire confidence and people will be more interested. It helps to know what engine and style the game will be using. What genre of VN is it? Romance? Sci-fi? Fantasy? All of that can change an artist's interest in the project and should be included in the pitch.

4. I did not dismiss university students. I said that since you are one, you most likely are not a published writer. That is not dismissing a university student at all -- that is me saying that you can't rely on previously existing works you've written or your name's notoriety as a way to gain appeal for your project. In an extreme example, Tom Clancy can probably have any book he wants to write published. It's because he's Tom Clancy. You are (no offense intended) an unknown quantity. There is no example of your work, you do not state what kind of formal education you have for creative writing, and your pitch is not written from a professional business standpoint. It's informal, and that's fine if you have lots of detail on your piece and are explaining how you want to hook in the artists. Without it, though, things like lacking periods at the ends of sentences or misusing plural / singular words become very apparent and suggest an unprofessional nature (whether or not you intend it to do so).

You say you can write a better plot but is that saying you have written one, or that you can write one? If you have written one, why not use that plot even in part as an example, to help draw in potential coworkers for the project? If you haven't, I'm asking as a writer that you do not put down the works of other writers, because writing is significantly more complex and difficult than you seem to be willing to give it credit. You also have to understand that those "simple minded" manga and anime generally end up being wildly popular and lucrative. If you intended to distribute this visual novel for free, that's one thing, but if you intend to sell it, you're being awfully foolhardy to assume there's nothing to be learned from those simple minded pieces. They sell, and it's not because they're simple minded. There's a variety of reasons, and some might apply to your visual novel depending on the genre.

5. I have never personally visited 2ch, so no, I didn't notice. An IP lock is an easy thing to get around, it just requires a masker or dummy IP. That you posted it on several other forums is a credit, so good.

Please don't assume I'm being rude or trying to put you down -- I'm trying to help. People are very skeptical and cynical and don't want to put time and effort into something which looks like it may never bear fruit, and a lot of people won't give you the time of day if they can't even see what kind of project it is. Also, have you considered how you plan to publish this piece? Via the web? What kind of distributor? Self-promoted? Will you be able to cover server costs?

[Leader Desslock]

Let me ask the OP a couple of straight questions:

1) Does the term "spaghetti western" sound familiar?

2) Does the term connote "high-quality, literary merit" to you?

3) Why do you suppose it doesn't?

I believe I have achieved fluency in the English language. They still speak English in the UK, from what I understand. But it would be a mistake for me if I tried to write a book set in the UK, about a British character living life in a suburb of London - anyone who's actually from the UK would see through it immediately. My book would seem quite superficial to the natives, even though I'm fluent in the language. Heck, I even remember to put the 'u' in words like 'colour'. I can pronounce aluminium as a five-syllable word.

Why do you suppose that is?

Given that you're 5% less fluent in Japanese than I am in English (by your count), and given that Japanese culture and society are extremely nuanced, why do you suppose your own work in another language won't come across as a superficial treatment of the material, written by an outsider?


"Write What You Know" is one of the first mantras of writing for a reason. I believe that's the original point Vaikykuo was trying to make. Do you truly know Japanese language and culture well enough to produce a creative work in Japanese, for sale in the Japanese market?

If you do - great! But I wouldn't think you'd need to solicit outside assistance if that was the case.

[Azurelorochi]

Sorry if this doesn't answer all of you both's questions thoroughly but I will try to keep it in a single post.

Firstly, I am not trying to recruit someone for this site, as it should have already been obvious I am not a frequent member here, to be honest I signed up just for asking this, and the 2 things I am asking for is simply:

(1) Any method I can contact an individual who have experiences judging anime-styled fictions along with having language skills that can help me not only in writing correctly and neatly, but also in helping me to improve my skills in this area before I make this my actual career. That is the personal reason I am talking about, I am aiming to become an actual author in Japan after finishing my university, and so I am trying to get myself to improve as much as possible both in storywriting and language skills. Not to mention that for a foreigner to become a proper author in Japan, it must already have been more complex than a japanese wanting to become author, that's why I have to establish a proper work that says "I can make a good piece of fiction in Japanese without any problems so please let me work here". Therefore sorry but writing my work in any other language is not an option as it does not help me improve in the areas I wanted and also doesn't maximize the chances for my qualification.

(2) The price I should pay for a 'fair quality' coloring. Again, no offense or anything but I am not looking for people around here to work for me, I know exactly where to recruit paid artists, but I just wanted to know the amount before going in there so I won't be a soft target. The quality I want is simply average, it doesn't have to be supreme or anything since again, I am mainly working with the story part. All I am asking is the price for that average quality that isn't ugly to both the resulting image and my wallet. So if I know how much I should pay then I can just go to that recruitment place, post down a request and a price. Not "I want free work but I'm willing to pay if I can't get free work" but simply "I have work, its just coloring, I won't force you to rush the work, and I'm going to pay you this much for it", as far as I know and have seen, many artists there wont care what type of work they're doing, as long as they gets their money, and since its just coloring, its not a very rare trait to find artists who can do this job, so the price should not be too high.

And for the anime part, by 'simple-minded' I apologized but I forgot to specify what I meant by that. I know moe is a genre you can make huge money out of with non-existent storylines and characters that never made any sense, I know why and how it is done and I know it is not my thing. But I'm not referring to those in this case, I'm more talking about 'typical-typical' shounen(and sometimes seinen) that simply throws down a story thats pretty much the same cliched plot, throws in fanservices then hand the thing over as a finished product. I am positive I can do better than that, and judging by how complex plots is becoming a rarity, I'm simply trying to fill in the hole there.

[Leader Desslock]

Originally Posted by Azurelorochi

...I have to establish a proper work that says "I can make a good piece of fiction in Japanese without any problems so please let me work here".

Yes, but you haven't actually answered my question.

You are less fluent in Japanese than I am in English, and yet I freely acknowledge that if I were to write a work of contemporary fiction about characters in the UK, set in the UK, etc., such a work would appear superficial and "written by an outsider" to the locals. I can do a whole lot of research to mitigate that perception somewhat, but when it comes down to it, I'm not a UK native. Never will be.

There are lots of movies set in Maine; we Maineiacs usually view them as comedies, because as much as folks "from away" (our term) think they sound authentic, they're abysmal at capturing Maine culture, language and dialogue.

When I went to Japan, I was struck by how similar the Japanese people were to native Maineiacs. Their term 'gaijin' (or 'gaikokujin') means the same thing to them that "from away" means to a Maineiac. And there's just no way to fake that. You could research Maine for the rest of your life, and there's no way in Hell that you'd ever pass for a local to a local. You would always be "from away". That's a fact. And given that the Japanese have a word in their common vocabulary to express this concept, I expect it's a fact in Japan as well.

So... back to my original question that you declined to answer:

Why do you suppose your own work in another language won't come across as a superficial treatment of the material, written by an outsider?


You say that this work is going to be your declaration to the Japanese writing market that "I can make a good work of fiction in Japanese!", but... if this work is perceived as the 'outsider' piece I expect it will be, then... won't it actually hurt your future publishing reputation to publish it now, before you've achieved a level of fluency that will allow you to say that?


You want to finish university and become an author in Japan right out of the gate, but... wouldn't it make sense to go for a transitional position? Maybe look into becoming a professional translator? That'd give you deeper exposure to working with the language and culture. The publishing market will still exist in a few years' time when you've honed your Japanese skills. In the meantime, of course, you can still write works in your native tongue, to keep your writing skills sharp.

Originally Posted by Azurelorochi

Therefore sorry but writing my work in any other language is not an option as it does not help me improve in the areas I wanted and also doesn't maximize the chances for my qualification.

Good luck with that approach, Slugger.

[goddessofanime]

Define 'anime-styled story'....because really? That could seriously mean anything.

If you want to do something though for the Japanese market, then did you do your research? You might want to publish on something like pixiv first to see if people will like it.

Because otherwise, no offense? But you sound like every other fan who wants to become the next Oda, Type Moon or whomever is the big Mangaka at the moment.

[larrymac121]

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Seokik

[Hiroshimafuu]

Desslock is hitting so many nails on the head he might need to go buy himself a new hammer.

Azurelorochi, it sounds like you've got ambition and guts in spades, both of which will come in handy as a professional writer. Keep at it and don’t give up.

At the same time, there's a pretty big gap in the language skills required to have "daily conversations without any difficulties" and write something at a level where people will want to read it for pleasure. You said you're "not a sloppy speaker who cant tell the differences between 'ore' and 'boku'," but honestly that distinction is basic enough that it's sill well below the line of "professional writer-level."

There's also usually a pretty big gap between what you can understand in a foreign language and what you can express, so being able to read light novels (which aren't that high on the difficulty scale of Japanese books) doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to write at that level.

It seems like you're trying to kill two birds with one stone, by producing a visual novel to improve your writing/narrative skills, and doing it in Japanese to improve your foreign language skills. And while that potential efficiency has got to be tempting, if at this point in your life you haven’t yet written a complete visual novel or obtained native-level Japanese skills, you might make quicker progress by working on those two goals separately.

I’m also not sure if your primary goal in this project is to make money or to improve your skills. If it’s to improve your skills, taking writing or Japanese classes might be better for you right now. I do editing work, and I’m happy to fix my clients’ mistakes, but if they want me to go into the details of why the change had to be made, plus give them the training to do it by themselves next time, that’s a separate teaching service and costs extra.

If your primary goal is to make money, you may have to face the hard fact that you’re not ready, right now, to make something at that level without quite possibly professional-level help.

A quick Google search for “Japanese proofreading” or “Japanese editing service” should give you some places to start. Most translation companies can also do editing.

However, bear in mind that editing takes a lot more time than it seems to. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, you wrote “tabetta” but the past-tense of the verb is really “tabeta, so I’ll just change that for you.” You’re talking about giving a script written in Japanese to someone to edit. In other words, the editor is going to receive something that’s already written in the target language. It goes without saying, but in these cases most of the things that need to be edited are things that can’t be understood in the way the writer wrote them, even by the editor. So the editor has to contact the writer for clarification, which means either spending time on the phone or writing up an email documenting the problem. And unless your editor also speaks English, you’re going to have to discuss the problem in Japanese, which as it’s not your native language, is going to make things take even more time.

When a client brings in something they tried writing in English and want edited, it’s almost always easier when I just ask them to give me the original Japanese document so I can translate it myself.

In short, you’re asking for something that’s going to take a lot of time and skill, which is why there’s a whole industry set up for that kind of thing. Finding someone to do a quality job for free (or cheap) is probably going to be difficult. You said that you’re concerned about being cheated, so I’d recommend dealing with an established company that does translation/editing work instead of an individual who’s just asking you to take his word that he can do the job.

“…for a foreigner to become … (an) author in Japan, it must already have been more complex than a japanese wanting to become author, that's why I have to establish a proper work that says "I can make a good piece of fiction in Japanese”

How exactly are you defining being an “author in Japan?” Is it safe to assume you don’t mean that only people in Japan will know your works, and that you don’t want anyone outside of Japan (or at least people who don’t speak Japanese) to read them?

On the other hand, if you mean that your books are published in Japan in Japanese, there’s no need at all for you to be able to write your stories originally in Japanese. The Harry Potter series was published here, in Japanese, and was extremely popular, but I seriously doubt J.K. Rowling could put together even a basic Japanese sentence. She wrote the books in English, someone translated them into Japanese, they got published in Japan, and Japanese people bought them. All of the admiration and appreciation (not to mention the lion’s share of the money, plus the creative freedom that comes with success) went to her. She’s famous here, but I doubt anyone remembers or cares who the translator was.

Getting back to Desslock’s points, the writing of someone who didn’t grow up in the country and culture writing a story about Japanese characters living in Japan is going to stick out and seem awkward to a lot of Japanese readers. I’m not saying there’s no way a foreigner could ever learn enough about Japan to overcome that, but since you’re still in college I’m going to guess that you haven’t spent the many years living, or even more years travelling, in Japan to pull it off yet.

So if your story is about non-Japanese people in a non-Japanese setting, why not write it in English so people who don’t speak Japanese can enjoy/pay you for it too, then have it professionally translated into Japanese by someone who’s good at doing that?