How to write in the light novel style- Guidelines and more

[Monsterful]

So well, here's how the story goes.

In a couple of months I'll be having a 2 term long (2 parts) class that will take care of creating and printing a whole publication, most of the examples shown by other students are books or magazines done by either them or people they know, so they just "put it together" and print it.

The professor in charge of the class advised the future students (that would be me) to gather content for a publication, it as to be mostly a textual one (since the class heavily relies on typography manipulation) so she mentioned a couple of examples and among those light novels were an acceptable option.

To make it short, I'd like to write and illustrate a light novel for this class but I need to learn the proper style for writing, so I made this topic to gather info on how to write light novels.  (I have around a whole year so no big rush)

Share your knowledge with me oh great writers of MR! I'll update this post content you guys post.

Info:

right then. well there are two major things you need to understand. first of all it is by definition a novel and therefore written in prose. If you can't write in prose very well just pick up a book you are a fan of and study it. in the same way you can learn to draw by studying others you can also learn to write.

secondly you have to remember that it has to be short. too long and it stops being light. best way to accomplish this is to make up a story you can either wrap up quickly or only tell a part of it and still have things make sense. pick a setting that doesn't need a lot of explanation.

Light novels are very easy to work with because of their focus. They are primarily made for people who want a good story but not from a long and complicated book, however the themes themselves may be complicated. The general age group is said to be for those in middle school to high school but many different demographic ranges can be found reading light novels.

I have also seen light novels where there is an image for every page of text. It is even possible to have a manga-like page that expresses an important scene in great detail.

[[aero]]

hmm i think Lego or Coryn would be the best help on this, ive never written a light novel myself >_>

[SaiHawkeye]

Light novels are very easy to work with because of their focus. They are primarily made for people who want a good story but not from a long and complicated book, however the themes themselves may be complicated. The general age group is said to be for those in middle school to high school but many different demographic ranges can be found reading light novels.

According to Wikipedia, the main purpose of a light novel is for popular entertainment which is true. It is heavily based on dialogue and can somewhat be compared to a script. It is primarily used as a hybrid to produce a story quickly while maintaining a quality of limited-production art.

The art in light novels varies from project to project. Type Moon, the group that made Fate Stay Night and many other popular series, produced an almost unknown series called Kara no Kyoukai as a light novel. In this series they have one graphic per arc with the rest being dialogue-driven. I have also seen light novels where there is an image for every page of text. It is even possible to have a manga-like page that expresses an important scene in great detail.

[Coryn]

right then. well there are two major things you need to understand. first of all it is by definition a novel and therefore written in prose. If you can't write in prose very well just pick up a book you are a fan of and study it. in the same way you can learn to draw by studying others you can also learn to write.

secondly you have to remember that it has to be short. too long and it stops being light. best way to accomplish this is to make up a story you can either wrap up quickly or only tell a part of it and still have things make sense. pick a setting that doesn't need a lot of explanation.

keep in mind the best way i can help you though is for you to try writing something and then i'll be able to point out what your issues are.

[Monsterful]

Alrighty then, I'll analyze some light novels and try to do a test run.

As for ideas I have a couples, they're very short and the setting is very "normal" and by that I mean totally human with no special powers or that kind of stuff.

I'll post something once I find the time to type it up.

Thanks for everything so far!

[SaiHawkeye]

I have the translated Kara no Kyoukai light novels at home if you're interested. If I remember I'll upload them to my website and post them here for you.

[Monsterful]

Why yes Thank you! Any example will surely help in learning the style.

[kuro-ame-neko]

They also have translated light novels on baka-tsuki

the ones I like are Sword Art Online and Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, so can read them as reference if you want.

[SaiHawkeye]

http://saihawkeye.com/Kara no Kyoukai.rar

[legomaestro]

for gods sake sai why didn't you say you had those earlier? >....< gimme gimme!


Monster, you have a pretty good advantage on 'theme' so what you need to work with mostly is style.

Light novels are supposed to be quick to read, terse/brief in their sentences. The target audience is generally teenagers and if i remember correctly the kanji uses a very loose form as compared to regular literature.

Yes, reading light novels heps tonnes, so make sure you focus.

I noticed in light novels things are loose in terms of punctuation e.g
"Hello!!!!? Are you blind?!"
(and the famous pregnant pause) "..."  (is allowed.)
(Or even ) "!!!?" (to show surprise. This makes things really fun and easy to work with, dontcha think?)

Also, dialogue is a main driving force. Do not forget the dialogue. It's used to help add content to the story, as descriptions are cut down.

A light novel is generally 15000 words long. Light novels are meant to be serialized so they're chapters are nice and short, and there is always a volume after the first.

Finally a light novel is related to the manga/anime genre by illustrations! They can either be full paged illustrations or small sketches at the corner of a page.

Hope this helps

[Monsterful]

Thanks Lego, I have been fleshing out some ideas slowly, they're mostly quick romance stories since they're the most common and easiest genre to write for a short setting.

Later on I'll post them.

[legomaestro]

I'll be waiting. Your project really thrills me for some reason. I wish it all the best... for what that's worth.

Oh yeah! There's one more tip: Visual novels/Sound novels. Prefereably a simple one, and one that's been translated from japanese to english... argh i wish i had the links on hand... I'll pm you the links to one or two i played. It's a very effective way to look into the way a light novel should be written

[legomaestro]

Forgive me digging up topics, but how goes this, Monster?