Katawa Shoujo Forums

Update 24/5 Chapter 2 added
Update 5/5 Added Google Drive links
Update 16/4 Chapter 1 updated (hopefully for the last time)

I've decided to (hesitantly) post this after spending about 4 weeks on the first chapter itself and a few days making sure I haven't made any punctuation faux pas (at least the ones I know of since I am British).

The story follows Nagisa (boy not girl so everyone knows) who transfers to Yamaku after a severe beating leaves him scarred and with conditions that baffle medical experts (just so everyone knows these conditions are a figment of my imagination and may never happen in real life).
I'm using the games storyline so everyone is there although I've changed a few things (and I've tried not to use too much of the games script, but it can't be helped since I did try once and it didn't work out right) like Lilly knowing Nagisa from the past and Hanako being Nagisa's childhood friend/love interest before the fire (there will be more on this in the second chapter) and the addition of Aika who was in hospital at the same time as Nagisa (and the other extra minor characters I've added or will add in the next few chapters).

Now I've said my piece here's the story as it stands (please excuse the dropbox links since I don't think the first chapter would fit into one post plus there's still more to come)
Character profiles (Alternate link)
Prologue (Alternate link)
Chapter 1 (Alternate link)
Chapter 2 (Alternate link)

And just to cement the no requests sticky please don't post just get me to put up the next part as it'll be ready when I'm satisfied with how it looks (I'm only working on this for a few hours every night and most times I can only do one page a day depending on if I get stuck in one place).

Extra credit goes to Mirage_GSM who has helped out with fixing the prologue and chapter 1.

Okay, so I’ve not yet finished reading your story, but my notes are getting quite long so I thought I’d post what I got so far…
Ortography and punctuation are okay for the most part, but your story is extremely hard to read, sometimes bordering on illegible.
Several reasons for this:
There’s the occasional problem with grammar, especially with prepositions, and - later in the story - some mixed up tenses.
Sometimes you’re partly hiding the thoughts of your narrator, (e.g. calling the bully’s “factors”)
Then there’s repetitions. For example you tell us that he was in a coma for three weeks three times during half a page of text.
Another thing that affects readability is the almost complete lack of spaces after line-breaks. (easily fixed)
I rarely see “whilst” used outside of Shakespeare plays… Any special reason you don’t use “while”?
Other very common mistakes are confusing "your" with "you're", "was" with "were" and "then" with "than".

And finally the biggest problem of your writing:

As I looked around what would be my room for the remainder of this school year my attention was distracted by Hisao who seems to have found another soul and from the sounds of it is going through the pains of introductions and didn't know that I'd already retired to my own room so I turned my attention back to my room which apart from the generic coloured walls looked a bit more homely since everything was already unpacked (thanks to my parents who decided to head up in the car with both mine and Aika's stuff on their own since getting to the school by train and bus would be quicker then then risking getting stuck in traffic) with my clothes and several school uniforms stored away along with my laptop now sitting on the desk alongside my phone then I noticed that there was a large box that I knew wasn't in the pile of things I'd set aside for my parents to bring over to the school and then I noticed a note that was pinned on one of the uniforms.

For god’s sake, keep your sentences shorter!
I know I’ve been guilty of dragging on sentences for longer than necessary often enough, but this monster of a sentence is going on for TEN LINES!* And you do this all the time! Rule of thumb: If you’re going more than three lines without a full stop, you’re doing something wrong.
Other rule of thumb: Every time you write “at which point” you should start a new sentence instead. Same goes for at least half the “ands” and “buts.”


I like the plot of your story so far. Some thoughts, written as I read the story:

You sure take ‘bullying’ to a new level… There’s no way any school could hush up something like that as an “accident!” If you get taken to a hospital with injuries like that, they WILL involve the police, no matter how prestigious the school is. The idea that his parents would go along with a scheme like that is stretching credibility as well.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of an epileptic seizure inducing nausea in someone...

I never heard the word “fitting” used before, except for clothing… The medical term you’re going for is “seizure”

When someone is having an epileptic seizure, trying to pin them down is a surefire way to get seriously hurt! Usually you'd just remove any hard objects from their vicinity and wait till the seizure is over.

As he spends more time with Aika, he should learn about her condition earlier, shouldn’t he?

Hisao doesn’t object to the nurse discussion his condition in front of others?

Seems like every leg amputee has to join the track team at Yamaku^^°

Why would his parents give him a second - and even a third(!) - laptop? (his old laptop, the new one and the smaller one...)

Seems Nagisa is building up quite the harem^^° So far he's been kissing Hanako and Yuuko and hugging Lilly and Misha, all the while being in love with Akari...

So he helps Hanako get up from the floor, while Aika - the girl with the leg prosthetics - has to get up on her own...

Why is shocked when Lilly takes his arm in the store. He hugged her before... Yes, you said that you're using lines from the original VN, but in some cases Hisao's thoughts do not fit Nagisa...
…

So much for about the first third of your story. I might post more later.

*Arial(10)

This is my first project of this kind so there would be the odd mistake that I missed on my check through and I did try to limit my dependency on "at which point" since I altered some sentences and I am trying to use shorter sentences in chapter 2 (I actually re-wrote a majority of the first sentence to cut out most of the seeming unnecessary gooey details).

As for your comments on the story.

This story is fantasy so the extremes are just coming from my head and may not happen in reality and I found inspiration for the coverup from one part of moero downhill night 2 where the protagonist had to face his past after a person came after him for revenge after they were involved in a accident which it was reported that the protagonist ran away from leaving that person to die, when what actually happened was after the accident the protagonist was the one who called the ambulance and rendered first aid at the scene (he'd lost his memory of what happened so he bought the false reports) and the persons father (who was in politics) covered things up to make sure his son wasn't to blame for the accident (so you can easily cover things up if you have enough political grunt from the dirty side of things).
(excuse the long sentence and I'll be coming back to this part of the story in chapter three).

As above that is just fantasy, but then you never know how a person will react or how severe the seizures are.

I wasn't sure what to put so I just used fitting.

I was just going with the flow (fantasy again although I may tweak some of those sections in the story).

It might be that she (like Hisao and Nagisa at the beginning) didn't want to talk about it.

I don't think I mentioned Hisao's "condition" in that scene (although I'll have to double check) only the medication and the need foe exercise.

I don't think I said anything of the sort.

They might be have done it just in case the first laptop breaks down (and I've already factored the extra laptops into later parts of the story).

Hanako's kiss was a accident but bought back memories of the past, Yuuko asked so Nagisa delivered and the hugs are more reassurance (in Lilly's case) or as a calming method (I've just made it a part of Nagisa's personality) and the last part of the first chapter covers the relationship between Nagisa and Akari.

Hanako was closer to Nagisa and Aika was further away and it could be that she had gotten up at the same time as Nagisa was helping Hanako up (I may go back to this scene and alter it to make it more clearer if I didn't do so).

Even though Lilly knew Nagisa (and as I mentioned the hug was more a reassurance) it came as more of a shock that Lilly would do that (although it could be that Lilly knew that Nagisa was the only one around that could help her).

Once I have some time I'll go through chapter one again to see if I can tidy things up and make it a bit better.

I'm sorry to say, there is a lot more than the "odd mistake" in there...
If you're interested, I can send you a corrected version - just send me a PM with your email-address.

It might be that she (like Hisao and Nagisa at the beginning) didn't want to talk about it.

Even if she didn't want to talk about it, it would be hard to miss the missing legs...

I don't think I said anything of the sort.

You didn't. It just felt weird that the nurse simply seemed to assume she might join the track team and nobody thought to question that assumption.

Yuuko asked so Nagisa delivered

okay, I'll try that line the next time I kiss a girl I've met for the first time ten minutes earlier...

In the meantime, I've finished reading the chapter.
I don't know why you decided to keep Hisao as a character at all instead of simply replacing him with Nagisa. Nagisa gets almost all his scenes and lines, and in the scenes where Hisao is present, he mostly just follows Nagisa around and walks off when he is no longer needed...

Another thing is the scene between Nagisa and Akari:
He just confessed to the girl he's been in love with for two years.
She admits that she's been in love with him as well...
...and the next thing he says is "let's not start dating until after graduation in case we meet someone else we fall in love with? And she agrees?
I don't know if you've ever been in a relationship, but... let's just say, telling a girl you love her and with the same breath telling her you'll keep your options open for other girls is going to put your Social Link in reverse... (For those who don't get the reference: It isn't going to earn you many brownie points.)

I actually kept Hisao in since it is part of my story as I'm mixing up Hanako's and Lilly's paths (with Hisao getting Lilly as he does in her path with some changes) with some parts being slightly changed and some scenes going on a tangent.

I've actually just uploaded a altered version of chapter 1 with some changes including major alterations to that Nagisa/Akari scene (I also focused on Nagisa's changing feelings for Akari since I thought that 4 months apart can change someones feelings for better or for worse).
I don't need to replace the link as it's just replaced the previous file.

I appreciate all the help you've given me thus far and I'll PM a address once you've pasted the corrections over (just for the updated chapter 1).

I decided to take some time out of writing chapter 2 to do some character profiles for the new characters and for those that will appear in chapter 2 (although I'm unsure if I should do one for Hanako to reflect the changes in her story).

demonix wrote:(excuse the long sentence and I'll be coming back to this part of the story in chapter three).

No, your overlong sentences aren't excusable. They are at the very least run-on. You need to learn to use more punctuation, and you need to do that now.

Silentcook wrote:

demonix wrote:(excuse the long sentence and I'll be coming back to this part of the story in chapter three).

No, your overlong sentences aren't excusable. They are at the very least run-on. You need to learn to use more punctuation, and you need to do that now.

I was referring to the wall of text above that and I've already changed to a maximum of four lines per sentence with or without punctuation from chapter two and I am getting help with fixing some of the issues (which I might have to chase up on even though I wasn't going to).

demonix wrote:I was referring to the wall of text above that and I've already changed to a maximum of four lines per sentence with or without punctuation from chapter two and I am getting help with fixing some of the issues (which I might have to chase up on even though I wasn't going to).

"I was referring to the wall of text above that, and I've already changed to a maximum of four lines per sentence, with or without punctuation, from chapter two. I am also getting help with fixing some of the issues (which I might have to chase up on, even though I wasn't going to)."

I suppose this is the last comment I'll be leaving, then.

Silentcook wrote:

demonix wrote:I was referring to the wall of text above that and I've already changed to a maximum of four lines per sentence with or without punctuation from chapter two and I am getting help with fixing some of the issues (which I might have to chase up on even though I wasn't going to).

"I was referring to the wall of text above that, and I've already changed to a maximum of four lines per sentence, with or without punctuation, from chapter two. I am also getting help with fixing some of the issues (which I might have to chase up on, even though I wasn't going to)."

I suppose this is the last comment I'll be leaving, then.

"I was referring to the wall of text above that. I've already changed to a maximum of four lines per sentence, with or without punctuation, from chapter two. I am also getting help with fixing some of the issues, which I might have to chase up on (even though I wasn't going to)."

Even better.

One idea per sentence.

Well I've gotten the prologue and chapter one corrections from Mirage_GSM, and I'll be making the changes after I've finished the festival day scene in chapter two (so it doesn't ruin my train of thought).

The prologue corrections will be simple, but as the chapter one corrections are based on the original version so it may take longer then I'd expect.

Hope chapter 2 was as good as the first you are an extraordinary writer continue on with your career.

Well I'm hoping that it ends on a sort of a cliffhanger, but I've had to put chapter 2 on hold until I've finished making the changes to chapter 1 (it's harder to do since I've got to switch between the original and the corrected version (it isn't as easy as it seems since I can't post the corrected version as it contains all the changes and several notes), and the corrected version in based on the first version of chapter 1 so I have to make sure I don't make a mess of my original corrections).

The altered prologue is already available (the changes were minor), and I should have the altered chapter 1 up in about a week with chapter 2 hopefully going live by the end of April (I've only covered the festival so far, and chapter 2 is going to end after Hanako's birthday, so that date could slip since it took 4 weeks to complete the 1+ page prologue and the 40+ page chapter 1, and since chapter 2 is already 11 or so pages long already it might be even longer).

Just FYI as I'm just replacing files the links won't have to be changed (viva la dropbox).

It took less time then I expected, but all the changes to chapter 1 have been made and the updated file has been uploaded (as I said there's no change in the links) although I did leave one or two items as they were.

I've also edited the first post giving credit to Mirage_GSM for assisting with sorting things out.

Progress on chapter 2 is continuing slowly since I end up slowing down when I'm working on my own ideas (if I'm adapting from game data then it's a little easier), so the late April date for the completion might slip (there's a few parts of the chapter that haven't been written (mainly the ending) that may slow me down a lot more, and there's parts of the game that I'm keeping in (like Hanako's panic attack in class and the aftermath) that might give me problems when integrating them into the story).

I've also got to make some tweaks to chapter 1 again as the latest version of libre office has flagged up a few grammar issues (where I should've used an instead of a).