@tsukune@shylarah@NekoMizu@BrokenPromiseI'll be using the two primary light novels I've seen parts of (Fate/Zero and Trinity Blood) as the basis for some of my analysis, as well as my overall understanding regarding multiple types of narrative formats. Keep this in mind.
Vocabulary DebateFirst off, I don't think that the difference between a light novel or a regular novel has much to do with the maturity of the words chosen, mostly because that creates the misconception that fancy words equal a more complex story. There's nothing 'wrong' with using intricate vocabulary with your writing - though it will isolate some of your potential audience (not that I care about this since I do that with how complex my
story is anyway) - but fancy words don't give a plotline depth. When all is said and done, how sophisticated your language is has nothing to do with good content in a story, but simply how that content is presented -- I'll always care more about the depth of the plot, lore, and characterization, rather than the depth of the narrative; being highly detailed is more important than how big your words are or how educated you sound.
As shylarah suggested, there's plenty of very professionally written books that have weak storytelling, and I've actually seen manga that manage to be more poetic than a lot of the best selling novels out there. Of course, whether or not a story is interesting is entirely subjective, but so is whether or not highly elaborate language is a good or bad thing -- let's not waste our time getting into social classing between different preferences for dictionary usage here. This is all without me bothering to go into the sort of language I
personally use, since I don't think that's relevant to this. Also, this shouldn't be interpreted as me thinking tsukune thinks vocabulary is more important than story depth -- I'm not suggesting that, but I wanted to make a point of this for people who
do think that. I use fancy words at times (as some of my IC posts show), but the depth and poetry of my work is what makes it what it is. This is one of the reasons I'll constantly argue against people who think that every detail shouldn't be included -- details make the story a lot of the time, but how they're worded doesn't matter so long as they're there. Also, I happen to speak very poetically a lot (unless I'm feeling lazy or in a bad mood, I often sound like a philosopher) in real life myself, so there's exceptions to what tsukune said about that.
Light Novel Audience & SizeWhat Neko said is the most common description of a light novel in Japan to the best of my understanding -- they're usually directed at a younger audience (this is - if anything - the reason why light novels usually use less complex vocabulary), and this is one of the primary reasons that I usually
don't classify 'Guardian Ascension' as a light novel series. My project is complex and deep enough the a large majority of
adults won't be able to fully understand it, let alone the average teenager. The other official defining characteristic of a light novel in Japan is exactly the thing that makes it called
light in the first place -- they're usually no more than 40'000 to 50'000 words long, meaning they're significantly shorter than a regular novel. The equivalent of a light novel in America (courtesy of Ailyn for this one -- not that I didn't know this detail but I might not've immediately thought of using the word if she didn't bring it up just now on the phone) would be what's called a novella -- they do exist in the west, as previously suggested.
Self-Contained StoriesTo the best of my knowledge, each of the Harry Potter books has its own self-contained story which can work as an independent plot even they don't conclude the overall story of the entire series. Even if there's an overarching plotline between the books, each of those stories is still independent and therefore self-contained in my eyes, which is not the case with
some light novels. Trinity Blood - as a light novel series - is a book series that contains 'episodes' similar to those I've been planning on writing (albeit their content/narrative is a lot more simplified than mine), and while there is an overarching plot across the entire book series each of these light novels usually manages to conclude some sort of 'arc' (though not 'season', which Trinity Blood also has an example of; in fact, it's done the same way I plan on doing it to an extent) going on. However, the Fate/Zero series consists of four light novels, and
none of them are self-contained. If you stopped reading the series at the end of the first light novel, you'd basically be stopping in the middle of a movie -- which is shown rather well if you try to stop watching the Fate/Zero anime somewhere in the middle, since it doesn't feel finished at all. Due to this, I don't think every single light novel series follows a specific serialization method. Regular novels follow a set serialization system of being self-contained - to the best of my knowledge - and I honestly don't think my own project can work this way.
'Guardian Ascension'Now onto the main point of us even getting into all of this -- whether or not my project is a light novel series, and why it might work as a visual novel series.
Honestly, I don't usually refer to it as a light novel series, and the only reason I've made a habit of using that term here is - for reasons explained in the other parts of this post - that I don't think it can be classified as a regular novel, alongside light novels having the more 'episodic' quality in general. If you can direct me to novels that are heavily episodic (I don't count Harry Potter, for reasons explained already) then go ahead. tsukune is suggesting that my project won't work as a light novel series (I don't think it works as a regular novel series either, based on statements above) due to those being minimalistic in nature, whereas my story is - if you couldn't figure it out, based off how detailed my OOC posts are - very in-depth and complex (note that I don't contribute vocabulary as a factor to this though), with heavy emphasis on internal characterization and a lot of setting details and plot complexity. I think the best way to summarize my project would be that it has the depth usually associated with regular novels, but the serialization usually associated with light novels.
The most important factor in all of this is the presence of depth. My project is far too complex to work as an anime series or manga series, in my eyes. Take the Fate/Zero light novel series as an example -- if you watch the first episode of the anime, or even just the first scene for that matter, and then compare it to the light novel version you will notice a considerable difference in depth. While the presence of the music, voice acting, and visuals in the anime creates a very atmospheric element of poetry which I thoroughly enjoyed, the quality of the back and forth between Kiritsugu and Irisviel is considerably weaker in the anime than in the light novel, a problem in story detail which continues for the rest of the series. Kiritsugu in this scene of the anime comes across as somewhat detached - even cold to an extent - though you can still clearly tell he's hurting from the performance of the voice actor. Due to an anime both needing to cut time and also tending to remove the existence of 'the narrator', this scene is weaker here than in the light novel -- the written form of this scene goes into extensive detail showing Kiritsugu's thought process and how tortured his soul is by the fact that he'll be responsible for the death of his wife. In the light novel, he even breaks down and starts crying in her arms, while this scene is not present in the anime.
This is just one instance of many I can count that presents Kiritsugu as less melodramatic in the anime when compared to the light novel, and he's considerably less sympathetic in the anime due to it unless you really pay attention. One of my friends who watched this series with me even interpreted this first scene in the anime as implying that Kiritsugu was possibly a
villain - not the main protagonist - and continued to view him as an antagonist as the series went on. Don't get me wrong -- I think the Fate/Zero anime is one of the best series out there, but it doesn't change my point. This same type of comparison exists between the anime, manga, and light novel versions of Trinity Blood.
As far as I'm concerned, this weakening of characterization and general absence of setting details due to the narrator being killed - per se - is the main reason that I even decided to switch my project from a comic series over into a novel series. Subsequently, it's why I've spent the last several years becoming a writer and taking part in role-playing forums. My project is far too detailed and complex to work through these types of adaptations without - to put it bluntly - 90% of the content being lost. I've already explained why, but I don't think the format of either regular novels or light novels is entirely appropriate for what I've got in mind, since I've always been writing something of a fusion of the two. This is why I agree with what shylarah said earlier about the divisions between the two being poorly founded -- it's like comparing casual fighting game players with tournament fighting game players and stereotyping based off of these, because I'm a casual fighting game player at heart but I'm easily at tournament level despite my lack of practice and focus.
With all of this said, why the decision to try a visual novel series? Simple -- to get the best of both worlds. I've been informed that there's visual novels out there which contain the same heavy-handed narrative that you'd expect to see in a novel series. While I already planned to include some artwork in my novel series in order to illustrate what characters, settings, concepts, et cetera all looked like - in order to avoid misrepresentation and misinterpretation - I'd be able to do a lot more of this with a visual novel series if I had the time and resources to pull it off. Alongside this, I could also implement music, creating more of that atmosphere I mentioned earlier when referring to Fate/Zero and Trinity Blood. I'm a very music-orientated person in general considering I have pieces of music that I use for various characters or scenes while writing in order to invoke atmospheric meditative stats, so being able to bring music into the equation and help people pick up on that atmosphere would be helpful. Nevertheless, the idea for a visual novel series is still only that -- an idea. I'll continue to draft my work under the assumption it'll be novelized until I can confirm the visual novel idea is realistic.
