Dev Log 10: This Moment In June

"For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can’t be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June." - Virginia Woolf

Hello everyone, back with another Dev Log, which is admittedly unusual given it's a completed game, so it's more or less turned into a blogpost. There's not too much specific to Achlys that I would like to bring up, and honestly a lot of things that are more early than early stages, but I wanted to post, if I'm being really honest, because I wanted to use the title and only have so many days left this year for it. So here goes nothing.

I've put into practice some daily writing exercises to force myself to write at least a little, and build on successive efforts, develop new styles, etc, without burdening myself with the pressure's of long form structure and expectations. With this method, I have been exploring many alternative styles, taken from the books that I have been reading for research, with some interesting discoveries. Somehow, after winding all the way to the ends of logical writing in stream of consciousness, I dove back into more traditional writing structures and styles, finding it less limiting than I had imagined. Funny how a stream of consciousness of an orderly mind would just become a well written argument.

One of the main books for my research was Mrs. Dalloway, a "Stream of Consciousness" novel by Virginia Woolf, considered lighter and more digestible than To The Lighthouse, and by extension Joyce's Ulysses. I chose the book particularly for these features, to be able to integrate Stream of Consciousness techniques into more varieties of writing styles without it taking such a strong hold that it bends the rest to its will. In reading it, and examining it for my own style which I had been developing, I had come to the realization that it isn't so stream of consciousness-y as I expected, but rather does hedge closer to regular writing. Wikipedia brings up that "Randell Stevenson suggests that "interior monologue, rather than stream of consciousness, is the appropriate term for the style in which [subjective experience] is recorded, both in _[The Waves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waves "The Waves")_ and in Woolf's writing generally." I find this to be true as well. My own dilution of this style in my experiments just comes off as regular, introspective, and flowery writing rather than the sheer force that you would expect.

So I thought to bring it back around in my most recent experiments, to find that Stream of Consciousness is a hard style to do well, such that a person like myself would have been flat out amazed by any random sequence of words without punctuations, because it could be hard to separate the quality from the gibberish, such is its nature. I think the lack of punctuations can almost fool a reader, as a careful one can go ahead and mark it up themselves, to find that the Penelope section of Ulysses can for the most part be broken down back into regular grammatical sentences and phrases. (I doubt this holds true for Finnegan's Wake) As for a visual effect, the wall of texts that this lack of punctuations create is an intimidating, and overpowering presence for a first time reader, to where I used it myself illustrate Ellie's thoughts, truly marking a climax.

There are several factors which I think can illustrate good Stream of Consciousness. First being intelligibility. Despite first appearances, stream of consciousness does follow logic, even if alerting the grammatical structure typical to writing. More noticeable in Mrs. Dalloway, which marks up the sections with punctuation, phrases, despite running for far longer than usual, still do not form sentences on their own, and that these phrases and dependent clauses, though out of order, still rely on a small tucked in independent clause for structure. Especially if done without punctuations, it can be difficult to spot where a run-off phrase is meant to reference a sentence later. Keeping these principles in mind also show deliberate cut-offs in thought or sidetracking. In my high school days I studied Latin, which demonstrates these principles through it's unique grammar.

(Speaking of high school, a few days ago I had a dream where I saw old friends and admitted to myself that I thought of my school days. Yesterday however, I had a dream of letting those high school days and friends go, as I waved them goodbye as they walked into the light, wishing to see them again someday under different contexts. How strange.)

Here is an excerpt from the start of the Penelope Section.

"Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the _City Arms_ hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments"

(admittedly was hard to find a chopping point but the next word does start it's own complete thought)

Let's break this up.

Yes, (because he never did a thing (like that before) as ask (to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs) (since the _City Arms_ hotel (when he used to be pretending) (to be laid up (with a sick voice doing his highness (to make himself interesting) (for that old faggot Mrs Riordan) (that he thought (he had a great leg of)) and (she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself) and (her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid (to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit) (telling me all her ailments))

It's not clean because I did not mark which were phrases, dependent clauses, and independent clauses, but the sentence starts with the word Yes which ties into the ending but can be dismissed grammatically, and then starts off with a dependent clause starting with "because" which is in this case the main grammatical clause structurally, and the phrases can be reduced. To take this and boil it down to subjects and objects for main independent clauses:

(Because) he did thing and she left us and miser was afraid. From this structure the rest of the phrases and clauses are hung from it, weighing it down and bending it, but it is there tucked underneath.

Second point is flow. Now that we have examined the structure to show intelligibility, there exists components to Stream of Consciousness that can be individually analyzed and taken into consideration. Distinct identifiable elements, indicating form, which can be arranged in a variety of orders, indicating form, show that Stream of Consciousness is like any other in terms of analysis and being able to be structured towards one thing or another, with the most inherent quality being flow. 

Definitionally, based on its characteristics as a "stream" of words with minimal punctuation, it reads without stopping. Long strings of phrases without even clauses, or clauses that expand on points long before an independent clauses wraps it all up together are meant to emulate expanding and trailing thoughts. Through the usage of hidden form and function, there is an underlying texture to stream of consciousness texts. Surprisingly, VN's such as Subahibi have sections which I argue are in stream of consciousness. It's My Own Invention (my favorite section for the mystery and complexity, no surprises there) changes the form and texture entirely, with sections meant to highlight mental instability, such as breaking up text into long strings of screams or abundant repetition. Similarities can be drawn into Septimus Warren's breakdown in Mrs. Dalloway, though Subahibi is much more extreme.

The demonstration with the Penelope Section of Ulysses was meant to demonstrate the function of archetypal stream of consciousness. However in other sections of Ulysses, or Mrs. Dalloway for comparison, there is different usage and variety, which may seem less pure and blend into regular writing. Firstly, by conventional reading, Penelope's section is more or less first person. Whereas Mrs. Dalloway or Portrait of the Artist tend to be 3rd Limited, with shifting between characters for Mrs. Dalloway. Limited 3rd presents an opportunity to take advantage of the proximity with one character at a time to examine their thoughts and perspective, which Modernist authors used to great effect and often to great extremes, eschewing the norms of 3rd person Omniscient.

(For instance, War and Peace was written in 3rd omniscient, taking a step back from individual characters to talk about society and the world as it is and ought to be. Modern authors sought to rewrite these norms and invent new styles in the works of Joyce and Woolf, paving the way for Post-Modern modes of thought in terms of focus on the self rather than the outside, with self referentiality. Some argue Finnegan's Wake to be post modern.)

Using this advantaged view into the mind's of the characters, Virginia Woolf balances between inner and outer worlds through this carefully placed viewpoint, as well as through clear usage of voice. She alternates between direct quotations. "How are you dear reader?" with indirect quotes. While writing his text, he decided to pause for a moment and ask how his readers are. And free indirect speech. In the middle of writing his blog, he wondered how his readers were doing.

These 3 modes allow for different focuses, the direct quotes being an interruption in the inner world by the outer world, while indirect and free indirect meld into the inner narration of the character and show activity and passivity depending on usage.

This layered structure allows for similar effect to stream of consciousness, especially where parts are just similar but with parathesis and semi-colon's placed for the reader. Through my investigations of stream of consciousness and adjacent works, I believe that much of the benefit to the style can be obtained through structured, layered, and complex 3rd person limited writing.

For a visual novel, the interesting part to this flipping between direct quotations and indirect, melding into internal narrative, is that quotations hold special roles in VN's, being a more default mode, with sometimes blocks of text taking the screen. I can flip between both using this method.

Overall, this style is something I intend to develop and use myself.