To contextualize my question: I've recently released the first episode of my debut VN, which in the very beginning, was conceived as a much less ambitious idea for an AO3 fic. As such, my rough draft was written in Word in the format you would typically expect of an ordinary novel. However, after making the decision to go the VN route instead, the original prose changed A LOT in order to work with the art, transitions, and what not. This led me to wonder how much different the story might've been if I'd written my original draft directly into my renpy script, rather than preparing it as an ordinary novel first. I was wondering if anyone else has experimented with that in their own writing, and what you ultimately decided was most conducive to getting your story "right." Any other thoughts on the side?

I tend to start with a very detailed game design word document. I like to add all the info I can about the characters to help flush out the world. Even if it is useless info like birthdays and favorite color. 

I usually start rough drafts in Word or Google Docs, focusing on story, dialogue, and character development without worrying about VN formatting. Once the draft feels solid, I move it into Ren’Py and adapt scenes, branching paths, and choices. Writing in a prose-first format helps me get the story ‘right’ before dealing with technical VN elements like transitions or sprites.

My first release started with a rough document that was outdated by the time it was checked again. Scope creep did its thing and in the end I had several places where I added and removed content, either written or a direct visual image of "this happens here and then this happens here" 

Yeah, I have a similar problem. I had a fantasy novel that I'm turning into a game. And I noticed that in a game, of course you want to concentrate more on gameplay and not read as much. So I might have to trim a lot of content.

The writing *does* work with the art, I just fear that even people that like playing VNs might not want to read *that* much ^^