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linabirb · 9 months

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how to write characters, voice dramas and mvs for your ocgram! (kind of? sort of? i'm not an expert?)

do you want to make an ocgram? do you have no idea where to start? maybe you don't know how to come up with characters for your ocgram? voice dramas are way too hard to write? how the hell are you even supposed to write mvs??

well hello there! i hope this guide can help you with doing just that!

as someone who has an ocgram (@linagram hi) and is currently trying to get everything prepared for season 3, i also was struggling. a lot. i'm kinda getting better at organizing everything now, but still, all the work you need or supposed to do for ocgram can be overwhelming, especially if you don't really have much prepared at the moment and you're just getting started.

before we proceed, if you're able to make art, edits or any other visuals for your ocgram, i recommend checking out this guide by @tsuwmya, it has a lot of useful info, references and resources. if you can't do any of that, that's fine too! you having fun with creating is more important and if you don't have the ability to create visuals, that's perfectly understandable. this guide is more about the writing part anyway, haha.

let's get started!

(warning for some spoilers for the milgram novels (at least the first one) just in case!)

this guide will be separated into parts so that it's easier to understand and you can find the part that you think is the most difficult one for you.

worldbuilding.

before we start working on characters and voice dramas, let's say you're just starting out. you want to make an ocgram, but you don't even know where to begin!

now, this is probably going to sound a little scary, but what i recommend doing before writing characters, vds and mvs is some worldbuilding. no, no, i'm not telling you to figure out everything about your ocgram lore (but if you want to, feel free to do so! i actually think it's gonna help you a lot in the future), but try to answer these questions first.

"when does your ocgram take place?"

it can be as specific as a certain date or it can be as vague as "some time before/after canongram". canongram lore doesn't really give us much info to work with so you can go wild. but figuring out even something as simple as whether your ocgram takes place before canongram or after can actually help you a lot!

"is your ocgram closer to canongram or novelgram?"

the music project and the novels' settings have their differences and both settings have their strengths. you don't have to write mvs for the novels-like ocgram, though you will still have to write the memory scenes. also, for a novel-like ocgram your characters are expected to be named after some sort of adjective that could describe their personality or be a reference to their crime/backstory (example: "nervous", "gentle", "two-side"), but their names are still supposed to be revealed closer to the end. meanwhile canongram uses the voice dramas, timeline convos and mvs (and apparently earbuds voicelines) to tell you more about the characters. figuring out the "format" of your ocgram like that can help you a lot too.

now, you have figured out these details. great! if you're feeling like writing more about how your ocgram works, let's think about these parts more.

is your ocgram just like the milgram project you've chosen as a "base"? maybe it even has the same jackalope? is the guard still named "es"? maybe there's more than one guard and more or less than ten (or five in case of novelgram, if i remember correctly) prisoners? does the prison still look exactly the same? maybe something has changed over the months or years? all of this depends on your own preferences and what you decide to do with the story. you can make your ocgram as different from canongram or as similar as you like.

again, we don't know much about canongram at the moment, so don't be afraid of coming up with the whole backstory for the prison.

when you feel like your world is ready, it's time to fill it with characters!

characters.

oh boy, the fun begins. i'm not your mom, so you can do anything you want with your ocs, but if you don't have any character concepts in mind and you don't know what to do, here are some tips!

(we're going with the canongram formula here, but you can adjust it as needed)

as you probably already know, the canongram prisoner pairs have some sort of theme. both haruka and yuno's crimes have something to do with children. both fuuta and muu's crimes have something to do with bullying. you see what i mean. figuring out themes for your prisoners could be a nice start if you don't really have any characters in mind. pick themes that sound interesting to you and that you would like to explore more.

let's go with the theme of "luck" for example. how can two (or one, or three, or any number, really) prisoners share the same theme? how can you show that? maybe one of them is really lucky and the other one is extremely unlucky?

okay, but here's the fun part. how can you apply this theme to murder? maybe one of them was able to successfully get away with murder, meanwhile the other one accidentally killed someone because of their bad luck? and this way you can come up with really cool characters even if you didn't have any ideas in mind before that!

okay, so the milgram's whole thing is that all characters are morally gray in some way. and the character's moral "grayness" is a spectrum. for example, it can go from "eh, they shouldn't be here, honestly" white to "okay this one is kinda fucked up" gray to "JAIL. NOW. OH WAIT YOU ALREADY ARE THERE" black. but again, even the sweetest and kindest characters should have their questionable moments and even the scariest and most dangerous ones should have moments that make you feel sorry for them.

let's take some canongram prisoners as an example. we have haruka. an adorable squishy blorbo, everyone's skrunkly, the guy who everybody kins. don't you feel sorry for him? don't you want to give him a hug? oh, he kills animals, by the way. he also killed a young girl. just so you know.

now, we have muu. a spoiled teenage girl who always get the things she wants and is proud of it. a girl who literally said she's okay with haruka killing himself for her. literally has a song called "it's not my fault". cries every time a minor inconvenience happens and whenever someone suggests something to her, she just goes "i don't wanna..". her father is a landlord. except she also got bullied by her own friends, doesn't understand how real friendships and human connections work, still brings haruka food and checks up on him when nobody else does and it's heavily implied she actually does feel guilty for killing rei. yeah.

my own personal formula goes like this: i come up with a character. i write some things about them and then i take a look at their crime and personality and if i feel like they're a bit too sympathetic, i add a little bit of spice so that it isn't so easy to forgive them.

let's take my oc aimi for example!

she's such a cutie, isn't she? she's also a victim of bullying too.. oh, also she has the biggest number of victims out of all my prisoners. she also seems to be very obsessed with the concept of friendship and if you refuse to be her friend, she will not take it well. she will most likely try to kill all other prisoners in season 3 or at least hurt them in some way because she doesn't see them as friends anymore. she's been voted innocent twice. she has way too much power in her hands at the moment.

okay! now, let's take my oc kei!

a pretty guy! seems like the flirty type. oh, by the way, he takes photos of people being tortured and that's how he makes money (not counting his job as. well. a normal photographer). "oh, well, maybe he didn't have a choice-" he did. he literally does it because he wants to. he likes it. he enjoys it more than his boss. he likes seeing people in pain and believes that hurting someone means showing you love them. he physically and emotionally abused his own little brother for years and the poor guy still can't walk and move properly because of it. he has five victims.

but for some reason, he also has these huge scars on his back. he also was shown crying in his second mv. he was shown as someone helpless and someone who ended up in a very dangerous situation because of his victims. so.. is he the real victim here? or is he just trying to look more pitiful?

i think you're already starting to understand what i mean. of course, you have all the freedom to do anything you want with your characters. make them as dangerous or as cute as you like. but if you want them to have this "milgram vibe", i suggest you try to find "balance" between their traits that make them look forgivable and the ones that make them look unforgivable!

we can't forget about the guards though! does your guard have all their memories intact? do they remember their name, their past, etc? maybe they're just like the canon es and they don't remember anything at all? do they have their own jackalope or maybe they do their job without a fluffy little bunny around? what is their role here? are they more of a "self-insert"/"audience surrogate" or are they their own character with a backstory and everything? maybe they're an active type who has very deep relationship dynamics with the prisoners and talks to them a lot even when they're not interrogating them? or maybe they're just a creacher? maybe they just do their job and don't really talk to them? they're just standing there.. menacingly.. all of this is up to you to decide!

of course, the relationship dynamics between the characters are very important! first of all, look at your overall cast, when you're done with them. what kind of relationship do you imagine them having? maybe you see them as a found family? maybe all of them are friends? maybe all of them are kissing passionately in the moonlight? maybe all of them hate each other? maybe they even don't care about each other at all! again, it's all your choice and it depends on what kind of characters you're working with.

if you're stuck and you're not sure where to begin, i think a good start would be taking a look at your prisoner pairs and try to figure out the dynamic between the prisoners from each pair. what are their parallels like? how similar are they? how different? do they like each other because of their similarities/differences or they hate each other because of them?

okay, so when you're done with characters, a much scarier part appears.

plot.

so, what do you write first? is it the voice dramas? maybe mvs?

i think it really depends on a person and what you personally find most comfortable, but from my own experience i actually would advise you to work on the vds and mvs first before writing and posting a character's profile.

you see, it's possible that while you're in the process of writing the voice drama, you will notice that the character's personality is much different from what you had written in their profile and originally had in mind for them. of course, it doesn't mean that it will definitely happen to you, but this happened to a lot of my ocs, haha.

so that this doesn't happen but you also have an idea of how your character is supposed to act, try writing down or simply making a mental note about your oc's main personality traits. maybe they're the most extroverted one? maybe they get tired easily? maybe they flirt with everyone they meet? keep those traits in mind, but also give yourself the freedom to explore their character and make them more deep in the process. maybe while you write the most extroverted prisoner's voice drama, you will realize that they actually don't like other prisoners that much or while you write the sleepy prisoner's voice drama, you will get an idea about them not wanting to face their reality and use sleeping as a method of escapism.

if it helps, i personally work on my ocgram in this order: voice dramas > music videos > character profiles, but of course, you can adjust it to your preference.

i think it should be obvious that you should work on the characters' crimes and backstories before you actually start writing the voice dramas and posting stuff about them. sure, you can make it up as you go, if you're confident enough, but i strongly recommend you have a plan or at least a concept of what your character's crime is supposed to be. it will make everything much easier for you!

about backstories: you don't have to, i don't know, come up with names for every single member of your character's family, but i recommend thinking about your oc's backstory outside of their crime. what was their childhood like? what about their teenage years? do they have any friends? what's their relationship with their family like? all these details can help you understand your character's motives, personality, crime and other stuff. also it's simply fun!

so, let's start with the voice dramas.

voice dramas.

(i've also answered a vd-related question here!)

voice dramas can be very hard to write, so let's think about what makes them hard for you first.

maybe you just don't have any ideas? maybe you don't know what the characters are supposed to talk about?

what personally helps me when i start writing the voice dramas is asking myself this question:

"why are these guys even here?"

probably sounds weird, but if you think about it, it actually makes everything a little easier to understand.

why is the guard here? most likely to interrogate the prisoner.

why is the prisoner here? most likely to answer the guard's questions.

okay, we're getting somewhere.

now, how would your guard interrogate the prisoner? of course, it really depends on your guard's personality. maybe they would try to make the prisoner feel more comfortable? or would they rather threaten them and scare them?

now, let's add the prisoner's personality to this equation. what is your prisoner like? how would they react to the guard's questions? what do they think about the guard? are they scared of them? maybe they want to be friends with them? what do they think about milgram in general?

let's put these personalities in one room now and give them a moment. how will they interact? what will they think about each other?

if you're not sure what your guard is supposed to ask about, you can always use the canon voice dramas for reference, but my personal method is simply thinking about what my guard is most concerned about or interested in. and yes, this goes for the guards who don't care about anything too!

maybe your guard wants to make sure the prisoners are doing okay? in this case, they'd probably want to ask about how they're feeling first. or maybe your guard is more focused on the prisoner's crime. then they'd probably start asking about that right away.

okay, your guard has asked a question! how will the prisoner answer?

depending on your prisoner's crime, personality and backstory, they may be okay with revealing some things, but would never want to talk about something else. maybe they're okay with talking about their murder method, their victim and all, but they will never tell you what their motive is. if you're only getting started with the first season, try to reveal something they're okay with first! then you can talk about the other things in later seasons.

what helps me a lot is separating my prisoners' crimes into parts and sort of.. figuring out which parts should be revealed very early and which ones should be saved for later.

for example, maybe we can reveal the prisoner's murder weapon and method in the first season, their victim's identity in the second one and their motive in the third one.

what also helps me with writing the voice dramas is simply "visualizing" everything and imagining how it would go in a visual novel, anime, actual voice drama, etc. also remember that since it's a voice drama, you're kinda supposed to tell everything through sounds and, well, voices! so for example, if you want to tell the reader that the prisoner is nervous, maybe you can make the guard say "you look nervous" or simply make the prisoner say "i'm kinda nervous".

music videos.

mvs are something everyone does a bit differently. maybe you can actually draw/animate your prisoners' mvs. maybe you can write song lyrics for them. maybe you can simply write their mvs' descriptions. it all depends on your skills and what you're working with. so here i will simply talk about how to come up with an idea for a music video.

firstly, what are you supposed to reveal in your prisoner's mv? is it their murder method? is it their victim's identity? maybe something else? keep that in mind so that it's easier for you to drop hints to that thing.

now, what can we do for the visual part? is there anything you associate with the prisoner? a certain theme, aesthetic, etc? even simple objects can help, think about how many canongram prisoners have an object as their "theme": yuno has balloons, muu has an hourglass, kazui has an apple, etc. now, try to think how you can reveal something about the prisoner through this theme. for example, in yuno's case, balloons are a reference to her pregnancy. milgram loves symbolism, so take advantage of that, haha.

what also helps me a lot is simply listening to music that i associate with that prisoner and kinda coming up with music videos in the process. watching actual music videos can also help when you're looking for inspiration.

also, don't forget that everyone's music videos literally come from their brains. what does your prisoner think about their crime? what do they remember about it? how do they feel about it? do they feel guilty? do they feel like they've done nothing wrong? do they wish to forget it? do they see it as their biggest achievement? it can also help with writing song lyrics, if you're doing that.

if you're writing a mv description and you're not drawing/animating a music video, i would advise you to try to describe as many things as possible, as long as it's important. yes, we all love noticing small details while rewatching the milgram mvs, we all love the tiny things that are important for understanding the character's crime, but sadly, if we can't see it, how else are we supposed to know about it? so yeah, if the color of the curtains is important in your story, you should describe it too.

anddddd i think that's all for now! this is mostly done for people who haven't gotten to the second/third seasons of their ocgrams yet, so stuff like the prisoners' reactions to their verdicts, their punishments, etc, is not here. but you can ask me about it (and if you have any other questions, you can also ask me)!

hopefully this helps someone <3

#milgram #milgram project #milgram oc #ocgram

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