GAME WRITING ADVICE
Joe Fielder 4/6/20
In response to a few recent requests for advice on breaking in as a game writer, I’ve put together a few thoughts on readying yourself for the role and finding work in the field.
Writing is one of the tougher areas to break into in games, but take heart! There are steps you can take that will make you more marketable and increase your skills at the same time. This may lead you finding related roles along the way and allow you to become a better writer.
Mainly, this will help you so that when opportunity (finally) arrives, you’re ready.
WRITE!
“Writers write,” as they say. Even if you’re working a full-time job, finishing a degree, or whatever, you should frequently be working on some form of writing project. Vary it up. Try to push yourself to develop areas where you feel you could use more experience in, whether that’s plotting, character, dialogue, or whatever. Seek out advice from other writers (in book form, columns, social media, talks, etc), but know that the steps you take to overcome creative challenges in your own writing may teach you the most. (I’ve put a few tips I’ve discovered for General Writing Advice below.)
Any kind of writing is useful practice, even if it’s a column, a product review, or whatever. Any format where you’re attempting to express the clear conveyance of ideas -- ideally with character -- will be helpful to you. Lessons you learn in one format are frequently transferable elsewhere.
On a related note: When working on a game, I really recommend having another writing project to work on at the same time. The collaborative process of working on a game is often fantastic and sometimes frustrating and always requires creative compromises. (Not saying that’s a bad thing. Your collaborators may often have great ideas that you’ll enjoy building off of.) Having a project where you make many or all of the creative decisions will help offset stress, inform choices elsewhere, build confidence, and generally make you a happier and easier person to work with. So, it’s not a bad practice to adopt early.
LEARN ABOUT GAME WRITING
Seek out an understanding on all the different types of writing: scripted, systemic (aka barks or AIVO), and support. (I’ve given a few talks on this recently and can flesh this out or provide links later.)
Seek out ways to learn about the key structural differences are between writing for games and other mediums. (Ex: This GDC talk on Death Three Act Structure has some great insights.)
Often, companies will require writing tests. I recommend seeking out examples of game writing tests and attempting them as practice. (I’m happy to provide feedback in-between deadlines.) I know multiple game writers who have broken in by providing strong writing tests, myself included.
You might need to have enough relevant experience on your resume in order to be *asked* to take one,which I’ll discuss how to build up separately.
Even if you’ve written for multiple games, you might be asked to provide a writing test. This can be difficult for a professional writer, since these can be time intensive and may keep you away from paid or personal work. Attempting to avoid completing a writing test rarely goes over well. If you’re too busy with deadlines for paid work to find time to do so, ask for a delivery date that works for your schedule or politely step away. (Note: Never ghost, as you may burn an important bridge for later.)
A few great ways to enhance your game writing skills:
Write comics
Writing that is clear, concise, and has character is useful in both comics and games, where space is limited or dialogue is expressed “on the go.” It’s useful practice that can provide transferable skills.
Learn about level design
A big part of writing for games is not only knowing the differences in writing for an interactive medium, but knowing how to collaborate with developers in different disciplines. I found my experience as a level designer to be extremely useful in understanding how to write for games. (That is, writing for the space available. Avoiding expressing key narrative during combat, when the player is distracted.) This involves teaching yourself how to use a commercially available game engine and implementing “scratch dialogue” (ex: sound files of you acting out a character’s lines). This can also give you anecdotes to discuss during an interview, where it’s always useful to talk about how you taught yourself skills, overcame challenges, and collaborated with others. Knowing level design can help you collaborate with level designers (ex: how to request space for a few lines to play in an area that won’t stomp on their combat layout) and can allow you opportunities to implement and refine your work to nail the timing of lines.
Similarly, taking on work on a small scale student project or indie game can provide similar experience, skills, and samples. Again, it never hurts in a game industry interview to have examples of how you’re a self-starter.
Learning about narrative design is also a great way to help gain marketable skills AND it’s really fun. I’ll follow up on this topic more later, but here’s something written by Emily Short (the creative director of Failbetter games) that has A TON of worthwhile links: Self-Training in Narrative Design
Other great resources:
Anna Megill’s Game Writing FAQ
THE JOB HUNT
A veteran voice performer once said to me at a recording session, “Finding the job is the work. This is the fun part.” That’s a good corollary for being a freelance game writer, where a day a week can be spent lining up future projects.
Here are a few resources that can be useful:
Former colleagues - People you’ve worked with in the past (who enjoy working with you and like your work) are often your best means of learning about new opportunities. This is one of the main reasons that going freelance is something you attempt after you’ve worked full-time on a few games.
This is also a great reason to always attempt to take the upper path in creative disputes. The game development process is often stressful and developers have long memories for petty bickering, outbursts, etc. Hiring managers often ask people they know who have worked with you what they thought about the experience.
Internship programs - If you’re just starting out, working as an intern can be a great way of proving your skills and finding full-time work. I know many former interns in senior game development roles.
IGDA Game Writing SIG - This group has regular meetings at game industry events like GDC and has an active Discord page full of useful advice and links to job openings.
Industry events - Meeting with other game developers and writers at industry events like GDC, E3, ECGC, and the like can be a great way to learn about openings before they’re posted.
Networking online - Gaining a larger network of industry contacts on sites like LinkedIn can be a great way of hearing about openings. Postings about relevant experiences in the field can sometimes lead to
Here are a few job listings that are worth checking regularly:
Listings on Google for “game writer jobs” and similar searches actually can provide useful leads. Their email alerts are worth signing up for.
Note: Sometimes you’ll find listings for places that are… less professional or reputable, but they’re often fairly obvious. (Ex: “I need someone who does creative writing for my Twitch stream. Send me samples and I may pay you.”)
Gamasutra’s job boards are frequently used by both AAA and indie teams. (Their email alerts aren’t great.)
LinkedIn job searches can sometimes provide unrelated listings, but can sometimes be useful. (Similarly, their email alerts aren’t great.)
As mentioned earlier, the IGDA Discord has a channel for game jobs that people post in frequently.
A few other job boards:
Larger AAA companies sometimes only post job listing on their own sites, so it’s worth bookmarking many of the majors, such as: EA, Activision, Naughty Dog, Crystal Dynamics, Valve, 343 Industries, Sony, Ubisoft, Zenimax, Bungie
GENERAL WRITING ADVICE
Joe Fielder 4/6/20
These are a few tips that have helped me as a writer in general...
MANAGING INSPIRATION & ANXIETY
To me, a big part of writing is a matter of balancing inspiration and anxiety. Invariably, if I go for a few days without writing, I start to doubt my work and myself as a writer. From what I understand, most writers experience this, many of whom are hugely successful. But if I keep regularly productive and feel good about the work I’ve accomplished, I'll be in a fantastic mood and that makes it easier to be inspired to sit down and write.
I personally find that writing -- even for just an hour -- the first thing in the morning is a great way of maintaining a positive attitude about my work, self, etc. (Say, your job begins at 9am. Carving out time from -- gasp -- 6:00 to 7:00.) You’ll go through the rest of the day like: “I accomplished something! I got some writing done!” Instead of: “I haven’t found time to write in days and my skills are probably degrading…” which can lead to you losing steam on a project, feeling terrible, etc.
The hardest part of writing -- at least, for me -- is sitting down to write. Any ways you can come up with to overcome this or any similar issues you face can be incredibly useful.
PLOTTING / ADVICE ON MAINTAINING STEADY PROGRESS
I can’t stress how important plotting out the main beats of your story in advance is for maintaining steady progress as a writer. Writers who just dive into a story and see where it takes them can run into major roadblocks and frustration, which can lead to you losing steam and even quitting. But if you plot out your major beats before you sit down to write, this rarely if ever happens. I like to work out what events need to occur or information that needs to be conveyed in each chapter (or like corollary) and ideally an interesting take on how that should come across, so when I sit down to write, I can focus on having the most fun possible with the actual writing. Having “done the homework” in advance, you
The plotting process takes iteration. Don’t feel frustrated by not being able to work everything out in a single sitting. In fact, plan for this! Identifying general plot goals for key moments or thorny issues that need to be resolved is a step forward. You can follow up on working out these beats later and give them the dedicated attention they deserve.
You don’t need to feel constrained by plotting. You can change plot beats, major scenes or characters, and even your ending later. Definitely give yourself room to explore and find better ideas. But having a solid base to build off of will help you immeasurably.
Some plot points or characters will require you to do research. That’s great! Identify them in advance and when you need to do that research. Sometimes, it might be a few chapters in, so you can get started on what you know how to write now. Don’t feel bad waiting and leaving open questions that you won’t answer until you need to, but also know that the research process can help inspire you.
I find that a good step to start the plotting process is to identify your goals and any restrictions you need to work within. (For example, if you’re writing a television episode, assume you can’t have a cast of a million characters for a crowd scene.) This helps define the box you have to work within and eliminates the terrible freedom of the blank page.
Early on, I also start mapping out key characters and necessary support characters. I tend to like stories that focus on smart, capable characters who are put through their paces and overcome challenging situations. (That’s pretty wide open as writing formulas go and allows for a wide variety of interpretation.) So, starting with an interesting premise or challenging situation can lead to you working out a cast of characters that help you express different elements, aspects, or scenes. Alternately, you can approach it the opposite way and begin with a dynamic character and consider what might situations would put them outside of their comfort zone.
Another useful tip for plotting is to plan out interesting challenges for yourself, whether that’s something you need to research or a plot device that will encourage you to work hard to pull off well. (Ex: You might decide to alternate between different perspectives each chapter, as a way of telling two competing narratives over the course of your story.) This can be a really fun way of pushing yourself to do your best work, if you make sure you’re not presenting yourself such a difficult problem that it’s needlessly onerous and complex. Setting a high bar for yourself is always worthwhile, as it can keep you on your toes and ensure you never get bored.
Once you’ve identified plot points that need to be worked out or open questions, get away from your computer for awhile! Go for a walk, run, or drive without music, audiobooks, or other distractions and spend some time thinking about these questions. Sometimes, you’ll have an aha! moment that solves several open issues at once.
If you’re a regular runner, it’s great practice to give yourself an issue to work out before heading out for a run. Road trips are also great for this, but this helps make exercise less boring and exercise also has great benefits for your mental health and productivity.
Once you’ve plotted out the main beats of your story, you can then give yourself a series of assignments and deadlines. That might be writing an important scene on a dedicated writing day or a chapter over the course of a week. (I’m pretty motivated by deadlines when working as a freelance writer, so I find bringing this aspect over into my personal writing is very useful.)
RESEARCH:
As a writer, sometimes you’re asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” For me, it’s often from research. I don’t want to say that research is the most fun part of writing -- it should *all* be fun -- but it can be incredibly inspiring. Think of it like the best, most fascinating independent study possible. Say you’re interested in writing a story set in -- or inspired by -- 16th century New England, a time period you’re fascinated by and want to know more about. The steps you’ll take to go beyond a Google search / Wiki understanding of this topic will give you so many ideas. For instance, going to the library and looking up letters or newspapers from a time period can provide insight on sentence construction, slang, advertising copy, or aspects of daily life that can help you define characters and make your world feel real.
I mention 16th century New England because that’s something I set out to research for a story and found a researcher to visit in Portland, Maine who was a wealth of information. Researchers *love* to share. They’ve spent their lives studying topics and are frequently overjoyed when people want to hear about them. For instance, I found that while many aspects of daily life were similar between then and now, but people were just starting to use forks to eat. They used a two prong fork to hold down meat, then ate off of a knife. Little details like this are helpful and inspiring.
Another useful form of research is to seek out other books, shows, comics, or film that have tackled similar problems to plot devices or dialogue choices you’re currently attempting. For example, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a masters class in plotting out full season narrative arcs and is full of useful lessons. The Cohen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing is a wonderful example of tense plotting and period slang. Even if a work isn’t a one-to-one corollary for something you’re attempting, being able to identify how others have successfully navigated a challenging writing element can be useful and inspiring. Similarly, seeing a misstep can provide you with ideas for how to succeed.
USEFUL WRITING ADVICE FROM OTHERS
Here’s some half-remembered paraphrasing of the best advice I’ve gotten or read:
PLOTTING:
Ken Levine - You don’t want events to fall together perfectly like a house of cards. That’s boring. Your character may have a perfect plan, but problems should arise.
RESEARCH:
Brian Michael Bendis - Rock n roll is most interesting when it takes inspiration from other forms: jazz, blues, country, etc. When it takes inspiration from itself, it becomes derivative.
Ken Levine - As they say, steal from the best!
PRODUCTIVITY:
Charles Soule - Never sit down to write without knowing what you’re going to write. (And in response to the follow up question: When do you plan that out?) On the subway, on a run, or wherever/whenever.
WRITER’S BLOCK:
John Sayles - I don’t really get writer’s block. There are definitely scenes that I don’t know how I’m going to write when I plot out a story, but I work on the ones I do know how to write first, then I’ll figure out (the open questions) before I have to write those scenes and tackle them later.
CHARACTER:
Ken Levine - People rarely consciously have evil intent. Everyone is the hero of their story.
HORROR:
Ken Levine - Empathy is very important for horror. Having some relatable or tragic element adds depth and dimensionality. (Ex: Splicers, mentally, are caught in a moment of their lives where they believe they still have a way to hold onto everything they’ve lost, but you’re in the way.)