Writing
Roles And Responsibilities
Writers create the narrative and stories in games that the player will follow. This is not just limited to the main story though, they will also create the lore, side-quests, and character backstories.
Some of the pros of being a writer is that is can be an incredibly enjoyable and satisfying experience since you can go freelance and usually find a company that is suited to your writing and narrative style. On the other hand, some of the disadvantages are that the field can be incredibly cutt-throat leading to a possible lack of work as well as the fact that in the majority of cases you would not receive income until the game itself as started generating revenue. A writer can expect to earn from £20,000-£23,000, averaging out at £21,000.
The Three Pillars Of Writing:
In this video, Extra Credits explains the theory of 'The Three Pillars Of Writing' (Extra Credit, 2018) these are divided as; Character, Plot, and Lore.
Character focuses on the people around the player as wells as the PC themselves through their personality, background, and the actions that they take throughout the length of the game. This pillar is important because if neglected, it will leave the NPC and especially the main character seeming holo and boring, this will make the player not want to interact with the world around and the denizens that inhabit it.
Lore is the pillar that can be the greatest downfall for a writer as they want to expand there universe to even further expanses may lead to the other pillars being neglected, this does not mean that lore should be forgotten as rich lore can entice many players to explore all they can in the world supporting the characters and story even further. Finding out that about a character's faction can cause a stronger emotional connection, whether it be positive or negative. Lore also has great importance when linked to the plot as it can generate a greater understanding as to what the player is doing as well as the importance of it, fueling them to push further on.
The plot pillar is based around the narrative of the game, from start to end, contributing to what the majority of players will experience since certain people may not want to explore every aspect, no matter how interesting the writer makes it. In my opinion, his is the most important pillar for the reason previously stated a boring plot it most likely to be the first thing noticed by any new player and may end up causing a player to just stop playing the game before even explore the rich lore or characters
Some advice that Extra Credit gave was that you should keep a 'Game Bible' which would allow you to keep every single piece of information that you have created to be in your game, this would prove invaluable since it would allow you to keep a deep and consistent storyline throughout the game's story, it also makes it easier to make 'head-canon' accessible to another part of your team.
Storytelling in Video Games:
This by Brackeys (2018) was created to help with understanding the different ways to tell a story effectively without it breaking the flow of the game, he also specifies a few games that use different methods.
The first game that Brackeys mentions is Thomas Was Alone, a game developed by Mike Bithell in 2013. TWA is an excellent example of the most basic form of storytelling; Narration, the game uses simple dialogue to explain what is happening at the present moment in time but it is done in past-tense, heavily restricting was exposition can be produced but it is still an effective example of how good storytelling can make even different colored shapes seem to have personalities. The previous example contrasts his second, The Stanley Parable this game takes on a more humorous approach by making the narrative interactive, with the narrator attempting to make the player perform certain tasks, he player may choose to do what the narrator says or ignore him either earning his praise or his ire, The Stanley parable is a brilliant example of the complexity that can be brought to one of the most basic forms of storytelling.
Pixar: Intro to Storytelling:
This videogame is presented by Pete Docter, the chief creative officer at Pixar. In this video, he discusses the best ways to use storytelling effectively. One idea that he expresses is that the best way to create a story is to base it on your personal experiences since you already have an emotional connection to that subject it would be easier to replicate that same connection for your audiences. Docter describes his time when directing Monster Inc. (2001) stating "It's about a man becoming a father. That was what was happening to me." showing how he used his current events to be the drive for his creative narrative. I do not completely agree with Docter, I can understand the logic behind his words but I personally believe that it can be easier to produce work that has no emotional connections to previous experiences due to the fact that it can be difficult to express cause the message to be unclear in certain situations.
Pete Docter stated that the hardest part of writing was the need for iteration and having to continuously develop your ideas, he also said that he had always thought of story writing to be a case of producing the whole story in one go and that it would a completely finished masterpiece that would not need anything form of change.
Existing Practitioners
Drew Karpyshyn
Drew Karpyshyn is credited as the lead writer of games like Mass Effect (Bioware, 2007), Star Wars: KOTOR (Bioware, 2003), and Baldur's Gate 2 (Bioware, 2000) he is also the creator of the book series 'The Chaos Born' (2003). Karpyshyn is also renowned for being an extremely innovative writer due to the popularity of this book series (Karpyshyn, D.).
Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy is considered one of the greatest writers when it comes to the military and espionage genres. He is most well known for his book 'The Hunt for Red October' (1984) as well as a string of military shooter games that are named after him including the immensely popular 'Rainbow Six' series (Ubisoft, 1999-present).
Sadly, Tom Clancy passed away in 2013 due to heart failure (Clancy, T.).
Richard Dansky:
Richard Dansky is a Video-game writer who is most well known for working on the majority of the Tom Clancy series (Ubisoft, 1987-present). Dansky started his career working as a developer at White Wolf Inc. creating games like Vampire: The Dark Ages (1996) he worked there for four years before beginning work at Ubisoft, creating Splinter Cell: Double Agents (2006) and Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow (2004).
In an Interview with Dansky for the book Making Great Games (Wyman, 2011) he said "I was very lucky" since the Creative Director on the project, Max Beland, said he wanted to make a game where the gameplay and narrative are "tightly integrated and supported each other". Richard believed that the best thing a writer can do to make a great game is to create a story that will get your players involved and show off your best features and, the final thing be things you can do is "polish the living hell out of what you have written". Dansky talked about how the most gratifying part of a writer was working with people who all shared the same visions as well as being able to work with people who wanted to create a high-quality game.
The main challenge that Dansky believes writers can encounter is doing everything in moderation, for instance, giving the player the right amount of information or making sure the jokes are funny. He is quoted as saying "The best line in the world is wasted if not delivered in a way that makes the player's experience better" (Dansky, R.).
