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 Features
Book Excerpt and Review - Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames
 Deeper Challenges
In “Non-Linear Game Narrative,” Mary DeMarle (writer of Myst III) addresses the tricky balance of structure and freedom, manifesting as the interplay of narrative and gameplay. She suggests layering stories such that players keep control of low-level story choices while remaining guided by higher-levels of narrative, which themselves can be embedded within further layers of structure and freedom. She also discusses a myriad of techniques for embedding a story within a game.
Another very interesting discussion is Chris Bateman’s “Keeping the Player on Track,” in which Chris explores the ideas of the game spine and the golden path. The game spine is the set of events that is absolutely necessary for a game’s completion, while the golden path is the route through the game that most optimally reflects a player’s journey along the spine.
He presents the challenge of game writing as a combination of leaving “trails of breadcrumbs” which guide (without forcing) a player along various routes in the game, and “funneling” a player back from secondary events toward the game’s local or global golden path.
Characters and Players
Luke Skywalker and the Hero’s Journey are the subject of “The Basics of Narrative” by Stephen Jacobs, which examines the deep archetypes of storytelling via the works of Aristotle, Joseph Campbell, Syd Field, and – yes – George Lucas.
In addition to detailing Luke’s growth from whiney desert brat to accomplished star pilot, the author explains the differences between threshold guardians, tricksters, shadows, and shapeshifters, and explores Aristotle’s six classical components of tragedy. (For the erudite reader: plot, character, theme, diction, pattern, and spectacle.)
There’s also a more down-to-earth discussion of the character creation process later in the book, in which Andrew Walsh explores several types of protagonists and antagonists, and presents core techniques for adding detail and complexity to both player characters and NPCs.
Other Elements of Game Writing
One very informative set of chapters covers specific considerations in writing for different groups and in different genres. In “Writing Comedy,” Ed Kuehnel and Matt Entin tackle the various uses of comedy in videogames, while in “Writing for Licenses” James Swallow discusses the benefits and challenges of writing for licensed franchises. Rhianna Pratchet explores specific considerations of writing for diverse audiences in “The Needs of the Audience,” and Tim Langdell analyzes the potential pitfalls of script localization in “Beware of the Localization.”
On the more technical side are a series of chapters that examine the bridge between a written script and its final expression within a game. In “Adding Magic,” Coray Seifert discusses considerations in writing for voice actors, and the process of finding and recording those actors in a way that maintains the integrity of a script. In “Interchangeable Dialogue Content,” Ernest Adams explores the benefits of stitching (in which short snippets of dialogue are sewn together to form apparently continuous segments of speech), and the impact that stitched dialogue can have on the writing process. And lastly, Chris Bateman finishes up the book with “Dialogue Engines,” an in-depth look at the various elements of the game dialogue engine.
A Gem for Game Writers
The book is an overall gem, although it does have one notable shortcoming, namely that it’s rather short – less than 300 pages. This seems to prevent the lengthy list of authors from going into as great a depth on their topics as they otherwise might have, since many of these topics could easily take an entire book to explore in detail.
We’d also love to have seen more examples from actual games, to show aspiring game writers how the final result can take shape. Perhaps in the next edition we’ll find a CD-ROM bundled with the book, containing partial or complete game scripts from among the well-known games penned by the authors.
Yet overall, this is close to a magnum opus on game writing, and is bound to bring your writing skills up a notch one way or another. The topics are varied yet thematically linked, the information useful and pertinent to writers at all levels, and the impressive host of experienced game writers presents a multiplicity of views on writing for games.
So whether you’re an aspiring amateur or a seasoned professional, check out these wise words by successful game writers and gain deeper insight into the world of writing for videogames.
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