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Craft Part 2

The writers guide chapter 4

By Christy Dena

Get involved with organisations

There are both local and international organisations you can get involved with by joining email discussion groups. Participation in groups exposes you to a network that shares valuable experiences and advice. The International Game Developers Association Game Writers Special Interest Group [http://www.igda.org/writing/] includes all types of game writing (but mainly digital games). For game journalism, there is the International Game Journalists Association [http://www.igja.org/]. In Australia there are no specific new media writing organisations, but there are many existing writing organisations that welcome digital media writers – such as the Australian Writers Guild [http://www.awg.com.au] and the Australian Society of Authors [http://www.asauthors.org/] – as well as general new media and game organisations that welcome writers. All relevant Australian and international organisations, as well as listservs (discussion lists), have been listed online.

Study ‘how-to’ guides

Over the last decade or so, a growing amount of ‘how to’ resources have been created to explain interactivity and game writing. This section shares a healthy selection of books, online reports and articles, as well as podcasts (audio or video recordings available online).

Books

The following books address interactivity in a large range of creative formats:

  • Carolyn Handler Miller’s Digital Storytelling: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment (Focal Press, 2008) [2nd edn]
  • Brunhild Bushoff’s (ed.) Developing Interactive Narrative Content (High Text- Verlag, 2005)
  • Andrew Glassner’s Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction (AK Peters, 2004)
  • Chris Crawford’s Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling (New Riders Games, 2005)
  • Janet H. Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (MIT Press, 1998)

The following books specialise in game writing, explaining how game writing differs from other formats and providing techniques, interviews and example documentation:

  • Wendy Despain’s (ed.) Professional-Techniques-Video-Game-Writing (AK Peters, 2008)
  • Flint Dille and John Zuur Platten’s The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design (Lone Eagle, 2008)
  • Chris Bateman’s (ed.) Game Writing: Narratives Skills for Videogames (Charles River Media, 2007)
  • Rafael Chandler’s Game Writing Handbook (Charles River Media, 2007)
  • Deborah Todd’s Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light (AK Peters, 2007)
  • Steve Ince’s Writing for Video Games (A&C Black, 2006)
  • Christy Marx’s Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games (Focal Press, 2006)
  • Marianne Krawczyk and Jeannie Novak’s Game Development Essentials: Game
  • Story & Character Development by (Delmar Cengage Learning, 2006)
  • Katherine Isbister’s Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology, 2006)
  • Lee Sheldon’s Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Course Technology PTR, 2004)
  • David Freeman’s Creating Emotion in Games (New Riders, 2004)

These books and many others that assist with game design and interactivity in general, are online.

Online guides, reports and articles

Numerous reports and guides have been created to assist writers entering new media. Online links include The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain’s The Writing Game, the Institute for the Future of the Books’ read:write and De Montfort University’s Digital Living report.


The following links provide a rich selection of articles (over 70) that discuss writing techniques for electronic literature, games and cross-platform projects. Topics include characterisation, writing for interactivity, role-playing, dialogue systems, narrative design and the careful balance of narrative and gameplay.

Podcasts

There are a growing amount of audio and video interviews and lectures about and by new media writers. These resources can provide practical tips and paradigmatic insights. Where possible, direct links to writer audio and video podcasts have been listed, which include interviews and sessions from the Australian Literature Board’s Story of the Future series of seminars and residentials.

Study concept documents and scripts

Study concept documents, game bibles and scripts to learn more about how interactive stories are written. A lot of interactive writing is not produced in Word documents, but in Excel documents and flow charts, and many different design documents are used to communicate key information across large teams. Here are some places that you can find examples of documents and scripts:

Study awarding-winning projects

Awards are wickedly alluring things. Their mere existence can both acknowledge and ignore excellence. So, bearing in mind some projects are not recognised, and some perhaps shouldn’t have been, awards can be a valuable guide to unknown territories of practice. Studying awarded projects by playing, watching or reading them, as well as exploring any of their ‘making-of’ assets, can illuminate the current state, great heights and potential avenues of creative practice. These awards also indicate recognition of the craft of interactive writing. The following is a selection of awards in digital gaming, including independent digital gaming, electronic literature and cross-platform formats.

Digital games awards

Since 2007, the Australian Writers Guild has had an ‘Interactive Media’ category in their annual AWGIE Awards. The 2008 Interactive Media Award went to Caleb Lewis for Iceman the Story of Ötzi – Who Iced Ötzi? and the 2007 award to Stu Connolly for Chiko Accidental Alien. The Writers Guild of Great Britain has recently added a ‘Best Videogame Script’ category, awarded in 2007 to Dan Houser and Jacob Krarup for Canis Canem Edit. Likewise, the Writers Guild of America has introduced a ‘Videogame Writing’ category. In 2008 it was awarded to Dave Ellis and Adam Crogan, the writers of Dead Head Fred. The award was, incidentally, created under the direction of the New Media Caucus, which is the Writers Guild’s chief membership body working to bring writers of new media into the Guild.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts have been awarding games and interactivity since 1998. In 2003 they created a separate Video Games Awards from their Interactive Entertainment Awards, and since 2007 have been recognising ‘Story and Character’ (it was previously ‘character’). The 2007 winners were Cory Barlog, David Jaffe and Marianne Krawczyk for God of War 2 (PS2). The Game Developers Choice Awards has had an ‘Excellence in Writing’ category for many years. The winners for the last few years are BioShock in 2008, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in 2007, Psychonauts in 2006, Half-Life 2 in 2005, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in 2004, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 2003. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has been awarding an ‘Outstanding Achievement in Story and Character Development’ award since 1999 with winners: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in 2007, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One in 2006, Fable in 2005, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in 2004, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem in 2003, ICO in 2002; Baldur's Gate II in 2001, Age of Empires II: Age of Kings in 2000, and Pokemon in 1999.

Although not an award, at the 2008 Game Developer’s Conference Richard Rouse ran a panel about ‘Stories Best Played’. In this panel four writer-designers (Steve Meretzky, Marc Laidlaw, Ken Rolson and Richard Rouse) discussed two of their favourite storytelling games. Their choices, reasons and videos are online at: [http://www.paranoidproductions.com/storiesbestplayed/index.html].

For an insight into the game writing experience, see the writer profile with Joe Velikovsky.

Independent digital games awards

The Independent Games Festival holds awards every year, and although they don’t have a specific writing award, there are some notable winners with strong narrative elements. Indeed, a finalist in the 2004 IGF Awards was the interactive story by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern:
Façade [http://www.interactivestory.net/]. This interactive story also went on to become the Grand Jury Prize Winner at the 2006 Slamdance Indie Games Festival.

Independent digital games awards

The Independent Games Festival [http://www.igf.com/] holds awards every year, and although they don’t have a specific writing award, there are some notable winners with strong narrative elements. Indeed, a finalist in the 2004 IGF Awards was the interactive story by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern: Façade [http://www.interactivestory.net/]. This interactive story also went on to become the Grand Jury Prize Winner at the 2006 Slamdance Games Festival [http://www.slamdance.com/games/archive.html]. IndieCade also have official selections and showcases [http://www.indiecade.com/index.php?/games].

Electronic literature awards

In 2001, the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) gave a Fiction Award to Caitlin Fisher for her These Waves of Girls and a Poetry Award to John Cayley for his windsound. The full list of nominees is at [http://eliterature.org/Awards2001/]. Although the awards appear to have discontinued, the ELO has brought out two curated collections: the Electronic Literature Collection, which is available on CD-Rom and online at [http://collection.eliterature.org/], and their online e-lit showcase at [http://eliterature.org/showcase-index/].

For an insight into the electronic writing experience, see the writer profile with Jason Nelson.

Interactive fictions (text adventure games or text-based interactive fictions) have their own awards [http://www.wurb.com/if/award], including the notable XYZZY Awards. Winners of the ‘Best Writing’ XYZZY Award are Admiral Jota’s Lost Pig in 2007, Andrew Plotkin’s Delightful Wallpaper in 2006, Jason Devlin’s Vespers in 2005, Chris Klimas’s Blue Chairs in 2004, Adam Cadre’s Narcolepsy in 2003, Yoon Ha Lee’s The Moonlit Tower in 2002, Robb Sherwin’s Fallacy of Dawn in 2001, Emily Short’s Metamorphoses in 2000, Dan Schmidt’s For A Change in 1999, Adam Cadre’s Photopia in 1998 and Ivan Cockrum’s Sunset Over Savannah in 1997. See also [http://www.ifcomp.org/comp07/] for more awards.

Cross-platform awards

Currently, there don’t appear to be any writing-specific awards for cross-platform projects, but awards are given to interactive, cross-platform and enhanced projects. Just look for categories such as ‘Best Cross-Platform Project’, ‘Excellence in Cross-Platform’, ‘Best Convergent Program’, ‘Best Interactive TV Service’, ‘Best Interactive Program’, ‘Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television’, ‘Best Interactive Program’ and so on in Australian and international awards. Awards bestowed on ‘alternate reality games’ are listed online at [http://www.argology.org/awarded-args/].

For an insight into the cross-platform writing experience, see the profiles with Marissa Cooke and Isabelle Merlin.

Courses, seminars and conferences

The following is therefore a snapshot of writer-specific events happening internationally and locally. Further links to new media and cross-platform in general are online as indicated.

Conferences

While there are many games, TV, film, literature, theatre and marketing conferences, few are devoted to new writing. The Austin Game Developers Conference has a ‘Writing for Games’ track [http://www.austingdc.net/writing/index.htm] and the Electronic Literature Organisation (ELO) holds conferences and symposiums dedicated to writing [http://eliterature.org/].

Australian Writers Centres

The ACT Writers Centre runs workshops on writing e-books, blogs and for the web [http://www.actwriters.org.au/]. The Queensland Writers Centre ran masterclasses in writing for games in 2006 and 2007. Upcoming seminars/workshops on writing for freelance markets include blogs and online publications and possibly cross-platform writing. They also support projects such as Creative Commons Australia’s Remix My Lit [http://www.remixmylit.com/], and an alternate reality gaming project and locative media project being developed with Arts Queensland for regional communities [http://www.qwc.asn.au]. The South Australia Writers’ Centre has been running sessions on the online environment and digital communities [http://www.sawc.org.au/]. A full list of all the Australian Writers Centres is online at [http://www.asauthors.org/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=ASP0016/ccms.r?PageId=10041].

Other Australian training organisations and groups
Some media centres and organisations in Australia are planning exciting programs for variations of new media writing. Here is a sampling of some projects known at the time of publication:
  • Brisbane Chapter of the International Game Developers Association (QLD) hold regular seminars and workshops with game experts, including game writers: [http://www.igda.org/brisbane/]. 
  • Film and Television Institute (WA) have identified new media and multi- platform storytelling as a key component of their strategic plan and will be incorporated into the professional development program of short courses, seminars and workshops. In their Keyframe program at the Animation Centre one of the projects ‘Rosy Zeppelin’ is based around the idea of creating pod-lit – a mixture of blogging, animated film, discussion and traditional prose storytelling for a University Literature market. [http://www.fti.asn.au/].
  • Media Resource Center (SA) run seminars in their Gameslab, have a scripting hothouse and run screen seminars about new media for seniors: [http://www.mrc.org.au/].
  • ACT Film Makers Network has plans to incorporate new media writing in their courses: [http://www.actfilmnet.org.au/].

For a comprehensive listing of training opportunities, work experience and networking initiatives, see the Australian Film Commission’s Getting Started in Film, TV and Interactive Digital Media guide: [http://www.afc.gov.au/faqs/gettingstarted/faq_1.aspx].

Tertiary institutions

New media writing, whether for electronic literature, game or cross-platform writing, can be studied in a tertiary setting. Such subjects or lectures may be offered in English, Creative Writing, New Media, Animation, Multimedia and Computer Science courses, among others. Since at present we are not aware of any courses dedicated entirely to new media or cross-platform writing, we have listed links to the courses that may include seminars on the topic: 

In Australia:
Internationally:

For up-to-date information about new media writing courses, workshops and labs being run in Australia, subscribe to the Story of the Future mailing list. Send your news, events or opportunities to: storyofthefuture@australiacouncil.gov.au.

Create a project

Either with or without a team, a writer can learn new skills and develop a portfolio by creating projects. Many electronic literature and cross-platform projects utilise existing free software such as blogs, emails and social networking sites. But there are specially designed interactive writing programs as well, such as Eastgate System’s StorySpace [http://www.eastgate.com/storyspace/] and the Institute for the Future of the Book’s Sophie [http://www.sophieproject.org/]. Interactive storytelling programs under development include Chris Crawford’s Storytron [http://www.storytron.com/], PJ’s Attic’s (Corvus Elrod) Honeycomb Engine [http://www.pjsattic.com/projects/honeycomb-engine/] and Nicolas Szilas’s IDtension [http://www.idtension.com/]. Links to sites that aggregate free social software and new media writing tools are provided online at [http://del.icio.us/Writersguide/writing_tools].

For digital games, writers are often recommended BioWare’s Aurora Neverwinter Nights Toolset. Unlike the plethora of game creation software out there, this toolset includes a conversation editor and enables the writer to develop an understanding of how the fictional world can be expressed through objects, settings and missions [http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/]. Another project idea recommended to writers keen to develop their skills and a portfolio is to create a new level to a game that already exists.

Get hands-on advice

There are many labs, residential programs, seminars, workshops and programs in Australia and internationally that provide mentors to assist you (and usually your team) to develop a project from concept to implementation. The following section is divided into two categories: short/long-term mentoring and event-based mentoring, the latter of which includes mentoring that is included as part of a residential or lab.

Short/long-term mentoring

Some programs provide a mentor to either an individual writer or a team for a certain period of time. Australian mentorships related to new media writing include:

Event-based mentoring

Another avenue for developing your project, and your skills, is to create or join a team and embark on a new media writing laboratory or residential. Although there are not many writing-specific laboratories, there are many general new media labs that welcome (indeed require) writers to be a part of a team. In Australia, writing-specific labs including the QPIX Screenwriter’s Laboratories have been running since 2000. Their labs help develop projects and skills in many formats, including mobile content [http://www.qpix.org.au/]. The Australia Council's Story of the Future initiative has run residential labs in conjunction with AFTRS’ LAMP
[http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/the_arts/projects/about_story_of_the_future]. Internationally, Sagasnet in Germany focuses specifically on ‘furthering narrative interactive content’ [http://www.sagasnet.de/]. Links to these and general new media labs in Australian and internationally are listed online:

Applying for jobs

Once you’ve developed the necessary skills and portfolio, the next step (for those who don’t want to start their own company) is to apply for a job. Since games are the biggest industry, many guides have been written that give advice on how to break into game writing. The following are ‘breaking in’ guides for game writers:

General Australian and international ‘break into games’ guides include:

Australian and international job boards:

It may also be useful to have a look at the writer job description BioWare have put online. This description outlines what they expect from a writer, what a writer needs to provide to be considered for a job, and includes a dialogue sample document:
[http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/jobs/positions/austin_writer.html].

> Craft - Part 2: Professional Development references


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The writer's guide to making a digital living: choose your own adventure by Fingleton, T. Dena, C. & Wilson, J. for the Australia Council for the Arts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
For permissions beyond the scope of this license contact http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/about_us/contact_us.

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