Writing in a Team - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 69

8
Writing in a Team
Sande Chen, Maurice Suckling, and Anne Toole
8.1 Introduction
You walk into the room, sit down, and wait till the others file in. As everyone sits
down, you can already feel a tingle in the air. Your lead maps out exactly where the
writing needs to go, and, inspired, the group leaps into action. As each person offers
up an idea, another person adds to it, or morphs it slightly into something bigger
and better. Everyone feels included. Whenever a disagreement comes up, the group
solves it quickly and with tact. The time flies by. Before you know it, you have a
working concept that everyone is excited about. You can't wait to get to work!
...Okay, sothisscenariodoesn'talwayshappen,butit'sgreattokeepthisvision
in mind as you begin working with a team. You will need to do your part to achieve
this ideal.
Every game you work on leads to a new adventure, with different rules and roles
to fill. A game writer needs to be flexible enough to handle a number of different
approaches to completing a game, including working in a team. Unlike other cre-
ative mediums, the quantity and complexity of content in games requires an even
greater understanding of the fundamentals of collaborative writing. Furthermore,
other game professionals often don't have the creative writing background necessary
to support a game writer, so game writers on a teammust work even harder to provide
each other that support.
We're here to help. First, we'll explore the fundamentals of working in a writing
team, managing expectations, and giving and getting feedback. We'll highlight the
three collaborative writing processes of consensus, compromise, and ownership and
consider a few case studies. We've also included a first-person perspective of respect
when working with the entire development team. 1
1 Sections 8.2-8.6 were written by Anne Toole and Sande Chen. Section 8.8 was written by Maurice
Suckling.