Writing in a Team - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 81

whiteboards, more talking, more thinking, and yet more talking. Our intention is
to work through the issues to a point at which we form a kind of unified opinion,
backed up by the conclusions from our discussions and deliberations—and we can
then present this opinion to the developer. When a developer brings six or more
personnel to a meeting, including designers, producers, and execs, and these people
are often approaching a problem from multiple perspectives, it can be extremely
beneficial for a project to have at least two or three people with a unified vision.
“It is only after a treatment is signed off that the team separates to write up
individual scenes or chunks of in-game text. For us, a signed-off treatment is the
essential blueprint that ought to tell us everything we need to know to set about
writing the actual script—it's as much a blueprint for the developer so they know
what to expect from us as it is for ourselves, so we know what to expect of each other.
It's like being an architect, and if the blueprint isn't built right—if the structure isn't
sound—then the story isn't going to work no matter what frills you're capable of in
the dialogue. If you've got cool art on the walls of a building that's going to fall down,
it's hard to care that much about the cool art—people probably won't hang around
in the building long enough to see it.
“Having written a first draft of our respectively allotted scenes, our usual practice
is to review them all face to face over several hours. We will then either take back the
scenes we wrote, or, if someone gets excited by the potential within a scene and sees
a way to unlock it, we might swap the scenes over.
“We'll rewrite and review scenes and in-game scripts as many times as a deadline
allows before presenting a complete script to the developer to review.
“Oncewehavetheirfeedback,wewillthenbegintheprocessagainofinternally
reviewing the feedback, rewriting and reviewing it amongst ourselves before resub-
mitting.
“Although our approach is what I would term 'integrated,' there are still points
at which writers have to buckle down and write a pass of a scene or an in-game script
on their own—perhaps it's really just a question of when you blow the whistle and
send people to their own keyboards.
“Because of the intense and highly integrated manner in which we work, we've
found from experience that two or three writers working closely together is about the
maximum number that works well on any particular project. Any more and we've
found that there's a tendency for the group to all have a slightly different vision in
our heads of what we're trying to build. The group can tend to split off into sub-
groups. In addition, from about four writers up there needs to be an undisputed
lead writer—and there's nothing wrong with that—it's just a question of what works
for you and generates the quality of work to satisfy yourselves and your clients to a
timescale acceptable to both of you.
“As a general rule, the longer you work closely with other writers, the more likely
it is that things will end in tears if you bring your egos with you. Team writing
requires trust and professionalism, and it will all go a whole lot more smoothly if you
can work with people who remind you that what we do is actually fun.�