Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
He said, “Okay. Let's move on.”
And we did.
And when the game came out, no one ever doubted it, no one
ever doubted that that character would do that, because the nar-
rative team knows what it's doing.
So yes, you have to spend a lot of time arguing, and explaining,
and sometimes we [writers] can't really explain the feelings that
we have, but you have to really spend a lot of time educating as
you're going through.
Which leads nicely into my next point.…
Education
Educating your team on the foundations of good storytelling is important,
and should start early in the development process.
Even if the majority of the team buys into the idea of working together
to tell a great story, and even if they respect the idea of having a narrative
expert help guide them there, if their core understanding of storytelling is
weak and they remain uneducated throughout the process, they will con-
stantly inject narrative missteps into the game, probably faster than a nar-
rative designer can help them course-correct. Not only can't the writer tell
the story alone, but the writer also can't be everywhere at once. And on a
large-scale game project, things happen fast!
A team that collectively understands the basic principles of fiction writ-
ing will make fewer narrative fumbles and won't have to completely rely
on the presence of a professional writer at all meetings or during the cre-
ation of all assets.
When I begin working with a new team on a game, I generally start off
by presenting some, or all, of my full-day-long game writing tutorial. It
provides a basic but solid grounding in core fiction writing theory and
practice, serving a function much like the initial tuning process a sym-
phony orchestra engages in before starting any performance. Game writer
and team need to be in tune with each other if there's to be any hope of a
harmonious working relationship.
