Game experiences frequently have little to do with linear storytelling.
If traditionally trained
screenwriters are to be effective in writing artfully for games, they will need to learn the many types of writing skills games require. Likewise, developers and publishers may need to learn the finer points of dealing with Hollywood agents if they want to hire a screenwriter for their game. Some of the difficulties that might ensue for screenwriters and developers are discussed here.
This chapter, however, presents only half of the story. The next chapter, “Why Game Designers Often Find Writing to Be So Challenging” shows why not using a professional writer might potentially get a game developer in trouble.
Some specific tips for handling this conundrum are provided at the end of this chapter.
Having kicked around in the worlds of both films and games, I've come to appreciate the gap between them. Their surface similarities disguise their enormous differences.
Still, many game companies are reaching out to try to incorporate films' emotional spectrum into their games. At first glance, it seems like the answer is simple: Either train your existing staff (game designers, programmers, and so on) in the craft and art of writing (much tougher than it sounds), or, more likely, hire a trained screenwriter.
While my background as a screenwriter (especially armed with the “Beyond Structure” techniques) served me well for games, I've come across more than a few game developers who've had bad experiences with writers and now shun them.
Sometimes it's because they dealt with amateur writers—writers who simply weren't good enough to make it in film and television, and who turned to writing for games, thinking their weak writing wouldn't be as noticeable there. But, in the end, their lackluster writing skills did little to improve the games they worked on, and the developer realized that if the writer stopped receiving paychecks, sooner or later he or she would hopefully stop showing up.
Some developers incurred other problems with trained screenwriters. Obviously, as a screenwriter now working heavily in games, I must feel that my skill set is of value. But I understand the difficulties some developers have faced. Why isn't simply hiring a screenwriter—even a famous or a talented one—always the “magic pill” that games need?
It's because there are so many aspects of games that most screenwriters don't know.
There are at least 17 points that screenwriters need to learn about games if they're to be effective as game writers, let alone designers.
Point 1: The screenwriter might feel that the player should follow a set route through the game to make sure that the player experiences the story in the way he or she (the writer) intends.
But the screenwriter needs to learn all the ways to give actual or apparent freedom to the player, so that the player doesn't feel trapped into merely being a pawn in a story. Gamers want to feel they're playing a game, not being played by it.
Point 2: Many screenwriters don't realize that, even in games with stories, there may be ways to play the game that completely avoid the story altogether (example: enjoying “vigilante mode” in Grand Theft Auto III).
Therefore, the screenwriter needs to learn dozens of other ways to make the game emotionally immersive so that it will be compelling, even if the player never experiences the story or puts the story on hold.
Point 3: Many games are designed so that a player might come upon elements of the story in a variety of orders. Most screenwriters create emotional experiences by making a story unfold in a particular sequence. They need to learn how to keep a story emotionally engaging when the different parts of it can be experienced in multiple orders.
Stan acquainted himself with nonlinear and multi-path story structures.
Game designers, take pity on the linear writer who drowns in a chaos of plot possibilities, gasping for air while going down for the count in a sea of infinitely expanding flow-charts.
Point 4: A screenwriter will often get quite excited about the idea of a player acting out a certain role in the story. But if the game, or the story in the game, casts the player in a role—say a space pilot—that doesn't automatically mean that the player feels like a space pilot.
The screenwriter needs to know techniques for getting the player to identify with a role.
Point 5: Screenwriters need to learn how to induce a player to identify with the personality of the character he or she has been cast as. Let's say that the character played by the gamer is someone who is cunning yet generous.
Bad news. Just because this is the personality the screenwriter wants the player to pretend to have, that doesn't mean that a player who picks up the game will suddenly feel cunning yet generous. Instead, the player will probably feel like himself or herself.
Screenwriters need to learn how to create an environment in which the player willingly adopts a different personality in the make-believe world of role playing. By role playing, I don't mean RPGs (role-playing games); I mean any game in which the character being played has a supposed personality.
Point 6: One solution some screenwriters might seize upon to the problems discussed in Point 5 is to cast the player in the role of a hero. After all, wouldn't any player readily want to identify with a hero?
Perhaps not. You see, what screenwriters often don't know is that for every angel that sits on a game player's right shoulder, there's usually a grinning psychopathic devil on the left, who, just to be mischievous or rebellious, might attack foe and friend alike.
A screenwriter needs to allow the player this freedom, yet still provide incentives for the player to follow the story in the role the player is supposed to be inhabiting. Granting freedom yet prompting behavior with incentives is tricky business.
Similarly, just because the character you play is supposed to grow or change in some way during the game (undergoing what screenwriters call a Character Arc), doesn't mean the player will feel any different at the end of the game than he or she did at the beginning.
I'm not saying that creating a First-Person Character Arc is impossible (see Chapter 2.20, “First-Person Character Arc Techniques,” for more about this). I am saying the way to do this effectively doesn't have much to do with the process screenwriters use for writing linear scripts.
Point 7: Because dialogue is often minimal in a game, the writer needs to be a proven master at creating complex characters—and maybe complex and likeable characters—even if that character speaks few words.
Point 8: NPC[1] dialogue is often used to convey information. But having NPCs dialogue only convey information can actually end up squashing emotion instead of enhancing it.
A screenwriter needs to know how to work with short bursts of dialogue to convey simultaneously not just information, but also emotion—and have this emotion not be conveyed in a cliché or bluntly over-obvious way.
Well, at Least They Can Write the Cinematics[2]
Point 9: Most screenwriters feel comfortable writing cinematics, because they're the part of games most like film and TV. They may not understand that these “mini-movies” are the least game-like part of any game. Although cinematics won't completely disappear any time soon, many game designers consider reliance or over-reliance on cinematics to be a weakness in a game.
Point 10: In films, a writer comes up with an idea and then writes a script. Many writers don't understand that in games, the idea is often evolved by a group.
When in a meeting with the design team, a screenwriter might not realize that the other members of the team are likely to have ideas that may be just as imaginative, viable, and artful as the screenwriter's.
Here we find a real mixed bag. I have found most screenwriters to be warm and responsive people. But there are a few who can't or simply won't adapt to the kind of group process games demand. You don't have to forage far for anecdotes from designers who have had extremely distasteful experiences with professional screenwriters because of these issues.
Point 11: Screenwriters may not understand that they need, when working in games, to be flexible—to the point where yoga masters would pay them homage and pretzel makers would use them as prototypes. As games are made, quite often all sorts of aspects of the game are changed in process.
This can greatly impact the way story or character information is revealed. A writer has to be able to creatively “wing it” as the ground keeps shifting under his or her feet.
Point 12: A screenwriter might find himself brought on board a game after the characters and locations for the game have already been established. The screenwriter might then be asked to create both a story and personalities for characters that fit in with the existing locations and character designs.[3] In such cases, the screenwriter needs to be able to operate creatively and easily within this kind of process.
Point 13: Screenwriters usually don't realize that they might be needed at some points in the game, and then, after story and character descriptions are worked out, that they'll probably be sent away for three to seven months while the game continues to be built. Then the writer will be called back to write the NPC dialogue—and expected to be available.
Point 14: When it comes to knowing how to emotionally draw a player into the story, the screenwriter should be aware of what's been done in other games, so as to not retread the past. In other words, screenwriters who want to write games should do their homework. They need to sit down and deconstruct game after game.
Point 15: This point was contributed by one of America's top game designers who is helping to push the envelope of story, character, and emotional immersion in games. He wrote to me:
“Game writers have to be able to master the technical aspects of writing for games. There's a coding element to game writing that's the stiffest challenge new writers face.”
He was referring to a kind of writing that creates emotion while presenting the player with a wide range of options. In game design and writing, there are often an enormous amount of game experiences structured to unfold as:
If the player does A then X happens; if the player does B then Y happens—and Y is twice as intense if the player has done not only B but C as well.
In this scenario, X or Y might take place soon after A or B, or they might occur much later in the game.
The applications of and variations in this kind of design, programming, and writing are almost limitless in nature. The screenwriter has to not only be able to think easily in this manner, but, importantly, needs to also be able to create a wide range of emotional experiences with these tools.
Point 16: In life, it ain't over until the fat lady sings. In games, it ain't over until all the NPC dialogue is written.
I was speaking to a high-placed executive at a large game company. He was quite excited; he had just begun a relationship with one of the biggest and most prestigious Hollywood agencies. I could almost hear his heart pound as he told me some of the famous writers these agents had introduced him to.
I asked him what he had been told he'd have to pay these famous writers, and his voice lowered a bit as he mentioned that he was supposed to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus offer them all sorts of back-end revenue, in exchange for their story ideas.
I paused for a moment of sad contemplation, the way I always do when I watch the innocent get led to slaughter. Then I took a deep breath, and explained how he was about to get fleeced. I pointed out:
Agents have one goal in life: to make money for agents. They aren't on the developer's side; they're on their own side.
The big-name writers he was talking about are always booked for several years out. This means that they'd spend a few weeks (at best) to whip together a story for him, take the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then run back to their much more prestigious and lucrative screenwriting deals.
Because of the way games are developed, who even knows how much of their story ideas would actually be present when the final game was done? And yet the game company would be out tons of money.
Because of all these problems, the agency would probably end up trying to get the company to accept some of the agency's writers “from the bottom of the deck. ” These are writers who haven't worked for a while, not infrequently because they're not very good. And the game company would still be overcharged.
Are the famous writers he was speaking about going to stick around and write 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 lines of NPC dialogue, one line at a time? Or, are they going to keep the exorbitant money they've been paid, grin as they walk away from their NPC writing duties, and go back to making serious coin writing screenplays and soaking in the glamour of Hollywood?
I asked the executive, if he's hiring a famous writer, exactly what is he getting for his money?
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, as the executive realized he was on the verge of becoming 21st-century roadkill, blindsided by a ten-ton semi in a B-rated Hollywood shark-o-rama.
The game executive was by no means an unintelligent man. He had just never been a bit player in a real-life episode of Jaws before.
Point 17: A screenwriter might think that giving a game a story is the only way to make a game emotionally engaging. However, sports games and racing games have little story but can be very emotionally engaging. Screenwriters need to learn that there are many other ways to create emotional immersion in a game besides story. The screenwriter should know how to:
Integrate the story with the gameplay mechanics.[4]
Make the player care about the world of the game.
Create emotionally complex relationships between the player and the NPCs—and, for that matter, between the NPCs and other NPCs.
Figure out to what degree and in what way the world of the game impacts the player, and to what degree, if any, the player impacts the world of the game.
Make sure the player is motivated to play through to the end of the game.
Know many other ways effective ways of creating emotional immersion in the game by the player.
Many game developers find their first encounter with Hollywood quite memorable.
Lest you misunderstand, the warnings in this chapter aren't to convince game companies not to hire a professional writer and pay him or her very well. The goal here is to stop a game company from paying the wrong writer extremely well.
Just as extraordinary writers turn movies into gold at the box-office, extraordinary designer/writers can help increase a game's visibility and profits. (See Chapter 1.3, “Why Put Emotion into Games?”) To cite some old chestnuts, Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City each use dozens of techniques to keep players emotionally engaged, and their success is legendary.
Thanks a lot, Dave. We were set on hiring a screenwriter because our guys aren't professional writers and we need help. Now we're so depressed that we spend our days glumly reorganizing our sock drawers and searching for meaning, and it's all your fault.
If, indeed, that's how you feel, before you touch those socks, consider this: My only intention is to save game publishers and developers from throwing away tons of money and ending up feeling (and being) burnt and used.
And this is what will happen if they latch onto the idea of hiring famous or talented screenwriters as the magic pill that will instantly give their games some kind of emotional depth and competitive edge.
Ah, I see. We should just hire comic-book writers.
I love reading certain comics, and make a yearly pilgrimage to that mind-warping orgy of popular aesthetics, Comic-Con.[5] I always come away from the event inspired and even awed by the talent I've met. I understand why some game companies might turn toward comic-book writers. After all, they have a proven ability to convey story and characters with minimal dialogue. You'll even find some images from comic books in this book.
My personal belief, however, is that if a game requires complex and rich characters and stories, the skills and talents needed could very well exceed that of many comic-book writers. (Of course, there are exceptions to this statement.)
If you read Chapter 2.31, “Pre-Rendered and In-Game Cinematics,”[6] you'll see exactly how 35 writing techniques can be layered on top of each other in one short scene. Only a very few comic-book writers have the skills necessary to go back and forth from comics to film or television, and I think that's because the majority of comic-book writers don't have an easy command of all these techniques, not to mention the additional couple hundred that a savvy writer should have at his or her beck and call.
This isn't to say that comic books aren't a remarkably rich medium. The expressive combinations of words and images, and even the imaginative and evocative ways pages are often laid out, make comics a unique and amazing art form.[7] But comic-book writers aren't the perfect “quick fix” for games any more than screenwriters are.
To truly be a strong asset to game design, a screenwriter or comic-book writer must be superb in his/her craft and meet the conditions described next.
Obviously, I think that games with stories and characters need great writers. I just think a game designer or developer is destined to search in vain if he or she thinks that there's a single answer out there somewhere.
The solutions I believe are:
Don't get star-struck. Choose a writer by his/her writing ability; read his/her writing and decide what you think. Don't drop your jaw just because they're represented by a big agency.
Even if you're using a “name” writer, be aware that often films and TV episodes go through many rewrites by writers who aren't even credited.
Absolutely insist on reading a film or TV script. (It doesn't have to be a film or TV episode that was actually shot.) Is this a great writer? Can he or she make both major and minor characters unique, interesting, dimensional, and emotionally rich? Is the story imaginative and gripping? Can this writer captivate you from beginning to end?
I should mention that in Hollywood, people often write in teams. If the writing sample is from a team but you're only dealing with one of the writers, forget the writer. You have no way of knowing who wrote the best material in the script, no matter what the agent or writer claims.
Similarly, many Hollywood scripts are rewritten many times, by many different writers. If you're shown a script and you're told that the writer wrote “this draft,” the sample is useless, even if it's by a famous writer. The agent and writer will protest and say the writer did a “page one rewrite,” but, in truth, you'll never have the faintest idea who created or wrote some of your favorite plot twists, characters, scenes, and dialogue.[8]
Even if the writer has worked on other games, still read a writing sample. I know one writer who has worked on one game after another—and has done a poor job on all of them. People hire him off his resume, without stopping to read and assess his talent and skills. The proof has got to be in the pudding: Any writer must be able to prove his or her ability.
Confirm that the writer knows the medium. Make sure the screenwriter understands the difference between writing for films or TV and writing for games.
Make the screenwriter prove that he or she can execute Point 9. Can the screenwriter create emotionally complex NPC characters—some of which are likable, some of which are not—with very few words of dialogue?
Educate the writer to the group nature of the creative process in games. Make sure they're absolutely fine with it.
Use your gut to assess the screenwriter's motives. Does he or she actually care about games?
If you find someone who meets these criteria, they're probably going to contribute to the quality of your game, and to the buzz and profits your game generates.
I can tell you from personal experience that the task isn't easy. As I was asked to help design or write more and more games, I formed The Freeman Group, a band of professional writers who are trained in my techniques and who often work with me on game projects.
My first criterion in bringing a writer on board is that he or she has sold film or TV scripts to major Hollywood companies, and therefore is a member of the WGA (Writers Guild of America). Also, the writer needs to have writing samples that blow me away. This is a must. And he or she needs to be genuinely warm and upbeat, and comfortable working as part of a team. A strong familiarity with games is a big plus, but not nearly enough.
If a writer meets these criteria, I give him or her several writing tests to evaluate his or her skill and artistry in the kind of writing and thinking games require. Most writers, even though I only work with WGA members, fail these tests. But for those who excel, and who meet all my other criteria, I then start training them in Emotioneering and in writing for games. It's been a long haul, and I still haven't been able to fully clone myself. But I keep on trying.
My difficulty of finding writers who can assist me in doing superlative, artful, and ground-breaking game design and writing has given me great sympathy for any game publisher or developer who tries to do the same.
The process of recruiting for The Freeman Group has certainly given me an appreciation of the difficulty a developer or publisher might face in trying to find a writer for a game—a writer who isn't burdened by the 17 potential problem areas.
But these problems are only one side of the dilemma. The next chapter presents the flip side.
[1] An NPC is a non-player character—any character in the game not controlled by the player.
[2] A cinematic is a section of the game in which the player has no control and, instead, watches action unfold as if watching a short movie.
[3] Lest you think this isn't possible, it has happened to me several times. Stranger things have happened, too, but they were in Tijuana and a lot of alcohol was involved.
[4] Mechanics are actions that can be performed by the character or characters being played by the gamer.
[5] Comic-Con is the Super Bowl, Rose Parade, and Fourth of July of the comic book and graphic novel world, all rolled into one and served piping fresh annually in the San Diego Convention Center. See www.comic-con.org and wear comfortable shoes, because you'll be on your feet for days.
[6] A pre-rendered cinematic (short movie-like sequence) is one that is rendered as a self-contained animated recording and stuck in the game. An in-game cinematic is one created in real time by the game engine.
[7] If you'd like to learn how some comics are truly an advanced art form, read Understanding Comics (©1994, Kitchen Sink Press) by Scott Mccloud for an enlightening experience.
[8] I don't even begin to consider bringing a writer to work for me as part of my game design and writing consultancy, The Freeman Group, unless that writer has at least one TV or film script that utterly floors me with the complexity of its artistry and the excellence of its craftsmanship. For what it's worth, while it's conceivable that I might receive such a script from someone who is not yet a member of the WGA (the Writers Guild of America, which you can join only by selling film or TV scripts to major Hollywood companies), it hasn't happened yet.
Once I find a writer who is talented, skilled, imaginative, passionate, and available, and who has an upbeat and warm personality, then comes the very long process of training him or her in Emotioneering™. (Emotioneering is the vast array of techniques for creating emotion in games, illustrated in the next section of this book.) Otherwise, he or she will be of little use to me.
If the writer doesn't play games and can't think in terms of gameplay, then that writer might be helpful in certain circumstances, but the kinds of ways this person can be utilized are limited.