When most people think of game development, what do they think? Game design, coding, level design, art, maybe quality assurance. But one area of development that gets less attention, but is incredibly important for most titles, is the writing.
Every piece of text, every label in the user interface, each line of dialogue has to be written by someone. “That’s nothing,” you might say. “I can write. I write stuff on social media every day. I’m writing an email in another tab right now, and should really get back to it. What’s the big deal?”
The big deal is that writing doesn’t just convey information. It also conveys tone and personality. Is it formal, friendly, epic, down-to-earth, encouraging? Is a character gruff, jovial, or reckless? There’s more to writing than just putting one word in front of the other. Most people can tell when writing feels off, but few know how to tweak it to achieve what they need. That’s why we have writers.
Most obviously, games are interactive and other industries aren’t. That has to be factored into all your writing. For example, if you were writing a novel or screenplay, you’d know exactly what lines go in which order, but in games you often don’t have that luxury. This is true for big pieces of exposition. For example: “Is it possible for the player to reach the alien boss before they complete the sidequest about the aliens’ origins?” But it can also complicate small dialogue lines or barks. Perhaps you want your protagonist to say “For my murdered family!” when she draws her sword. That doesn’t make sense in level 1, before the family has been murdered – so you’ll have to make sure the line can be set on or off based on in-game variables, or cut it.
This also goes for narrative designers. Narrative design and writing are closely related jobs. This is because narrative designers shape the game’s overall narrative, whereas writers craft its text. The job of a narrative designer is not dissimilar to a novelist plotting out their story. But more than that, narrative designers need to make choices about branching the narrative, incorporating parallel structures like companions and sidequests, and whether or not there should be multiple endings. Novelists use these tools as scaffolding to produce a linear text. However, narrative designers have to deliver these narrative structures to the rest of their team, who make their vision a reality.
One final major difference from linear writing is simply the tools available. Because text in a game is ultimately just data, and needs to be handled as such, many games writers find themselves writing directly into spreadsheets or other data-management systems. Writing in such an interface can be unintuitive and uninspiring. This has improved over the last few years, with more developers turning to systems and interfaces where writing is more pleasant and intuitive. Even scripting languages like Ink are designed to be human-readable, and more natural to write in. But even with these advances, writing for games will always be more technical and data-focused than writing a novel. After all, a game is data. Only in the most linear games does a more traditional approach make sense. This might mean that yes, you can write that entire linear JRPG in a Word document.
First of all, let’s be real: there isn’t much point getting into writing unless you really love it. Without some passion for storytelling and bringing characters to life with your words, you won’t have enough motivation to keep going when things get difficult. And they will, because it’s a very competitive niche.
If you’re planning to go into writing, you’ll need to be actually good at writing. That means having an appreciation for getting exactly the right words in the right order, and cutting any text that isn’t carrying its weight. I’d recommend practicing by writing short stories, to train your prose and dialogue writing. Read novels to become more comfortable with unusual punctuation or grammar that isn’t used in day-to-day life. Read and write poetry to understand how one extra word can change a whole phrase, or a whole text. You will need to have strong grammar skills, and be able to workshop text quickly. Sometimes the writer has to knock out a social media announcement in 30 minutes. If you don’t hone in on your messaging there, or you make a grammatical mistake, it looks unprofessional.
If you’re gunning for narrative design, grammar and writing are not so important. Here, the focus is more on story structure and characterisation. These skills are harder to define, but a good narrative designer can understand what structure the plot will have, how the world works, what the role and arc of each character is, and how the player fits into all this. Narrative designers need good storytelling instincts and tools. But be warned: narrative design jobs are rare out in the wild!
A bachelor’s degree in English helps establish you know the basics of writing. Creative writing also helps. Perhaps you could find a short creative writing course in your area, proving that you at least have some familiarity with storytelling and writing.
But as with a lot of game development, your experience and a portfolio can count for a lot – even if you lack skills on paper. So if you find yourself without an English degree, but you know you can write, it’s best to prove it by just writing. Ren’Py, for example, is a visual novel engine that you could write a story-focused game in to demonstrate your ability. Steam has a lot of visual novels, so don’t expect to make much money from it, but writing and launching your own visual novel demonstrates writing ability. Another option is using Twine, an easy-to-use hyperlink fiction engine. Developers such as Porpentine and Kitty Horror Show have used it to great effect.
My personal favorite narrative scripting language is Ink, fromInkle. It’s easy to write in, is wonderfully flexible, and can be turned into a full game quite easily using Calico. Ink is the engine behind games such as 80 Days, Overboard, The Pale Beyond and King of the Castle, among many others. It’s easily compatible with Unity, and I’ve seen a Godot wrapper for it too.
I can also recommend some narrative resources. First, for writing in general: Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss is an excellent explanation of the more obscure rules of grammar and punctuation. It’s well written and entertaining. You should also get yourself a thesaurus, for when you need a word but can’t quite think of one. In a pinch you can use thesaurus.com. Or, if you need a word with connotations of another word, I’ve found relatedwords.org very helpful.
There’s a number of books that are useful if you want to brush up your interactive storytelling skills. Skolnick’s Video Game Storytelling is the most general one. It tells you how to do character arcs, setup, all that good narrative stuff. It’s a bit focused on AAA games but still good information. Story, by Robert McKee, is a look at how to write screenplays from a successful Hollywood screenwriter. Procedural Storytelling in Game Design, by Tanya Short and Tarn Adams, is great if you’re more interested in procedural text or stories.
For more general writing and storytelling tips, there are quite a few resources online. They tend to get lost in the flood of other gamedev paraphernalia, unfortunately. Jon Ingold’s “Sparkling Dialogue” is a great look at how to write interactive dialogue that is actually engaging. Emily Short, the Creative Director of Failbetter Games, has been doing work on interactive narrative for years. Her blog is an extensive resource which is worth reading back through. You can also watch this panel she did on freelance writing in games. (Allie Bustion, George Lockett and Florencia Minuzzi are also on this panel.)
I don’t know many resources specifically for training your writing abilities. Ultimately, I can only say what worked for me. I took a few creative writing courses and read as many books as I could. Then I analyzed stories to figure out how they worked, and joined writing groups to share my work and encourage me to create more of it. At some point, I think, you just have to write, and try to get better at writing over time.
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