A New Blog Project: Project Game Writer
Filed Under: My Writing, creativity
After attending the Game Developer’s Conference Writer Summit in Austin a couple of weeks ago, I have been increasingly determined to make a slow career shift from web-related work to the video game industry and writing. I’m not going to stop building websites yet. But I want to start writing in the field.
I’ve been thinking about the pluses and minuses for myself, and I’ve made some lists to examine my interest.4
First, why do I think I could break into the video game industry as a writer and be good at it?
- I have a proven track record as a writer with my short story materials, as well as the Dr. Roundbottom project.
- As a web designer, I’m used to working creatively in a collaborative environment. The transition to being part of a team in writing will be an easy one for me. I will be your word monkey.
- I have experience writing for voice acting and directing voice actors both through Escape Pod and Dr. Roundbottom.
- I am technically skilled and can write code, so when it comes to hooking dialogue up to a game with in-house editing tools, I can pick that up quite quickly and easily. I built several modules for my own entertainment with the Neverwinter Nights tool set, so I’ve already had some experience here.
- My writing often has a strong sense of voice, which is important for many types of game writing.
- I love video games, and games of all sorts.
And why do I even want to break into the video games industry as a writer?
- I enjoy working collaboratively with others on larger projects.
- The pay per word is generally much better than straight fiction writing.
- The audience is there. Top games sell millions of copies. I’m not going to be able to play in front of an audience that size with short fiction.
- I love writing.
- I love video games, and games of all sorts.
But there are some potential downsides to the video game industry for me:
- Long crunch hours could sap my will to live if I’m not prepared for them.
- The pay may be more than fiction writing, but it seems often less than web design (at least at this stage).
- Am I really prepared to write My Gorgeous Pony: The Magical Adventures II?
- Not entirely sure I have the full range of writing talents to make it. I need to learn how well I can switch genres to genres that I don’t normally write for.
With all that in mind, I’ve purchased a couple of books on the industry, and they include chapter exercises. As part of my process of exploration, I’m going to post the exercises and my attempts at them. I plan to do 2 chapters of the Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing book a week, but I may shrink some of the projects in size or skip the larger ones that would take a considerable amount of time. You’re all welcome to play along at home with your own copies, and comment on what I do. Or you can just ignore it entirely–that’s cool too.
At the very least, I hope you’ll keep me working on it and poke me if I don’t keep on the project. Wish me luck. I’m going to need some of it in addition to talents I’ve yet to develop. But it’s an exciting prospect, and one I look forward to exploring.
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