Hannah Nicklin - Writing for Games

Writing for Games

Writing for Games

Theory and Practice

Hannah Nicklin

First edition published 2022
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

and by CRC Press
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

2022 Hannah Nicklin

Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.

For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. For works that are not available on CCC please contact mpkbookspermissions@tandf.co.uk

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Nicklin, Hannah, author.
Title: Writing for games : theory and practice / Hannah Nicklin.
Description: First edition. | Boca Raton : CRC Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: This book provides readers with a vocabulary to articulate and build their games writing practice, whether studying games or coming to games from another storytelling discipline. It considers the material affordances of videogames, and the practical realities of working in game development processes-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021055527 | ISBN 9781032023069 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032023052 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003182832 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Video games--Authorship. | Video games--Authorship--Vocational guidance. | Video games--Design. | Video games--Design--Vocational guidance.
Classification: LCC GV1469.34.A97 N53 2022 | DDC 794.8/3--dc23/eng/20220125
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021055527

ISBN: 9781032023069 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032023052 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003182832 (ebk)

DOI: 10.1201/9781003182832

Typeset in Myriad Pro
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

To Alex Kelly

Id like to dedicate this book to my friend, mentor, and sometime collaborator Alexander Kelly, whose careful support gave me the tools to identify my practice, the skills to develop it, and an understanding of storytelling which is equal parts love, science, and forgiveness.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003182832-1

When do you become a writer? When do you become a game designer? I would argue (without deep academic delving into child development studies) roughly around the same age. That is, as a very young child. We all start out as storytellers.of play as a means of imagining ourselves and the world in different, impossible, wonderful, terrible ways. Both inherit the same space of make-believe.

I use the term here to mean any kind of storytelling from make-believe with friends or stuffed animals and lines drawn in the dirt; to singing, drawing, building, all the means of learning to imagine, retell, and process experiences for the pleasure of exploring or sharing with others. This is not an exhaustive list, but I hope the spirit of my point is clear. A term drawn from Johan Huizingas play theory text Homo Ludens (1949).

Writing is one of the tools we use to tell stories. Storytelling and play are both innate and ancient practices, and they are also crafts in which we learn how to develop skills and tools for their practice. Or at least thats certainly my perspective as someone who trained in theatre (a game so old people forgot its a game and called it a medium) and who now runs a videogame studio. I have worked in narrative design and game writing for just over half a decade, and have been paid to write for interaction, installation, and more passive audience reception for nearly 15 years at this point.

Did I write this book just to make myself feel old? No, thats just an unfortunate side effect. Instead, as someone who has the privilege of an inter- and transdisciplinary practice, I want to share what I have learned about storytelling, from the combination of being grounded in the weight of centuries of literary and storytelling theory to finding wings in the relatively fledgling and often miraculous (in their actually working) practices of the games industry. This book is about the craft of writing, and more specifically, writing for games.

I want to emphasise that this is a book about writing because the industry often lacks coherent and common vocabularies. I will later on get much more into the difference between narrative design, worldbuilding, and writing. But just for now, let us say that while most videogames with story components need all of these things, writing is a specific subdiscipline of storytelling in videogames. Many books about stories in videogames conflate writing and narrative design, but tackle writing specifically very little.

, but nothing between here and there relies on you understanding this difference yet.

So, this is a book about writing. This book focuses primarily on how to write in the context of videogames. Some sections will be of use for people trained/working in videogames who want to know more about writing, and other sections might be more suited for people moving to videogames writing from other story disciplines. The book will trace a path from context for what the industry even is; to story theory; and then to the medium-specific details of character, story structure, and writing for videogames, including practical and material concerns. It will tackle three detailed case studies, and then offer a number of tools and exercises for practically developing your writing practice. I will tackle narrative design only where it intersects with writing (which isnt infrequent). This doesnt mean that narrative design and worldbuilding arent important but they play different roles and are different crafts.

I have read a lot of videogame-focused story books in preparation for the writing of this book, in the hope of being able to reference them as useful further reading, but in truth I found many of them to be lacking in craft and clarity around writing, especially in the context of indie videogames (more on the industry structures later).

If you are looking for an excellent source of further reading on story in videogames with more of a focus on narrative design, then I would recommend starting with Emily Shorts invaluable blog. Take a look at the books category, and youll find an extraordinary and ongoing literature review where she explores texts from her expert perspective. Shorts blog is an accessible and robust starting point for further learning in the realm of games storytelling beyond writing. I will also recommend a wealth of other further readings as we go, and you can also check out the Bibliography for works I reference.

Next page