Narrative Alchemy: Words Craft Worlds

There’s not a lot of knowledge of what we do – a lot of people outside games think we’re simply “writers”, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Sure, we write the game – but we design the players’ experience through the environment, lore, characters, interactions, and more. This means we write the cutscenes, the voice over you never think about (like the character grunts after being shot, running and out of breath, etc.), and also construct the bios of all of the characters and NPCs, name everyone, give them voices by writing their dialogue and reference notes for the voice actors and voice over director, write screenplay notes for the actors for cutscenes (it also helps the Animation and Art department, directors, and so on).

We track all player choices, but also tie everything together – sort of like knitting a sweater out of a ball of yarn. We move around in time but have to keep the relationships and plot in mind, writing some content in the end game, but then revising mid-game content, before reviewing scripts for the beginning quests.

Revisions are essential. We revise and edit a LOT of content as the game develops, it’s never a situation where we write something and leave it alone. Remember writing in school and having to revise your papers? It’s that, over and over and over again. For some, that might be torture – but for others, you polish something with every editorial pass.

We also test out our content – playing the game and making sure the experience “hits” the way it should, that the moments are felt by the team (and hopefully later by you, the players!).

When we go to record voice overs or performance capture for cinematics, Narrative is on hand as a full resource for the actors and directors – giving context to make the performances their best. It’s so important because with a branching storyline, the scripts can get incredibly confusing on paper (and digitally)! Subtle nuance in performance is essential to making your unique playthrough feel different than another.

I love what I do. In Narrative, we pitch new ideas like quest lines, lore, and write the in-game texts and codex to unify the team’s creative vision. There’s always something more to do, another story breadcrumb, another line of dialogue.

I love it! It’s really fun, but sometimes there’s also drudgery:

Spreadsheets.

I’d rather be forced to attend a thousand meetings that could have been an email than work in spreadsheets – but they’re a known evil.

We need to organize data – from tracking relationships to dialogue choices, plot points, and more.

So, I balance a lot of different tasks (with the occasional spreadsheet) to build the world, the characters, and everything in between! Tadaah!

-Miranda