What Does a Game Writer Actually Do?

Your ship is taking on water, the crew is preparing for battle, and one person is running across the deck with a notebook.

That is probably the game writer.

To artists, programmers, animators, and even players, game writing can look like a mysterious cabin somewhere below deck. Someone disappears inside, writes dialogue, argues about a single word for twenty minutes, and occasionally emerges to explain why the player cannot simply kill an important character.

Bijan Stephen is a former writer at Compulsion Games and a former contract writer at Valve. Before working in games, he spent more than a decade in journalism, criticism, editing, and narrative media.

In this interview, Bijan explains what game writers actually do, how writing changes when the audience controls the experience, and how writers work with the rest of a development team.

↓ Turn Out the Lights — written by Bijan Stephen

MAIN TOPICS

Game Writing
Interactive Storytelling
Player Agency
Narrative Design
Game Dialogue
Cross-Team Collaboration
Nonlinear Storytelling
Game Production

Interview

With Former Compulsion Games and Valve Writer Bijan Stephen

Q: What does a game writer actually do during a normal production day?

Meetings! Lots and lots of meetings. A lot of the work of making a game, in my opinion, is making sure everyone is aligned and working in the same direction.

A good way to do that is by just talking to your teammates. Other than that, there’s always something to do — thank god for Jira — which can be anything from writing dialogue to worldbuilding to implementing quests. There’s always something to do!

↓ Turn Out the Lights — written by Bijan Stephen

Q: How is writing for games different from journalism, film, television, or other linear forms of storytelling?

This is something that I (and I imagine many other game writers) think about a lot. The key difference is agency, by which I mean the fact that players can choose. In linear storytelling, the story unfolds exactly as you the writer have designed it: the last third of a film is never going to play before the first two, right? But in games, we give our players the ability to choose what they do and the order they do it in.

To tell a coherent story in that environment — in the environment where you the designer aren’t in moment-to-moment control — requires building nonlinearity into your story design. It means thinking very hard about how to deliver a narrative where some people might not see the whole thing in the order and manner you intended.

This, as it turns out, is a pretty fun challenge.

Q: Who decides what happens in the story, and where does the writer’s responsibility begin and end?

The responsibility of deciding what’s going to happen in the story of a game lies with leadership, because they’re the ones with the fullest picture of what’s going on across departments. That’s not to say that the writers don’t to some degree decide what happens; only that there are other stakeholders to keep in mind that can change how a story turns out.

To tell a good story in a game, everything in the game has to work to buttress the narrative — and, of course, the reverse is true. A good game story will be reflected everywhere from the mechanics to the UI.

Q: What happens when a beautifully written scene does not work inside the game?

It gets cut!

Which, honestly, is fine. Writing is the kind of work that can’t really be wasted; you might find, a year or two later, that the ideas you explored in your beautiful scene return in a different, more exciting context.

The thing to remember is that to make a game everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction, and that everything needs to serve the game’s vision. And anyway: what if the next scene you write is even more beautifully written? You’re always going to get another bite at the proverbial apple, so it’s good to not be too precious.

↓ Turn Out the Lights — written by Bijan Stephen

Q: How do game writers collaborate with artists, animators, level designers, audio teams, and programmers?

You talk to them! This goes back to what I was saying about meetings above, where by “meeting” I mean “talking to your coworkers about what they’re doing and how you can help them out.” Writing is the cheapest discipline — by which I mean that it’s a lot easier to change a piece of writing than it is to redesign a level, for example — which means it’s usually the most subject to change.

Working with other departments means identifying what they need (like, say, a fun name for an in-world line of jam, or something) and then asking the right questions about what the thing you’re making needs to do (the jam’s gotta be front and center in the supermarket for plot reasons, so how can we make a cool logo that reflects its nefarious origins?). 

Writing often changes when coming into contact with the needs of other disciplines. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t fight for the things you really like — just to emphasize that part of your job is to be a bottomless font of workable ideas. Adaptability is the essence of collaboration, in my opinion.

Q: What makes game dialogue feel natural instead of sounding like information written for the player?

That’s a great question. First off: a great voice actor. Kidding, kidding. (But it helps!)

To be frank, I think a lot of dialogue is naturalistic and not natural. Because natural dialogue — the way we talk to each other IRL — isn’t much like the stuff we hear on TV, in films, and in games. There’s a slightly heightened register they’re working in.

To write dialogue that has that kind of cinematic sheen, so to speak, a lot of the time the first thing you’ll do is write it as straight exposition — to define exactly the things you need to get across to the player.

↓ NOVA — written by Bijan Stephen

Then, when you know what you have to say (and how short it’s gotta be), you can go back and finesse the words into something a human being would enjoy listening to. Add in the subtext, the fun metaphors, the literary pyrotechnics. But make sure the core is solid first. 

Oh, and then read it out loud. You’d be surprised how much stuff works on the page that doesn’t actually work when it’s spoken.

For Indie Developers

Q: What is one piece of advice from your profession that you would give to young game developers or people making a game on their own?

Well first: finish it. Seriously, that’s the biggest thing. Just getting something done. Even if that thing isn’t as big or as fully-featured as you imagined it.

Second: the story is as important as the mechanics. Maybe a little less important. But still: the world you’re creating is a place that your players should want to spend time in. Give them something good that makes them want to beat your game. 

For Young Writers

Q: What advice would you give to writers who want to enter the game industry?

Collaboration is essential. I’d go so far as to say it might be the main skill — aside from your writing — involved in making games as a writer. So get used to working closely with other people!

The other thing, I think, is: you need to understand the affordances of the medium intimately. A lot of writers from other fields sometimes see game writing as writing film scripts for players — and that’s not at all what the job is. It’s much more about understanding the principles of writing non-linearly.

To that end, it’s vitally important that you play around with things like Twine (go make a game!) and Ink, so you understand both the theory and how it’s applied. Aside from that, I’d say hit the library! There are a ton of good books about the craft of game writing.

One in particular I recommend is The Game Narrative Toolbox, which features 4 very experienced writers and narrative designers talking about the field and how to succeed in it. 

The last thing, I think, is don’t discount your experience. As I said above, no writing is wasted. The things you learned as a screenwriter or a journalist definitely transfer to games. Figuring out how, exactly, is what’s going to make your games unique.