tips

Someone contacted me recently with this question. He wanted to know how to get his novel turned into a video game. Here's my response: I'm afraid I don't have very good news for you. There are certain novels that are made into mainstream top-shelf games, but they're typically big-name series. A grade-A game costs millions of dollars to make, so…

Slow and Steady Wins the Race Many games include races that are non-human, and these are the toughest to write for. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking like a human writer, which you are, and writing dialogue that your fictional race would never say. In order to write for any character, you have to activate your…

Be Cautious around Prepositional Phrases Not much will turn a reader or a player off faster than stilted or unrealistic dialogue. Unless you're going for a satire of Tolkien, it's better to have your character speak in a more natural cadence. It doesn't matter how "fantasy" your world is. Here's an example for you. BAD: Guard! I am in need…

Avoid the Pit of Repetitive Doom The vocabulary of the English language is rich. When you're writing for a video game, there's a trap that you can fall into, and that's the monotonous word-choice pit. Some of the words I see used far too often (annoyingly so) are: pitiful, weak, strong, kill, destroy, and beast. In a video game, many…

If it ain't meat, it's sauce. Dialogue material comes in two main categories: meat and sauce. Mixing the two is like putting ketchup on prime rib. Anything thick and juicy is meat. It often has an emotional edge that helps bring the player into the world. It's serious and delivers important lore to the player. We don't fool around with…

Be Clever But not too clever. Your real job as a game writer is to make the game's dialogue interesting within the confines of character limits, ESRB restrictions, and your world's story. It's not always easy, but it's loving that challenge that makes you a writer at heart. The best way you can inject cleverness (drama/humor/tragedy) is on a meta…