Game writing references and support

[MrBree]

One thing that I see

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is that people complain about the quality of the writing in many of the games here. Writing is an extremely important part of making a game. Yet there are few, if any real lists of support references to help improve this. It is not a 'magical' thing that will be helped with generic suggestions. It takes work.

The Bloo Guide is tremendously useful as a reference thread, but it literally has more links to Music resources than writing.

So I would like to ask some of the developers here what references they use to help improve their stories and writing. I've been digging up a few things, but I'm very interested in seeing more suggestions from others.

Lists:
Literotica has a long list of

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,
As does the Lemma Soft Forums with their

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.

Forums:
LemmaSoft forums has at least has at least

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The HypnoPics collective has their

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subforum
As does

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.

Editing help:
Literotica has a

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program. But that is designed around submitting stories to their site. Looking for others now.
I haven't used these, but there seem to be several 'social writing' sites that would provide help in this manner? Wattpad?

Reddit, as per usual, has many subreddits/subforums which may seem useful, but most of them aren't that active:

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(Hub for all writing subreddits)

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There is also the book category of "

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".
Yes, that really is a thing. Books set within an RPG game world.
As Visual Novels are basically stories in a game, how LitRPG stories handle their the game elements of character progression in their stories seem to be a useful reference.

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seems to be a good resource for this genre.

Book recommendations (h/t @megaplayboy10k ):

Screenplay, by Syd Field(he wrote a few other books too)

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, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, by Scott McCloud
The Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri
Aspects of the Novel, EM Forster
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
Warriners Book of English Grammar and Composition

Game specific:
Video Game Storytelling, Evan Skolnick
Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games, by Robert Denton Bryant and Keith Giglio
Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing, Wendy Despain

Erotic story sites (h/t @Joshua Tree )

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Anything else?

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

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is pretty good.

 

[MrBree]

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is pretty good.

Will add to list. I assumed that was for posting FanFic, but it appears to be more on of a discussion of the topic. But that does bring up a different topic -- places where you can post up a story for feedback are rather useful, and we could always use more!

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

Will add to list. I assumed that was for posting FanFic, but it appears to be more on of a discussion of the topic. But that does bring up a different topic -- places where you can post up a story for feedback are rather useful, and we could always use more!

Yeah, they even have weekly events there where you can post excerpts of your stuff and get criticism on your writing. I guess it does have to be fan fiction related though. But there are plenty of games that are about established characters and franchises, so it might be helpful for some.

 

[SeventhVixen]

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Today Write like a Writer... xD

 

[megaplayboy10k]

Game writing is mainly plot, narrative and dialogue. Description is mainly handled through onscreen visuals. Plot is a significant "meta" factor in design and development of the game. Dialogue is somewhat stylized compared to what people actually say to each other in real life. I'd recommend books on playwriting and screenwriting for tips on dialogue. Books on novel-writing for plot and story structure.
Hmm:
Screenplay, by Syd Field(he wrote a few other books too)
Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, by Scott McCloud
The Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri
Aspects of the Novel, EM Forster
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
Warriners Book of English Grammar and Composition

Game specific:
Video Game Storytelling, Evan Skolnick
Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games, by Robert Denton Bryant and Keith Giglio
Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing, Wendy Despain

 

[xxx_chris2018]

Thanks for this! I just started writing my first game and I know my writing is very stale. These will be great to look at and hopefully improve my writing style.

 

[polywog]

 

[polywog]

Writing stories is step one, adapting stories to games or movies is step two.
There are several "screen writing" software that help a lot with adaptation.

Start with the story, then you extract the visual elements from the story, these are director notes. They will be represented visually in the game or movie. You don't have to say... "she spread her legs" if the associated image already has her in this position.

Extract the script from the story... lines for the voice actors to read and make the audio files
Coordinate between the writer, director, artists.

For practice... take an old paperback romance novel, and a handful of highlighters
start with chapter one.
Highlight everything the protagonist says in yellow. yellow text is the protagonist script.
Highlight everything the antagonist says in orange. orange text is the antagonist script.
Highlight everything the girl says in pink. pink is the girl script
After removing the dialog, what remains is the story elements. from this you create your scenes, rooms, office, store, backgrounds cars train, etc. highlight all the scenery elements in blue.
now the remaining text is the good stuff. the action, the suspense, the adventure. put these things on flash cards numbered to keep them in the right order. these cards make up the scenes

A whole story might look like overwhelming, but when you break it down, a chapter at a time, and into small pieces...

Another thing that's important for games is the art of tease. too many devs are in a hurry to get their dick in the butt

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[Joshua Tree]

Even downloading and looking through screenplays could be a good help in learn how to structure a story, dialogues etc.

If you want to draw inspiration from erotic fiction and such out there a place such as @

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could be worth checking out. It have it's archives sorted on category's as well, so easy to find whatever fetish/orientation you looking for. For a much larger, but harder to dig through archive you could do the main @

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This contains thousands's of stories gathered from usenet since like the dawn of internet almost.

 

[MrBree]

One thing I especially hate when talking about writing is that everybody thinks they know what they are talking about... and then proceed to give a prescription for what to do.

What I am asking for here is more descriptive approach.
A prescription tells us what to do.. follow these rules. That rarely if ever helps in creative fields.
A description tells us more about the subject, and lets us learn. The more people learn, the more they can stretch their creative capabilities.

Writing well is an art form. Like any art form, there are many methods, and approaches. And many different mediums, each with its own rules. We need to learn the methods that will work for us and our chosen medium.

Especially when considering that there are multiple gaming mediums. There are dozens of gaming engines listed here. Writing a story means you match your story to your engine (and vice versa). For example, RPG Maker is often disliked here.. one reason why is because idiots often provide a game which doesn't match the engine. RPG Maker allows people to create an interactive environment... which should be part of the story itself. It isn't just a place to walk past.
In contrast, Visual Novel engines (especially Ren'py) can be seen in one sense as a version of

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.

Storyboarding is showing you the story -- without words. The visuals themselves tell the story. How you tell a story visually is a key part of both film and comics as well as games and Visual Novels. Thus, just learning how to write is utterly wrong for the medium. We need to learn how to tell a story and how to build. That is more than just words. I would echo @megaplayboy10k's recommendation of

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which is perhaps the definitive book on the subject. I would also recommend reading the incredible (pun intended) 3-part series on the

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.

At the end of the series, there is 'screen capture map' of the movie.. analyzing it gives you a stunning picture of how they used colors to set the scene and the storyline.


It also concludes thus:

I believe that instead of looking at composition as a set of 'rules' to follow - it should be viewed as a set of ingredients that can be taken out of the pantry at any point and used to make a great meal. Any good chef knows you shouldn't throw everything in the pot at once, but rather, pick and choose your ingredients here and there in order to make a good meal. This 'meal' can be for anything: a photograph, a storyboard, an illustration, a book cover, a movie poster, a advertising design layout, and of course, la live-action or animated film. It should be seen as a set of tools that can be taken out of one's compositional tool belt at any given time, for the construction of a great image.

A great summary of what game developers here need to do.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I dunno whether it's prescriptive or descriptive, but one useful technique is to set about answering the "six questions-who, what, where, when, why and how?" E.g., who is the main character, what is his situation/what is his goal, where and when is the story set, why is the character pursuing his goal and how is he going to achieve it? There are many different ways to paint a picture or tell a story, but there are some methods which are "tried and true" and produce good results.

 

[HopesGaming]

I simply searched Google and YouTube for story writing tips, 10 common mistakes, in depth guides from authors and so on.

Then I applied it all. Made a story for my game and release. Think it went well. Far from perfect writing but no major complains. Most complains comes from people disliking the genre or setting.

 

[MrBree]

I dunno whether it's prescriptive or descriptive, but one useful technique is to set about answering the "six questions-who, what, where, when, why and how?" E.g., who is the main character, what is his situation/what is his goal, where and when is the story set, why is the character pursuing his goal and how is he going to achieve it? There are many different ways to paint a picture or tell a story, but there are some methods which are "tried and true" and produce good results.

Prescriptive is telling us what to do.
Descriptive is telling us about a technique.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I simply searched Google and YouTube for story writing tips, 10 common mistakes, in depth guides from authors and so on.

That what should be done by everyone. Like someone already said, it's a creative process, the "how-to be a writer" don't necessarily apply to everyone. But the mistakes to not do, the tips to help, and all are what's very useful ; they help you control your creativity and help you limit the wildness of your own mind.

Another thing that should never be forgot is that games authors aren't book writers, they are a scenarists. The narration should rely as much as possible on the visual part, not on words. There's too many authors nowadays who give us things like this :

• Choose the "take a shower" option in the menu ;
• Read the MC saying that he'll take a shower ;
• See the MC showering ;
• Read the MC saying that he's showering ;
• Read the MC saying that he'd now showered and he's ready for the next thing to do.

It's way too verbose.
Showing us the MC showering is all the author have to effectively do. The MC can, time to time, say how good it feel to take a shower, but that's all. There's no need for him, or the narrator, to describe every single thing he do or see. Those extra narration are mandatory for books, but they should stay exceptional for games/visual novels ; it's the visual part and the dialog that should convey the information, not the narrator, and rarely the internal thoughts.

And if you're stuck, and don't achieve to effectively get ride of some narration parts, then do it smartly. By example, give a pet to your MC and, instead of narration or internal thoughts, make the MC talk to his pet.
In the average incest games, generally the authors don't know how to express the rise of MC's arousal and give us tons of thoughts like, "Oh, my mother is so hot. I know I shouldn't, but I really want to bang her". This can be replaced by some confessions to MC's pet. Bonus side, it create a real interaction, so you can make the pet react to what the MC said, and let the MC interpret it according to the guilt he actually feel. Something like :
mc: "Today I show my mother showering, I never realized how hot she still is."
pet: "Meooow"
mc: "Yes, I know... She's my mother, I shouldn't say things like that."
Like many MCs are geek, the pet can be replaced by online chat with strangers, or confessions forums. If the MC is weird or Otaku, it can also works with some inanimate objects. There's also the barman trick, MC go for a trashing night and end expressing all his repressed feeling to the barman. Like it's adult games, you can kill two birds with one stone and use a prostitute as confessor ; it happen way more often than you can think.

On short, there's many options and all are better than too much narration or internal thoughts.

 

[polywog]

 

[Deleted member 31043]

This video can be of help

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