Now as many of you know, right now my primary gig is writing for GameTheory Digital Gaming Magazine, which is amusing as I never expected to turn into a game journo, but hey we roll with the waves and take the ops as they present themselves. I’m also doing story work for a client for at least one upcoming title (which I can’t even breath about, but hey I say something at least.) All that aside, something triggered some thoughts tonight while I was working (slaving) away on some dialogue. The Game Industry, to me as I’ve probably stated before is made up of specialists and utility players. Programmers, Designers of all flavours, Producers, Artists, Musicians, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Myself, well I bill myself as a writer though I have dabbled in design, production, and some other things over time. But my focus is on writing, which isn’t exactly the most technical of chores. (Hah, try doing research on period pieces and tell me that isn’t hard work to find the right spice to sprinkle in your dialogue)

Anyways back to the point I’m going to make. My Twitter stream is a diversified mix of all sorts of directly and indirectly related people. Of course I’m top heavy on Game Industry folks of the aforementioned flavours, plus my now fellow Game Journalists. However I also have a healthy contingent of writer folks, for reals writers of books and films and such. Add in the various musicians and music industry types, throw in the Acting and Film Industry people, with a sprinkling of other small groups, it goes to show that my following of people isn’t just one certain flow of information. I’m not counting the media and news services, the rare celebrities who amuse me, friends, families, and the ever important gamers that buy all the goodies the game industry pumps out. Oh, and that handful of marketing and PR types whom I either find interesting conversationalists or have something worth reading.

As I said everything is directly or indirectly related. As a writer especially one aimed at the Game Industry, I follow the Music, Acting, and Film industry types because when times come along that I need to write dialogue for scenes, or I need to build cast and character profiles, I like having information to draw from. I set myself a broad learning curve as I don’t want to have to do things repeatedly due to my not understanding something. I like to know how actors and acting, especially voice acting operates, the kind of things they like, directions they need and so on.

I follow the music people as music is (in my estimation) an important aspect of games and game story telling. Music in movies proves that theory just let the Jaws theme play in your head and you know exactly what I get it.

You don’t have to be godly in all aspects of the industry, no one really can be, there’s just too much to try to know, but having some knowledge can help you in the long run, when it comes to dealing with people on any team you end up on. Especially for those who are aiming to be a Producer or Director. You don’t need to have the talent to do voice acting, to compose songs, to write all the back-story, or draw up your concept art. You do need to have some understanding of how those things happen and the people who make it happen. Education never stops, and as I said in the earlier post of yesterday, being agile and adaptive applies here too. If you don’t know anything about something then do some research and learn something about it. Talk to those who know and gain some understanding, it will make you a better writer, designer, musician, producer, director, coffee gopher.

I keep my flow of information diversified so that I can meet challenges, deal with people with some intelligent conversation, or when I’m faced with something new, I can ask intelligent questions coming from at least a basic foundation in how the other half does things. I don’t have a lifetime to spend learning how to do it all, but I can spend the time learning how those who have the talent to do something do it.

It’s made me a better writer, a better networker, a better co-worker, and in the end a better friend. I might not be able to read your sheet music, but I can understand how to work with the dialogue to make it flow with the musical accompaniment.

I guess the moral of the story of this one is that you can’t box yourself in and just send things out to the team without having some measure of understanding for what they do and how you can help them work with what you do. It will make your team more cohesive, and hopefully your game even better, and bring success for all involved.

I’ve been working on and writing on an interesting story and world for a client the last couple of months, I have a wide range of creative freedom on this which is always nice. But with any new story and world there is something that is always required to really paint the scenes and events that take place. Without characters the writing becomes little more than a travel brochure. Creating characters for any story is a process of several levels; it’s not just a matter of giving a name or coming up with a witty description of some voluptuous creature. Major and minor roles need thought, preparation and above all some kind of passion investing.

You don’t have to like all your characters but I find you do have to have some kind of emotional response to them. Some of the best writing I’ve ever done was for a character I absolutely loathed. He was sadistic, evil, and generally a complete jack ass and I thrilled at writing for someone completely unlike myself. Exploration of personality is one of the more fascinating aspects of character creation.

These ties in to writing but also video game development, your characters that carry the narrative should be thought out, not card board cut outs that present little more than vehicles for imparting information. This is something of course that fails more often than not in many games. Even the most well constructed game can have some of the most boring and dull characters ever thought of. I suspect this is due to the general ambivalence that seems to go with story development in games. I could continue to rant on this for a long, long, long time but I won’t, at least for today.

If your characters aren’t interesting to you, if you just don’t have any emotional investment in them, then how can you expect other people to? I have had troubles many times in the past where a particular character just wasn’t doing it for me, and I’ve halted in writing of the overall project just to fix that kind of problem. Dead end, boring characters irritate the hell out of me and if I can’t find that spark it can kill the flow. Yes of course I could continue on with another scene, but always in the back of my mind I’ll have that part I’m skipping nagging at me. Character development is one part planning and one part spontaneous genesis. I could be trucking along writing with gusto and suddenly when it’s time to introduce someone new I could inject a character I planned for, or the muses will suddenly jump on me with both feet and give life to a new incarnation of unexpected import.

This current project is no exception, I was given some basic character data to play with, but in the course of writing I created a whole new vector of story arc, characters I’ve absolutely fell in love with and the dimensions of the story have grown exponentially with their conception. The balance of power in any story comes from plot, environment, and characters. You can have a fantastic plot and terrible characters, or vice versa. It’s finding that balance, and when you’re stuck look to your characters to tell you where you should be going.

Like many of my scribing brethren, our characters are drawn from people we know, or in many cases are pieces of ourselves, drawn from those aspects of our personality that are a parts of the pattern, emotions and thoughts we might not explore in day to day life can come out in our characters and we feel more emotional attachment to them than we anticipated.

The bottom line of course is that every good story has equally good and captivating characters, find those pieces of yourself that you might want to hide and explore them, look to the world around and find interesting personalities that might inspire you to further create your cast. With rich characters the story will build beyond your expectations, never skimp, even if you have to break off the pieces of your soul and roll them out on the cookie sheet. You might just blow your own mind with what you can bake up with the right ingredients!