Bloomsbury Academic Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames

There's no better starting point than this volume for someone wishing to get into this exciting field, whether they are new game writers wanting to hone their skills, or film and T.V. scriptwriters who want to learn how to transfer their skills to the games industry. As the videogame industry has grown up, the need for better stories and characters has dramatically increased. Creating narrative a traditionally static form for games is a major challenge since games are at their heart dynamic, interactive systems that do not follow the guidelines and rules of film or T.V. writing. Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames was the first book to address these issues and demystify this emerging field. Through the insights and experiences of professional game writers, the book captures a snapshot of the narrative skills employed in today's game industry. This unique collection of practical advice provides the foundations to the craft of game writing, detailing aspects of the process from the basics of narrative and nonlinear narrative to writing comedy for games and creating compelling characters. Throughout the chapters there is a strong emphasis on the skills developers and publishers will expect a game writer to have. This second edition adds four new chapters providing even wider coverage of the craft of game writing, including script formatting, video game micronarratives, and massively multiplayer online games. Professional game designers and writers, such as Rhianna Pratchett and Richard Dansky, give credence to the advice making the text suitable for both beginners and experienced writers, situating Game Writing as the essential guide to all the techniques of game writing.