What I Learned about Writing Fiction from Game Design
What I Learned about Writing Fiction from Game Design
Hello writers! I don't know if you know this, but Maureen and I have both worked in games--in fact we met while teaching in the games program at USC! She taught narrative design, and I taught intro to interactive media and a hands-on game design workshop. While there are a lot of differences, obviously, between writing fiction and designing games, there are some unexpected things I've learned about writing prose from my time working in games.
But first!
New Classes Coming 2022!
We're so excited to announce a few new classes scheduled for early 2022! All classes are taught in Pacific time, and over Zoom. Subscribers get discount codes!
Prose Lessons from Screenwriting. Jan 22. Taught by Maureen. One-day workshop. Prose and screenplays are very different, but there are lots of lessons that the prose writer can steal. A two-hour workshop focusing on how to link scenes and create forward momentum in a story. Maximum 12 students. $59 ($10 off with promo code).
Getting Started with Flash Fiction. Jan 29. Taught by Jane. One-day workshop. Flash fiction is very short fiction, and it's a beautiful, exciting, unique form in its own right! Learn some practical tips for generating and finishing a flash fiction story, and use in-class exercises and prompts to work on a story. No maximum enrollment. $59 ($10 off with promo code).
Game and Narrative Design. Feb. 12, 19, 26, and March 5. Taught by Jane and Maureen. A four week class using a branching narrative structure. Week one will be about the principles of game design. Students will then come up with an idea of a branching narrative game and will develop the idea on paper over the next three classes. Maximum 12 students. $299 ($50 off with promo code).
We'll be opening to registration soon, so keep an eye out for that email--it'll have a discount code for subscribers.
N.B. Scholarships are available for ALL our classes, prioritizing BIPOC students and students from the Global South. Please get in touch with us to inquire (storykitchenstudio@gmail.com)!
What I Learned about Writing Fiction from Game Design
1. Constraints can inspire creativity
Game design is an act of creative problem solving. You have a set of affordances and you ask yourself, what is the fun experience I can deliver with this affordances? If you're making a physical game, like a board game, your constraints are material and physical. If you're making a digital game, your constraints are the game engine and processing power, among other things.
In fiction, the blank page feels... so unconstrained. And that can be intimidating. It can make your mind go blank, or feel unsure about how to proceed, or what to do next. Something I've had success is to give myself some constraints in the form of genre conventions (or subverting them), or prompts--either text-based prompts or image prompts.
Most writing exercises are basically about putting some random constraints on your writing, and I find that they can be great for unlocking creativity!
2. Who's the player/reader?
Something that I learned to do in game design is to always ask yourself, who is the player? What do they want? What would make them feel something I want them to feel? This is a basic part of playcentric design and user experience design, and it's not really something we think about as part of the creative process for writing, but I was reminded of this lesson when I watched James Patterson's Masterclass (and made a video about it) because one of the things he says he does is, he imagines a reader on the other side of the table, waiting for his book!
I love that. I don't think you HAVE to write for anyone but yourself, but if you want to explore traditional publishing or commercial publishing, getting a sense of your reader--and respecting that reader, honoring them--can be a helpful way to make decisions. If you're stuck about what to do in a work in progress, sometimes you can ask, what would my reader want right now? And do I give it to them? Or... not? 😈
3. What is the aesthetic effect?
Finally, maybe the key lesson for me has been an awareness of aesthetic effect. In game design, designers are constantly asking ourselves, "is this fun? what do players feel?" and we start playtesting from a very early stage--even at the prototyping stage. In writing, I don't think I've heard most writing instructors talk about aesthetic effect in quite the same way, although we do "playtest" in a similar way by getting some beta readers or critique partners. As I began to internalize the feedback of my critique partners, I was able to start developing a better awareness of the aesthetic effect of my prose even in the drafting stage, which has been interesting, and has changed the way I draft a little bit--meaning, I tend not to do zero drafts anymore (sometimes called the vomit draft.) Instead my first drafts tend to already be pretty close to what the final draft will be. Not always, but often. It's been an interesting shift, and I don't know that it's *good* necessarily, but I always like to embrace the writer that I am instead of trying to be a different kind of writer. :)
How do you develop a character? Here's how I do it...
Recipe from Maureen: Miso Butter
I’m trying to eat healthier and Jane passed on this recipe from Chef Jorge’s site. His recipe is for seared napa cabbage with miso butter. I made it (like Jane, I cheated and just did chunks of cabbage) and it was rich with umami. I’m looking for ways to eat more plants! With this miso butter, it feels like I can make more than cabbage—so I’ve put it on salmon and on baked sweet potatoes with veggies and so far, I haven’t found anything it doesn’t taste great on.
It’s pretty flexible. If you don’t have mirin or sake, you can use white or rice vinegar—just remember that you’ll need to counteract the sourness of the vinegar with about a half teaspoon of sugar for every tablespoon of vinegar. I’ve used yellow miso and that works great, as well. And I use Chinese soy sauce because that’s what I’ve got on hand.
I’m going to try it on roasted green beans next.
Miso Butter Sauce
• 4 tablespoons vegan butter (although it works great with dairy butter)
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 3 tablespoons light-brown miso
• 4 tablespoons mirin (or sake)
• 1/3 cup (80 g) water
• 2 teaspoons tamari soy sauce
Mix all the ingredients and spread on anything you want.
If, like me, you’re trying to eat more plants, you don’t have to be full on vegan to love Chef Jorge’s site. Even if you’re not trying to eat more plants, there’s just lots of tasty and easy recipes there.
That's it for today. Thanks for reading, and Maureen and I hope you're heading into a restful and restorative holiday season. Happy writing!
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