How to Write Gears of War
Gamasutra’s posted the transcript to their podcast interview with Susan O’Connor, scriptwriter* for games like Gears of War, BioShock, Star Wars Galaxies and BlackSite: Area 51 and the founder of the Game Writers Conference (also, my new heroine). The interview offers Susan’s in-depth view of her writing inspirations and processes. Here’s one interesting tidbit from the transcript, but I recommend reading/listening to the whole thing if you want an insight into video game writing:
It is important to keep in mind, because I think a lot of times, especially the development team, can get so wrapped up in the story and everyone knows it and forgets that the player will be coming to it fresh. And they will have their set of assumptions, and their knowledge base, or lack thereof, and how do you handle that? Also how do you handle it when you have a thousand players, all of whom have different personalities and who want to assert those personalities on your game? How do you accommodate that, and tell a good story at the same time? … But what it involves, at the most fundamental level, is thinking about the player, all the time. What is the player feeling? What is the player wanting? Have we, in this game, inspired some fears in the player, or some desires in that player? And how can we play on that? No pun intended!
An Interview With Susan O'Connor [Gamasutra]
Lazy Panda
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 4 February 2007
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: bioshock, blacksite, gears of war, star wars galaxies, susan o'connor, video game writing, women in gaming
Hey Lazy Panda! Susan O'Connor here...thanks for the excellent posting! It's making my day (and that picture's not bad, either ;) To be fair to my clients - they usually develop the stories, and then I write the scripts based on their stories. That was true for Gears of War and Bioshock. So I can't say I'm the writer - more like I'm the scriptwriter. They were fun projects. Your site kicks ass! Keep it up! (no pun intended)
Susan