Very interesting bibliography of books, cool that you have written a paper about story and plots, would be nice to read sometime..

Yeah I meant the Strunk book, yeah it''s rather nice in it''s aspects maybe not the best book out there The interesting thing is that there are like two people writing a book of 95 pages + a man writing the foreword that''s three people for such a small book which surprises me a bit

Take Care!

Daniel Westerstal
http://www.writers-hub.tk

I think Adventuredesign wrote ''Elements of Screenwriting'' in his post, not ''Elements of Style''...

I did. Elements of screenwriting sorta sucks cause of the format, but you will get more data in less space than seventy five percent of the other books you recommended, many of which are fabulous, but not many of which are starter kits.



It was Sigmaent who wrote _Elements of Style_.

As for _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_, I haven''t read it, nor do I write hero-monomyth structured stories, but from the information amazon has on it it seems to be in line with Propp and Campbell and whoever wrote that one about "damn good fiction with the power of myth".

Having spent many a day at the Joseph Campbell archives in Summerland, there''s really nothing new there to his work other than he was the first to take what Jung broke away from Freud with and articulate it romantically. The archives is a place where fat middle aged women with gleams of sentience in their eyes dance to african drums as if they were doing some earth mama conception dance from the african plains four thousand years ago. Not a pretty sight, but they all know a thing or two. Campbellian heroics have been explained to me dozens of times, and I have to say, it sure sounds like good old fashioned archetypal plotting methodology, so I wouldn''t waste your time on it. But then again, I didn''t need it by the time I''d discovered it. I went to the archives seeking something new, and found nothing any more significant that McCluhan''s ideas after you get over ''the medium is the message'' ivory tower, and look around the foundations he makes passing comment on. It''s sorta like discovering the simple yet astounding painter''s trick that has been used for thousands of years using light and shadow by studying Van Gogh.

The bottom line here is that structuralization is what game writing needs, there are plenty of ideas as we all know and are enthusiastically willing to advocate. I would hazard to say that a game designer and or programmer with a moderate amount of experience has seen hundreds of wild approaches and techniques, but the future of this industry lies in story depth, if we are to pull in the audiences from film and TV that want to come to our medium. By virtue of the exposure devvers have had, I think that with just the things they''ve seen so far, the acumen of ideas they currently possess and the structuralization that pro forma plotting and storywriting offers, we will be able to take this industry where it is going in the credits or in the pack.

Treat your game stories like stories, and the game will perhaps not only improve in it''s gameplay quality, but in units shipped to new demographics as well.

Adventuredesign

So here's a question: if we as a group were hypothetically going to produce a GameDev _How to Write for Computer Games_ book, what should we put in it?


Or, hmm, a slightly better title: _More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About How to Write for Computer Games_

[edited by - sunandshadow on September 29, 2002 12:25:35 PM]

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
It was Sigmaent who wrote _Elements of Style_.

My apologies...


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The Idea Foundry

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
So here''s a question: if we as a group were hypothetically going to produce a GameDev _How to Write for Computer Games_ book, what should we put in it?


Or, hmm, a slightly better title: _More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About How to Write for Computer Games_

[edited by - sunandshadow on September 29, 2002 12:25:35 PM]

Before tackling such a project, it would be nice to know who has actually written for a published game. Writing for a published game in my opinion should be the mark of someone who knows what they are talking about, otherwise ''how to write for games'' is simply conjecture.

I have edited the in-game text of a soon to be released XBox title, and have written or edited game storylines and dialogue for various unpublished projects, including my own. I would not consider myself qualified, at the moment, to contribute to a book on ''How to Write for Computer Games''.

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The Idea Foundry

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
So here''s a question: if we as a group were hypothetically going to produce a GameDev _How to Write for Computer Games_ book, what should we put in it?


Or, hmm, a slightly better title: _More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About How to Write for Computer Games_


Well, I''ll tell ya, if we did, and we sat down in story conferences to articulate it, we''d be primering the most innovative and demanding form of writing in history, imho.

Tacit - well if you look at it that way, practically no one''s qualified, including me. I would not attempt to write such a book by myself, but I think I have enough experience in various areas that I would be qualified to contribute some articles and edit the book. Whether it would be worth the effort I''m less sure.

I don''t mean to sound like a naysayer. I think the idea is a grand one. But, I''m personally tired of looking in the game development section of my local bookstore and only finding ''books'' comprised of articles authored by people without any real game development experience.

Of course, this is a gross generalization, but I feel that the ''art'' suffers for not having more authoritative texts supporting it, and another one written by people who feel qualified to ''write an article'' won''t help the situation. I just couldn''t believe my eyes to pick up (as in physically ''pick up'', not purchase) a book on game design and see articles penned by people I know for a fact have never published a game in their lives. Sure, they can have good ideas, but I want to know what the *experts* have to say when I buy a ''how to'' book.

But, this is only one person''s opinion.

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The Idea Foundry

TAcit : actually, I understand what you mean when you talk of people not being "qualified".
Sadly, having your work used in a game is not necessarily a sign of being a good writer. Not that some writers arent good, but the fact is that most stories are not written by actual writers.
Mostly because up to very recently, there wasnt such an interest in writers, or real artists. Games could do just fine with "programmers art", and "programmers storylines", if you know what I mean.
This is changing, thankfully, but I think we are still at a stage where there isnt that many "authorities" on the subject, at least in game developments. It''s nice to see guys like Clive Baker take an interest (and write a cool script, BTW), but just look at AI, for instance, where the first book about game AI has only been published last year, and you will understand that it''s probably gonna take another while until there are anough professional to actually have some litterature on Game Writing.

In the meantime, power to the people

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Right...although my comments weren''t specifically pointed at game writers. The ''issue'' is more universal than that...

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The Idea Foundry