Writing with game mechanics

I work as a writer in the computer games industry (actually I’m a combination of writer, designer and programmer, but it’s writing that’s relevant here), and I write prose fiction in my spare time. I’ve been thinking lately about the intersection of games writing and more traditional non-interactive storytelling, and I’ve realised that there are some skills (or at least habits) that I’ve picked up from games writing that I’ve been able to transfer to other media.

Game mechanics, briefly, are the set of rules that a game uses to determine what happens, and the set of things it lets the player do to interact with the game. Almost all games try to depict the real world with a greater or lesser degree of realism, even if that realism is just a thematic dressing for abstract game mechanics (e.g. Nintendo doesn’t make games about an abstract shape that moves up the screen then down again when you press a button: they make games about a plumber called Mario who jumps).

On the other hand, even the most detailed and realistic games don’t simulate the world perfectly. (Even if we had the technical capability to realistically simulate every detail of the universe, doing so wouldn’t necessarily make for a good game.) So a game has to take its scenario and decide which parts of the scenario it wants to depict in detail, and which parts it wants to abstract away.

In choosing which parts of the world to make into detailed game mechanics, and which parts to ignore, the game is making a statement about what kind of game it is. A first-person shooter will likely have detailed mechanics about shooting at enemies, reloading, modelling the different effects of different weapons, and so forth. (Note that I said detailed, not realistic–realism isn’t necessarily an aim, nor should it be.) The player character’s need to eat, sleep and urinate are likely to be ignored, as are your enemies’ and squad members’ interpersonal relationships. In the Sims games, on the other hand, the characters’ bodily functions and feelings towards one another are modeled in some detail, but fighting is barely present. Both games are set in the real world but they model different aspects of it.

What does this have to do with novels?

I’ve found that a good way to keep my story focused is to ask myself, What are the game mechanics of this story? What are the sorts of obstacles that get placed in front of the protagonist, and what set of skills does he or she have to overcome these obstacles? This is similar to the question, What is the story about?, but that question normally has a larger-scale answer: it’s about space pirates, or telepaths, or underground-dwelling goblins. Thinking in terms of game mechanics means thinking on a smaller, more detailed scale: what are the specific moment-to-moment interactions the characters tend to have with their world.

For example, in my current novel, the main character is good at reading people’s emotions and manipulating them by saying the right thing. Once I’d decided that, the question of how he could get out of the situations the plot put him in became much clearer: he would start by thinking of how he could talk his way out, and only in unusual circumstances would he find some other way. It also suggested the kinds of situations he could find himself in: not ones engineered for him to get out of easily, but ones he could use his skills on (whether to succeed or fail) in an interesting way. If I hadn’t thought about game mechanics in this way, I think I would have ended up with an unfocused plot and a central character without a specific interesting skill.

Questions to ask yourself about any story:

• If this were a game, what abilities would the player have to interact with the game-world?
• If this were a game, what sort of obstacles would the game put in the player’s path?

Going too far with this thinking could easily lead to single-minded or contrived stories, but I believe that thinking sensibly about game mechanics can help give a story a memorable focus.

No one cares about your stupid story

There’s an adage in games writing: No one cares about your stupid story.

This doesn’t mean that games shouldn’t have stories. It feels better to run through a space station shooting aliens in order to save the world than it does to run through a context-less maze shooting nondescript enemies in order to win the game. What it means is that designers and writers shouldn’t self-indulgently splurge their stories into the game and expect players to sit through them when they would rather be playing. Capture their attention, make seeing the story an engaging experience, and you can get them to swallow quite complex stories and even sit through long non-interactive sequences. But you’ve got to remember that they start off from a position of not caring about your stupid story, and you have to convince them to care.

I think the same thing applies to writing prose fiction, to a greater or lesser extent. Lesser because a reader has bought your book for the story so they’re at least in a mood that’s sympathetic towards caring about it–but greater because the story is all there is. I’ve enjoyed games despite poorly-told stories, but if someone doesn’t enjoy the story of your book then they don’t enjoy your book, and they won’t be buying your next one.

When I’m writing prose, I try to look at each section I write and ask myself, why should the reader care? In a hypothetical game adaptation of the book, is this section something players would be watching or playing with rapt engagement, or is this something they’d want to skip to get to the next good bit?

Beginnings, in particular, need to grab the reader’s attention. I hate long opening cutscenes in games, and I hate long boring prologues in books. The same passage might grab my attention half way through the game or book, but at the very beginning I don’t yet care. But that’s not a license to start with an in medias res action scene and then jump back to your dry infodump assuming the ‘caring debt’ the reader has built up will carry them through the next passage. If you need to convey some information, do so in the most interesting way you can. And if, after a long dispassionate look at a particular passage or scene or idea, you don’t think the reader will care about it–cut it out.

NaNoWriMo

Tonight the dead walk, witches screech through the sky, and, more scarily, thousands of would-be novelists put finger to keyboard on the stroke of midnight to begin NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a self-imposed challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November.

After a month of umming and ahhing I’ve decided not to do NaNoWriMo this year. When I first did it back in 2009 it was a massive help to my writing, but right now I’m not at a stage in my writing development where it would be helpful. Tonight seemed the night to recommend it and to say a few words about its pros and cons, though.

The good

NaNoWriMo is a great help in turning off one’s inner editor for a month. Quality and coherence are jettisoned for the sake of churning out 50,000 words of prose. Back in 2009 that was exactly what I needed: I had written short stories, but I’d never finished something novel-length, and focusing on word count let me prove to myself that I could.

NaNoWriMo also helps you to spend time every day writing. You know you’ve got to write those 50k words, and the only way you’re going to do that is if you sit down and do 1,667 words per day, every day, for the month. You learn how to write quickly and you learn how to make time for it. Once November ends you might not be writing that heavily, but you’ll find sitting down to write a bit easier than you did previously.

Most importantly (for me at least) there’s the NaNoWriMo community. With NaNo you have a whole support network to help you achieve the things above: to give advice, to nag, to compare notes and to all be in it together. I made some great friends through NaNo, and it was only with their support that I got through the month. The reason I was even considering doing NaNo again this year was for the community element of it. But…

The bad

The bad is that NaNoWriMo is restrictive. It’s one-size-fits-all. The community pressure is great, but the community pressure is to write 50,000 words and nothing else. The only way people vary the formula within NaNo is to set themselves even more insane targets: 100,000 words, 200,000, more. The rules of NaNo become a straitjacket: you must write 50k words, the word count is more important than quality, you must start in November and not before. If that isn’t what’s best for you as a writer, you’re outside the community; it’s not fun to go to the parties and have people ask about your novel or word count and have to say, um, well, I’m not really doing NaNo as such. I was tempted to do NaNo just for the sake of being in the community, even though it would be a month wasted from the point of view of my development as a writer, and that was when I knew I had to give it a miss this year.

Another potential problem with NaNo is that it’s easy to stop there. It’s recreational novelling: you write a novel in a month but you don’t intend for anyone else to read it, and you might not write anything for the rest of the year. That’s great if recreational novelling is what you want, but if you’re serious about being a writer you have to step past that and judge whether next year’s NaNo is for you.

For anyone doing NaNo this year: good luck, and enjoy! If my local NaNo community is anything to go by, NaNoers are all brilliant people and I’m proud to be part of that community even if I’m not doing NaNo itself again.

And for anyone considering doing NaNo: it might not be right for you, but if you think it is, go for it! Depending on when you read this, it may not be too late to start. It’s a unique experience that’ll teach you valuable writing skills, even if there are other skills it doesn’t teach.