I love video games. I think I’ve loved video games ever since I could play them. Some of my fondest memories of growing up are playing games with my brother on our PC or Nintendo 64. I love the bright colours, the crazy characters and, best of all, the feeling of becoming something else. Now, it’s no secret that the success behind video games is their semi addictive nature. The oldest parts of the brain have trouble distinguishing between the reward of finding a special item in a game and the reward of finding a bushel of colourful berries (80s games even used cherries and fruits as ways of giving points to the players). So I completely understand why many parents would have a problem if their child were to spend twelve hours a day playing video games. But if I may take a brief moment of your time, I want to explain to you how video games can not only be fun, but powerful tools for learning. In this case, I want to focus on how they can teach you to be a better writer.
In recent years the stories told in video games have become more and more elaborate and the worlds they take place in have become massive and varied. I still remember the days when I just accepted that I was a plumber and that some naughty turtles needed to be jumped on so that I could save a princess. That was it. That was the story. And that’s all it needed to be. Then better graphics came along and with them the need for more developed characters and more intricate stories. And that was fine… to a point. You see, it is my opinion that the best video games tell stories using what makes games unique, ie, the fact that you are an active part in them. The YouTube channel Extra Creditz has a great series on game writing that touches on this a lot. Video games are completely unique in that they can tell you a story, whilst you simultaneously take an active part in that story. As much as the Royal Court keep reminding me, shouting at the actors on a stage or on a screen will not convince them to do anything other than what the script tells them. In video games, that is not the case. This active role as both audience and protagonist is why I dislike games like the Metal Gear Solid series which just feel like I’m driving a character from one cut scene to another. Obviously if you want to watch an interactive film, that’s great, but I do not. I want to play a game.
I’m not suggesting that 80s video games were in any way better than modern games. But they were severely restricted by the technology of the time and so had to make gameplay the most fun and important part of the game or else people would just walk away (I plan on doing a post about limitations in art in the near future!). So when you watch princess peach get stolen away by Bowser, that small scene lasts only seconds and then boom, you’re in. Many modern games do this really well and this nicely introduces my first tip for you:
Start your story quickly.
There are endless articles online about how to write an effective opening chapter, but if you’ve been playing video games for as long as I have, you don’t need to read any of them. Start. Your. Story. Quickly. By the end of your first chapter we should know the same things we know by the end of that first video game cut scene: who is your protagonist? What do they want? And that’s it. And if those two things aren’t captivating or interesting, then you’re probably writing a boring book. Note: 'what do they want?' is NOT the same as ‘what do they need?’, that can be introduced a little later but is equally important and often quite different. (For the perfect master class on this, just watch any Pixar film, eg, Marlon WANTS to keep Nemo safe, but he NEEDS to learn to let him go. Woody WANTS to be played with by Andy, but he NEEDS to accept that Andy is growing up. Carl WANTS to fly his house to a magical land but he NEEDS… you get the idea.)
Honestly, I’ve deleted video games who have taken upwards of TWENTY MINUTES of screen time before they’ve gotten to the actual gameplay. No. No no no. If your story needs that much ‘set up’ then you should just tell THAT story instead! You might consider the popular technique of ‘in medias res’, which is basically what happens when a story starts ‘in the middle’ of things. This is… okay. It can work. But be careful that you don’t leave your reader wondering for too long. Mystery = good. Confusion = bad. The best thing is to just start where you story ‘should’ start. I know how vague that sounds, but trust me, it works. I have an annoying habit of starting stories by having people wake up. I don’t recommend it, but it works for me. I think you can tell a lot about a character by how and when they start their day.
Secondly! Let’s get back 80s video games. In particular a game called Metroid. This was a game produced for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987 and it did something VERY important. Instead of just having your character go from one edge of the screen to the other, players could now go… wait for it… BACKWARDS. Yes! I know right!? Super exciting stuff. Now I’m aware that there were games that had done this before (I’m looking at you 1980’s ‘Adventure’) but I don’t think any had done it to such great effect. So brilliantly used was this concept that it spanned a whole genre of games now known as ‘Metroidvania’ (this name is a mix of Metroid and Castlevania). The reason this was so great was because you, the player, could now run around a big map collecting things that made you more powerful as well as keys that you could use on doors in other parts of the map. This means that when you first come across a door you cannot open that is, let’s say, red, you then have to wait quite some time until you find a red key later on in the game. At which point your tiny six-year-old brain practically explodes as you jump and shout ‘NOW I CAN UNLOCK THE RED DOOR’. Not only does this mean you get to go and solve a mystery (=good) you get to show the earlier enemies in the game just how powerful you have now become (in story terms, we call this, growth or development).
Locked doors and seeded keys.
When you start writing your story you should put some challenge or difficulty that the protagonist cannot overcome early on. It could be very important to the plot but it doesn’t need to be! That’s the great thing about this. It could be anything, the whole point is that once your character has undergone growth or change they can come back and fix that thing easily (you could even do it the other way around, by ‘seeding’ keys that have no apparent value or meaning until your character finds the right door they unlock, later.) And you shouldn’t just be doing this at the beginning! Oh no. You should do it all the way through. This is the essence of storytelling. Let me explain.
In his incredible book ‘Impro’ by Keith Johnstone (Methuen 1981), in the chapter on narrative skills, Johnstone breaks down perfectly the difference between a ‘story’ and ‘storytelling’:
“Suppose I make up a story about meeting a bear in the forest. It chases me until I come to a lake. I leap into a boat and row across to an island. On the island is a hut. In the hut is a beautiful girl spinning golden thread… I am now ‘storytelling’ but I haven’t told a story. Everyone knows it isn’t finished. I could continue forever in the same way.” ('Impro', Johnstone, Methuen 1981, p112)
Johnstone calls this type of storytelling ‘free association’, and it just isn’t satisfying to the listener because ‘there’s no place where it can stop, or rather that [it] can stop anywhere.’
He goes on to explain that a satisfying story requires, no, DEMANDS, reincorporation.
“Let’s begin the story again: I escape from a bear by rowing across to an island. Inside a hut on the island is a beautiful girl bathing in a wooden tub… I glance out of the window. If I now see the bear rowing across in a second boat, then there was some point in mentioning him in the first place.”
Johnstone suggests that good stories go back and forth like this all the time, reincorporating earlier characters, problems, ideas and making them relevant again and again until the circle is complete, all threads have been dealt with and the story can come to an end. NOTHING DOES THIS BETTER THAN VIDEOS GAMES. Just this Summer I was watching my girlfriend play the latest instalment of the God of War franchise and she became so curious as to why she couldn’t open a door with a buzzing red crystal on it. I of course said nothing only to watch her jump in delight upon finding the electric arrows that destroy such crystals two hours later. Learn from the games that do this best and then apply it to your stories.
Okay, so for my last point you’ll be pleased to hear that we’re not going back to the 80s. I know, I know, I’m sorry, I’m disappointed too. This one is about dialogue.
Keep it short.
That’s it.
Okay no not really, but that would be funny right? Ahem. What I’m trying to talk about here is characterisation. On top of my job as a writer I record audiobooks and something I see over and over is writer’s trying to ‘explain’ what their characters are about, purely by how they respond to things verbally. On top of this being a nightmare to read aloud, it is not the only way to tell us about your character. Let’s get back to video games and you’ll see what I mean.
In the game Max Payne (2001) you play as a disgraced New York cop who is accused of murdering his own family. After watching the (appropriately brief) opening scene you are put in control. Max runs relatively quickly, but he does not sprint. Instead of med kits, he pops pills, instead of power ups he picks up bigger and bigger guns. One button even lets you slow everything down and take careful, expert aim at the bad guys, meaning that Max rarely misses. He wears a leather jacket and faded hawain shirt and his face is forever twisted into a grim snarl. All of these tell you things about Max, and not ONCE did he say a word. Now, combine this with the incredible dialogue and voice acting (stellar performance by James McCaffrey) and you have a brilliant idea of who this man is and what he’s about. Back in the 80s (oh look we’re back) they didn’t have the luxury of voice actors, so they relied more heavily on this kind of visual characterisation. Sonic The Hedgehog LOVES speed so much that he even taps his foot and looks at you impatiently if you stop moving for more than five seconds. This is good characterisation and you should use it whenever and wherever you can.
Going back to dialogue: Keep it short and TRUST your reader. We can surmise a hell of a lot from the smallest comment or even a silence. The worst mistake you can make is assuming that your reader ‘won’t get that the character feels X,Y or Z’. We will. IF we know the characters well enough. And we can do this by learning visual and behavioural cues ON TOP of vocal ones. You should consider writing a scene near the beginning of your book that ‘sums up’ what kind of person your protagonist is. Present them with a problem and have them deal with it in their unique way. This might be something as mundane as having to wait in line for a coffee. Whatever it is, you have an opportunity here to show us how they dress, how they act around strangers, how they react to mundane annoyances and even how they take their coffee! All good stuff that can easily make us guess how they would react to situations in the future without relying on overly spelled out conversations. Then, when the time comes for them to have their big, empowered speech about the triumph of right over wrong (or whatever) then the speech actually stands out from the rest of the book. And it should! Because it’s the most important one your character will ever give.
That’s all I’ve got for now! The next time you find yourself playing video games instead of writing, don’t think ‘I’m not getting anything done’. Instead, tell yourself that you’re learning about effective storytelling and you can enjoy the game and everything that it can teach you!
SM
