How to be a more creative writer?

Game Play & Game Design
#1

I’ve been trying to think up stories for a text-based adventure game, and the best I can come up with is “Like skyrim, but without magic”. I absolutely suck with writing in general. Nothing I make is original, and I can spend hours on a story line and end up with something that is the exact same as something else. I’ve tried painting, drawing, CG art, and the only thing I can make that is remotely good looking is boring, featureless characters. Seeing things like Tolkien’s characters and world, they’re so much more fleshed out and original. I could never do that no matter how hard I study creative theory, and stare at art like a hipster. Although, if you want me to make something very similar to that, I’m your guy :wink:

This whole game is hinged on if I can make a whole new world from scratch, and make it as interesting/immersive as possible. I’ve done some research on branching stories, as in which games do it right, and which don’t. But when I open up notepad, and try to make something, I always end up with something ridiculous and throw it away. “Bastion, but with automatic guns, and in the year 3000” isn’t cutting it. Do any of you guys have any advice on how to be a more creative writer?

Thanks in advance.

#2

I do a lot of (private) creative writing. Well, I did until this pesky MMO took away my life and then I became a househusband. My advice is not to try and create a whole world from scratch but just focus on a tiny, tiny sliver. Just enough to tell one short story. Or even a paragraph. Start small!

Interestingly Tolkien’s actual writing is considered by many to be a little dry and often relies on deus ex machina to further his (fairly straightforward) plots. So he might not be the best inspiration. Try some Ian (M) Banks or Stephen Donaldson or George R.R. Martin.

Cas :slight_smile:

#3

I have absolutely no experience in this area, so what I say really has little merit. What you have now aren’t stories, just vague descriptions of the world. but in theory, I might go about it with something like this:

First I’d establish a world/universe for my game. This can include the time, population, races, what powers people have, the state of technology, etc, anything that defines it. Write the story around the world, not the world around the story. You need to know what you’re writing for.

I’d then think of some interesting events that can happen, e.g. a virus infects the mass population, or dinosaurs have been brought in to the future through time travel, anything interesting I could think of. Order the events in when they should occur and think about how the story can progress from event to event. Creating emotional impact, or putting the player in choices of morality can be interesting.

I’d need someone to play as, so I’d think of who the characters are, especially the character the player will be using. Ideally making the player relate to them (I wonder if making players hate them would be an interesting spin), and be something the player will admire. Also perhaps give them a background story, and significance, a reason to be where they are.

I’m also now interested to see how others view story writing, some insight would be good. I like princec’s suggestion of starting small. I imagine you could even develop large stories from small things.

#4

Like with everything in life, being creative or being a good writer cannot be isolated from the rest of you and what you do.
Simply have an interesting life, experience something, do stuff, meet people and get some input. We only develop by getting input from “outside” and not by “thinking” about what the world could be.
It comes down to that.
I find stories most compelling when they coincide with things that are actually real in the real world and observations being made about people. This is what people can attach to, because they know it as they see it. I guess this is why we always fall in love with 3D games which try to mimic some beautiful caribbean islands with palm trees, because it mimics reality. But anyhow, trying to force being creative or studying it, I guess, won’t help much if you have nothing to write about.
There was a time when I wrote for some kind of inhouse blog/wiki of our company about customer projects I was involved with. The urge to suddenly wanting to write something was simply motivated by the things I experienced during those projects.
But, I guess, writing is also most like everything else and can be trained by practice. You should not expect to write something good right off the start.
Also be self-critical and improve on your writing skills.

#5

Write erotic fan fiction?

#6

The only way to become a better writer is to write, write, write. Write short stories. Participate in NaNoWriMo. Learn about the different approaches used to craft a story, such as the Hero’s Journey (aka the Monomyth). I mention that one specifically because I think it’s a great method to use for crafting a story for an RPG.

Ultimately, you have to expend effort to improve at something, no matter what it is. We work our way through Pong and Asteroids clones and text-based adventures and voxel engines to reach the Holy Grail, the games we really want to make, because we can’t make the games we really want to make until we know everything we need to know to make them. Writing is the same, whether your goal is to write a novel or the story for a deep RPG. Until you’ve got the experience under your belt to craft that story without making novice mistakes, you aren’t going to achieve your Holy Grail.

Toward the end of killing two birds with one stone, I would advise the following approach. Put your big text-based RPG on the back burner for a bit. Instead, do a little bit of research about how to write short stories, then write two or three. Keep them small and simple. Pick the one you like best and adapt it to a text-based game. Then do it again. And again. Write two or three stories on each iteration – never just one. Assuming you keep the scope of both the stories and the games small enough, then by the end of the year you’ll have several stories and a handful of complete text games under your belt. Then you’ll be better equipped for a bigger one.

#7

Reading helps a great deal aswell.

#8

The way I usually would go is genre -> ideas -> select best idea -> develop a very simple plot outline -> advance on each stage -> magic

#9

I think inspiration can be really difficult, especially if you spend a large amount of time isolated in one room in front of a screen. I find reading short stories can help provide inspiration; I’m not talking about copying, but imagining someone elses vision for an atmosphere location environment scenario character or whatever it is, and you its easy to go off on your own tangent from there. I say short stories since its quicker and you can get through a variety quickly.

#10

Get some pieces of paper and scribble stuff on them… start off by drawing a map of your ‘world’ and maybe close up maps of some of the more interesting locations. Then draw some characters and cut them out and put them on the maps. Think of some activities for the characters to be involved in and how they might interact with each other and with the world. Now you have a fairly basic set of ideas which can be built upon with more detail, more places, events and supporting characters/groups until you have an interesting world. At that point you can start trying to describe specific stories of your characters lives in more detailed language.

#11

The core of any story is human conflict, that part you have to get right.
Why are things they way they are in the story ? why are character act like they do ? what motivates them ?
How do their action lead to their goal or at least how do they believe it will ?

I like to point out that writing stories for games is a slightly different challenge if you want your game to be very immersive.
If the protagonist is a character by himself and there is a fixed story there, its very traditional writing. Example Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy games
However if you want to make it very immersive, everything happens to YOU, YOU are the character, YOU define him; since you brought up skyrim; thats really a different challenge.

There is no shame in reading book on writing, game design and I have even read a game specifically on writing in video games. Couple that with having played a lot , having watched a lot of good movies and read a lot of good stories and then all you need is some inspiration

The biggest challenge to me is not being creative, I can imagine all kinds of awesome things happening and existing. But to write a “good” story meaning everything in that story makes sense and is not jarring to the audience as to why certain things exist or characters act they way they do - thats the real challenge. And it ought to be since not even AAA games get that right with games like FF 13 being a complete nonsensical mess; and of course most modern movies also boil down to complete illogical concepts for the purpose of special effects and explosions

You want awesome things to happen and exist in your world, but you cant just jam it is, it has to come naturally, organically, almost automatically due to other factors in the story

Also: dont explain something if you are going to do a poor job AND sometimes it can be more interesting to have more unknowns… but dont paint yourself into a corner
Also, dont ever retcon things.

#12

My top recommendation is to liberate and feed your curiosity. No matter how weird or “boring” (boring to others, that is) something might seem as a topic, it you feel the slightest tweak of interest, check it out. It may well become a useful resource or reference down the road.

Of books on creativity, one of my favorites is called “Impro” by Keith Johnstone. It is about improvisational acting, but I think there are interesting observations pertinent to other artistic endeavour. The second-to-last chapter has some really interesting thoughts on creativity, including shooting down lame attempts to achieve creativity by being affectedly quirky. The last chapter on mask/trance work is scary-neat, and may help uncover some inner resources you might not have expected to be there.