{"id":1280,"date":"2012-10-31T08:19:35","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T08:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.steve-ince.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1280"},"modified":"2012-10-31T08:19:35","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T08:19:35","slug":"my-game-writing-lab-at-the-london-screenwriters-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.steve-ince.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/10\/31\/my-game-writing-lab-at-the-london-screenwriters-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"My Game Writing Lab at the London Screenwriters\u2019 Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

After an overview piece in my last post I thought I\u2019d write something more about the game writing lab I conducted.\u00a0 This was a workshop aimed at LSWF delegates who had an interest in discovering more about the details of game writing.<\/p>\n

After being invited to speak on the game writing panel at last year\u2019s event I contacted the organisers earlier this year about the possibility of doing a more structured talk.\u00a0 Instead, they suggested that I do the game writing lab. \u00a0I may have neglected to tell them that I\u2019d never run a workshop before, but as they didn\u2019t ask I thought it was a great opportunity.<\/p>\n

We asked the potential attendees to submit a one-page game story idea as a means of whittling down the numbers to six.\u00a0 As it happened, we received seven quality pitches and it seemed a little petty to exclude any of them, so we all crammed into a small room on the Saturday of the festival weekend.<\/p>\n

We started out by discussing each of the submissions in turn.\u00a0 Every one of them had potential as game ideas, but at the same time they would need a lot of development work with a good design team or studio before that potential could be realised.\u00a0 However, the pitches showed the first seeds of an important aspect of being a game writer \u2013 understanding how the story needs to relate to the gameplay and the development process.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t simply creating a story idea but one that connected to some gameplay ideas.<\/p>\n

Such was the nature of the submissions and the interesting contributions of the participants that this discussion took a lot longer than I\u2019d anticipated and half the allotted three hours had gone before we knew it.\u00a0 But having something concrete to discuss was incredibly valuable to all concerned.\u00a0 Not only did they get feedback on their own ideas but thinking about other people\u2019s concepts is always beneficial for giving us a wider perspective.<\/p>\n

After a five minute break I moved onto more specific aspects of game writing, connecting them back to their game ideas where appropriate.\u00a0 Discussing Interactivity, Gameplay, Game Design, Story Nodes, Multiple Storylines and Dialogue, gave us plenty to throw back and forth and time whizzed by rapidly again.\u00a0 I found myself running out of time and shifted into a summary of the process and the writer\u2019s role.<\/p>\n

The feedback I received from the participants was very positive with each of them saying that they found it very valuable, with one person even calling it \u201cinspiring\u201d *blush*.\u00a0 But it would not have been the quality it was without the input of everyone taking part, so I\u2019d like to thank David Bishop, Kulvinder Gill, Eoin Rogers, Geoff Searle, Lucy Moore, Asher Pirie and Rhys Howell for their valuable contributions and great ideas.\u00a0 Good luck for the future.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also like to thank Lucy Hay, Chris Jones and Judy Goldberg, a few of the organisers I had dealings with.\u00a0 And Scott, one of the volunteers who helped out.<\/p>\n

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole session and would love to do this more often.\u00a0 If any of you know of writing or game courses that would be interested in this kind of workshop, please pass on my details.<\/p>\n

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