Sudden intense anxiety, that’s what I felt… So, here I am, finally home from one of “those days” at work, just minding my own business in the safe quiet of my apartment. A text chimes on my phone, which to be honest I ignored. Then a couple minutes later another, followed by a phone call… fine, I guess I should answer. This is how Andrew got a hold of me to ask if I would help Sean and him write a story for some new game he wanted to make. Now to warn you, I have no idea how to write professionally, but to Andrew it makes sense to ask me.. He cites my love of reading fantasy and sci-fi novels, plus he throws in my face, the fact I work in a library, surrounded by stories. However I’m used to listening to the established authors, imagining new worlds presented to me, falling in love with new characters, and watching as the story twists and unfolds. I read to escape, it's my pastime away from daily stress. I’ve never wanted to write, but I also didn't want to tell my friends no.

So a year goes by and here I now find myself, with a barely outlined half finished storyline and being asked to write up some tips or lessons I’ve learned in this whole story process. Tasked with imparting some knowledge or a bit of wisdom to the world, well I haven't any idea what to say to help you write your perfect story, so, I guess that’s all still up to you, sorry. What I can offer is hopefully some insight into how Sean and I work through scenes, dialogue, and when we’ve gone too far down a rabbit hole.

So Story Building, where to begin…

We started at the end, where did we want our, as of yet undermined, cast to end up. We reverse engineered an exceptionally basic plot outline back to the beginning, and then started writing and rewriting, then did it all again, and yes...again. The majority of meetings between Sean and I, even now, is just talking everything out, very little writing takes place. Once we got the rough outline of the plot done, we talked to all of the others involved with the game - programmers, artists, etc.- and received fantastic input. This of course made us rewrite the outline yet again.. With what was our final draft pitched to team and everyone being happy, it became time to refine, adding in some much needed connecting ideas for the major plot points. However, we soon realized we would need to actually start filling this story with people.

Character Building, Frankenstein would be proud...

When writing for a game you soon learn that you really will need to talk to everyone involved to get a clearer idea of what you’ll need, and what restrictions you will need to know about. I remember Sean and I were coming up with who our major protagonists will be, (we thankfully already had a framework for the antagonist), and suddenly realized we had no idea how many people could even be in a party… Or how large the actual game world could be, or how much dialog could even be said within the program, or what the artists could even create.

After we got our answers, which involved many larger meetings, we began to search for our characters. I would say that for myself I started to treat these as D&D sessions, trying to create a character I wanted to play, coming up with backstories and personalities, hoping I made a Hero worthy enough to make it to “Main” character status. What I didn't expect was the group feedback, choosing specific pieces of my hero to keep and discarding the rest. I liked all the fluff and extra bits, but I am supposed to be making a hero for you. Having to work in a group to create heroes playable by all is no easy task. It was surprisingly rewarding as our main cast became a mix of ideas and viewpoints, leaving us the option to take their stories in a variety of directions.

So, I want to thank you for listening to my ramblings thus far, however anxiety has reminded me that we just met! So while I leave you with an unfinished and imperfect story, I’ll keep trying and I look forward to our next encounter. Maybe we can go into more specifics; a deeper dive into the story that is Beyond the Tales.