After writing my 1000th post, I received this compliment, “I wish I had the elegance of your writing style”. And I wondered if others would benefit from the discussion that followed.
So, imagine you’ve discovered an idea that changed your life. In the euphoria that follows, you decide you want to share this idea with someone you hold in really high regard, like say … me ;). Of course, knowing you can only communicate with Gigi through writing, you’re about to give up, when you remember a thread that once provided a recipe for telling stories:
What I asked you to imagine, is exactly what I experienced. I wanted to share my game design ideas with the world, and yet, I struggled to be more than just another geeky-engineer. So when I found that recipe for story, I practiced it in everything I did. And practice means taking risks, which means sometimes, you’re going to fail.
Like the first time I tried to tell stories on stage. I was giving a presentation that had precise timing that I could not control. I was so agitated, that when the 4th slide came up, my mind went blank. No words came out - I became aware of the heat of the lights and of the hundreds of eyes staring back at me and I wanted to crawl under a rock and die.
And yet, I didn’t quit. Acknowledging I had failed goes hand-in-hand with having a Growth Mindset. So, I put it behind me and practiced the recipe even harder. 1. Question, 2. Struggle, 3. Conclusion. 1. Challenge, 2. Emotion, 3. Twist. 1, 2, 3. Over and over. As I became more familiar with the patterns, I was able to explore variations on the formula, like setting the context before-hand and toying with different endings. Over time, I even began to develop an intuitive sense for which stories would interest readers the most. And, that led to discoveries like:
That last point was the most challenging. I realized it’s not enough to have an amazing experience or idea. I also have to figure out why it matters to others. And sometimes, I find great stories that somehow aren’t quite ready to be shared - maybe I’ve more learning to do. And the hardest thing of all is learning to cut 90% of the details on the chopping block, leaving only the best nuggets behind.
So, there it is. Both a recipe and the proof, that you too can stop being a geek. You can learn to integrate story into your designs and your conversations. You can build better games AND learn how to tell people about them. And if you practice religiously, then one day, you too can change the world.
Gigi
