Not that I’m planning anything in the immediate future, but it just occurred to me that I have absolutely no idea how to go about finding a GOOD writter for hire.
By “good”, I mean someone that can work professionally with a set scope and timeline to produce quality lore, plot structures, characters, and dialog.
Now I know how to find lots of people who THINK they’re a good writer, but to be perfectly honest there’s a lot more bad writers with big egos than there are people who can really can write.
The same goes for artists, but at least with artist you can glance at their work and know instantly what you’re getting within seconds. With writers, you have to spend a lot of time reading through their work to get an idea of their abilities.
So take that one gem of a writer, then bury them under a pile of terrible writers, and obscure where you would go to find them.
That seems like a tall order. But that’s not even getting into trying to figure out how much you should offer them or if the writer is above working for you.
My brother in law has had a story published & has written a number of (unpublished) novels. He isn’t ego driven (actually has a normal paid job rather than be the struggling author waiting to be discovered), takes feedback & actively asks us to be critical. I’m not sure if he’s considered the possibility of writing for games but I’m happy to talk to him to see if he’s interested if you want. He’s a cop so he will be honest in his dealings.
The only way is to review portfolios of completed, game-related projects.
If the project’s completed, it shows they can get the job done. They don’t need to be full games; a small mod or short Twine project still takes professionalism to finish.
The project must also be game-related. The difference between static fiction (e.g., novels) and interactive fiction is as great as the difference between oil painting and using Maya. This is why games featuring big-name traditional writers like Orson Scott Card bomb so often; they don’t understand that these are two different disciplines.
A great source for writers is the Interactive Fiction Archive. Interactive narrative is their bread and butter.
Good point! Even good writers need good editors. If you end up needing someone to help clarify your existing ideas and clean up language, find an editor. But if you end up needing someone to come up with the ideas in the first place, find a writer.
A “good” writer is subjective to whom reads their work. I’ve read what I felt was bad cliche writing while other’s praised it.
An example of this was the PC game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I figured out the player was originally Revan not long after arriving at Dantooine and meeting the Jedi Council there the first time.
I believe a lot of that intuition was from the amount of reading/writing I have done over the years between horror, adventure, science fiction and fantasy; plus what other’s before me have done.
What type of story are you looking for? Fantasy? Science Fiction? Horror? Adventure?
Do you already have the game mechanics done? What parameters are you providing?
Well, like I said, this nothing in the near future.
Currently I only have a few gdd’s that would need a proper writter, but it’s always good to know where to find good talent.
That, and my dream is producer with total market absolution (a product in every avenue). Like Bender Rodriguez says, “If I’m not going to catch a fish, I’m not going to catch a big fish.”
I was a professional scriptwriter for several years, and I can concur that writing for games is a very different skill from writing traditional linear / authorial narrative. Some genres, like the adventure game, can still lend themselves to this sort of story, though.
I would say that instead of a “writer,” you might want to find a “worldbuilder”: possibly someone with a history, philosophy, or even linguistics background. These people can more effectively create a compelling context for a player character than someone trying to jam a protagonist-driven Aristotelian narrative into a (probably) nonlinear experience.
The other factor that you should look for is someone who is also a designer. That is, the narrative or story context should reflect the game system. And, at the very least, they will need to know how to do basic scripting and understand that a game is very restrictive on story. You don’t want someone insisting on writing a character whose limp is tied to her backstory if it means you’re going to have to create a whole new animation set because of it.
When your looking for a good writer, and trying to filter out the bad, always ask for a book/script they’ve written. If they say they havent got one, chances are they’re an ideas guy, who has plenty of story ideas but when it comes to the hard part, cant do any work. If they do, congrats they do have a skill. But, do they have talent. Read a chapter of it, if you’re bored and uninterested, they probably arent great (There might be some hidden gems who dont follow this rule, but time is money), if you want to read on, they know what they’re doing.
“Consider yourself blessed if you have actually seen a game writer in the wild, for they remain one of those elusive, added-expense luxuries that many game producers – their eyes always on their margins – believe they can do without. And in many cases, it humbles me to say, they’re right.” - Darby McDevitt on Gamasutra
I worked as a Lead Writer on a game for years and the best way to find good writers is to ask for samples and give them a probation period where you check out their work. Pay them, of course, if you can or use volunteers from your community. We found many talented writers from our community and we never had a lack of people wanting to write lore…although some were better at it than others.
Find a good editor as well. Sometimes a good editor is better than a good writer!
There are sites on the internet where writers gather, publish their stories or novels for free and criticise each other. Many of them will jump at the chance for paid work if you post your offer on one of those sites. And you can examine some of their work right there, not only their writing, but also how they judge other peoples stories. Tells you something about them.
From personal experience in the modding scene I would advice that you look for someone who can implement his or her work him or herself. Only than can you be sure to get someone who not only knows how to write good stuff, but also knows game design. That person would then be more likely to write according to the needs of the project than someone who only “knows games”.
On the other end of the spectrum, I would also be worried about hiring someone too strong headed to work with.
“So in this game I would like to use (these) schools of magic, could you write up some lore around those schools and throw together some quest ideas?”
“High fantasy is dumb, what I’m thinking is this there’s this half brother to a king whose really smart but has dwarfism and marginalized because of it. So then he has relations with lots of women, see…”
…
Oh, and yes, of course if I were to hire someone I would pay them. That’s not even a question.
Good point. Having strong ideas is important, but you need a team player and a professional who can work within constraints. (Good writers often do their best writing under constraints, btw.) Another red flag is if they push a storyline more than lines of interaction. This shows that, while they might have experience writing static fiction, they don’t have experience writing interactive fiction. You’re going to find better game writers at if-archive.org than, say, fanfiction.net.
@Teila 's suggestion for a (paid) probation period is really good. It minimizes the risk on both your parts.
