Award-winning writer Rhianna Pratchett recently discussed creating game stories; How difficult it is writing for video games, how much of her writing was cut from Mirror's Edge's final product, why her female characters are a far cry from the female game character archetype, what advice she could give to aspiring game writers, and why she suspects the majority of game writing is so poor.

CG: Why do you think the quality of writing in most games is so poor? Which game scripts do you admire, and why?

Rhianna: Poor narrative is only a symptom. The cause is down to bad structuring and management at its root. One of the main problems is that game stories and scripts are not given enough time. They are often the last thing thought of and the first thing pulled apart by the wild horses of game development. Often they have to be turned around very quickly, and space for revisions is usually very minimal. Even the best screenwriters don’t get things right first time. Like game design, narrative should be an iterative process, constantly being honed and tweaked to fit the needs of the design and gameplay.

There are a myriad of other little issues, as well, such as too much interference from multiple sources (because everyone believes they’re writer – seemingly more so if it hasn’t actually been proved either way.) Writers can often be very far down the food chain and have little to no contact with the rest of the team, which is far from ideal.

Miss Razz via criticalgamer.co.uk »