Hi, all!

This is my first post, so I hope I'm in the right place.  So, I am interested in becoming a video game character writer; their background, their likes, and dislikes, their hopes, dreams, goals, their temperament, all of that interests me immensely.  I am just not sure how I can go about displaying my 'talents'.  From doing extensive research online, I have read that a lot of gaming companies would like to hire writers who have showcased their talents online, by writing various stories with different characters and worlds, but I haven't been able to find anything specifically about showcasing just characters.

I was thinking about teaming up with an artist who can create my character based off of the references and dialogue but I wasn't sure if that would be smart since I'm supposed to be showing off what I'm capable of and not an artist.  

What do you all recommend? How can I show that I am determined to become a character writer in the industry?  

Also, what other skills do you recommend I work on, aside from writing.  Thank you!

Try writing a short story or a plot idea.  There's nothing wrong with just being a writer, but if you insist on other skills, try programming with stencil.  It's much easier than pixel art or animation.

You can show that you're determined to become a writer by publishing books, independently or through a publisher. How many short and full length novels have you written? Do you have anything that you think might be publishable?

I expect it's amazingly rare for any games company to want to hire someone who only writes characters. It's rare for games companies to hire full-time writers - so any extra limitation you apply on top of that is likely to impede your career.

A "character writer" probably isnt very useful. Focus on becoming a good writer in all aspects, specially in creating good stories. Thats what I do. A writer with good characters and poor story, dialogs, etc, wont goo too far.

Apologies, everyone! I moved across the ocean and it took awhile to get the internet up and running in my place.

I have never heard of Stencil.  I'll definitely look into it! I've only ever used the Unreal Engine and Visual Studio (and Android Studio once).  I've only made really quick games, aside from one group project.

So what I gather is I should go back to my old writings and see what's viable and what I should improve on.  I don't believe I have anything that's anywhere close to being publishable but if writing novels and short stories will help then that's what I'll focus on right now.

Thank you all so much!

 

Game companies typically don't want a "character writer."  Rather than pay multiple writers, they prefer a single writer to write EVERYTHING. More than just characters, they'd want to you write the world, lore, plot, and dialogues as well.

On 7/17/2019 at 8:09 PM, Pepsidog said:

Try writing a short story or a plot idea.  There's nothing wrong with just being a writer, but if you insist on other skills, try programming with stencil.  It's much easier than pixel art or animation.

There's a program called Stencil (an add text to images tool) and then there's Stencyl... http://www.stencyl.com/

The big video game companies arent as solid as they think.... They buy up and coming games.. Milk them to death and buy more ideas and repeat..I think things will shift... Leaving them out in the cold...

Classic examples are outdated... For instance games off books...and movies... Books and movies create a rpg pathway... But confines the game... Many movies and books have total victories... Which to make a game off is limiting... 

I believe the future would be creating a wiki for a concept. As an example design 10 to 20 species, a few hundred systems. Give them mentalities, architecture, beliefs, get into food... Sentiments of the species, ideologies. 

What happens is you have hundreds of pieces. The developers look at it and decide. How do i make a game of this...using and respecting the pieces of the wiki. The choices then become cannon. Allowing for many games and animations to form... As opposed to stand alone games.. You make stories in that galaxy. But than also can make quick lower end games.  an example could make a few rpgs. A few hero battle games and card games. But all these games fall into cannon, furthering the story. 

A bit late to the conversation, but thought it worthwhile to add 2 cents, if nothing else then for future readers.

Firstly, forget about becoming an XX writer. There is no company who is going to go out and advertise for that kind of position, they want generalists who can fill in multiple roles. It's fine to have certain aspects that you enjoy above others and some areas that you are stronger in that others, but you want to have as wide a skillset as possible, because you can never tell which skill might be the one that gets your foot inside the door. This is generally good advice for every kind of career, btw (with the caveat that you should only claim skills that you actually have a clue in - don't claim to have programming experience, for instance, if all you've done is dabbled a little). First become a writer - then, if you're good, you may eventually become the go-to specialist for a certain kind of writing.

Secondly, what companies mean when they say they want writers who have showcased their talents online, is they want to see that you actually master the craft. If you want to write characters, create a narrative game with deep character-driven drama, or whatever else you find interesting about character writing. If you can't, you need to work more on your craft. A lot.

There are a ton of tools for games writing today, which require none or next to no programming skills. Ink (by Inkle), Twine, Quest, Squiffy, ChoiceScript ... there is pretty much no excuse for an aspiring games writer to not have one or more IF/text-driven games under their belt. You need to be able to master tools like that - if you ever have the fortune to work in a real game development environment, the tools you'll be using will most likely be much more complicated (and poorer documented). There are IF competitions - enter some of those, and compare yourself with other writers. Play their games (especially the good one). Figure out what it is that makes them tick, that makes dialogue work, that makes the characters feel like people.

Create games. A good writer writes. A good games writer, writes games. Writing novels and short stories isn't useless, by any means, but there is a huge difference between writing novels and writing games. I've seen a fair amount of people who were good writers, but terrible at writing games - unable to see what choices should have been left to the player, unable to communicate succinctly, unable to immerse the player in the game world. There is a skill set involved that you only develop from actually writing a game.