How to Get a Job Writing for Games

I get a job writing for games my name is Zack Harrison the creative director at deck 9 km/h on studio lead of ner design at King so thanks for coming yeah thanks for coming why are we giving a talk about how to become a narrative designer it's because game writing is awesome it's one of the most I think privileged things you can do for a living is getting to craft interactive story it's it's it's really fun but the industry is really difficult to get into there's an opacity about how to get a job as a game writer that we really want to kind of challenge and and talk about and both Tracy and I have very different journeys through our careers and we thought it would be really fun to kind of talk about what it like what our stories are from both both angles so we'll start

I'll introduce myself I'm Zack the first game I published as a narrative designer was Kingdoms of Amalur reckoning I worked on several RPGs before that that were never released then I went to college later in life because I'm kind of a weirdo I study classics so ancient history ancient myth Latin Greek then I worked in TV for a bit worked on the show Criminal Minds Beyond Borders did some indie stuff and my last game was life is strange before the storm where I was the narrative director at deck 9 was responsible for hiring and training and leading the the writers room that produced a fifteen hundred page scripts for that game and I'm currently the creative director at deck 9 our story driven studio and a little bit about me so I had a bit of a weird career as well we're doing a different way though I started off actually as a games journalist when I interviewed a lot of developers and learned about the process

of making games so I'd like that so much I applied for a job and got a job as a narrative designer at Gameloft where I worked on licensed games and original IP after doing that for a couple years I took a break from and I went to do some corporate work but I UX design for mobile apps and and VR and doing some work for advertising but after that I miss game so much so I came back to King where I am now so so just to give you that's just to give you a little background about us but we can run right into our tips for the application process so first thing we get a lot of questions about is the portfolio where you want to present your summaries of your best work and you want to be specific and you want to contextualise it so of course you know CVE duh you should definitely include that but also your published game work if you have any if you don't have any published game work published game work is our published non game work is also great to put here but with that also do whatever you put your best writing work

so whether you've been published or not pick the stuff that is what you represents feel represents your best work and then from there you want to of course put work that's related to the jobs that you're applying for for example if you're applying you know for a mobile game company with a lot of match three games make sure you have stuff that exemplifies that and not just 100 page movie scripts so just think about that kind of thing and then of course don't put too much you don't have to put your entire body of work in your portfolio you know a lot of times employers won't necessarily be able to look through everything so pick your your top work and put it on there and I would also say here don't necessarily put writing tests that you've done for other jobs I just think it's my personal opinion I don't know I think Zach feels similar but I would I would not do that it's more just to show that you know I don't want to see that you've necessarily apply to all these other places I don't want to see the great work you've done for other other game companies even though it's a lot of hard work keep that for yourself yeah sorry I

also mean so I with some other tips though as well for portfolio I would say if you can get help from a graphic designer or use a lot easy to wheat read website templates there's a lot of stuff out there now there's kind of no excuse for a really ugly illegible portfolio even if you use a wordpress blog a tumblr there's a lot of it's out there that can really make your portfolio legible if you can describe what you did for the game I get a lot of portfolios that show me like an awesome trailer and splash image and there's nothing wrong with including that but you know maybe tell me a little bit about what you did did you write the opening cinematic did you write vo barks did you write the UI text give me you don't have to put the actual scripts for those things but at least explain and give a little bit of context about what you did for this amazing launch trailer game so and yeah so if you've never actually published the game or if you're working on something exciting but it's

under NDA and you can't talk about it which is super frustrating when you have to apply for a new gig there's still ways that you can demonstrate your skills and what you've learned I'm curious if I can ask the audience how many people here want to become a narrative designer how many people here have published the game as a narrative designer okay okay awesome Congrats everyone who has and for those of you who haven't yet don't despair so what I look for when I'm interviewing writing applicants narrative design applicants who can't talk about something they published I asked them to talk about the the themes and the elements of their work if they're not allowed to talk about it under NDA talk about the themes and the sort of foundational principles of what makes it exciting to them because I'm not interested in just hearing some title or IP I want to understand your mind at work I want to see you and hear you talk critically and passionately about the elements of your story work that you find compelling do you think is exciting

so maybe you're working on a new Walking Dead game and you're not allowed to talk about that at all but you can talk about what it's like to write about human existential dilemmas and how everyone's a monster when zombies aren't around or don't say zombies because because maybe that would break your NDA but if you can talk about the work in some way that shows me you're passionate in your heart and your your critical thinking at work I'm gonna get what I need from that conversation and I'm gonna get a better insight into who you are as a writer okay so the cover letter it's basically an introduction you're you're telling your story to the company that you're applying for think about it like a story with an arc and the culmination of that arc should be that you are destined to land comfortably and and naturally into the arms of whatever company that you're applying to so tailor that story really to make a plausible case for why you belong wherever you're you're trying to belong including that information about your writing experience a published or or not talk about why specifically you want to

work at the particular company that you're applying to and demonstrate in the answer to that why and understanding of who they are culturally what their values are what their body of work is like and how you as a writer will be able through your writing sample to immediately create value for them by writing to their style but to their voice because that's what they're looking for and then maybe this is obvious but include the name of the company in your cover letter include an understanding of who they are and make it really make a deliberate effort for your cover letter not to sound like a form letter or you're just swapping out blizzard instead of Bungie and sending off the same the same cover letter over and over and so now that you've gotten your cover letter down submitting the application this is a little bit of housekeeping stuff but employers notice these things so I'm gonna harp on some really new details here but you want to keep it clear and concise but label the file names clearly with your name and CV

and cover letter as we get hundreds and hundreds of applications and if you put just simply put your name on there you you want us to be able to find you quickly when I look at my folder of like oh I really like you know this person's stuff I want to be able to easily find it so it's simple stuff but but please do that and then when you do that please label it clearly with the name of the correct company that you're applying for to Zacks point earlier about Blizzard or Bungie like I don't I this has happened to me where I've gotten applications and they put the name of not the game company that they're applying for but clearly another one so just just check those things cuz that even though you may have a fantastic cover letter or CV and work like it's those little things that like that attention to detail that's really like can be off-putting if I see that you're you know put bungee and you're applying to King or something so that kind of stuff and then if the job description doesn't ask for writing samples send your portfolio link or a relevant sample anyway I think some companies might be either for legal

reasons don't specifically ask for samples or they you know maybe it's a new person putting up a job description and they don't include that but I think that if you just submit one that will save the employer a lot of time because that's happened to me once where someone for someone my HR person who forgot to post at please submit writing samples didn't for like two weeks and then I got all these resumes but then no one submitted writing samples with their resumes and then the ones I like just the CV I had to go back and ask them for their samples when I just feel like that should just be a part of your application package so just again minor housekeeping things that I think matter a lot for when you're applying for a job yeah so if you're applying for a junior role and you don't have any experience here almost definitely gonna have to take some kind of writing tests you're gonna get a prompt a challenge a window of time to complete something and then you get to demonstrate your your writing ability under deadlines how to do that well don't be late game development is

all about executing to a very specific and rigorous schedule if you're late out of the gate with a writing test it's really gonna hurt your chances if for some reason the deadline that you're given in the middle of the recruitment process isn't something you can hit because of whatever's going on in your life that's okay proactively ahead of time communicate with the recruiting officer whoever you're talking to and say hey I'm not gonna be able to hit that thing Monday because I'm graduating from college and Saturday can I get a couple extra days I'll be able to do it Wednesday by 5:00 p.m. I had a time awesome that's proactive that's that's a commitment that you're making and then execute and and and hit that hit that commitment when it comes to the prompt itself don't just jump in and rush through really think about what the prompt is asking you to do creatively think about what the company you're applying to needs and what they want usually a lot of thought has gone into the crafting of the writing test so really demonstrate engagement in equal and engagement with with sort of that that level of care and rights something you you you're really

going to be proud of on a higher level consider who you're writing for and and really try to demonstrate in your prompt that you understand their voice and their style and that you can execute to that level and that if we were to hire you tomorrow you would be able to start creating creating value writing within within our voice immediately and then this is really crucial enjoy what you're working on i with writers all day long at all levels and it's something that I have to remind people of all the time but if you as a writer are not taking joy in what you're crafting I'm not gonna love reading it so so even at the test level I think especially at the test level have fun with what your crafting you're building something that's supposed to be entertaining and compelling for your audience focus on that and and you'll you'll generate something really great ok so you get through the writing process the the tests and now you have an interview I want to encourage all of you to think about interviewing not as demonstrating your worthiness to some institution or

or body of experts it's not all on you you're really it's a two-way street and ideally applicants that I really resonate with and want to work with come to the table sort of striving to find whether or not my company is a good fit for them as much as they're trying to demonstrate what they're capable of doing doing for us so so do that I would say take time ahead ahead and prepare questions about the role about the the studio culture about the job and and the other teams you'll be working with and take some time to think about difficult questions that you'll get asked and prepare answers in anticipation of that and look at your resume and say ok so if I was gonna throw a really difficult question at this person what would it be based on their experience based on their body of work and then then you you won't be caught flat-footed except you definitely will be caught flat-footed but don't dismay I think in the middle of an interview if you get a difficult

question if you get a question that you feel like man I really should know the answer to that and I don't be honest be humble when the best answers I ever hear in interview is oh my god that's a really hard question I don't know the answer to that my best guess is this as Debs we are constantly confronted with things and we don't have any idea how to solve them we want to work with people who have humility and and have honesty intellectual honesty and creative honesty in how they talk about the work and how they approach problems that they're they're not necessarily you know sure sure about it how to answer it's a process of discovery so demonstrate that honesty demonstrate that humility and you're going to be demonstrating a person that I want on my my dev team and then the same thing with the writing test enjoy the experience of interviewing have fun with it be excited to meet meet devs and talk to them about their work and what they're working on be excited to advocate for yourself and your experience in your story have fun and you'll be performing a version of yourself that ideally you know people

want to work with and it's just also some additional tips based on the interview I mean to what Zack was saying before in terms of preparing you know as employers I'm definitely going to ask you if you've played the games that we work on you'd be surprised at how many people actually don't do this before an interview so it's not like you have to finish them it's not like you have to memorize them or complete everything about them but I would expect that you at least check them out and have some general thoughts or even just the context around it so you know Wikipedia is there just you know look it up and don't but definitely don't lie about it or for some reason you didn't play it or or whatever reason don't say that you've finished it when you haven't don't we'll be able to tell so we'd rather you have an honest dialogue about it then at then lie about it so don't lie about it and of course be prepared to talk about the narrative design of either the games that the company are working for this goes to a powerful preparation but as well as just your thoughts on narrative design in general or games you know that we may ask what's your favorite narrow

design and other games and so be be able to talk about those in a passionate and informed way be prepared to talk about your writing test you know we're gonna ask you your thought process we know that we gave you an impossibly short amount of time to do it so don't feel that you have to be on the defensive about it we just want to ask like what why did you do this what did you think about this so it's not so much as like a sort of critical feedback time as much as we just want to see what you why you did what you did in such a short amount of time and yeah more and more of a housekeeping thing but a lot of times this goes back to Zacks point about thoughtful questions but at the end of the interview I'll usually ask like do you have any questions for me and you know I I love questions about craft how I manage you you know specific things about games we've worked on process but a lot of times - I'll get questions about like Oh how many vacation days and things like that and those are all important for sure but I would expect that you would ask those from the HR person and not me and that makes me just

think that oh did you not have any other questions about the craft so just you know just be mindful that when you when you are about to ask those kinds of questions but you know if the interview you do the writing test the interview goes well and then you got the job array but now what you know basic so now that you've gotten the job though we've also wanted to talk about if you get the job what happens afterwards and Zack is going to talk a lot about craft okay so narrative design if you do everything right that we're talking about with regard to labeling your CV how to navigate their writing process any of your process but you are not growing as a writer one I don't know that you'll actually get the job sadly but it's true but - your work will grow stagnant and and you're gonna have a difficult time sort of navigating your career past this first opportunity when you finally get your foot in the door

okay so a high-level question I asked all writers of all levels that I hire I ask them to define what their goals are as an artist and I would challenge all of you to think about that almost agnostic of where you're working now and where you're applying to next you should always be asking Who am I as an artist Who am I as a writer what are the stories that I want to tell what are the stories that are invigorating me or challenging me and and the purpose of asking those questions you should have answers to those questions cultivate answers to those questions that should change over time as well if you as a writer are not changing if you're not actively sort of asking asking yourself what you want to be in your artistic praxis and the answer isn't shifting to some degree then you are potentially falling into a place where you will not grow okay so who do you want to be as a narrative designer as a writer what kind of work do you want to work on as you're navigating the answer to that question

curate a deep understanding of narrative media maybe you only want to work on open-world RPGs that's cool play mobile narrative anyway watch TV watch film be able to talk about story in any in every way it matters at the interview level it matters in the day-to-day work and truly great writers learn to steal from anything and then in your own artistic praxis not just as you're applying for a given job or one project after another just as you're you're building a body of your own work be critical challenge yourself recognize the fact that you are building a body of work and and be deliberate about what it is you're choosing to write where you're choosing to spend your creative energy in service of this large larger question about what kind of an artist do you want to be a really helpful aid in that journey is finding a writer who's more experienced than you are who will read your work spend time with you talk to you about what they're seeing give you notes and challenge your thinking and they're not

gonna be right all the time you don't have to take every note but be committed to that kind of discourse about your work and you will improve abandon any kind of discourse about your work at that level and and you will not and be courageous and part of what I mean by that is I think bad writers fall into a habit of not challenging themselves to to craft new things they either work on one thing that they've written that they like and they never put it down and they keep polishing it or they fall into a very specific niche with their work they write for comfort they write because they fantasize about this particular job they want to have somewhere and that's really good but in terms of growing as an artist it takes courage to push yourself to write things you're not used to to write in new media and to write stories that are maybe non-traditional for you you will learn from that process some some more notes on crafts but in

addition to defining your goals and cultivating your interests take the initiative to improve yourself and I think this goes for new narrative designers as pioneer designers as well as experienced narrative designers there's always always looking for ways to improve so some tips whether it's your first narrative design job or your tenth always strive to learn about the other disciplines at departments and work together see what their thoughts on narrative are and how do you fit into their process and culture as a narrative designer this will help you at any job that you go to watch GDC Hawks thanks for coming to this one there's also there's also a ton of great stuff that happened this week and in previous years on the vault so you know everything is easily available now thanks to the internet so there's definitely no excuse and there's no shortage of narrative design media in terms of videos and books nowadays so there's there's definitely stuff over here so no excuse to not check out that stuff Network yes

that's why we're all here isn't it but network it's super super hard as writers I know we're all introverts and I mean even me being up here right now I'm like how to talk to people I know but no but it's something it's super important we wouldn't be here where we are without networking I mean every job that I've ever gotten was through someone I know or through a friend of a friend I think Zach's had some same thing so networking is super important so it's great that you guys are here at GDC but even if you can't come to GDC every year or you can you know you have friends who can never make it at GDC there's definitely like local meetups that you can go to you know there's AI DGA there's there's tons of stuff out there or start your own group and just get people in your community local community interested and you guys can all talk about narrow design and share advice there's also a Facebook group that I'm a part of I could talk to you about it after that is all aspiring game writers and narrative designers so that's those are there's a lot of great places to network not just in person but online be critical of yourself sure you can always improve but also don't forget

to be kind Meriter design and game writing is hard so but with that being said also be hopeful so you know throughout the ears have gotten tons of rejections on stuff odd jobs on things I've written onto written pieces but you know what never never give up never lose hope keep trying you know what the first games job is the hardest one to get but once you get that then then then your career will only keep growing so don't give up okay so I give advice to people a lot of the time when I only have thirty seconds or a minute I basically distill all of my advice down to one thing which is being a good writer is about discipline I think we often get into this business because we're really excited by the things we consume the things that inspire us we're passionate about it and we think what if it would be so fun the actual practice of becoming a great writer is not I think succeeded in short

bursts of inspired creativity you find success when you develop habits habits of production habits of challenging yourself habits of writing and and of networking and and and really pursuing almost aggressively pursuing your growth and that that just takes that gistic disappointing if you can find that as a writer you will succeed definitely we got the five minutes sign so I'm gonna blow through the key takeaways to make sure that we have time for your questions but overall don't forget be clear to choose the best work that represents the job that you're applying for be concise choose samples of your absolute best work don't include everything and most importantly beat yourself don't be afraid to show who you are and your interest and your passion for storytelling no matter what it is just authentic authenticity really shines when it comes to both your work and in

in-person interviews okay so we said do lots of stuff the right way don't do other things the wrong way that's all good I love bullet just to calibrate your thinking this is what I tell aspiring narrative designers all the time if you adopt healthy practice of applying to places and you accept the fact that you're gonna get rejected a hundred two hundred three hundred times I have been way more than NES I've ever gotten if you can accept that fact you can almost court knows you cannot be afraid of rejection because it is inevitable it's not a question of if I get lucky it's a question of when I find the right place at the right time for my craft and and and the right the right studio and I when I was desperately trying to get my foot in the door years ago I derived a lot of comfort from that and and I know a lot of other writers who have to and then when you do succeed remember to help help the next person along the way

okay thank you very much everybody so so we have we have a few minutes but really we have as much time as anybody wants because there's no talk here after this one if any of you would like to ask questions I think there are microphones okay we have mic we have a microphone raise your hand or or whatever and we'll stay and ask answer whatever you got yeah maybe a line makes sense let's see that hi thank you guys for the talk very happy to be here and listened to all your wisdom question so I have a lot of experience writing poetry and prose not a lot of experience script writing and I've heard that when you apply for jobs you just submit like screenplays or teleplays can I get your feedback on that yeah okay yeah I'll answer just take a picture okay I'll answer that um it depends on what you're applying for so if you're

applying for a company that does cinematic work you should have a strong cinematic script absolutely if you're applying for something that's maybe more prosy and there are game game game studios out there generating products like that I think prose is perfectly fine one of the last writers I've hired at deck 9 the vast majority of her experience is fanfiction and prose and we make highly cinematic content her work was really great and and so we were and we talked in the interview for sure about like how comfortable are you writing cinematically writing screenplays and she's much more comfortable with prose but I can use that tool in our process for sure and that this I think goes to a higher level piece of advice I'll share build a portfolio that has an excellent cinematic piece a screenplay of that you're really proud of a prose piece that you are really proud of and maybe start there next level would be at wine interactive something that you're really

proud of and you can submit the right piece for the right gig and then also if they ask show the versatility that you've acquired along the way thank you so much hey there first of all again thanks so much for doing this my name is Nick I'm a narrative designer and writer from New York and one thing I was interested in is you mentioned the idea of finding a mentor like someone who can develop a long-term connection with and who can really help push you forward my question for you is do you have a advice or how to go about finding such a person yes I think that it's really hard share your work in digital spaces for sure go to events like this and introduce yourself to people and then I think local meetups are probably your best bet you might find them themes toward narrative I'm sure you will but even if there's just larger IgD a groups you can just walk around and I'm Tara I'm the

worst at this I hate do I hate networking but it's so it's so important but go to those events awkwardly introduce yourself talk about what you're passionate about and when you find someone who you think like oh like that guys local and he's awesome and he likes this thing that I also like and he's published that asked him to read a piece I usually start with that be like hey I really like what you're doing would you mind reading one of my scripts and telling me what you think and maybe you get one round of iteration that's more than you had before maybe it starts a conversation or relationship a mentorship relationship that you can get a lot more value of like online communities for sure and just like see who bites cuz I could feel like I could do a whole micro talk on mentorship because you know be respectful their time like you know pick your strongest thing and stuff like that but I think like um there's also it's like idg a swimmin at women and games definitely has a mentorship where you can even sign up I don't know if there's one for broader narrative design but maybe it's something we could start or look into you but yeah I think you know online is

definitely your best bet to start if you can't find people in person here yeah good question thank you alright so first of all a quick question you mentioned a Facebook group what is the name of that just so I can I think it's game writers but um I'm write up a lot of it's very yeah it's super generic so let me find that and then I'll share it over afterwards like I'll uh I'll share that with you ah so it's open group cards to writing samples what what are you looking for in terms of length short is better than long 10 pages of anything is a lot for me to read right now the best thing you wrote is is 35 pages or 95 pages that is not what you should submit challenge yourself to write something new a 10 page screenplay

that shows some witty dialogue a clever arc fun moment a filmic understanding of narrative that's great that's all I need to see something that makes me laugh out loud once and I'm like oh cool okay I'm interested in this I want to move the conversation forward but you know I've had I've probably bred about 750 to a thousand submissions from writers over the years now I've had people apply with 300 pages of work I don't even know where to start and so I don't read anything cuz I don't have time because everything's on fire but like a 10 page something and I'm looking yeah I'm gonna read it so I really that's where discipline comes in but really focus on something something really tight something something short just to add to that I mean like a king or it's more mobile so definitely like if it's not hundred page scripts but even you have like I don't know about a movie script that's like 50 pages or something India I would say distill it down to your best scene but then also give us context for it so that way we can still get an idea of that those few pages so that way you

also aren't only writing 10 I mean if you have ten page screenplays or less perfect but if you have something that's longer but you still want to show it I would say choose the best small portion of it but give us a prose paragraph of context before we go into reading that so thank you hi I'm uh curious what is the value of secondary skills when you're applying to a narrative position and what is the best way to present them to a potential employer so by secondary skills do you mean like coding yeah that's very valuable I think the most important is your writing but like I can't like the nature of the work that we make a tec-9 I don't hire any writer who can't code a little or or or pick it up very quickly but that's asking a much higher investment from from us so if you have

any experience in any scripting language that's great for me that never hurts in in game development at any level take one introduct introductory CS class online and you'll have everything you need as a narrative designer so include whatever language you did that in and that that's wonderful did you have any other secondary skills like like I mean for mobile don't necessarily need coders although if you could do that awesome but like if you're doing if you're an artist and you do store it storyboards you know or if you can draw like somewhat and you do rough storyboards to go with a piece that you wrote or a script that you wrote that's awesome if you have project management skills when you talk to me in the interview you know tell me how your narrative process but how you dealt with other disciplines so producer project management skills that kind of works as well so it depends obviously on what the secondary skill is but there are definitely ways to frame it and this helps me as a narrative designer context does that make sense

hey I'm the eye services a dungeon master for my friends & Drums dragons what not as a creative outlet and you know making adventures and stories for my friends overcome and recently I've considered maybe like writing those down to like little adventures the PDF files I was wondering if that's something that may be worth sending to potential employers as a work sample of something that's not only writing but kind of design in its own way yeah that's a great question I think it depends on the nature of what it actually looks like so if you're applying for a narrative design position I would unless they're asking for something like that what's a campaign you've designed what's the story driven campaign the design is actually really cool question to ask applicants but unless they're asking for that they're usually asking for something else very specifically definitely have that other thing whatever it might be I would say that

that sounds to me like something that could be a really interesting thing for me to find in your portfolio if you have a website where it's listed I you know I discover that and I look at it and I'm like wow this is really nerdy and really cool and and and it's showing you know a design skillset that that could accompany narrative really well I think I think that's great but I wouldn't lead with something like that because you really want to demonstrate whatever specific writing skill the role you're applying for needs I guess one more question would be so it's something like a short story be more what I'd lead with yes it could be a DND short story that's great let's make it good all right guys the a/v tech is gonna have to you know shut the mics down but you can still get your questions in just you know it's gonna be a little bit more intimate everyone's gonna start sharing warmth everyone hold together but yeah if you guys want to you know stay in here can we stay in

here yeah absolutely okay okay we'll stay for like 20-30 minutes if people want to talk come on down