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成为一名专业作家的7大技巧

发布时间:2017-02-10 17:39:14 Tags:,,,,

作者:Angel Leigh McCoy

如果你将游戏产业作为自己的目标职业,并且“作家”或“故事设计师”正中你的下怀,你便需要了解自己该提前准备些什么才能在此获得成功。我希望这些建议对你会有帮助,我也希望能够听到你们的反馈,想法以及成功的故事。

ravenstudy(from gamasutra)

ravenstudy(from gamasutra)

不要只是玩游戏,也要去评论它们。

当你在玩游戏时你需要像名故事设计师那样思考。清楚在UI,对话以及故事流中怎么做是可行的怎么做是不对的。明确遗漏的内容,错误的内容以及多余的内容。想象如何做才能做得更好,但同时你也可以思考为什么他们会这么做。

对于游戏设计来说,第一所学校便是自己的PC/主机/手机设备,因为通过玩游戏,你也可以学到东西。以评论的视角去看待别人的作品能让你去思考游戏设计。当你的心态从玩家变成设计师时,你便朝专业设计师的目标迈进了一步。

你必须记得游戏中的每个元素背后都有个人和一个决定。不管是什么原因,开发者和美术师最终选择了你所看到的内容。你应该培养自己的好奇思维,即去思考为什么他们会这么做。

练习语法。

关于写作我所收到的最重要的一个建议是来自高中的英语老师,他说过:“在你违反规则前,你必须先了解规则。”在写作中这便适用于语法,拼写和适当的单词选择。

我之前工作的三家公司都要求我进行写作和编辑测试。而我的表现将决定我是否能被录取。许多游戏公司都是通过测试去筛选真正的专业人士。所以你需要确保自己能够通过这些考试!

没有什么比拼写错误或使用不正确的语法会让你看起来更不专业了。你应该去熟悉《芝加哥手册》(游戏邦注:源于世界顶级高等学府芝加哥大学,第一版由芝加哥大学出版社资深编辑们于1906年撰写,而后不仅成为了出版发行业内最常用的标准,也是世界英文写作的经典标准和风格)。在我所工作过的游戏公司中,这便是语法规则的优先选择。也许乍看之下你会觉得很难,但请坚持看下去。

如果你想了解一些明确的语法规则,也可以试试《Grammar Girl》。Mignon Fogarty将慢慢将帮助你练习语法。

将检查单词选择作为一种习惯。

练习正确拼写需要你足够勤奋。我从事这一职业20多年了,并且直至今日我还会去检查我所不确定的单词的拼写。不要相信拼写检查工具!也不要完全相信自己的记忆。如果你感到疑问就一定要去检查。我会使用Dictionary .com和Merriam Webster’s这两个网站,或者你也可以使用Merriam Webster’s。

语法和拼写并不是唯一你需要勤于检查的内容。即使是最优秀的作家也有可能在词义中被绊倒。如果你曾在某些对话中听到某一单词的错误使用或者听到的是同音词,你便可能误用那个单词。举个我最近遇到的例子吧,即单词“浮冰”,表示大块冰块。我认为它想当然应该是“漂浮着的”,但因为我带有一点疑虑,所以我便去查了这个词,最终才百分百确定它的使用。

而即使是一些很常见的单词也可能引起歧义。我便经常看到一些作家误用了介词短语。例如有些人会说:“In the same token”,但其实正确的短语是“By the same token”。选择正确的介词并不总是那么简单。所以你应该始终敲响着自己内心的疑虑警钟,并学习去听这一钟声,然后进行检查。下一次待它再出现时你便会记住了。

在交谈(游戏邦注:或在社交媒体上)时我们会因为不能维持同样的标准而养成一种坏习惯。作为专业作家,克服这种坏习惯便是职责。

陷阱:很多我认识的人都称“?!”为问叹号。在专业写作中会使用问叹号吗?!当然不会!多个感叹号也不会出现的。问叹号具有不确定性,所以一个感叹号便足够。

说实话在这方面我有点武断,但事实上作家的职业性是可判断的,而问叹号无疑是非专业性的表现。但如果你是在复制一个任意注解,文本,tweet或帖子,那么出现问叹号倒是没事。

学习什么是被动语态什么不是。

被动语态有时候是一个让人捉摸不透的复杂主题。许多人都认为如果作家使用了“to be”的动词形式,那就一定是被动语态。但事实并没有这么简单。被动语言还需要考虑句子的构成。

你应该花时间去研究主动句和被动句结构的区别。使用太多被动句会让人觉得你是个业余者。并且你要清楚,主动态通常都更简洁且更容易阅读。

为不同角色编写对话。

这是一种非常有趣的练习!我敢保证我不需要向你过多解释原因。我建议你先在网上找个随机角色生成器,如WritingExercises.co.uk。让生成器为你创造一个角色,你可以为角色命名,给他一个职业和社会类别,然后为以下每种情感创造一个对话:开心,生气,惊讶,好奇,害怕与死亡。

赋予每个角色属于自己的特色并在整个对话中维持他的独特性。对话特性将位于两个极端之间,如:

实际与轻浮

简明与闲聊

友好与不好又

安静与吵闹

温顺与强势

无知与聪明

有教养与无教养

正视与非正式

伤感与无情

善良与残酷

等等。

随着时间的流逝,你将真正熟悉这些特征并清楚自己所编写的每个角色该如何发展。你会发现你可以基于一些特殊且有趣的方式去结合它们从而让角色变得更有趣。例如一个安静且强势的角色与吵闹且强势的角色便是不同的。

陷阱:不要使用强调动作。赋予一个角色强调动作的确是区分他们的一种便利方式,但是这也是一种懒惰的方式。你应该练习去使用正确的单词,短语和句子去表达角色的个性,职业和社会类别。

提高自己的词汇量。

单词跟魔法一样,如果你认识更多单词,你便能够射出更多咒语。所以你要去学习更多单词。我便经常使用辞典去寻找形容某一事物的更准确或有趣的单词。我们的世界充斥着许多没有太多实质性或味道的模糊单词,但是带有明确含义的单词也是存在着的。你应该将辞典作为自己的伴侣。

你也可以使用手机上的应用去提高自己的词汇量,如Vocabulary.com或A Word a Day,或使用像《解锁谜语》和《Quizzitive》等游戏。

尝试写游戏。

许多新闻媒体都接受对于游戏的意见书与评论。所以你可以先写些不错的文章并将其寄出去。在网站上寻找投稿指南。只要你发布了文章,你便可以在简历上写上它,你的未来雇主也将发现你是一个有洞察力与能力的作家。

即使你的文章未被任何网站使用,你也可以将其放在自己的博客上,如此你的雇主便会去看你的网站并清楚你在游戏中所投入的时间与精力。

陷阱:在评估一款游戏时我们很容易充满激情,这时候你会发现自己只会说出一些赞美的内容。而当你在提供负面评价时请仔细考虑自己的用词。你必须清楚游戏创造者在此投入了许多时间与精力。所以你必须确保自己的批评是具有建设性的而不是侮辱性。你批评的是游戏而不是游戏设计师。这时候你所表现的不应该是个性。

总之,你必须清楚成为一名专业作家既需要技能也需要知识。没有人生来就是一名作家,这是将经过你的一辈子去慢慢磨练的技能。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

7 Tips for Narrative Designer Hopefuls

by Angel Leigh McCoy

If you’re eyeballing the games industry as a destination for your career, and the “writer” or “narrative designer” job seems right up your alley, then you should know what preparations you can make in advance to better position yourself for success. I hope you find these tips helpful, and I look forward to hearing your feedback, thoughts, and success stories.

Don’t just play games, critique them.

When you’re playing a game, think like a narrative designer. Notice what works and what doesn’t in the UI, in the dialogue, and in the story flow. Look for what’s missing, what’s misleading, and what’s superfluous. Imagine how you might do it better, but also see if you can figure out why they did it the way they did.

The first school for game designers is your own PC/console/mobile device because by playing games you’re learning about games. Examining the work of others with a critical eye gives you a view of game design unlike that of a player. When you change your mindset from player to designer, you take the first step toward becoming a professional.

Remember that there’s a person and a decision behind every element in the game. For whatever reason, the developers and artists chose the option you’re seeing. Develop your questioning mind. Wonder why.

Practice your grammar.

One of the most important bits of advice I ever received about writing was from my high school English teacher, who said: “Before you can break the rules, you have to know the rules.” In writing, this applies to grammar, spelling, and proper word choice.

The last three companies I’ve worked for have required that I take a writing and editing exam. My being hired was contingent upon how well I did. Many game companies are instituting tests to help weed the pretenders and wannabes from the serious professionals. Make sure you can ace that exam!

Nothing makes a product look less professional than misspellings or poor grammar. Get familiar with The Chicago Manual of Style. At the game companies I’ve worked for, this is the preferred reference for grammar rules. It can be intimidating at first, but hang in there.

For a more friendly refresher on specific grammar rules, check out Grammar Girl. Mignon Fogarty will feed you grammar in delectable bite-sized portions.

Make checking your word choice a habit.

Learning to spell correctly takes diligence. I’ve been writing professionally for over 20 years, and to this day, I still check the spelling for words I’m unsure of—and there are plenty! Don’t trust the spellchecker! Don’t always trust your memory. If in doubt, check it out. I use two sites for this: Dictionary.com and Merriam Webster’s. If they conflict, go with Merriam Webster’s.

Grammar and spelling aren’t the only things you have to be diligent about looking up. Word meaning can trip up even the best writers. It’s so easy to get the wrong word because you’ve heard it used incorrectly in speech or maybe it’s a homonym. One recent example for me was the word “floe,” which refers to a large chunk of ice. I was thinking it should be “flow,” but because I had that niggle of doubt, I checked, and sure enough: “floe.”

It’s not just odd or uncommon words that can be tricky either. I often see writers misuse prepositional phrases. Someone might say, for example, “In the same token…” when the correct phrase is “By the same token…” Choosing the right preposition isn’t always obvious. Hone your inner doubt alarm, learn to listen to it, and check, check, check. The next time it comes up, you’ll remember.

We get into bad habits when talking (or on social media) because we aren’t held to the same quality bar. As a professional writer, getting over that bar is the job.

?TRAP: Many people I know call this “?!” an interrobang. Are interrobangs used in professional writing?! No, they are not!! And neither are multiple exclamation points. The interrobang becomes a question mark, and one exclamation point is enough.

I’m being a bit dogmatic here, I acknowledge, but the truth is that professional quality in writing is recognizable, and the interrobang is a sure sign that the writing is unprofessional or informal. Exception: it’s okay to use them if you’re replicating a casual note, text, tweet, or post.

Learn what passive tense is and what it isn’t.

Passive versus active tense is a sometimes confusing and complex topic. Many people believe that if the writer uses a form of the verb “to be,” then it must be passive. The truth is far more complicated. Passive tense has much more to do with how the sentence is structured. You can find some excellent tutorials on this, including one from Grammar Girl or this video tutorial below with Grammar Squirrel by UBC Science Writing.

Take the time to do your research into the differences between active and passive sentence structure. The over-use of passive voice will identify you as an amateur. As an added benefit, active tense tends to be more concise and easier to read.

Write dialogue for different characters.

This is a fun exercise! I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why it’s helpful. What I recommend is that you find an online random character generator like the one at WritingExercises.co.uk. Let the generator create a character for you, then you name the character, give it a profession and social class, and write a dialogue line for each of the following emotions: happy, angry, surprised, curious, afraid, and dying.

Give each character its own traits and maintain its unique personality across all lines. Dialogue traits fall on a spectrum between extremes such as these:

Practical to Flighty
Concise to Rambling
Friendly to Unfriendly
Quiet to Loud
Meek to Forceful
Unintelligent to Smart
Educated to Uneducated
Formal to Informal
Sentimental to Hard-hearted
Kind to Cruel
and many more.

Over time, you’ll develop your own innate sense of these traits and will intuitively know where to go with each new character you write. You’ll find that you can combine them in unusual and interesting ways to make your character more interesting. For example, a character who is quiet and yet forceful is different from one that is loud and forceful. Play with it and see what fun characters you can come up with. The best part of this exercise is that you can use your favorites as writing samples to show what you can do.

TRAP: Try to do this without using accents. Giving a character an accent is a handy way to differentiate them—almost too handy and thus lazy. Practice choosing the right words, phrases, and sentence rhythm to express your character’s personality, career, and social class.

Increase your vocabulary.

Words are your magic, and the more you have, the more spells you can cast. So, learn more words. I do this by regularly looking at a thesaurus just to find a more accurate or interesting word to replace the current one. Our world is flooded with squishy words that don’t have much texture or flavor, and yet great words with sharp edges and strong meanings do exist. Make the thesaurus your constant companion: English Oxford Thesaurus, Merriam Webster’s thesaurus, and Thesaurus.com.

You can also increase your vocabulary with apps for your mobile device, such as Vocabulary.com or A Word a Day, or with games such as 7 Little Words or one of my personal favorites Quizzitive by Merriam Webster.

Write about games.

If you haven’t yet landed your first game-writing job (or even if you have), you can get writing credits on your resume and show that you love games by writing about them. Many media outlets accept article submissions and reviews on games. Write a couple or ten good articles and send them out. Look for submission guidelines on the outlet’s site. As soon as you’ve published your article, you can put the credit on your resume and your future employer will discover what an insightful and skilled writer you are.

Gamasutra user blogs
Game Informer user blogs
Wikipedia list of video game magazines
Journal of Virtual Worlds Research
International Journal of Serious Games
JMIR Serious Games
IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games Journal
International Journal Of Human-Computer Interaction
Ultimate List of Gaming Blogs that Accept Guest Posts
25 Current (ed. 2014) Video Game Blogs that Openly Accept Guest Post Submissions

Any that don’t get accepted, you can put on your own blog so employers looking at your site will see that you’ve invested your time and energy into games.

TRAP: It’s easy to get passionate when reviewing a game, and this is fabulous when you have nothing but nice things to say. However, check your word choices when giving a negative review. You want to be clinical and honest about negative criticism, empathetic and respectful, and always find at least one nice thing to say about a game, even if you have to dig deep. Remember that the people behind the game’s design spent many many hours working on it. Make your criticism of it helpful, not shaming. Criticize the game, not the game designers. The moment you make it personal, you’ve lost your credibility.

In conclusion, have fun and above all else, remember that it takes skill and knowledge to be a professional writer. It’s not something just anyone is born with, but a skillset that is actively honed over the course of a lifetime.(source:gamasutra

 


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