作者：Noah Falstein

或许你之前已听说过悲伤可以分为5个阶段。当人们在遭遇损失或者得知极为伤感的消息时，其感觉和反应会经历一系列标准化的改变。鲜为人知的是，该理论也可以运用到互动内容的写作艺术中。这两者间的相似性令人震惊，原因可能是上述过程通常会同悲伤产生联系。接下来，让我们跟随富有代表性的作家Jim，剖析整个过程。

interactive-writing(from readinghorizons.com)

否认

“互动写作只是写作而已，与编写小说或剧本并无差别。毕竟，它也只是娱乐，电影娱乐的人数要远远超过电脑游戏。”

我们这位得意勇敢的作家已经发表过5个短故事，因其名誉曾被受邀为小说写序，他觉得花较短时间这个新兴的互动领域里赚些钱似乎是个很不错的想法。他认为，只要自己能够抓住用户的需求，环球影业都可能愿意选择他的剧本。但是现在他的银行账户内余额较少，因此简单赚些外快可以算是个很棒的想法。

幸运的是，Jim认识内行人士。他的邻居是在大型电脑游戏发行商Digital Muse工作的程序员。后者将他推荐给正在寻找文案写手的Ken，Ken是公司旗下基于故事的新游戏制作人兼设计师。Jim就这样开始了游戏写作生涯。

Jim在与Ken的首次会面交谈中认识到了互动写作的要求。Ken向他解释了一个简单的事实：如果人们想体验纯粹的线性故事，他们会选择阅读书本、看电影或看电视的方式。如果Jim想要得到这份工作，就必须了解互动行为的相关知识。Ken很喜欢他的作品，愿意给他机会尝试互动写作。与许多作者固执己见不同的是，Jim较为灵活，他也想尝试下。他有个自认为之前或许还从未被尝试过的想法。

交涉

“如果我只需要努力将主线分支的话，那么我可以用自己熟悉的写作方法来制作每条支线。”

类似其他从线性媒体领域转向互动写作的作者，Jim认为他已经弄清楚了互动写作的要求。只需要加上些许分支，从根本上来说同他平时的写作相似，只是现在的作品带有互动行为而已。不幸的是，这种想法并不奏效。最为明显的原因是结果作品的大小。如果每个支线都是个独立的故事，那么只要几个支线就可能产生出相当多的结果。如果你将所有的支线都导回到主线中，那么提供给玩家的选择本质上来说是毫无价值的，而且玩家会发现这一点。体验只偶尔出现选择的电影化故事并不会吸引玩家。这样的作品在两个领域都不出色，在游戏中呈现电影化的故事根本无法同真正的电影相媲美，而有限的选择根本无法承载有趣的游戏玩法。因此，游戏往往将电影化场景的出现最小化，其目标在于把玩家引入游戏中其他更富有互动性的部分。看到电影化场景被低估，最终多数文案写手都会因此感到愤怒。缺乏突破传统领域这种冒险精神的写手永远也无法迈过这道坎。但即便是那些以良好的态度面对此情况的写手，也经常会在经历下个阶段时失去耐心。

愤怒

“这些无知的游戏设计师和程序员简直想让托尔斯泰把《战争与和平》缩到3页，而且还是双倍行距！而且还要删去和平方面的内容，因为这些内容卖不出去！”

挫折感开始产生。首先，Ken否决了Jim提出的有关故事的多数想法。他坚持认为游戏必须放在首位。Jim因此倍感挫折，但是随即意识到自己现在面对的是新的媒介。在他刚开始编写电影剧本时，他也必须去了解电影行业中的技术和创造限制因素，抛弃他在小说中使用的长篇心理独白，学习从视觉效果上思考故事。理解互动行为也需要如此，在玩过数款游戏并与Ken讨论之后，Jim意识到Ken的想法是正确的。

但是并非所有的问题均已解决。在两人就基本方法达成一致后，Ken坚持改变Jim故事线路的结构，打乱某些故事元素的发生顺序。Jim细心构建的角色进程和关键线索的揭露过程完全混乱。更为糟糕的是，Ken告诉他将其已经编写完成的过场动画内容削减70%。他警告称：“没有玩家希望在没有互动的机会情况下，长时间地坐着看过场动画。”Jim辩解称更为电影化的游戏可能会有一定的市场，但是Ken列举称有大量花数百万打造的“互动电影”最终在市场上消失得无影无踪。重视作品艺术性的作者很可能在此刻会选择退出。但是Jim信仰实用主义，希望自己的作品能够获得很高的销量，所以他屈服并同意了Ken的观点，进入下个阶段。

沮丧

“现在已经毫无希望了，我所做的一切都起不到任何作用。《俄罗斯方块》中完全不含有故事，但游戏依然表现出众。”

现在，Jim变得很沮丧。如果他能够走出这种认为自己毫无创造能力的低沉情绪，便可以获得真正的突破，成为成功的互动故事写手。但是难以回避的事实是，此前有许多毫无故事性的游戏取得了极大的成功，而获得盈利的故事性游戏仅为少数。投币街机游戏中几乎没有故事，最多只是寥寥数语描述下游戏背景，比如大灾难后的世界或者为寻找最强战士而举办的挑战赛。任天堂或Playstation上的主机游戏的故事性也好不了多少。即便是出自任天堂宫本茂之手的极为流行的作品，也是毫无故事（游戏邦注：比如《Pilotwings》）或只有简单故事（游戏邦注：比如《塞尔达传说》），它们之所以能流行，绝大部分仰赖于其游戏玩法。PC是故事游戏确立行业地位的唯一舞台，但即便在这里现实也是极为残酷的。数年之前，PC世界中有两款最畅销的游戏是《毁灭战士》和《神秘岛》，前者的设计师鄙视那些含有故事元素的游戏。《神秘岛》本应当摘得故事类游戏桂冠，扩张故事类游戏在行业内的领土。但是《神秘岛》中所含有的故事不及几乎所有冒险游戏前作，游戏吸引玩家的是拟真化世界、漂亮的艺术设计、萦绕于心的音效和极为简单的界面。

在这个阶段中，某些作者无法实现互动行为的概念性飞跃。有些人屈从于这种沮丧，要么毫无兴致地继续完成他们的工作，要么放弃努力离开团队。但是对于某些佼佼者来说，他们看到了胜利的曙光。

接受

“从深层次来看，优秀的互动写作与其他写作很相像，但有着自己的规则。”

Jim已经取得了突破。他意识到优秀的线性写作和优秀游戏故事叙述间存在内在的相似性。游戏期间某些场景必须能够自由调整出现顺序，这并不意味着他无法构建紧张的游戏进程和在互动结构中发表有内涵的内容。当玩家能够优先选择那些自认为最有趣的区域时，他们更能够体验到故事的乐趣。Jim甚至还根据玩家选择的体验方式对故事做出些许修改，创造出极为个性化的方法，使得游戏故事给玩家的体验更像是以往众人围着篝火听人讲故事一般，而不是之前所采用的客观线性形式。从玩家的视角来思考游戏流程和故事，使Jim意识到他想表达的角色动态紧张感可以通过供玩家体验的解谜或战斗情境表现出来。优秀剧本所需遵从的规则并没有遭到破坏，只是转变成新形式而已。

许多试水互动领域的作者无法到达最后的这个阶段。但有些人将自己重新塑造成了游戏设计师和作者，学习必要的游戏设计基础，让互动形式的写作显得栩栩如生。有些人学到了足够与熟练设计师配合的技巧，向团队贡献自己的角色发展和故事构建技能，同时根据游戏设计师的建议和选择进行修改。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Five Stages of Writing for Interactive

Noah Falstein

Perhaps you’ve heard of the five stages of grief. Most grieving people go through a fairly standard set of feelings and reactions when they suffer a loss or learn deeply disturbing news. You may not know that the film Groundhog Day was modeled after these stages, as Bill Murray’s character goes through a day that shows us what it might be like to live in a program with a bug in its loop termination conditions. Even less well known is the application of this theory to the art of writing for interactive titles. The correspondence is startling, perhaps because of the grief often associated with this process, or the deeply disturbing individuals (such as myself) who inhabit our odd industry. Let’s follow the process for Jim, a typical writer.

Denial

“Interactive writing is just writing. It’s no different than writing novels or screenplays. After all, it’s just entertainment, and movies have been entertaining far more people for far longer than computer games have.”

Our proud, intrepid writer, with five published shorts stories and an advance on a novel from Bantam to his credit, decides it would be a good idea to make a few quick bucks in this new field of interactive. He’s sure Universal is going to option his screenplay about an Uzi-toting Priest, “Holier Than Thou”, if only he can work out how to handle the love interest. But just in case since his bank account is lower than it should be, a few easy bucks would be a good idea.

Luckily for Jim, he has an in. His neighbor is a programmer at Digital Muse, one of the big computer game publishers. He owes Jim a favor, and refers him to Ken, the producer/designer of a new story based game who’s looking for a writer. Jim’s on his way.
It is in his first meeting with Ken that Jim has his first realization. Ken explains a simple truth: if people want a pure linear story, they’ll get it by reading a book or going to a movie or watching TV. Jim has to learn something about interactivity if he wants a job. But Ken likes his writing and is willing to chance it. Jim also is flexible enough to give it a try, unlike many writers who never get beyond this point. He’s got an idea that he thinks may not have been tried before.

Bargaining

“If I just try branching pathways, I can make each pathway just like the writing I know.”

Like virtually every other writer who came to interactive from linear media, Jim thinks he’s got it all figured out. Just add a few branches, and it’s basically just like his normal writing, but with interactivity! Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for reasons both obvious and subtle. The most obvious is volume of material. If each branch leads to a different story, even a few branches create huge amounts of work through geometric progression. If you fold the branches back into one story, then the choices offered to the player are essentially useless, and no amount of artifice can hide that for long. More subtly, watching a cinematic story unfold with only occasional choices for the player is disconcerting. You get the worst of both worlds – the best cinematic sequences in games fall far short of films, and the limited choices allowed make for boring gameplay. Accordingly, cinematic scenes are often minimized to let the player get into a different, more interactive part of the game. The cinematic scenes are marginalized, and eventually most writers rebel. Writers lacking the confidence to venture beyond the world of writing they know never make it past this point. But even those who get this far with a good attitude usually lose it as they pass into the next phase.

Anger

“These ignorant game designers and programmers would tell Tolstoy to cut War and Peace to three pages – double spaced! And cut out the Peace stuff because it doesn’t sell!”

The frustration sets in. First Ken vetoes most of the ideas Jim has about the story. He insists that the game must come first. Jim is frustrated, but realizes that he’s in a new medium here. When he first started writing a screenplay he had to learn the technical and creative constraints of cinema, abandoning the long internal monologues he’d used in his novel and learning to think visually. Understanding the creative aspects of interactivity is a bigger stretch, but after playing many games and discussing them, Jim realizes Ken is right.

But all is not well. After they agree on a basic approach, Ken insists on changing the structure of the middle of Jim’s storyline so that some story elements can happen in any order. Jim’s carefully crafted progression of character and revelation of essential clues is thrown into chaos. Even worse, Ken takes the cut-scenes he’s already written and tells him to reduce them – by 70%! “No one wants to sit through long scenes without a chance to interact”, he warns.

Jim argues that there may be a market for games that are more filmlike – until Ken hauls out a bunch of “interactive movies” that cost millions to make and vanished into the market without a trace. A writer who lives for the art of his work would probably quit at this point. But Jim is pragmatic and wants his stuff to sell well (although he’s thinking longingly about his abandoned screenplay) and so, beaten, agrees – and moves on to the next stage.

Depression

“It’s hopeless. Nothing I do is working. Like Tetris, they’re better off without any story at all.”

Jim’s now at the emotional Rubicon that separates the dabblers from the pros. If he can get through the sinking sense that there’s nothing he can bring to the creative mix, he can achieve a real breakthrough become a successful interactive writer. The hard fact is that there are many games with little or no story that have been tremendously successful, and very few story-heavy games that have ever achieved profitability. Coin-op arcade games rarely have any story at all, or at most have a bare few paragraphs of text describing a post-apocalyptic world or a mystical championship to find the greatest fighter in history. Console games on the Nintendo or Playstation are not much better. Even the extremely popular works of Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo range from the nonexistent story (Pilotwings) to the very simple story of Legend of Zelda, but depend heavily on gameplay for their popularity. PC based games are the only venue where story games have established themselves, and even there things are grim when measured against the heyday of Infocom and the rise of Sierra and LucasArts adventures in the 80’s. A few years ago the two best-sellers in the PC world were Doom, a game whose designers actively disdained the utility of any storyline at all, and Myst, the best-selling PC game of all time. Myst should have been the crowning jewel of story-based games, occupying as it did the Adventure game genre, long the stronghold of story games. But Myst had less story than almost any previous Adventure game, depending instead on an immersive world, beautiful artwork, a haunting soundscape, and a very simple interface to draw in players.

This is the stage that winnows out the last of the writers unable to make the conceptual leap to interactivity. Some succumb to the depths of depression and either finish their work with lifeless disinterest or simply give up, asking to have their names removed from the credits and leaving the rest of the team to fill in the missing scenes. But for a lucky few, a light begins to dawn.

Acceptance

“Hey, on a deeper level, good interactive writing is a lot like other writing – but with its own set of rules! ”

Jim has a breakthrough. He realizes that there are hidden correspondences between good linear writing and good game storytelling. Those scenes in the middle that had to come in any order – that doesn’t mean that he can’t still build in a progression of tension and release inherent in the interactive structure. When the player picks the areas most interesting to them first, they enjoy the story more. Jim can even change the story in some simple ways depending on how the player chooses to experience it, creating a personalized approach that is more like old-style storytelling around a campfire than any of the impersonal linear forms he’s grown used to. By thinking of the flow of the game and story from the player’s point of view, Jim realizes that what he thinks of as dramatic tension for a character is often manifest in a puzzle or combat situation for a player. The rules of good drama remaining intact, just mutated into a new form.

Many writers venturing into the interactive field never make it to this final stage. Some of those who do reinvent themselves as designer/writers, learning the basics of game design necessary to make writing come alive in an interactive format. Others simply learn enough to work with a skilled designer, providing their own special skills of character development and story progression but fitting them into the game designer’s recommendations and choices.

It’s tough to overcome grief, and it can be just as hard to learn to adapt a skill set to a new industry. But for those who persist, both stories can have a happy ending. Even Bill Murray eventually got it right. (Source: The Inspiracy)