Excerpt

Over the last 20 years of my career as a storyteller—author, journalist, narrative designer, and filmmaker—people have asked me a common question: How can I do what you do? How can I write about video games? How can I write for video games? How do I write a novel? How do I write a screenplay?

I'm not qualified to answer the screenplay question yet. My work on FPS: First Person Shooter called for a different type of writing I'd liken more to narrative design than scriptwriting. But it was still writing, and people are still curious how I did it. To be honest, I'm curious, too. Writing stories is a lot like waking from a dream. Before it fades, you try desperately to cling to the how, why, what, and who, but those details fade, leaving you with the results as the only proof something happened.

Every time I prepare to start a new book, I set a start date, usually a few weeks out to give myself time to write and hone an outline, when I decide to use one. As the day draws near, I get anxious. I've written close to 50 books (maybe more, depending on when you read this) and I still get a stage fright-sized bundle of nerves before I begin. It never gets easier. Not really. I don't feel confident in what I'm doing until the next-to-last draft of a story, but I feel a glimmer of hope every time I begin a first draft.

Writing a novel, an article, a screenplay, a script for in-game dialogue—I compare all of them to sculpting with clay. First drafts involve zero sculpting. None. Before you can shape the clay, you have to make the clay. Don't start out by envisioning your masterpiece in a museum. You'll fool yourself into getting excited by the idea of finishing before you've even started. Think of your story as a gigantic pile of yuck, and you've got to get your hands dirty before anyone can give a shit about it.

Also, I swear a lot. It's cathartic. Try it.

Or don't. If any lesson from 150 Words or Less—and I'll explain what that title means later—sticks with you, I hope it's this: The only wrong way to write is to not write. Swear, don't swear. Sculpt your first draft (at your peril!), or don't. When I was starting as a writer, I devoured books like Stephen King's On Writing and Story by Robert McKee. I wanted A-to-Z guidelines on how to work this nebulous, magical craft. Eventually, I realized writing is a buffet: Fill your plate with dishes that look appetizing and ignore the rest. Maybe you'll return for it later, or maybe you won't.

Eat what you want to eat. Write how you want to write.

Just write.

That brings me to the subject, the thesis, of 150 Words or Less: Lessons Over 20 Years of Writing All the Things. At the outset of my career, I knew less than Jon Snow. I learned by doing, by reading (you must read; there is no negotiating this directive); and by following style guides. Not only did I have to—every magazine, game developer, you name it has their own style you must abide by—but I wanted to. Sticking to someone's style of writing is even better than reading about how someone writes because you're learning by doing. You're learning techniques, vocabulary, and mechanics you might not have experimented with otherwise. It goes back to the buffet analogy. By trying what someone else has prepared, you might decide you want to fix it yourself, only with different seasonings.

150 Words or Less imparts some of those lessons by sharing articles, excerpts of books and screenplays, and more over the course of my career. I've rifled through my archives to share some of my favorite work, or some of my work that I think has something to teach, and am presenting it here in no particular order. With many pieces, I have included some combination of correspondence between my editors and me (with names removed to maintain privacy), rough drafts, annotations explaining how the final piece took shape and what I took from the experience, and scans of the finished articles if they're available so you can see how they went from text in a Word document to a beautiful design.

I've made some light edits for clarity and context. Mostly, though, everything outside of my annotations for each piece, including correspondence, appears as it did from way back when. There's no better way to learn by doing, so I'm going to share my doings with you and hope you learn from them.

So grab a plate, fill it with what you want, and leave the rest.