Can Gaming Teach You To Write Novels

Okay, the TL;DR is No. But also Maybe a Bit Yes?

Gaming can teach you a hell of a lot about storytelling and enagement, which are things you can apply to your fiction.

Games are not novels.

Glad we got that shocking revelation out of the way.

But games do tell stories, and really good games, the ones that keep you coming back, tell really good stories, while still giving you space to invent and create within the narrative framework.

There is a reason why RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons are so massively a part of SFFH fiction, and why so many genre writers are also gamers, or game writers (see Gareth Hanrahan, who is a fantastic writer of fantasy worlds and novels. If you haven’t read The Gutter Prayer and its sequels, and you love your grimdark weird, then I recommend.

(Quick sad disclaimer. I wish I liked things like Dungeons and Dragons, I really do. Alas, I hate gaming with other people (it’s a personality flaw, I grudgingly admit.) But I do like playing RPGs like Morrowind etc, because I don’t have to deal with other people, just the characters in-game.)

I think gaming can teach a writer what things are fun, what things are cool, what works as motivation for characters, and how to bounce your character off other people.

It can kinda teach you plot, in the sense that mostly (unless you’re me) you don’t wander around aimlessly, just picking mushrooms (and stacking them, because you can.) Games, even the loosest of open world types, have a goal, a plot that keeps you more or less on some kind of track.

(Unless you are writing a Choose Your Own Adventure style book, you do, normally, want to have a single ending in mind, with a central plot that gets you there. However, if you have a brilliant plan that involves multiple endings for your novel, I am all for it. Go wild.)

Especially for writers who are daunted by creating a new world from scratch, having the space to play with a character and a storyline within a set world gives them a kind of safety net for letting their imagination have room to stretch and develop (see also, fanfic). It teaches the fundamentals of creative writing, without sitting them down for a lesson.

Gamers and Game Masters learn what is going to make a narrative game flow, unfold, hold attention, engage everyone, and be, above all, fun. (That fun can involve torture and murder and terrible traps - fun for the player, perhaps not so much for their character.)

There are writers who write down what is essentially a novelisation of their campaign — this can totally work — as long as you reader can’t tell.

I can think of several successful fantasy writers who I know wrote books based off their own gameplay; it’s certainly no bad thing. They are also writers who learned the art of writing well, which is what elevates their books from play-by-plays of their campaings.

You learn to write well by a) reading a whole lot, and b) writing a whole lot with the aim of improving. Writers already know this, so I’m stating the obvious, but I also think writers can learn narrative drive and worldbulding through gaming.

Which is my long-winded way of saying—

It’s okay to play games; they’re part of how you learn about writing. It’s even better if you think about why things work or don’t work in different mediums, and how you can use that to your advantage as a writer.

The more sources you draw from for your writing, the more interesting and layered your work can become.

Anyway, this is my very long excuse as to why I’m about to reinstall Fallout New Vegas before my edits arrive…