Writing Conventions and Style Tips

Hello! I’m Josh Schwartz, a colleague of Ada Fisher. For this guest post, we will talk about the writing conventions and the style tips you need to know to make a text-based game. Such writing conventions are how to use a second person narration. Such style tips are how to use the present tense, use the past tense, and the sensory details used in your game.

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Writing Conventions


A text-based game works by the input of player commands. Because the player interacts with the game, it is up to you to use a narration style that gives a direct response to each command. Because you need to fulfill this need, it is wise to ignore the first or third person narrations and use a second person narration.

A second person narration works the best, because it gives the familiarity of a first person narration, without making the player character too unrelatable. A third person narration, while flexible, tends to create more work for you than is necessary. A second person narration gives the best result for the least work, and gives your player character a broader appeal. 

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Second Person Narration


In second person narration, the main pronoun “you” is the direct or the indirect subject of each sentence. For a second person narration, “you observe/notice/feel/believe” implies itself.

Below are some examples that have been written in second person.

• “You look at your feet and see a red snake.”
• “A snake coils around the statue.” 
• Notice how the clause, “you observe,” fits into the sentence and still works

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Style Tips

• Use the present tense
• It makes the game world realistic and immerses the player into the action
• Use past tense sparingly
• It makes the body text longer, because of the added passive voice sentences
• Typically use a past tense for the history, or the past events the player character learns
• If a past tense is necessary, players appreciate “has/have/had been” to highlight the tense shift
• Use a sensory detail in the body text and alternate between the senses
• Never forget to neglect the sensory details for sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound
• Unless you use a separate command for such things, e.g., “feel the rock”, in which case you safely omit them from the body text

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Conclusion

Thanks to Ada for the opportunity to do this guest blog. If you like this post, feel free to visit my blog, where you will find articles on how to improve how you write. Because, like Ada, I have a large passion for text-based games, if you need help on how to make your text-based game stand above the rest, I offer free tutoring.