[Gonzosports]

Howdy folks,

I thought I'd throw this out there to see if anyone had any tips/ideas. I'm currently in the process of getting applications ready for grad school.

What I want to study, and my apologies to Infocom, is what I call "interactive fiction" – and story or narrative where the person experiencing it either is, or controls, the protagonist(s). This means, of course, adventure games, but it can apply to all video games, choose your own adventure type books, role playing games, anywhere where a writer has to deal with the choices of its audience impacting the story.

I'm interested in how writers write for that genre. I'm not sure whether to study it in the creative writing or literature fields – or even in the video game design field. I'm not sure whether I'd want to enter the field, or simply teach, once I have the degree.

Anyway – what do people think about this – any thoughts on where they think it might fit? Anyone ever study anything similar? Any suggestions on grad school apps in general?

(My undergrad degree, btw, is in filmmaking)

[fov]

Someone was just telling me recently about an MFA program at UC Santa Cruz that relates to interactive storytelling. I don't remember exactly what the program was called but you might look into that.

Also "transmedia" is a buzzword that applies somewhat to what you're talking about. It refers to stories told through a variety of different media (including interactive) and was coined by former MIT professor Henry Jenkins, who now teaches at USC. I know nothing about what he teaches there or if they offer graduate studies in this sort of thing, but it's another lead.

And of course Georgia Tech is one of the preeminent schools for game design. That's another school you could look at.

I went to Brown for undergrad, and our creative writing department had several advocates of hypertext fiction, including Robert Coover. Again, don't know if they have a program devoted to it, but this might be another lead for finding what you're looking for in traditional academia. My hunch is that anything Brown offers on the subject would be more of a creative writing setting than video game writing, but game design studies has become more prominent in universities since my days there, so I could be wrong.

[Aubstopper]

USC I know has a video game programming degree (it's a specialization within computer science)

http://www.cs.usc.edu/admissions/graduate/msgames.htm

[Aubstopper]

well i looked into it...USC actually has a straight up program in interactive media (MFA)...a friend of mine actually got a Bachelor's degree in it from there.

http://interactive.usc.edu/about/masters/

seems super competitive though (they only let in about 12 people per year).

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Aubstopper

well i looked into it...USC actually has a straight up program in interactive media (MFA)...a friend of mine actually got a Bachelor's degree in it from there.

http://interactive.usc.edu/about/masters/

seems super competitive though (they only let in about 12 people per year).

Keep in mind, Interactive Media, Interactive Fiction are completely different things. If you want to head into Interactive Fiction, then you are best focusing on majoring on english writing and afterwards go to a tech school for game development.

Your real focus should just be able to write a story. Making it interactive should be secondary.

[Sughly]

Yeah I agree with Monolith. I can relate to this post entirely as I a) got my undergrad degree in filmmaking and b) am currently studying to complete my masters in creative industries with a major interactive and visual design. That being said, I'm in Australia so I can't recommend much from here for you. But what I can say is that I'm finding a course like mine very helpful - it covers animation, web design, graphic design, and of course game design and allows people to work across fields. I'm trying to be realistic and focus on graphic design now to get a steady job at the end, but am using the game design aspect as much as I can and am now developing skills I need to start producing independant games.

Don't know if any of that is help, but thought you might like to hear from someone in a similar position I might add too that, although people can't understand how my work now relates to what I did in filmmaking, I can wholeheartedly say that it's made a huge impact on the games I'm working on. I think it's sad that an industry with so much technical ability fails time after time to poor writing. It's an old story, but it's true that developers need to take experienced or qualified writers on board and treat narrative and character more seriously.

[Gonzosports]

...should add that it's not entirely to get into the industry. That would be nice, but to make money I'm more inclined to teach it down the road, so perhaps the writing/lit degree is enough, and possibly get credentials for teaching as well.

I am a professional editor, btw, earn my keep doing it for three websites, so writing might be the direction to go. Honestly, I don't think I've been this excited about anything since...well, since I got accepted to filmmaking grad school*





* and then dropped out. I was burnt from academia, when straight from ug to a post-bac program. Learned over the next 15 years, the real world - well, they expect results! - isn't as much fun

[Gonzosports]

Originally Posted by Aubstopper

well i looked into it...USC actually has a straight up program in interactive media (MFA)...a friend of mine actually got a Bachelor's degree in it from there.

http://interactive.usc.edu/about/masters/

seems super competitive though (they only let in about 12 people per year).

That's a pretty awesome program - not exactly what I'm looking for, but I might apply just to get refuseled, no programming experience have I. And, I'll pass on LA, but, still - might be good exp to talk to them.

Thank you everyone for the ideas.

[fov]

That would be nice, but to make money I'm more inclined to teach it down the road, so perhaps the writing/lit degree is enough, and possibly get credentials for teaching as well.

I don't know if the same is true in the area you're considering, but to be a creative writing teacher on the college level it's generally true that you need an MFA, and also to have been published.

[thejobloshow]

Would ''hypertext'' be relevant to your study in how much the audience dictates the game's content? Because there's plenty of material about that.

[Gonzosports]

Originally Posted by thejobloshow

Would ''hypertext'' be relevant to your study in how much the audience dictates the game's content? Because there's plenty of material about that.

I don't know what hypertext is? - I'm just interested in studying the practice of writing when the protagonist=audience, when a writer has to draft a story which the audience plays a role. Again, a lot falls under this - not just games, but tabletop roleplaying games, choose your own adventure books, MUDDs, MMORPGs (I suppose)...

It may not be possible, I may have to keep it more specific to games or RPGs or something, but I like the idea again of studying and possibly teaching not necessarily How to Write, but the history of "interactive fictions." I mean, it'd be cool to go back and outline and examine the meaning of Ultimas 1-10.