Freelance Video Game Writing

The Life & Business of the Digital Mercenary for Hire

Toiya Finley, Toiya Kristen Finley

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032059044
• eBook ISBN: 9781000585858
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Games
• Index: Computer Science

In the competitive world of video game writing and narrative design, developers are losing permanent positions while freelancing careers are on the rise. Many developers don't understand how to seize these freelancing opportunities, such as understanding the business of freelancing, how to go about finding work, how to establish strong relationships with clients, and how to sustain themselves as freelancers. Freelance Video Game Writing: The Life & Business of the Digital Mercenary for Hire offers developers guidance on achieving their freelancing goals as telecommuters. Dr. Toiya Kristen Finley presents practical insight into the profession and how to further enhance your freelancing business, whether you are a newcomer in the field or an experienced freelancer.

Key Features:

• Two sections covering the life of the freelancer and the freelance business
• Fifteen interviews from narrative designers, game writers, and other developers on topics from maintaining a healthy work–life balance to figuring out your rates to working a full-time job and freelancing on the side
• A comprehensive list of definitions with which freelancers need to be familiar
• Exercises to help augment your understanding of freelancing and improve your business

PART I
The Freelance Life

Chapter 1 Introduction

DOI: 10.1201/9781003199779-2

There are books out there that tell you how to make US$100,000 a year as a freelance writer.

This book is not one of them.

The game industry is super competitive. There’s a lot of competition for freelancers, and you may strive to build a sustainable freelance business for several years before you get the kinds of jobs and rates that you want. On the other hand, someone who enters the industry at the exact same time as you may get a huge gig right away that lasts two years.

And, well, making US$100,000 a year may not be of interest to you. Maybe you just want to freelance on the side as a way to express yourself creatively.

So, why am I writing this book? All I’ve done is freelance. I’m a lone wolf or an outdoor cat that sometimes plays nicely with indoor cats (if you are more of the feline persuasion). Most of my adult life, my work has been done from my bedroom or den-turned-office in front of my laptop. In the time I’ve been freelancing, I only made one short trip to a studio. I don’t even think I could be employed or work in an office at this time in my life. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I do know that telecommuting as a writer, working digitally, is possible in this industry.

I originally planned this book pre-pandemic, long before COVID-19 shut down studios, and devs were suddenly forced to acclimate to working at home. The pandemic has shined a light on the importance of freelancers, years after friends and I had been advocating for studios to change their perspectives on freelance writers, trying to convince them that, yes, we could be just as productive members of the team as anyone working in the office.

As I write this, we’re almost two years into the pandemic. As awful as this time has been, a weird, fortuitous (it feels bizarre to even say that) thing has happened to some of my freelancer friends and me. Developers have been reaching out to us, and we suddenly have an abundance of queries and offers. I have not had any dry spells during this period, and I’ve had more work and financial stability than I did in the previous five years.

Why has this happened? I truly believe that telecommuting freelancers were uniquely positioned to work during the pandemic. We’d already figured out the work-at-home thing. With studios forced into being virtual, whether we were in-office or not was no longer an issue. And, hey, we proved that we could be valuable and productive members of the team.

When things return to whatever normal, it’s my hope that freelancers will be just as valued as they are right now.

So, who is this book for? Whether you’re a student or you’ve been in the industry 30 years, you can telecommute from home. It’s for veteran freelancers, people who are looking to become freelancers out of curiosity or necessity, and developers who might be interested in working with freelancers, or who would like to strengthen their collaborative relationships with freelancers.

(I want to note that I’m using the term “freelancer” instead of “independent contractor” deliberately because this book is more about finding and working on more than one gig at once, while contractors are more likely to work with the same clients for longer periods of time. Much of the advice does also apply to contracting, though.)

Freelance Video Game Writing: The Life & Business of the Digital Mercenary for Hire is separated into two parts. Part I is a reflection on my own journey into freelancing and the importance of having good people (i.e., a network) around you. It was my journey and the people in my network who informed much of what is in this book.

The second part is the practical side of freelancing. Freelancing is a business, and we’ll explore how to set up that business, maintain it, and build lasting relationships with clients.

All of this is from the point of view of a narrative designer and game writer because that’s what I am, but there’s hopefully plenty in here for all freelancers and the freelance curious, no matter your discipline in games.

Each chapter in Part II has an exercise or two (or three). The exercises are to help you think about the chapter’s content and how you can directly apply it to your business. You may already be using some of the techniques in these exercises, so they may encourage you to re-evaluate an aspect of your business or rethink your practices and how you apply them.

Most chapters in Part II also have at least one interview from someone in my networking community. Every one of them is fantastically smart and thoughtful. Since freelancing can be so personal, I don’t want my voice to be the only perspective you get. (And you should hear from someone who hires freelancers!) Someone else may have an insight or experience that jibes more with who you are and what you do.

It’s been my experience that freelancers don’t have a lot of spaces to talk shop about their experiences in the industry. I hope this book can shed light on what we do and open up more dialogue.

—TKF

Chapter 2 There’s No One Path…and Here’s Mine

DOI: 10.1201/9781003199779-3

The Very Beginning of the Story…

Hang around game developers long enough, and you’ll realize there’s no one way to get into the industry. The number of developer origin stories is as unique as the number of developers.

The same is true of freelancers. People become freelancers or independent contractors for all sorts of reasons.

I became a freelancer by accident. The truth is I was a freelancer at heart long before I realized I could be self-employed or seek out and accept the jobs and clients I wanted. My training as a freelancer started when I was 14 years old. In a three-year period, I had written a couple of novels, and I was determined to publish them. I read (very wrong) advice that in order to sell a novel I would have to publish some short stories first.

Now, I was not a short story writer. I didn’t understand how you could condense someone’s life into ten pages. But I started writing short stories, anyway—anything to sell my novels. (As you can imagine, my first attempts at stories read like I was trying to get a novel squished into ten pages.) I did plenty of research on how to submit stories. Back then, you needed piles of 10 × 12 envelopes, stacks of 8 × 11 white sheets of paper, lots of toner cartridges, rolls of stamps, and letter-sized envelopes for the SASE.¹ Through research, I became an expert on short fiction markets and targeted the ones that I really wanted to appear in, imagining my name on the covers.

That was part of my training as a freelancer. Freelancers get to decide with whom they want to work. (The very concept of the freelancer developed from the idea that medieval mercenaries fought for the individual or nation who gave them the most money.)² Once the stories went off in the mail, I learned—and endured—a most important aspect of the freelance life. Submitting your work, especially as an inexperienced writer, is an exercise in agony and perpetual waiting. When you get that response back, most likely a rejection, that cycle starts all over again. I sent out story, after story, after story, after story. A short wait was two months. The agonizing waits? Six months…A year…And when I did get a response, it was a form letter in that SASE. Sometimes, when the editors knew I was a young writer, they’d write me a note of encouragement. Knowing how many stories editors have to wade through and how draining it is to read through them, I appreciate the time they took to send feedback a lot more now than I did then.

Just like writers who get rejections after what feels like an endless wait, freelancers send off queries and applications. They may never get a response. They may get a form rejection with no explanation as to why they were rejected. And when they do get referrals, or the prospective client³ comes directly to them to request a submission, they still may end up rejected.

Freelancers, like writers, have to develop a granite-hard callous. I don’t know a writer or a freelancer who grew that callous quickly. Some still haven’t after many years. And even after you develop the callous, it doesn’t mean you won’t feel the rejection.

While I was writing, submitting, getting hundreds of rejections, and slowly gaining some acceptances in the mix, I learned another valuable lesson that would serve me well as a freelancer: Always be professional. A misplaced comma or a typo in the cover letter was a harbinger of what was to come in the manuscript. These mechanical errors would say a lot about the writer’s overall skill, from the handle (or lack thereof) on grammar to style, to plot development. (I would later find out that mechanical skills were a sure telltale sign as a composition instructor, too.) Realizing editors were watching for writing errors like the Eye of Sauron made me proofread carefully, and I always wanted to strike the right tone in my cover letters. (I was probably too obsessive in that regard, reading them over and over and over and over again to make sure I didn’t offend anyone.)

Professionalism easily separated great writers from those who, quite honestly, weren’t as skilled at storytelling as they thought or weren’t taking the time to make their stories as good as they could be. Freelancers who always act with professionalism appear more serious and trustworthy than those who don’t. Well-written cover letters and well-formatted and structured docs make a greater impression than those samples that aren’t. And if you’re a personable yet professional communicator, you’re someone prospective clients are more likely to trust with their projects and money.

I was a professional student for eight years, still submitting my work, which now included creative nonfiction and academic articles. I’d become an editor while I was in school, interning at Owl Books at Henry Holt & Company, being a part of editorial boards of literary journals at New York University and Iowa State, and founding my own journal at Binghamton University. And I was a teaching assistant as a master’s student and a writing center tutor while I was getting my master’s and PhD. I was picking up the skills I would use as a developmental editor, copyeditor, and proofreader.

Once I graduated, I just never got an employed job.

To be fair, I didn’t look for one, either. I was selling stories, editing other people’s stories, and doing the occasional writing job for someone else. I was freelancing without applying the label to myself. During this time, something I found that was imperative to me was that I had plenty of time to work on my own stuff, whether that was short stories or novels. I had the freedom of deciding what I would be doing throughout my day, when I wanted to work, and when I wanted to write—or do nothing at all. In my mind, rightly or wrongly, being employed would mean losing that f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Glossary
• PART I The Freelance Life
• PART II The Freelance Business
• INDEX