{"id":17605,"date":"2024-06-19T13:14:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T13:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twist-tales.com\/?p=17605"},"modified":"2025-02-28T07:34:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T07:34:22","slug":"5-tips-on-writing-with-tim-schuchert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twist-tales.com\/de\/5-tips-on-writing-with-tim-schuchert\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Tips on Writing: With Tim Schuchert"},"content":{"rendered":"
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5 Tips on Writing: With Tim Schuchert\n<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Tim is a Narrative Designer with multiple years of experience within the German Games Industry.\u00a0<\/span>After studying Media Informatics and Interactive Entertainment, which included an internship at KING Art GmbH, where he worked on the award winning RTS game “Iron Harvest”, he became a Product Designer at Articy Software GmbH, working on the next generation of Narrative Design tools.<\/span><\/p>

From there he transitioned into AAA game development and is currently working as Technical Narrative Designer at Crytek, where he brings the next title of the Crysis franchise to life.<\/span><\/p>

Furthermore, he has been involved in several other projects related to Narrative Design. He has been the creator of interactive audio books, games, interactive streaming events, short stories, poems, pen and paper adventures and a workshop host teaching narrative design and writing.<\/span><\/p>

Having a huge passion for pen and paper role playing games, Tim is also hosting and mastering a German speaking actual play show on Twitch.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Hooking Your Audience<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Open with a scene that is captivating and interesting, making your audience guess what will happen next and creating an intrinsic motivation for them to learn more about your world and the story that unfolds within.<\/span><\/p>

It helps to know the tropes and best practices of the genre you are writing for, so you may stick to them or maybe even subvert them with the first twist of your story. Give your audience something they are looking for.<\/span><\/p>

For this purpose it helps to find the exciting and special in the mundane. A luxurious cruise is suddenly assaulted by armed men stealing valuable goods, a happy wedding turns dramatic when the bride is kidnapped, a test of courage among teenagers goes horribly wrong as one of them isn’t returning from a night in the spooky fields – you get the idea.<\/span><\/p>

Take your audience by the hand and gently guide them into your world. Make sure they get an understanding of the conflict and the stakes, without giving everything away. Once they are hooked you’ll have plenty of time to introduce your profound worldbuilding, badass antagonists and world ending rituals.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mastering Plot Development<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Find a process for developing your plot that fits you and the project environment you are working in. Within the games industry all story arcs are usually pre-planned as other departments are depending on your input. <\/span><\/p>

When writing a book or audiobook on your own you have the freedom to be more of a pantser and see where the characters take you as you write your story.<\/span><\/p>

In any case, I find it helpful to separate stories into parts to which I can assign an emotion and dramatic intensity. <\/span>A game is separated into levels and levels are separated into beats, whereas books are separated into acts, chapters, paragraphs and so on. <\/span><\/p>

Along these moments in a story you can trace a journey, which can be compared to your character arcs and the expected standards of the genre you are writing for. Viewing your story through the plot lens lets you uncover structural issues you might want to fix before starting to work on details.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Effective World-Building Strategies<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Always keep in mind that you don’t want to write a lexicon. You want to write a story, as this is what your audience will be experiencing.<\/span><\/p>

While it is fun to design a world with all of its geography, politics, history, art, languages and whatever else seems interesting, its not necessary to go into too much detail most of the time.<\/span><\/p>

Rather define things that you’ll be actually able to show to your audience. Nobody wants to listen to the king’s advisor monologuing about the distant orc lands, if we never get to see them or meet characters from there. Really think about how the audience will passively absorb these details you created, by living and observing your world.<\/span><\/p>

Especially when writing for games you want your worldbuilding to be adaptable to changes and needs from other teams, while at the same time being able to communicate important details to them.<\/span><\/p>