I’m editing Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
I'm horrible at announcing things. I'm extremely bad at it. I never properly announced that I was writing for Where the Water Tastes Like Wine last year and I never properly announced when I became the staff writer for that project this year. So, uh, here's that announcement:
I wrote for WTWTLW but now I am also EDITING the whole thing! Nice. I have been doing this for a while but I forgot to say it anywhere specific!
Editing WTWTLW involves writing a large amount of extra content for the game’s characters. It also involves straight-up editing the text! On top of that, I’ve also written a large number of random events for this game. My fingerprints will be all over the project.
The trouble with leaving fingerprints as an editor is that this game is a collection of diverse short stories-- it is deliberately not a monolithic experience with a single tone and voice. My goal with editing WTWTLW is to preserve each writer's unique voice, both in the showcase characters you may have seen in trailers, and in random events that take place elsewhere in the game. After the game ships I may have some things to say about what editing this project was like, and about the advantages of embracing writer diversity in a project rather than trying to make a game seem monolithic and consistent.
Prior to working as an editor at my day job, I had no idea I could enjoy just sinking deep into the dark and numbing pit that is full-time editing but-- guess what??-- turns out I love editing. So now I live in that pit both 100% of the work day and 100% of my nights and weekends also. I love editing. Hire me to edit your shit.
On the value of editors
I'm not just talking myself up when I say that more teams should hire totally separate human editors to edit their narrative games. It is important for more than one person to look at every published piece of writing; having someone else check your stuff and read it from an exterior perspective can dramatically improve the quality of the finished product.
I'm not talking about proofreading; I'm not talking about copyediting. I'm talking about comprehensive full-service editor editors who are themselves good writers and who have experience doing this kind of thing.
The first and most obvious value of an editor is that they can identify errors. Proofreaders can also do this! And editors who can edit for style and clarity offer opportunities for other valuable improvements. But the biggest thing that an editor can do for any project-- game, book, article, screenplay, anything-- is that they can also turn on their "idiot brain" and try to read work from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about the project and has no personal investment in it.
This kind of distance is very important. Creative people of all stripes often make decisions for personal or team-dynamics-related reasons that are not transparent to their audience. An editor who was not part of that decision-making process and has no investment in it can identify decisions which may not actually be working.
I no longer read books or articles about writing advice; I find that the vast majority of generalized writing advice is completely useless to me. Instead, I prefer to receive direct feedback for my writing from people who have actually read it. You can read all the writing advice in the world and still never find advice specifically suited to your needs and your project's unique issues. Editors give targeted feedback. There is nothing in the world better for improving a written project than an editor.
Luckily, there are many humans out there who have the experience and background necessary to edit interactive narrative projects, even ones with torturous ink/ren'py/twine structures. If you are working on a project right now and want an editor, ask around; many people who can write for games are also good at editing.