{"id":2454,"date":"2010-05-26T19:35:51","date_gmt":"2010-05-27T00:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/?p=2454"},"modified":"2010-05-26T19:37:25","modified_gmt":"2010-05-27T00:37:25","slug":"coming-attractions-feature-at-gamespy-the-pain-of-the-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/26\/coming-attractions-feature-at-gamespy-the-pain-of-the-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming Attractions Feature at Gamespy: The Pain of the Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another long form feature of mine was just published at Gamespy. This time I look at the art and science of opening cinematics<\/a>. If you have any comments on the article itself, put them there. If you want to comment on this post, however, comment here.<\/p>\n

Because I have more to say.<\/p>\n

I like feature writing. I started doing more of it for Crispy Gamer and found a voice there that I think works in this format. But the more of these I do, the more I understand why many writers don’t, why so many game sites go for the quick hits, rumor reporting or lists.<\/p>\n

This is damned hard.<\/p>\n

The five things they never tell you when you try to write a feature story with original research:<\/p>\n

1) Data collection is necessary but not sufficient. I put out the call for friends, colleagues and Twitter followers to ping me with their favorite opening cinematics. The list is long and varied and, on its own, not especially helpful. Once I had it, I had to work out what the hell to do with all this information. This is where writing is at its most mystical – all you have is information. Now you need a plan.<\/p>\n

2) People are slow. Gaming PR is full of very busy, very hard working and sometimes very responsive people. Off the top of my head, I can name probably a dozen I can count on for a quote. But helping a writer with a story that is not necessarily going to move more units is not always a high priority. Some people will be slow in replying. Some will be late with information. Some will agree to do it and then decide they can’t. Some will not reply unless you bring an editor into the discussion to prove that, yeah, this is a real thing.<\/p>\n

3) Writing what you know only gets you so far. Because what I know is war, death, famine and pestilence – the four tools of strategy gaming. My feature stories are probably more strategy heavy than your standard article because that’s where my knowledge and contacts are strongest. But you have to boldly go forward. Thanks to Gamespy’s Editor, Ryan Scott, for letting me feel my way through a lot of this.<\/p>\n

4) Stories do not hatch. Well, some do. That literature feature I wrote a couple of months ago was one of the easiest things I’ve ever written. This one was not. I struggled, I deleted, I reorganized. I finally found my opening hook when I remembered that conversation and got permission from my friend to quote it. But that was the intro. I was still moving things around to almost the final minute. If Ryan had not emailed me and said “So where is it?” I could have been punching it for weeks. I gave myself a deadline, and I met it.<\/p>\n

5) You are almost never happy with the slow births. This article had a very slow and painful birth. I still think that if I had another month it could be better. But I can’t guarantee it would be much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another long form feature of mine was just published at Gamespy. This time I look at the art and science of opening cinematics. If you have any comments on the article itself, put them there. If you want to comment on this post, however, comment here. Because I have more to say. I like feature […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[135,134,78,21],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-DA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2456,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}