Some Parts of my Writing Process

I'm the creator and main writer of the "show". It feels weird to call it a show while I'm sharing it on a gamedev forum, but future posts about the production (which is mostly done with code) will make it more clear why a web series would fit in an indie gamedev community.

So, I mostly make all the big decisions about the characters and the story. I write the first drafts of scripts alone, and at that point I get feedback from my writing group, and my screenwriting friend group that also makes up the voice cast. My friends are a diverse group of people, and I rely on their feedback and ideas at the revision stage to make the characters believable positive representations of the cultures, genders, and sexualities, etc. of the cast. Sometimes this involves doing a whole pass of scenes or episodes with one of my friends as a co-editor.

If this project is ever well-funded enough for me to pay my friends to create their own episodes, arcs, first draft scripts, etc., I'll be extremely happy to share that workload and also center more diverse voices from the first stages of the creative process. When the story structure and themes are all determined by me (white, middle class, from Utah), I think it shows in the final product that while the cast is diverse and many authentic perspectives go into the characters' voices, the show was still born from one pretty privileged person's brain.

Which is the norm for mainstream TV/games, so I'm not trying to beat myself up about it. Just trying to stay mindful and keep growing. This month I decided to revise every character to better match the person performing the role. Instead of asking queer people to play cis/hetero characters, I'm going to embrace how lucky I am to have a majority-queer voice cast (including myself) and make the show even more queer than I planned it to be.

Of course, the writing process can't be 100% identity politics. It would be paralyzing--I would question every line I wrote, and never finish a script. I know this from experience in past projects where I was so anxious to be sensitive, I never got anywhere. When I'm writing a first draft I try to be as un-censored and messy as possible. As a writing student in college, I learned that writing a first draft is more like spreading manure (literal shit, but fertilized with raw growth potential) for future, better drafts to grow from. You find the good parts in all the shit, and you build from there.

I try to write in the morning, before news or media from the world can seep into my mind and set my attitude. I get my coffee and a snack, and make myself as comfortable as possible (blankets, a puffy coat if my room is cold in the winter, cuddling up with the dog when I'm staying at my parents' house, sometimes writing on my laptop in bed). Music. I took a video of myself dancing in bed to LCD Soundsystem one morning because I was blocked on how to write my second draft of episode 2:

I can proudly say that the episode 2 revised draft is done, and now I'm organizing the table read with the voice cast. $10 patrons will be invited to watch/listen and give feedback.