10 Indie Games for Creative Writers to Play

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10 Indie Games for Creative Writers to Play

Are you someone who has ever said "video games just aren't for me"? And are you also someone who considers themselves a writer? Then this post is made for you. 

If you are a member of the Storytelling Society, you'll know why I wholeheartedly believe anyone who says they are a storyteller needs to play video games, even if they don't want to write them. As detailed in the Storytelling System, engaging with new mediums is essential to improving your abilities as a storyteller in general - not just as a writer of novels or plays or even poetry.

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Why Don't More Women Play Video Games?

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Why Don't More Women Play Video Games?

It happens every time. I walk into GameStop with my brother or boyfriend and the sales associate walks up to us and acts like I don't exist. They look the guy I'm with in the eye and pretend I'm the girlfriend or sister who was dragged along, never asking if there's anything I need when I stray away and start looking at the games for sale.

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Why Writers Don't Need a New Year's Resolution

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Why Writers Don't Need a New Year's Resolution

Every year people set New Year's resolutions. Maybe it's to eat healthier, to be a better person, or even more specifically, to drink eight glasses of water a day. And if you're a writer, you've more than likely made the "write more" resolution before, or even the more seemingly specific resolution to finish your novel or screenplay. You might have even made a similar resolution four days ago.

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What The Witcher Video Games Taught Me About Storytelling

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What The Witcher Video Games Taught Me About Storytelling

Though video games have always been a part of my life, it wasn't until a few years ago when I really began to become what some call a "gamer" and began trying out new games I never had before, branching off from The Sims, Zelda and Nancy Drew (all of which are still fun, by the way) to try out the likes of Bioshock, Mass Effect and Skyrim. This was in part because as a child my parents never permitted us to have anything besides the Wii, so when I began dating my boyfriend I had two separate consoles (PlayStation and Xbox) that I had never owned or played anything on before until then.

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How J.K. Rowling Mastered Writing in Different Mediums

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How J.K. Rowling Mastered Writing in Different Mediums

Every winter when everyone begins to snuggle up by the fire and celebrate the holiday season, I always feel a strong urge to return to my worn, yet beloved Harry Potter collection. Harry Potter, in many ways, is what made me who I am today. When I was younger and one of the last in my class to learn to read, Harry Potter became the entertaining push to keep me going. Very quickly it became an obsession and one that I have sustained throughout my entire life. With that obsession I developed a love for reading, but also other storytelling forms that I couldn't appreciate until I was much older and much more widely read.

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The Storytelling Gift Guide

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The Storytelling Gift Guide

No matter what holiday you celebrate, you should celebrate your storytelling self by giving yourself a treat! But beyond just giving yourself some new pens or a fancy notebook, this year I want you to consider challenging yourself with your gift, picking out a new genre or medium you wouldn't usually select and giving it a chance. That's why I've created several gift guides for you to help you branch out, but also treat yourself to something nice!

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How to Tell When Your Story is Finished

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How to Tell When Your Story is Finished

With NaNoWriMo and therefore many people's stories coming to an end (congrats to all of you who did it by the way! Get yourself something nice!), a lot of storytellers are now faced with the dilemma of where to go next. While writing another story should always be on the horizon, there also is the difficulty in determining when your story is actually completed and what is next for it.

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How to Get Out of a Storytelling Slump and Start Writing Again

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How to Get Out of a Storytelling Slump and Start Writing Again

Whether you're a new storyteller or an old one, you will eventually encounter the dreaded storytelling slump. Up until that slump, writing was coming easily, or if it wasn't, it was at least still enjoyable and your work was turning out to resemble something you may someday love, until one day it wasn't anymore.

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How to Write a TV Pilot

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How to Write a TV Pilot

Television is having a big moment right now, perhaps even more so than movies. With fantastic series on Netflix, HBO, AMC and so forth, it seems like television writing is the place to be. And why not? Unlike with films, writers rule television. Plus, television writing offers a regular paying job, perhaps one of the few in the storytelling world, where most of us work "freelance" (if we work as a writer at all).

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Why You Should Be Writing Short Stories

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Why You Should Be Writing Short Stories

Ever since I was little, I have been taken by the idea of writing a novel. As a child, I wrote several novel beginnings, never finishing an entire draft until I was twenty years old. A contrarian in every way possible, while other people wrote short stories and did mini writing exercises, I vehemently protested the "system" by always pursuing novel ideas. 

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How to Treat the Camera like a Character

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How to Treat the Camera like a Character

One of the major things I think is neglected in screenwriting lessons is the discussion of a narrator. By contrast, when people learn fiction writing, this is almost always brought up. Perhaps it's because for film, when we think of narrators we think of Woody Allen films where he provides information for us via voice-overs or Ferris Bueller's Day Off when he looks at the camera and talks to us. While there are technical film terms for these devices, there is rarely discussion about the other types of narration within the medium, such as omniscient or close-third.

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