SJ Longthorne

My degree was my first real foray into screenplay writing, which is of course extremely relevant not just for cinematics, but also for general dialogue and visual storytelling. I learned how to write a professional, polished screenplay. 1/?

But I also learned plenty in terms of prose and cinematic theory, and explored different genres and mediums, which taught me how to exploit them. Most importantly though was the element of group and professional feedback: workshopping, developing humility, editing, growing.

Honestly I was never that cut out for marketing. The only aspect I really cared about was writing. My degree prepared me directly for writing (in a variety of mediums and genres), so moving into narrative design felt like returning to where I'd been headed.

Obviously games weren't a part of my degree, so there was a learning curve adapting what I knew to interactive environments and player psychology, but that all came quite naturally by playing games, observing the devs I worked with and reading player feedback.

Interesting! Thanks for responding so detailed by the way. So, if I'm understanding you correctly, your degree is very fundamental to what practice daily as a narrative designer, with practical experience still, of course, being important. From your POV, what kind 1/2

of workshopping would you suggest aspiring narrative designers research and do - are there some that have helped you a lot? I'm very interested in workshops and how to create an educational and welcoming environment for writing workshops.

Workshopping is really just reading others' work and giving them constructive feedback, then having them do the same for you and editing accordingly, either remotely or in-person. Best practise imo is when the recipient doesn't defend their ideas during the session...

But simply takes it all in, then picks and chooses afterwards what to listen to. Not all solutions offered will be correct, but even when they're not, they usually highlight a problem. It's the writer's responsibility to determine what the problem is and the best way to solve it.