I work in content strategy and have a foot in both the writing and wedding planning worlds, so I often think about how we build narratives in different spaces. It struck me recently how crafting a game’s story might share some DNA with writing a novel or even planning the flow of a wedding day. They all aim to guide an experience, right?
In a novel, you have complete control over the reader’s journey through prose. With a wedding, you’re setting a stage and a timeline for a shared, real-life emotional arc for the couple and guests. But in games, the player has agency they can wander off the path you meticulously built. How do you balance that intended narrative with player freedom? For those who’ve worked in these areas, what feels like the biggest shift in mindset when moving between these forms of storytelling? I’m really curious about the practical differences in how you structure and pace these experiences.