There’s a story that tracks a relationship through the things that the couple buy. There’s another tracking the state of mind of a guy as he grows up and hits his 30s through the gadgets he has. There are various stories where I’ve played about a little with linearity and jumping back and forth in time.
I already mentioned having characters return and feature in more than one story in the collection, and that was one of the most exciting experiments to me. I thought not many people would notice - but they have and I’m really delighted about it.
What sets the book apart from the other things you have written?
Most of what I’ve written to date is for clients — people who hire me to tell stories — mostly in computer games, but sometimes other mediums. This book is different because it’s the first thing I’ve published that’s by me, where the copyright and all the words and ideas aren’t owned by a company that paid me. It’s really me expressing myself, which is something I only get to do professionally in a more limited way, as a general rule.
In what way is it similar?
It’s not. A lot of computer game stories I write are set in a crime, or an adventure, an action, or a sports world. Here I wanted to set stories in a contemporary world recognisable as the one where people, like me, are used to having crime, action, adventure stories etc all around us, where we’re used to wondering how come our world isn’t as full of story and drama as the TV and movies we watch are.
How many of these stories have you done so far?
Including games that don’t really need stories, but just need some editing, I’ve currently worked on 13 games.
Do you have examples of some of the stories you’ve been hired to tell and some of the media through which you have told them?
Probably the best known stories have been for a series of games called Driver. These stories have been written as screenplays and are delivered as CGI animation - often using motion capture. I often direct the voices for these stories too and sometimes the publishers bring in famous names like Mickey Rourke and Iggy Pop and I get to work with them.
How long have you been doing this?
About nine years.
How did you start?
A friend took a job at a company that made games and they needed a writer and I got asked if they could book my time for a couple of weeks. I’ve been working in games ever since.
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