I'm a new writer in the industry, looking to get some more professional experience. What kind of skills should I develop (besides the obvious writing skills) to make myself more attractive in the industry? Programming, creating story boards, etc? Also, is it possible to be a freelance writing in the gaming world? Thanks for any suggestions.

one thing to do is not use common phrases used in stories. also the story needs to seem interesting to you and the reader.

Quote:Original post by Earthen Engraver
What kind of skills should I develop (besides the obvious writing skills) to make myself more attractive in the industry? Programming, creating story boards, etc?

I don't think programming skills will help. Making sure that your 'writing' covers a wide range of areas is handy though; you're gonna need to be good at writing to entertain, to instruct, and to inform. Back story, dialogue, instruction manuals, on-screen tutorials, object descriptions, etc. Story boards are one useful tool, but you should be comfortable writing screenplays and shooting scripts too if you want to maximise your usefulness.

Never forget you're in games and not film though. Dialogue may be limited to what can fit on the screen. Descriptions may need to be written with placeholders in the text where adjectives are swapped in depending on a programmed characteristic. Shooting scripts may have to take into account actor positions being unpredictable, or the player being able to change the course of the script half way.

The key is always to show how your skills match the company's games, so making games and gameplay intrinsic to your portfolio work is going to help a lot.

Quote:Also, is it possible to be a freelance writing in the gaming world?

Given the very small amounts of writing in the typical game, I'd be surprised if it's practical for most writers to be anything but a freelancer.