An important first step for me on Grimhook was the initial planning stage of the narrative.  Over the years, it has become my method to first plan out my story in its entirety before I begin writing anything that will make it into the final project.  Still, details can and often do change during the writing process, especially in game development.  Maintaining this story-bible not only laid the groundwork for me as narrative designer, but it also helped act as a guide for any narrative-related questions that came up from other departments.

A copy of the full story bible can be found in my writing samples page

Dialogue has always been my preferred method of characterization.  Over the past few years, it has become one of my greatest strengths as a writer.  Given its medium, Grimhook needed a slightly different approach to dialogue writing, being a fully-voiced game with dialogue triggered by player progression.  In addition, given its nature as a tutorial level, Grimhook needed some amount of pragmatic dialogue to tutorialize players. I had to adjust my writing and strike a balance.  The dialogue needed to be purposeful and fulfill my level designer's needs of teaching the player while still being expressive and entertaining. 

Part of my process when working on large-scale narrative projects is adapting my work to other mediums.  By translating the world and characters of Grimhook into a novel format, I was able to view my work from a different angle.  This widened perspective helped shine a light on aspects of Grimhook's story that I had not given much attention to before.  In the case, the addition of narration allowed me to explore the elements of body horror inherent to the dynamic of the two main characters.

Full chapter can be found in my writing samples page