I've gotten a few emails from writer friends who aren't in games asking about what skills game writers need that are different from what's needed for other types of writing. It's a complicated question, but the number one thing is understanding interactivity.
Been in quite a few interviews w screenwriters and novelists trying to break into game writing, and the number one thing that generally tanks their chances is that when we ask how they'd solve narrative problems specifically related to interactivity, they don't have good answers.
A lot of times, they don't have answers at all: it's clear that they're caught off-guard by the question and it's the first time they're really thinking about how they'd solve those problems.
I can't stress this enough: the fact that games are interactive makes the way you construct plot and dialogue and--especially!--exposition very different from in passively consumed media.
In a game where players get to create their own character (like in MMOs or RPGs) rather than playing a specific character (like in Halo or Bioshock) you're very limited in what sort of characterization you can do with the player character.
People get alienated and often angry if the character they created does or says something they wouldn't do.
Often, you can't control the order in which players encounter different pieces of information. You have limited control over *pacing*, even in a game where the plot is fairly on-rails.
Unless you're in a cinematic, you usually can't control where the camera is looking, where the character is standing, etc.
I mean, you only need to look at S4 of Arrested Development to get a sense of how hard this stuff is when you're trying to do fairly traditional storytelling. They wanted you to be able to watch those episodes in any order.
And I admire what they were trying to do, but I don't think they pulled it off, because I don't think they understood all the implications of what that would actually MEAN.
And they STILL had it relatively easy, because at least within an individual episode, they controlled the pacing, the order lines got said in, where the camera was pointing, who was where, etc.
So when we ask a writer from outside games what kind of story they'd tell for an open-world quest, they often start describing something that's cool! but very linear and very pacing-dependent.
So, I can't stress this enough--if you are a writer trying to break into games, don't just watch long plays, don't just play the main storyline. Play the sidequests, take your time, try to do what you don't think the optimal player behavior is, and watch how the game handles it.
Try to break the game. And see how the game responds. Take your time, and see which stories/quests/events still feel compelling when you're screwing with the pacing. Because those are the problems you're going to have to solve. And what you'll get asked about in interviews.
And if you HAVEN'T thought about this stuff, haven't tried to figure out how you'd solve it, it's going to be obvious.
So, the bad news is this stuff is hard, and it takes a lot of thought and analysis to come up with good answers.
The GOOD news, however, is that it's not something that you necessarily need work experience to give good answers to. It's something you can learn about just by watching and playing and thinking through it.
BTW, that's one of the reasons game writers who can actually DO HUMOR (outside of cinematics) are precious. So much of humor is timing and that's one of the factors over which we usually have the least control.
