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plutherusCharacter and World Building in Life Is Strange - Part Four
I’m looking at some of the writing lessons to be learned from the video game Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
For the complete series, see https://plutherus.dreamwidth.org/tag/lifeisstrange
Warning: Contains many many spoilers.
Episode 2: Brave New World
It’s the day after Rachel started the forest fire. (Good going, Rachel!)
We start off meeting with the principal. Seems he was unhappy with Chloe skipping school again. Joyce is there with Chloe, and Rachel’s parents, her DA dad and Stepford mom, are there with her. A brief conversation reiterates that Rachel is the perfect student who’s never been in trouble before and that Chloe is… not.
There are a few possible outcomes from the meeting to navigate.
Rachel is trying to convince you to let her take the blame for the two of you skipping school. You can allow her, or challenge her and shift the blame back to yourself. The eventual outcome depends on how much, and how well, you do that, by choosing the right responses in the conversation.
If you let Rachel take the blame (or try and fail to shift blame to yourself), then you end up suspended and Rachel is kicked out of the play she’s starring in, replaced by her arch rival Victoria. If you succeed in the challenge you can keep her in the play, but then you get expelled instead of suspended.
If Rachel is removed from the play, there’s a scene later where you psych Victoria out of the role and the director is left with no choice but to reinstate Rachel. I assume if you succeeded in this challenge that scene simply wouldn’t be there, which would be too bad because it’s a fun scene.
It’s a sort of “magician’s choice” - where it gives the player the illusion of choice but all results end up in the same place, albeit with slightly different routes. Anyone who’s ever run a D&D campaign does this sort of thing all the time.
I chose to challenge her. No way I’m letting my new best friend take the fall for me, even if it was her idea.
The challenge dialog is a clever way again of talking on two levels. Rachel is trying to convince Chloe, but speaking to the principal.
She claims she threatened Chloe about what would happen if she didn’t go with her. First, a nice dig, making the principal squirm, with:
It’s subtle, but gets the point across that not everything here is all Chloe’s fault. But, really, most of it is. (Sixteen year old Chloe and Twenty-Four year old Delokita have a lot in common. I swear I’d already finished Thoughtless before I ever started playing these games.)
But then she continues, talking to the principal, and occasionally glaring at Chloe to punctuate her words. That part could be done in a novel with blocking between the dialog, but really the words stand on their own and may not need much.
It goes right over all the adult’s heads, but Chloe gets the message.
Whether she’s suspended or expelled, Chloe is escorted to clean out her locker by Skip the security guard from the previous chapter. He expresses sympathy.
I’m assuming if you were a jerk to him earlier, by telling him he sucks or by refusing to listen to his demo he’d be less sympathetic now, but that’s probably the only difference. Either way, Chloe cleans out her locker, throwing all the text books into the trash can and taking the picture of her cat with her.
After that, Chloe asks to go to the bathroom. Skip lets her, and she spends the next couple of minutes graffiting every single surface during the opening credits to the tune of Daughter’s Don’t Care. Another difference between a novel and a game. In the game, or a movie, you can invoke mood with music, lighting, and facial expressions. In writing you have only words. This scene could still be done. Maybe something like:
Then again, novels don’t need opening credits. But in the game, it’s a good scene.
(Also, no, the cigar-chomping dragon wasn’t Wormy. I know, I was sad about that, too.)
Finally, Chloe heads out to the parking lot. They put a lot of care into matching everybody’s car to the person, from Principal Wells’ expensive ride to Ms. Grant’s scooter and Skip’s bumper-sticker covered car. Again, in a novel these could be quickly described, and each detail would give more personality to each character. (You’d have to be careful not to give too many details, though. More on that in the next part.)
In the parking lot, there’s another encounter with Eliot. He expresses concern over your suspension. But they seem to be going with creep factor with this guy. Again, it's just a few lines of dialog, but they get the point across.
He starts with "Do you want a hug"?
Then goes on to asking her, again, if she wants to see the Tempest with him, which you've already turned down. And when you tell him Rachel's no longer in it, his only comment is "She'll live." Harsh, dude. Which is exactly what Chloe says, so good for her. Then he asks her if she wants to hang out instead of seeing the play. Dude, get the hint.
I’m not sure if creepy is what they’re going for, or if it’s just awkward writing. Or an accurate description of an awkward 16 year old boy. In any case, you have options to accept the hug or the tickets. I took neither. Perhaps this is a separate romance storyline if you don’t pursue the one with Rachel. Guess we’ll find out in Episode 3. This is a problem with subtlety in writing.
Let me deviate into an example from my own novel for a moment. It can be hard to tell clever misdirection from bad writing. One way to do so is to get the reader to trust you early. In Yellow Tape and Coffee at one point I have the cops speak with the assumption that wolves are ravenous dangerous beasts who will not hesitate to attack humans. Of course that’s not true, which I point out just a few paragraphs later. The whole point of that was to show that I knew that when they discussed it, so the reader can learn not to trust everything the characters say, and also to show that I did know that and in the future when something looks like it doesn’t make any sense there’s probably a reason for it other than the author overlooked something. (Also I wanted to point out that in the real world wolves, while apex predators, are not really a danger to people and everyone should stop trying to drive them into extinction out of fear.)
Back to the game, Chloe’s mom and David are waiting at the far end of the parking lot. Chloe’s trying hard to get along, but this time it’s Joyce’s bad decisions getting in the way, not Chloe’s. David tells Chloe he’s willing to forgive her. Forgive HER? He spent the entire morning insulting, bullying and demeaning her, frequently in misogynistic terms, and when she’d had enough he pretends he’s the wronged party. I could not bring myself to cooperate even a tiny bit with this asshat.
The dialog in this one is well done, though, and worth looking closely at. It made David clearly unlikable, even though everything he said was right:
Sixteen year olds shouldn't be smoking pot.
Blowing a scholarship at a prestigious private high school was a big deal.
Petty crimes, skipping school, are all bad things and will impact her future badly.
Then he called her a loser.
The way he says it, though, everything was framed about her not respecting him. He’s older and knows better so she should obey him. Then he wonders why it’s not getting through and she still has problems even though he told her not to anymore. In the last chapter, on the train, if you discuss David with Rachel, Chloe will say "He treats me like I'm a problem to be solved". In this scene you see that in action. One advantage novel writing has over game writing is that in the novel you can decide which conversations happened earlier, so later conversations don’t have to work multiple ways.
You can also see, based on Joyce and David’s word choice the conversation they didn’t show between them earlier:
“I’m at my wit’s end. She’s slipping, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Let me talk to her. I can help her out. Let me try it my way.”
“Well, if you think you can help. Nothing I’m doing is working.”
So he thinks he’s in charge now.
He ended it by demanding that Chloe earn back "their" trust by proving she's not still using drugs, starting with emptying her pockets onto the hood of the car. Chloe is shocked at the demand. It’s another violation of her person and her reaction makes that clear. She looks to Joyce who just looks embarrassed.
Joyce isn’t wrong. But neither is she right. Both sides have good points, and things they just won’t give on. Again, two people with the same goals nonetheless coming into conflict. It makes for much more emotional drama than a strict good guy/bad buy situation.
I felt the Chloe I was playing wouldn't give in, so chose the "refuse" option and ended up storming away. Eliot tries again to approach her on the way out of the parking lot but she brushes him off. Later, loser, I've got a date to hang out at the junkyard with the DA's hot daughter.
I’m looking at some of the writing lessons to be learned from the video game Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
For the complete series, see https://plutherus.dreamwidth.org/tag/lifeisstrange
Warning: Contains many many spoilers.
Episode 2: Brave New World
It’s the day after Rachel started the forest fire. (Good going, Rachel!)
We start off meeting with the principal. Seems he was unhappy with Chloe skipping school again. Joyce is there with Chloe, and Rachel’s parents, her DA dad and Stepford mom, are there with her. A brief conversation reiterates that Rachel is the perfect student who’s never been in trouble before and that Chloe is… not.
There are a few possible outcomes from the meeting to navigate.
Rachel is trying to convince you to let her take the blame for the two of you skipping school. You can allow her, or challenge her and shift the blame back to yourself. The eventual outcome depends on how much, and how well, you do that, by choosing the right responses in the conversation.
If you let Rachel take the blame (or try and fail to shift blame to yourself), then you end up suspended and Rachel is kicked out of the play she’s starring in, replaced by her arch rival Victoria. If you succeed in the challenge you can keep her in the play, but then you get expelled instead of suspended.
If Rachel is removed from the play, there’s a scene later where you psych Victoria out of the role and the director is left with no choice but to reinstate Rachel. I assume if you succeeded in this challenge that scene simply wouldn’t be there, which would be too bad because it’s a fun scene.
It’s a sort of “magician’s choice” - where it gives the player the illusion of choice but all results end up in the same place, albeit with slightly different routes. Anyone who’s ever run a D&D campaign does this sort of thing all the time.
I chose to challenge her. No way I’m letting my new best friend take the fall for me, even if it was her idea.
The challenge dialog is a clever way again of talking on two levels. Rachel is trying to convince Chloe, but speaking to the principal.
She claims she threatened Chloe about what would happen if she didn’t go with her. First, a nice dig, making the principal squirm, with:
I knew it would be easy, given all the prejudices against her.
It’s subtle, but gets the point across that not everything here is all Chloe’s fault. But, really, most of it is. (Sixteen year old Chloe and Twenty-Four year old Delokita have a lot in common. I swear I’d already finished Thoughtless before I ever started playing these games.)
But then she continues, talking to the principal, and occasionally glaring at Chloe to punctuate her words. That part could be done in a novel with blocking between the dialog, but really the words stand on their own and may not need much.
“Chloe,” I told her, “If you get blamed for this, you will be in serious trouble. Serious. Trouble. Whereas I, having a perfect record, will not.”
“Think about it,” I told her. “And don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
It goes right over all the adult’s heads, but Chloe gets the message.
Whether she’s suspended or expelled, Chloe is escorted to clean out her locker by Skip the security guard from the previous chapter. He expresses sympathy.
“Fuck ‘em. Bunch of fascists.”
-Skip the Security Guard
I’m assuming if you were a jerk to him earlier, by telling him he sucks or by refusing to listen to his demo he’d be less sympathetic now, but that’s probably the only difference. Either way, Chloe cleans out her locker, throwing all the text books into the trash can and taking the picture of her cat with her.
After that, Chloe asks to go to the bathroom. Skip lets her, and she spends the next couple of minutes graffiting every single surface during the opening credits to the tune of Daughter’s Don’t Care. Another difference between a novel and a game. In the game, or a movie, you can invoke mood with music, lighting, and facial expressions. In writing you have only words. This scene could still be done. Maybe something like:
Chloe took her marker from her back pocket and went to work. She filled the mirror and walls with all the hurtful words said to her in the previous days: “Women take forever to get ready!” “Insubordinate!” “Disrespectful!” “There will be consequences!” A giant hand, middle finger extended, covered the floor and a pot leaf adorned a stall door. A dragon smoking a cigar joined the wall next to the fire alarm (And how safe is putting the alarm in the far back corner of the bathroom? How do they even expect you to break the glass unless someone happened to leave a hammer lying around? Would there even be time?)
On the last stall, she drew a sketch of Max. It always came down to Max. She pushed the tears down with a snarl and looked away to finish the job.
Then again, novels don’t need opening credits. But in the game, it’s a good scene.
(Also, no, the cigar-chomping dragon wasn’t Wormy. I know, I was sad about that, too.)
Finally, Chloe heads out to the parking lot. They put a lot of care into matching everybody’s car to the person, from Principal Wells’ expensive ride to Ms. Grant’s scooter and Skip’s bumper-sticker covered car. Again, in a novel these could be quickly described, and each detail would give more personality to each character. (You’d have to be careful not to give too many details, though. More on that in the next part.)
In the parking lot, there’s another encounter with Eliot. He expresses concern over your suspension. But they seem to be going with creep factor with this guy. Again, it's just a few lines of dialog, but they get the point across.
He starts with "Do you want a hug"?
Then goes on to asking her, again, if she wants to see the Tempest with him, which you've already turned down. And when you tell him Rachel's no longer in it, his only comment is "She'll live." Harsh, dude. Which is exactly what Chloe says, so good for her. Then he asks her if she wants to hang out instead of seeing the play. Dude, get the hint.
I’m not sure if creepy is what they’re going for, or if it’s just awkward writing. Or an accurate description of an awkward 16 year old boy. In any case, you have options to accept the hug or the tickets. I took neither. Perhaps this is a separate romance storyline if you don’t pursue the one with Rachel. Guess we’ll find out in Episode 3. This is a problem with subtlety in writing.
Let me deviate into an example from my own novel for a moment. It can be hard to tell clever misdirection from bad writing. One way to do so is to get the reader to trust you early. In Yellow Tape and Coffee at one point I have the cops speak with the assumption that wolves are ravenous dangerous beasts who will not hesitate to attack humans. Of course that’s not true, which I point out just a few paragraphs later. The whole point of that was to show that I knew that when they discussed it, so the reader can learn not to trust everything the characters say, and also to show that I did know that and in the future when something looks like it doesn’t make any sense there’s probably a reason for it other than the author overlooked something. (Also I wanted to point out that in the real world wolves, while apex predators, are not really a danger to people and everyone should stop trying to drive them into extinction out of fear.)
Back to the game, Chloe’s mom and David are waiting at the far end of the parking lot. Chloe’s trying hard to get along, but this time it’s Joyce’s bad decisions getting in the way, not Chloe’s. David tells Chloe he’s willing to forgive her. Forgive HER? He spent the entire morning insulting, bullying and demeaning her, frequently in misogynistic terms, and when she’d had enough he pretends he’s the wronged party. I could not bring myself to cooperate even a tiny bit with this asshat.
The dialog in this one is well done, though, and worth looking closely at. It made David clearly unlikable, even though everything he said was right:
Sixteen year olds shouldn't be smoking pot.
Blowing a scholarship at a prestigious private high school was a big deal.
Petty crimes, skipping school, are all bad things and will impact her future badly.
Then he called her a loser.
The way he says it, though, everything was framed about her not respecting him. He’s older and knows better so she should obey him. Then he wonders why it’s not getting through and she still has problems even though he told her not to anymore. In the last chapter, on the train, if you discuss David with Rachel, Chloe will say "He treats me like I'm a problem to be solved". In this scene you see that in action. One advantage novel writing has over game writing is that in the novel you can decide which conversations happened earlier, so later conversations don’t have to work multiple ways.
You can also see, based on Joyce and David’s word choice the conversation they didn’t show between them earlier:
“I’m at my wit’s end. She’s slipping, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Let me talk to her. I can help her out. Let me try it my way.”
“Well, if you think you can help. Nothing I’m doing is working.”
So he thinks he’s in charge now.
He ended it by demanding that Chloe earn back "their" trust by proving she's not still using drugs, starting with emptying her pockets onto the hood of the car. Chloe is shocked at the demand. It’s another violation of her person and her reaction makes that clear. She looks to Joyce who just looks embarrassed.
“What happened to trust being a two-way street, Mom?”
“That was before you got suspended.”
“This isn’t the way to get it back. Not at all.”
Joyce isn’t wrong. But neither is she right. Both sides have good points, and things they just won’t give on. Again, two people with the same goals nonetheless coming into conflict. It makes for much more emotional drama than a strict good guy/bad buy situation.
I felt the Chloe I was playing wouldn't give in, so chose the "refuse" option and ended up storming away. Eliot tries again to approach her on the way out of the parking lot but she brushes him off. Later, loser, I've got a date to hang out at the junkyard with the DA's hot daughter.
