Video games and poetic prose (featuring pulpy vampires)
A look at video games with amazing writing, prose and dialogue.
1. On writing
Games can be great without good writing. Some are masterpieces with virtually no writing. Some have weak writing but excellent gameplay. Some have gained cult status thanks to stellar writing.
Games may not need writing, but good prose and dialogue may elevate an otherwise bland world to a memorable experience.
The following games are all classics of good literature, cult or mainstream. Listening to and studying their prose can speed up our own learning and writing ability.
2. Vampires in London
If you enjoy the writing of Charles Dickens, you'll feel at home in the dark, decrepit London of Vampyr, where vampires and werewolves are not the only monsters.
Vampyr deals with some troublesome aspects found in Dickens’ writing - poverty, modern alienation - but shapes them into the story of a doctor turned vampire and the search for his elusive maker.
Vampyr's writing is a remnant of Charles Dickens’ then-modern-now-traditional prose. If Hemingway might have considered Dickens’ prose as overwrought, modernist and postmodernist writers might find it even more so.
Thankfully, the modernized language of Victorian England is perfectly understandable, shaped by brevity, and infused with functional poetry.
Vampyr's dialogue is not the kind of chatter you'd find today on every street corner, but a modern approximation of Victorian and post-Victorian England.
Characters may speak with poetry-laden prose, less usable in common parlance. Nonetheless, the writing follows the tenet of good dialogue - naturalism.
Vampyr takes place in the first part of the 20th century, and its dialogue is a mix between denser Victorian and simplified modern language. It may be understandable by both a Victorian commoner and modern gamers.
Vampyr'e protagonist will eventually be ensnared into a vampiric romance. The accessible poetic dialogue is the perfect means to sustain romance with gentle words of endearment: "I shall only be a heartbeat's away", "My dead heart will beat for only one," "What good fortune brings you."
If one wishes to take inspiration for romantic love letters - well, messages - Vampyr provides in spades. The dialogue is sweet, a bit cloying, infused with the intentional naivete lovers charm each other with.
3. New York Noir
Max Payne's language suits his personality, though Max himself would insist writing to not be his strong suit.
The writing meshes with his attitude and the pacing of his quest for revenge. As he should, Max regards his situation with anger. Time is of the essence, both for revenge and his chance at survival.
The mobster punks must be dealt with promptly, their bosses and the evil overlooking the events brought down in a righteous act of pulp violence.
When the story begins with the unfortunate cliche of a murdered family, Max Payne's life becomes a disjointed rhythm of punchy prose marching to a machine-gun beat.
Max wouldn't declare himself a good writer. But he'd be wrong. By shaping his writing on his attitude he'd rise to the top of the Noir genre in a New York minute.
Max Payne is a brooding underdog out to right a grave injustice. He will do so while putting down an army of mobster punks and delivering a non-stop barrage of quippy one-liners.
Max Payne 1 is a beautiful work of evocative prose, relentless pulp writing with almost no equal. Yes, Max Payne takes inspiration from classic Noir movies, many of which star Humphrey Bogart in his iconic role of detective Marlowe and others.
The writing makes the smart decision to avoid expletives. Though naturalist, expletives would diminish and dilute the power of pulp, which stands on evocative words that express more than expletives can.
The "secret" to pulp writing is not using the most complicated word, but the most evocative. The words avoid vagueness and aim at strong impressions - sight, sound, touch. Their meaning may elude the reader at first, but their sweetness and power cannot be denied.
Even without grasping the meaning at first, we're tempted to search for it, to read again. Evocative words are an essential part of the writing arsenal, creative or copy.
Evocative words and power words are not always the same.
Evocative refers to how strong a word is in creating an impression or feeling. Power words may trigger emotions depending on context, without a clear impression for sense.
Power words are more debatable than evocative ones. The latter are easy to pinpoint via strong association to the senses. Power words may depend on context, evocative words trigger a clearer impression regardless.
Max Payne uses evocative prose like his life depends on it. He rains bullets on his enemies on his quest for justice. The script hammers punchy words as if the world is about to end and the most evocative writing must be conjured up in the ultimate display of poetic prose.
Max Payne 2 tried to improve the pulpy script of the original, but failed to instill the same unbridled passion in its words. Max Payne 1 is the pulp indie script written with total abandon. The second is the professional, colder, mainstream script which Hollywood writers would praise. But they'd be wrong.
Alan Wake brings balance to the writing force by sacrificing the pulp of its precursors. The prose is more naturalist, easier to understand, better than the misguided brevity of Max Payne 2. Alan Wake is professional naturalism. Max Payne is relentless passion.
4. Vampires in Los Angeles
Once more into the pulp fray, on the shadowy streets of Los Angeles, where language is a meld of dialects, at once educated, surreptitious, joyous.
Where Max Payne is raw pulp, Bloodlines is pulp grafted onto urban naturalism. The dialogue is a triumph of modern slang sweetened with poetic prose proving passion and talent.
You won’t find the language in Bloodlines on every street corner, but you’ll find it nonetheless. The dialogue is carefully chosen poetic slang, gifted with quotable phrases, worthy of study regardless of medium.
Through its skilled writing, Bloodlines makes the way different people use language more obvious. Characters in Bloodlines are easy to recognize from their jargon or specific language, whether they use variations of similar or contrasting style.
The prince of the city and other elite speak a more complex, sometimes convoluted, but sickly-sweet jargon filled with words less encountered in day to day life. Not necessarily neologisms, but words which a writing teacher may recommend to avoid.
The common people use standard modern English, simple to understand, yet not always simplified. The genius of Bloodlines is how it infuses both types of language - common and elite - with bits of poetry, spurring the dialogue from purely functional to memorable, quotable, and often beautiful.
The way vampires use language in mesmerizing ways is part of the charm of Gothic culture, where poetry and romanticism flower through the cracks of darkness and death. A "very interesting dissection of the language."
Were Bloodlines to be afflicted with modern trends, it would renounce its flourishing in favor of purely functional dialogue, thus losing its identity and becoming a lifeless shell. A husk of literature.
A lesser writer would script all dialogue in the same manner as most modern games and TV series. Bloodlines takes modern language and plays with it as a child would play on a beach. The script pens simple rules, enjoying the writing and embellishing its forms with poetry, yet making it all functional.
If so desired, the dialogue in Bloodlines may be easily used in everyday life. Not everyone will react pleasantly to its poetic bent - vampires may "suffer" a linguistic upgrade when embraced, and use poetry-infused language in a casual, natural manner.
Bloodlines does a wonderful meld of dialogue at once elitist, casual, understandable. It juggles various types of jargon with a precision worthy of the best literary works.
Its prose is so beautiful, skilled, so precise and enticing that I would always recommend it to novice writers who seek to improve or pen modern dialogue. As all the games mentioned here.
Princes among creatures of the night with linguistic artistry are the Malkavians.
Bloodlines is memorable for its melange of modern language spiced with slam poetry. Malkavians are memorable by pushing language not necessarily to its limit, but by turning it every which way without restraint.
Part of Bloodlines' charm is enjoying the story through the words of a Malkavian, taking part in delicious verbal insanity, accepting to not understand everything Malkavians say at first sight.
5. Shakespearean vampires
Tremendous Shakespeare brought into the present with gusto.
A naturalism of its own, one which respects modern language but delights in poetry. The writing in Legacy of Kain is unapologetic, deftly scribing the line between modern brevity and pure poetry.
"No mug of ale for a weary traveler from distant Korhagen?"
"And so I left, cold of heart and soul, forced to the road, and the long bitter night."
This is the literary essence of Legacy of Kain. Short, pulpy, poetic. Respecting brevity, yes, not for the sake of minimalism, but to unite both understanding and poetry.
Henceforth, the series maintains its poetic prose. A masterclass in stylized classical language, understandable but non-compromising, modern but not bland. Not so much an upgrade to Vampyr, but a poetic road rarely taken in games.
To anyone who wishes to write poetry, look no further than the LOK games. The prose, the fantasy pulp, accessible but evocative are enough to inspire novice poets.
I think of the writing in LOK as classical pulp. If one enjoys the way Max Payne delivers punchy prose, they may enjoy, with a bit of adjustment, the language in Legacy of Kain.
Max Payne and Kain are not so different, after all. Faith has played them for pawns in unpleasant ways. From a somewhat naive idealism to brooding underdogs, Max and Kain would understand each other's attitude and language, implicitly if not explicitly.
Both use evocative words, both will neglect brevity in favor of style, both would be excellent writers, though they'd say otherwise.
Max's diegetic language - the one he uses with other characters - is more naturalist, minimalist, casual. His poetic bent is reserved for the storytelling scenes.
Kain's spoken language is the one needed to depict his grand adventure. Mostly the same evocative poetic script, similar cadence. This is no critique or impediment - all his acquaintances use the same stylized dialogue.
Kain's language is a form of classical English. Yet as he's not afraid to challenge fate, Kain will gladly sprinkle a Latin "vae victis" to instill dread in his enemies.
Surprisingly, the addition is naturalist, betraying no quirkiness. From the first uttering, the line feels not phoned in, but a fitting puzzle piece in Kain's theatrical repertoire.
There is no mention of the grammar or historical dialect of Kain's world, nor is one needed. The Latin cherry fits perfectly with the modernized Shakespearean script.
The prose is not as self-reflective as that of Max Payne, which goes far enough to break the fourth wall and make fun of Max's name.
When Kane says "They would taste my steel, and I their blood," the prose may be considered purple, but the game is quietly self-aware, and knows to indulge in literary playfulness.
Legacy of Kain is Shakespearean in both style and theme. The story deals with every universal theme under and beyond the sun: love, revenge, regret, sacrifice, time-travel, insulting your enemies with clever quips.
If one wishes to start reading Shakespeare, but would fear the complexity of his writing, we can point them to simpler but uncompromising literary works. Legacy of Kain is one of them.
6. The joy of poetic prose
As great writing works, these games make their prose sound effortless, when a lot of literary sweat may be required.
Their merit stands as much in gameplay as in writing. They achieve cult or mainstream classic status by combining skill and love for writing.
To write pulp, accessible and poetic, start with the most basic of principles: write the simplest sentence. Follow with another simple sentence which maintains naturalism. If you find a more evocative word then and there, use it. If not, continue with simple sentences, leave finding the best words for editing.
The essential lesson of the aforementioned games is that writing has power to elevate them beyond the status of escapism. Like all art, we have no guarantee that writing will be stellar, or that a game becomes a cult or mainstream classic. Some games achieve this with naturalist evocative writing. They walk a fine-crafted line between brevity and love of literature.
Their minimalism is calculated, not merely to simplify but to deliver their story and dialogue with both style and brevity.
Of course, they use naturalism to various degrees, and a variation of pulp prose. They sometimes veer into what is called purple prose, presumably a flaw.
Their choice is intentional, aiming evocative words at the heart of meaning and impression. All the games would be weaker for betraying their own literary prowess.
When someone declares video game writing must be simple, these names prove writing itself can elevate media to cult status. Or mainstream classics, as with Bioshock, Mass Effect, and others.
Video games can be educational to a major extent. If not for their subject and mechanical skill, writing alone makes games worthy of study. As literary works, their downside is not to be recognized as art. But this remains a fallacy when discussing artistic fields - writing, music, visual arts etc.
Simply because a piece of media is not assumed to be art in its entirety does not negate the merits of its individual parts.
Thus, games may be educational. To make better acquaintance with evocative words, it's best to rewatch these games often. After, practice writing short-form content with said words - stories, short essays, copywriting etc.
To be fair, all mentioned games will require a dictionary or thesaurus at one point or another. They gracefully avoid the mistake of weeding out beautiful prose for misguided simplification.
Max Payne is a masterclass in pure pulp writing.
Bloodlines achieves level of naturalist pulp dialogue rarely encountered in any medium.
Vampyr is a masterpiece of modernized Victorian English.
Legacy of Kain brings Shakespearean prose into the present by staying faithful to its poetic spirit.
Other games follow suit:
Dragon Age simplifies Medieval-inspired language while paying homage to its poetry.
Bioshock tells a story and themes with skillful dialogue. Its language is natural common day parlance, expertly written in a middle-of-century pulp.
Fallout New Vegas combines modern language and Western slang for one of the sweetest examples of video game writing.
All these games prove beneficial to the aspiring writer, poet, and narrative designer. All are written with passion, talent, and dedication to smart evocative prose.
7. How to write pulp prose
Learn new evocative words. Make the thesaurus your friend. Consult it whether you're writing or taking a well-deserved break.
Read and watch pulp fiction. The writing style, not the movie. To be fair, the movie is one of the best examples of pulp dialogue. But don't limit yourself to it. Read and watch hard-boiled pulp prose regardless of medium and genre.
Start with the simplest phrase possible. Use an evocative word if you find it. If not, leave it for editing.
Write symbolism in all its forms. Pepper your writing by not always revealing explicit ideas. Let cool dialogue do the talking.
Start simple, spice up with pulp.
The advantage of pulp prose stands in evocative words, in their power to say more in a limited space. The words get to the point faster, offer clearer stronger impressions, and help avoid rambling.
Pulp prose may not be for every style. Not all fantasy and realism needs a barrage of pulpy words, though any medium, style and genre will benefit from their magic. Even if the situation won’t fit, pulpy words can sustain brevity, and help us say more while writing less.
Share your knowledge in the comments.