Lecture reveals secrets to video game writing

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Legendary gaming writer Richard Dansky is speaking Oct. 28 as part of the Caroline Werner Gannett Speaker Series.

One of the world’s top video game writers will join forces with a former Hollywood television producer to reveal industry secrets about how writing for commercial and applied video games really works.

Legendary gaming writer Richard Dansky and Lee Sheldon, associate professor and former writer for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Charlie’s Angels, are the featured speakers for Rochester Institute of Technology’s Caroline Werner Gannett Speaker Series. The talk, “More Than Words Can Say: How Writing for Commercial and Applied Games Really Works,” will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 28 in Carlson Auditorium, Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, and is just one example of interdisciplinary projects connecting RIT colleges. The series is co-sponsored by RIT’s College of Liberal Arts and B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences’ School of Interactive Games and Media.

Dansky is known for writing for bestselling games including Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: 3, Outland and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. He was a major contributor to White Wolf’s World of Darkness and will be developing the 20th anniversary edition of Wraith: The Oblivion. His most recent novel, Vaporware, is available from JournalStone Publishing.

Sheldon, associate professor in the games and simulation arts and sciences program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is a professional writer and designer for games for entertainment as well as education in engineering, science and business ethics. He also wrote and produced more than 200 television shows. His textbook, Character Development and Storytelling for Games, is regarded by experts as an industry standard.

“Not all humanities are born digital, but all humanities must now pass through the digital,” said Amit Ray, associate professor of English in the College of Liberal Arts and one of the series organizers. “Our two guests have lived through, and contributed to, the transition of writing in mediums old and new. Their work exemplifies concepts that describe our current state of computational media, ‘transmediated’ and ‘convergent.’ As writers (but also as producers and coordinators and scholars), Lee and Richard between them have worlds of experience bridging creativity, industry and our own spaces of creative inquiry and endeavor, the university. They are major figures in this growing world of writing for games and in developing both writing and games for transitions across new platforms and spaces.”

For more information about the free presentation, contact Ray at 585-475-2437 or axrgsl@rit.edu.

Lee Sheldon, associate professor in the games and simulation arts and sciences program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is a professional writer and designer for games for entertainment as well as education in engineering, science and business ethics. He is speaking Oct. 28 as part of the Caroline Werner Gannett Speaker Series.