Before it starts Writing video games, Emma Kidwell liked Dusk fan fiction. His “bad and self-insert” stories found a house on DevantartAn online community where people have published a fan art, an original work and much more. “The weak entrance barrier made it very accessible,” says Kidwell.
His writing turned into a role -playing game in the forums, and Dusk Fandom has given way to a love of video games like Mass effect. Today, Kidwell is a writer for Firaxis games and a rising star in the world of playing the game. His work includes Hindsight,, Borderlands 4,, Life is strange 2And Sid Meier VII civilization; It was presented in Forbes 30 Under 30 And The Game Awards Future Class from 2023.
This week, it hosts the annual prices of the independent game festival during the Conference of game developers in San Francisco. All of this goes parallel to her speech on how writing in the fandoms when she was helped to write DLC for The Suns of Midnight de Marvel.
It turns out that the writing of fan fiction is not so different from writing characters under license. “I play a role when I write Marvel IP for Firaxis,” says Kidwell. “Fan fiction gave me this base to build.”
Fan fiction has often been considered as a lower form of writing, as an indulgent or scandalously erotic self, the kind of work that we do in secret. In the pantheon of Internet culture, few fanficates have ever reached glory, and those who have sometimes done so for the health nature of their work. “My immortal”, a famous Harry Potter fanfic, is always Referenced in interviews Today. Writers such as El James, who created the Fifty shades series (originally a Dusk Fanfic), however, began to transform their work into something profitable.
Others, like Kidwell, have transformed a track for their careers. “I think that due to the relationship of fan fiction with marginalized communities, it was not initially considered as a valid form of writing,” explains Kidwell. Obviously, it’s bad. The games of games and fanficies make a harmonious marriage. Nature focused on the history of most games means a lot of fodder for fans who want new stories, but writers on well -known sites like Archive of Our Own can – and will do everything in an original story. Same tetris.
“The fan fiction is your sandbox,” says Kidwell. “You can play. There are no rules. You are comfortable with characters who are not yours and do what you want with them.”
For MidnightKidwell had four characters of your choice, notably Deadpool and Storm. Everything she wrote would be based on the comic versions of the characters, not their cinematographic counterparts. During the search for the two characters, she had a revelation: “It is really similar to what I think when creating an original character in a game frame. How does this character integrate with other established characters?”
Kidwell’s position writers still have to stick to the rules of the franchise, including his barrel. This did not prevent Kidwell from being able to tell the stories she wants. “I think that a big false and common idea with IP writing is that it is super restrictive,” says Kidwell. “But I think there is a lot of freedom of creation in certain borders because you can inject a small piece of yourself into these characters. It’s just a bit like a puzzle: understand how you can do it authentic and how you can do it in a way that makes sense for the game.”
Kidwell always role in his free time. Right now, she is deeply in the Dragon Age community. “I consider IP writing as a kind of intermediary,” she says about fan fiction and fiction. This is a next natural step in the role -playing game: “I do it just in a professional setting now.”
