Dev team looking for a writer!

Professional Services
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Hello there!

We are a team of devs that are looking for a writer for a project that has never been done!

I have a love for this genre and would love to partner with a writer who can help us bring a story to life. The task is very simple, we need a story and a darn good one at that. This project is groundbreaking from a dev standpoint so we need the story to reflect that same level of story writing!

The overall theme of the story will revolve around Japanese culture!

We will be compensating this writer based on experience and preferred payment methods. We can pay upfront or royalties or a mixture of both.

Please let me know if this is something that interests you!

Here are some preliminary answers to help scope this project:

Would this be a one shot Story or released in episodes? - This will be one story.
Are graphics planned? - There will be marketing material created but the images will not accompany the story line.
Should the writing be stat or story based? - I’m not sure I understand the difference. But based of my assumption, I would want the story to be very simple. Easy to follow but incorporates some twists and turns.
With romance, without romance, or romance based? - We do not have a preference.
When you say you want one way to win the game, I assume there is not much branching expected? - Not expecting a “ton” of different branches. But some interesting twists never hurt!
Should the player character be defined, genderlocked or a blank one? - Once again, I am open for artist freedom.
Do you have a wordcount in mind? I have not considered a particular number. No.

Since I need to prove something to @will ,
The link below is a picture of my business credit card and how I make my money. If there is anything else you need to prove myself. Please let me know. I’ve got nothing to hide other than some IP.

Google Photos

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hello! i’m interested in this. i’ve published multiple games through HG and i’ve actually been considering a collaboration for my next project. I’m a competent coder but prefer to focus on writing so i’d be happy to work with a dev team.

questions:

  • would this be a choicescript project?
  • if so, are you planning to publish through hosted games?
  • do you have a story outline in place? it sounds like there’s a rough idea, but are we at “we’re writing about japan!” or “here are the three acts of the story with chapter summaries”
  • On that subject, what experience are you looking for here? i’m a white american who has visited (and enjoyed!) japan but i would not consider myself an expert or even really qualified on the subject and i certainly wouldn’t want to step on the toes of someone who’d be a better writer in this instance.
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While I do not consider myself a good writer, I do know an anthropologist that would be a great asset to help represent Japanese culture accurately.

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would this be a choicescript project? - We are open to this. I have been messing with Choicescript so that is a plus for me.
if so, are you planning to publish through hosted games? - This "game" will be hosted privately and played through blockchain technology! 
do you have a story outline in place? it sounds like there’s a rough idea, but are we at “we’re writing about japan!” or “here are the three acts of the story with chapter summaries” - We are all for artistic freedoms! I have some variables that I would like to work with. But very open generally speaking! 

On that subject, what experience are you looking for here? i’m a white american who has visited (and enjoyed!) japan but i would not consider myself an expert or even really qualified on the subject and i certainly wouldn’t want to step on the toes of someone who’d be a better writer in this instance. - We appreciate the honesty here and definitely think you could be considered for this collaboration! Please DM us!
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Phantmwolf,

Thank you! Please send their information over!

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I don’t mean to pry, but the situation seems here that the plan for this game is:

  • hosted through blockchain somehow
  • anime
  • no other requirements

Am I missing something? It’s like inviting someone over for dinner and when they ask what food they’ll be having you say that it’s “served with magnet technology.” Like … huh?

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Will,

It is hard for me to provide too much information because it could be used as a benefit to other folks. I am purposefully vague because of that, I apologize!

We are simply looking for some help writing/mapping the story. Why not provide the artists freedom to do what they do best then hand it to my devs and allow them to do the rest!

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is this not an attractive idea to you? :smiley:

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Oh, this is a classic rookie mistake. Ideas are cheap and disposable – when you hire a writer, you’re not hiring them to come up with the best ideas, you’re hiring them to get the job done, i.e. put words on paper. Anyone can come up with ideas. In fact, it’s really fun and easy! The reason you’d hire a writer is to make the idea a reality.

The mistake here is the belief that any idea – literally any possible idea you could come up with, no matter how good – is something that is worth stealing. Every writer who has the time and motivation to write a story would rather spend it on their own ideas, because ideas are free. Writing them down is what costs you time and money.

Speaking of which. You briefly discussed compensation in your opening post, but let’s go over some numbers. You’re looking for a writer with at least some experience. But, if you were looking for reliable proven working professionals, you’d be approaching specific writers whose work you admire rather than a blanket post open to anyone who answers. So let’s say you’re looking for intermediate writers, not beginners but also not someone who is in major demand from competing organisations or industries.

The best agreed-upon method of paying writers is by the word. For an intermediate writer, that’s between 7 and 12 cents per word. Let’s say 7. According to polls conducted on this forum, the shortest interactive fiction piece that people are generally willing to give a chance is 100,000 words long (I personally disagree with this, but that’s the convention right now). That means, at bare minimum, you should be willing to pay $7,000 to have this piece written.

If you look at that figure and balk at the price, keep in mind that is, again, the bare minimum that an intermediate level writer should be willing to accept. I wouldn’t accept this work for $7,000, myself, because I could spend my hours working on other things that will get me more money than that (generally non-writing, sadly), or things that are based on my own ideas rather than someone else’s. I’m not the typical case, however. It definitely would be worth it for other people, so if you’re willing to pay 7 grand, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding writers. Any paying gig for a writer is a feather in their cap.

(it’s unfortunately easy to exploit hungry writers, which is why I’m being explicit about what payment should be considered fair – if you’re a writer reading this and these numbers seem surprising, do some research into industry standard rates to make sure you’re not taken advantage of)

Personally, if I were in your position, I would budget $12,000, the higher end of that scale, because IF is more difficult to write than other types of fiction. Or, more accurately, I’d read widely, find specific writers whose work I admire, and offer them $20,000 instead.

This is all assuming the work will end up at 100,000 words. If it goes to 200,000 words, double all the numbers here.

Just wanted to make the scale of such a work you’ve proposed clear. If this all seems reasonable to you, full steam ahead! :slight_smile: If not, then you might have unrealistic expectations about the kind of work you’re asking for.

When I wrote that down I actually did think for a moment, “You know, in the right context, dinner served with magnets, somehow, would be pretty cool!” Of course I’d still want to know what I’d be eating! :slight_smile:

attractive

magnets

I’m a dumbass lol

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You missed that pun? How … ironic.

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Anonymous "we"s always raise a few flags, OP, so no offense, but perhaps you’d be better served identifying yourself so that folks can confirm you’re legit. And I agree with @will that you haven’t provided sufficient information to convince anyone to enter into talks with you.

Also, I assume you know that you’re not allowed to monetize Choicescript through private hosting unless/until you obtain a license from the owners. I would suggest making it clear that you have already officially cleared that (significant) hurdle before soliciting writers.

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I immediately thought they were looking for someone to write a story for this VN paywall Apps (chapters, choices, Lovestruck and whatever else they are called).

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I appreciate your feedback.

“We” refers to the folks working with me. I am sorry you do not feel comfortable with that. We are not looking for someone to code or write using a particular software. We need someone to write a story and help with pathing. No code.

We are asking the writer to set the environment to Japan. And we need one “outcome” to result in a “win” Passed that. It’s completely open otherwise.

I understand that this takes time. And I appreciate the “quotes” provided by @will . I also understand what I am asking for and trust the artist to provide a proper quote after a consultation. If they choose not to then so be it.

This definitely seems like y’all have had bad experience or something and this is my first round at using this forum to contract work. So I apologize if I did not provide the proper information but you definitely are providing an interesting first experience with these forums.

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Several additional questions:

Would this be a one shot Story or released in episodes?
Are graphics planned?
Should the writing be stat or story based?
With romance, without romance, or romance based?
When you say you want one way to win the game, I assume there is not much branching expected?
Should the player character be defined, genderlocked or a blank one?
Do you have a wordcount in mind?

All this is information, I would expect to be in the first Posts, they do Not give away anything about the story itself but helps a writer what to expect.

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Thank you for posting this! I’ll add to original post.

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This sets off warning bells. The use of scare quotes around “quotes” and passing off responsibility for naming a price to the writer communicates that you don’t believe that the rates that I quoted were reasonable. Thing is, they were the absolute lowest that an online publication can reasonably get away with paying writers who aren’t absolute beginners.

Putting the onus on the writer to name a price is in bad faith because, frankly, most writers don’t know what they’re worth. They’ll underquote you just because a lot of writers are really eager to get any sort of gig and don’t want to scare you off. That’s just the reality of it.

What that means is that asking largely non professionally-working writers to name their own price is exploitation. After all, you’ll just turn away the people who name a reasonable price and go with the writer that gives you a cheap option. You’re also forcing the writer to reach out to you rather than making the first move. All the mental effort is spent by the people applying. That’s not very fair at all!

You’re shooting yourself in the foot. A good writer with experience won’t be afraid to name a reasonable rate for their work. If you’re looking for a cheap alternative, you’re going to get writers that aren’t realistically thinking about the amount of work that this project will take. You don’t want that.

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Not necessarily. It’s just that vagueness in job listings tend to be a serious red flag for most professionals, or semi-professionals. So is a lack of clear indication of what the salary might be.
Especially in creative fields, as a LOT of people want to take advantage of creatives.

Also this is a forum for writing ChoiceScript games specifically, and particularly publishing them through CoG or HG, not game writers in general.
So a post like this isn’t common, or expected, around here.

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I have updated my original post to provide evidence that I am a business trying to recruit services. @will @The_Lady_Luck @Eric_Moser

What else do yall need?

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What does a business credit card have to do with my concerns about the risk of exploitation of writers? There are plenty of perfectly legitimate businesses who conduct unethical practices. I really, really struggle to see the relevance here. What does it matter that your business has a credit card? Plenty of businesses don’t. What does it prove? This is getting weirder and weirder with every new reveal.

Let’s use my analogy from before.

“Come over to my house for dinner!”

“I’d love to! What are we having?”

“You will be served with magnet technology.”

“What? Uh, cool, I guess? What will be eating?”

“Are you saying I’m not a good chef? Look, I have a license to serve food. You can’t say I’m not a chef.”

“That – what? Huh? What will we be eating?”

“I invite you over for dinner and you keep asking all these rude questions! I thought you were a better person than that. Why don’t you think magnets are cool?”

“I just want to know what we’ll be eating. I don’t really care about the magnets, to be honest.”

“I showed you my license to serve food! I told you it’ll be served with magnet technology! What more could I possibly tell you?”

“You could tell me what we’re eating!”

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As someone who is currently working on a visual novel as a writer for far below market price, I would never even think of applying for your project. It sounds beyond sketchy because you dodge questions and have no ultimate goal to tell us. You also have seemingly no stakes in this story yourself - why would I or any other writer be interested in ‘some story about Japan’?

I learn Japanese in my free time. If I wanted to I could research Yokai, learn about the Shinsengumi, dive into the depth of tea ceremonies, get lost in Japanese mythology, etc. I don’t need a company wanting to use blockchain technology to do so.

I’m not in any way established as a freelance writer (I have a short story in a children’s book under my belt and that’s it) and would not work for the rate I currently work at if it wasn’t a passion project of a longtime online friend who has already successfully released her own game and worked on the outline for this story for years. She is releasing this one for free once it is finished. So she’s not making any money from it and the ‘entry level’ for people looking to play it is as low as it gets - free.

If you plan to (mostly) pay people in exposure, because you are not putting any certain word count up or what you are willing to pay people for, then that’s the way to go.

Beyond that, either be upfront about your project, or do things yourself. Writers are not looking for revolutionary technological advances, they’re looking to bring a story to life that interests them and pays their bills while doing so.

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