2026/12 - Screenwriting for Game Developers (Susan O'Connor)

• Structure scenes and quests as units of change (built on want, obstacle, and turn) rather than containers for dialogue.
• Build character through costly player choices, using escalation to structure a game's overall arc and avoid narrative flatlining.
• Deliver exposition through environment, systems, and player action instead of cutscenes, and write dialogue that works through subtext rather than exposition.
• Give and act on story notes effectively, and apply all of the above to redesign a quest or level from participants' own game.

Day 1 - The Toolkit

• Framing: "Like film" means creating structure, not cutscenes.
• What ports over from screenwriting, what doesn't, and why the second list matters as much as the first. Short lecture, then pair discussion: what does "better storytelling" actually mean for your game?

Learning Outcome 1: A scene is a unit of change, not a container for dialogue.

• Want / obstacle / turn
• Enter late, leave early
• The "so what changed?" test
• Exercise: Break down a film scene together. Then break down one of your quests the same way.

Learning Outcome 2: Character is choice under cost ; and in a game, the player is the character.

• Dilemmas vs. options
• The difference between a mechanic and a meaningful choice
• Reveal the character, don't explain the character
• Exercise ("try it now"): Take an existing player choice from your game and add cost. Share with the group.

Learning Outcome 3: Escalation is the engine.

• Acts as promises kept and broken
• Escalation vs. more-of-the-same
• Where games flatline (and why)
• Exercise (scenario challenge): Map your game's arc on the wall. Find where it flatlines. Propose the fix.

Learning Outcome 4: Exposition is a delivery problem, and the world is your best delivery vehicle.

• Dramatize, delay, distribute
• The Story Stack: Player Fantasy → Actions → Progress → World → Story. Story is the most flexible layer. Hold on loosely.
• Exercise: Take one of your cutscenes. Move as much of it as you can into the world and the play.

Close

• **The next-week plan.** Open Q&A. Each person writes down one change they'll make to their project next week.

Day 2 - The Rehearsal Room

• Almost all of Day 2 is scenario work on the studio's own game, with short lectures only where new knowledge is needed.

Learning Outcome 5: Dialogue does one job at a time, and it's rarely the obvious one.

• Why film dialogue feels "better": it's cut to the bone and it's almost never about what it's about.
• Subtext and the thing nobody says
• Character voice as decision-making, not vocabulary
• What to cut first
• Exercise: Rewrite a real exchange from your game. Read both versions aloud.

Learning Outcome 6: Story notes are a craft, not a reaction.

• How to give feedback that improves a scene instead of flattening it ; and how to write a brief a writer can actually execute.
• Diagnose before you prescribe
• Notes that name the problem vs. notes that dictate the fix
• Anatomy of a usable writing brief
• Exercise: Give notes on a scene. Then rewrite your notes.

Learning Outcome 7: Capstone.

• Small teams take one quest or level from the project and run it through every lens from the two days: scene, character, escalation, exposition, dialogue. Each team pitches the redesign to the room. Takeaways extracted live.

Close

• What changes next week. What changes next milestone.

Pour les entreprises qui souhaitent une prise en charge par leur OPCO, l’inscription doit être réalisée au plus tard deux semaines avant le début de la formation pour respecter les délais d’instruction des OPCO. Accessibilité : Nous sommes à la disposition des personnes en situation de handicap pour évaluer avec elles les aménagements nécessaires pour qu’elles puissent suivre sereinement les formations proposées.