On November 12th Legacy Interactive released their long-awaited Murder, She Wrote computer game - five new stories encompassing around 80 puzzles, most of which are hidden object games (HOGs) that require the player to locate several objects in a busy, complicated scene. If you’ve downloaded this game and have bothered to read the credits, you’ll see that the five stories were written by me.
I must admit that I didn’t know quite what I was getting into when I was first approached by the game’s producers, who were looking for a fan fiction writer willing to pen five original stories. But I was game to try - my first paying gig! I pitched eleven potential story ideas, the producers settled on the five they liked best, and the writing began.
Unlike fan fiction, which knows no limitations, the stories written for the game had to adhere to a fairly strict pre-determined structure: only five or so locations could be used in each story, and each location had to be revisited at least four or five times. This makes sense when one considers that the artists can’t be expected to draw countless detailed backgrounds - five is plenty! The challenge, then, was to come up with a plot that didn’t need to range beyond five specific locales, and a trail of clues that would logically lead the player through those five locales again and again and again (though not necessarily in the same order each time). This was not easy to do! The other big challenge was to present the clues almost entirely in the form of physical objects, as opposed to presenting them as verbal tidbits dropped in dialogue. I quickly realized, as I tried to plot out my stories, that in my normal writing I depend a lot on dialogue. Not being able to use the old “slip of the lip” method for advancing the plot felt like writing with one hand tied behind my back. But after the first couple of stories, I had the format down well enough to be comfortable with it.
The editor that was reviewing my work was fantastic; she really pushed me to make the stories as tight and logical as possible. After submitting a rough draft that essentially just sketched out the locations, the characters, and a rough outline of the plot, she would send the draft back with suggested changes. Once the structure of the story was set, the next step was to write in the dialogue, which went through more back-and-forth for editorial review and revision. And when that was settled, the story was finished. The case notes that went along with each story (the summaries of each completed scene that the player can click on to track their progress) came next - these were not written by me, although I did proofread them and suggest some changes. After that, aside from penning some snippets of additional dialogue on request, my work on the project was finished.
From the beginning, my hope was to present five original MSW stories that were as authentic as possible despite the fact that they were being presented in an entirely new medium. Getting the sound of each of the characters right was important, as was presenting as real a Cabot Cove as I could given a limitation of showing only five bits of it at a time. Early reviews would seem to indicate that I succeeded. If I didn’t, let me know! There’s already a sequel planned, and yes, I will be writing the stories for that as well.
