Karen Traviss: There actually was a story bible for Gears of War, but again it was a minimal one and half of it we threw away because it wasn’t working out. And that’s what you should do with a story bible - you shouldn’t live by it. It should be a starting point, with bits to be thrown out, bits kept in and everything inbetween.
In terms of other stuff I do... I’ve been given totally free reign on Halo. I was asked to ‘give them a Traviss series’ - otherwise why ask me? I say to them, knowing it’s a game, ‘where do you want me to end up to get to Game 4? Is there anything you want me to seed backwards in this series?’
It’s a very collaborative experience. Sometimes they ask me not to write certain things in, or that a particular thing must happen at this point... but they’re never big things, often just one-liners.
And even Star Wars, despite... Star Wars being Star Wars... The Republic Commando stuff didn’t touch anything else in the franchise. I just went off into a vacuum because I had never written a tie-in before either at that point. It was only supposed to be a freebie to give away with the game, and I basically did the SAS in Star Wars. I didn’t know anything about it!
SPOnG: That was received quite well though, wasn’t it?
Karen Traviss: It was one of the biggest sellers, yeah.
Karen Traviss: It doesn’t direct how I write. That’s one thing I always stick by. I have seen franchises that spend all their time doing their market research on forums. Bad idea. From a market research point of view it’s not representative, and... I’m not going to name names, but I have seen a couple of companies prove that you can actually run your IP into the ground by doing that.
I don’t look at forums. I don’t second-guess what I write. I don’t look at other people’s books because I don’t read anyway. It’s ironic, but I actually can’t stand reading novels! Comics are great, novels never. Nobody expects a male fashion designer to wear women’s designer clothing, and writing and reading are two entirely different parts of the brain. But I digress.
I don’t look at fan expectation, because otherwise you fall into a creative trap. The thing is, you can’t please everybody. What you’ve got to do is tell the story and follow the characters. Now, some people are going to like it and some aren’t. If you spent all your time asking ‘what would you like in there,’ you just end up with more and more of a mushy compromise. Tell the story that your characters make up. That’s the only way you can do it.
Karen Traviss: That’s a bit of fun, though. You notice that Epic wasn’t asking about Marcus Fenix (laughs)! Carmine’s great, and it’s a nice in-joke with the fans. It’s been going on for ages. I fronted up in my ‘Save Carmine’ t-shirt and said, “I’m writing the game” (laughs)!
I actually did have this conversation about Carmine with Rod and said ‘you may think it’s a joke, but out there we have real families losing their kids in Afghanistan,’ and there’s a limit to how much piss I’m prepared to take about that. I will not mock soldiers. If you’ve read anything of mine, you’ll know that I respect the ordinary soldier. I tell the truth as I see it. I don’t do stereotypes, and they appreciate that.
In terms of what I’m worried about... it’s never happened to me, but if a solider came up and said, ‘I was playing Gears, and that was an insult to soldiers,’ I’d be mortified. That would upset me, because that’s not what I set out to do. All the feedback I get is the opposite - that they feel like they’re understood and they are regular people and that’s the sort of thoughts that go through your head when you’re under fire.
But I don’t know what fans are saying. I’ve done my best for a great franchise, and how I think the story should work. It’s not a happy ending... but it’s not a happy story, is it? The end of the world is very close to happening, and so many people die. Billions are dead. People we’ve loved are dead. It’s a very messy, morally grey story but that’s about real people, ordinary blokes forced into extraordinary events.
SPOnG: Wow, that’s amazing. I find it interesting that you mentioned that writing for games is akin to writing for TV - are there any major differences to that?
Karen Traviss: The difference between novel and game is... that’s not a problem area because the two are so different. It’s difficult - because I can do it, I don’t know why other writers can’t. It’s about how your brain works. Some people can do certain mediums and some can’t. It’s a cognitive process. I can do anything as long as I can see it. Novels are what I see and what I’ve done. It’s a reporting process for me.
In terms of dialogue, it’s very much like TV, because what works as dialogue on the page sometimes doesn’t translate well on screen. Whenever I write dialogue for a novel, I always hear it back - and that’s why the banter seems realistic. I’m not just writing words, I’m listening to them.