63 réponses à ce sujet

[Linkenski]

One thing I noticed much more in ME3, even though it probably was an issue in ME2 as well was the fact that a lot of key story elements are inconsistent as the story progresses. The biggest ones are the Crucible and what people believe it does, Cerberus, and the Reapers, how they work and how vulnerable they are, not to mention the ending itself, which all to certain extends have their fair share of contrivances.

To name an example: when the crucible is revealedit quickly becomes a thing that we're unaware of what it actually does, but at several points, Thessia and Earth at the end the characters suddenly and blindly believe everything will be over once the crucible is activated even though they have still not learned anything particularly telling about what it does.

A lot of those inconsistencies made it clear to me that the story was written bit by bit as Bioware went along, and I want to ask you, in particular anybody who considers themselves to be writers and knows what it's like to write things up as you go and what are the pros and cons with it.

Are there any examples of really great books or movies that were written up as they went that succeeded despite of being written without the writer having a big precise plan from the getgo?

[angol fear]

Actually the crucible is a desperate solution . There's no conventional victory possible. There's only the crucible that creates hope.

And for examples of masterpieces that could be said improvised : some John cassavete's films, or Jean-Luc godard 's A bout de souffle.

[Vazgen]

Harry Potter?

[Massa FX]

yes. "plotholes" and inconsistencies exist throughout the trilogy.

[Linkenski]

Harry Potter?

It's funny, I actually thought of that. In the 7th one there's a twist with the character Snape and I remember back when it came out in theaters I saw it with my mom cuz it's a tradition, and she was convinced that J.K. Rowling had planned that twist from the beginning and when she told me that I kind of thought about it and to me it just didn't seem that way.

[Vazgen]

It's funny, I actually thought of that. In the 7th one there's a twist with the character Snape and I remember back when it came out in theaters I saw it with my mom cuz it's a tradition, and she was convinced that J.K. Rowling had planned that twist from the beginning and when she told me that I kind of thought about it and to me it just didn't seem that way.

I do know that she planned to kill Harry in the final book but decided against that (as I recall, due to the fan feedback). 

[Linkenski]

What, so she spoiled the ending to her fans before she published the final book?

[Vazgen]

What, so she spoiled the ending to her fans before she published the final book?

From what I remember the fans figured out that Harry is going to die due to

Spoiler

being one of horcruxes

and were quite passionate about it so she decided against it. She then told about it after the book's release in one of the interviews

[wright1978]

Yeah a big issue to me seems the lack of effort put into planning ahead as well as the major issue of wanting each game to be the best entry point of its own.

The broad brush strokes should be planned if you are doing a trilogy in my mind and you shouldn't be afraid of the notion of previous entries being essential for proper entry into the last part.

[Linkenski]

The only real pros I can see is as writers they are free to decide where it goes next and it keeps them engaged in their work becuase they're not just following a checklist although I think that's how real good writing is done.

 

Take The Last of Us for example. I'm not gonna go out on a limb and say I like that better than Mass Effect because I really don't, but it is a good game and a fantastic story; Neil Druckmann and co. planned the entire plot out from the get-go before they started really writing anything I've heard. They aren't planning a trilogy (or weren't to begin with at least) on the other hand but the first story was planned out to the smallest details although I heard they re-iterated the ending because their first concept didn't "feel honest" in Druckmann's opinion.

 

Also according to that MrBTongue guy who made some analysis videos on Youtube he defined good writing as "writing that's free from contrivance", and I think by writing up as you go contrivances are impossible to avoid when you're constantly writing yourself into corners you need a bit of conveniently placed plot-devices to get out of.

[Vazgen]

A general idea is nice to have and I think pretty much all writers have some general outlines for their stories when they start to write. However, making the details on the fly feels like a better approach to me from a commercial standpoint. With that approach you can adjust certain aspects of the story to make it more appealing to readers, like the HP example I brought above. You also get fan feedback and get an idea of what questions interest them the most so you can elaborate on the more in the coming installments. 

 

As for Mass Effect specifically, here is the statement from Drew Karpyshyn, describing some problems and complexities of collaborative writing:

 

Of course, some of you are also pinging me to find out what the “original” ending of the series was when we started planning out the trilogy. Sorry, but that’s not something I’m even going to attempt to answer. The collaborative creative process is incredibly complicated, and the story and ideas are constantly evolving as you go forward. Yes, we had a plan, but it was very vague. We knew we wanted to focus on some key themes and bring in certain key elements: organics vs synthetics; the Reapers; the Mass Relays. Beyond that, we didn’t go into detail because we knew it would change radically as the game continued to evolve.

 

A good example of this is Cerberus. When we wrote ME1, Cerberus was basically a throw-away group of pro-human radicals: a name we dropped for some side missions to play the role of villain. We didn’t even have a concept of who was running them, and we didn’t think they were that important. Obviously by the time of my Ascension novel and ME2, that had changed radically. The Illusive Man and Cerberus became central to the story and themes – that never would have happened if we had nailed everything down and refused to make changes to the story.

 

So I don’t like to say “here’s what we originally were thinking” because it gives a false and very distorted impression of the process. Mass Effect was the creation of a huge team, with contributions coming in from many people at many stages of the project. Some things I liked ended up getting cut, some stuff I wasn’t sure of worked its way in. That’s the nature of the beast with collaborative works, and I think in the end it makes the final product stronger. But talking about the changes after the fact feels like I’m sitting on my throne and proclaiming, “That’s not what I would have done!” It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and say “I would do this or that”, but it’s very different when you’re part of the process, working with multiple ideas, trying to piece it all together and still hit your deadlines. Anyone who wasn’t part of the ME3 team is an outsider – even me – and whatever they say about the creation of the game is just unsubstantiated speculation.

[angol fear]

Writing a film and writing a serie isn't the same thing. Writing a trilogy and writing one game isn't the same thing.

[nos_astra]

Writing a film and writing a serie isn't the same thing. Writing a trilogy and writing one game isn't the same thing.

I'm pretty sure it's close enough.

[Winterking]

To name an example: when the crucible is revealedit quickly becomes a thing that we're unaware of what it actually does, but at several points, Thessia and Earth at the end the characters suddenly and blindly believe everything will be over once the crucible is activated even though they have still not learned anything particularly telling about what it does.
 

Both Liara, Hackett and the Illusive Man are convinced that the Crucible will destroy the rid the galaxy of the Reapers pretty much since the beginning of ME3. The Illusive Man goes even further and correctly predicts that device can be used to control de Reapers. The only doubt is the collateral damage it wil cause but none seems to doubt that the conflict will end one way or another after the Crucible is fired.

 

As for writing as they go along, I have a feeling that most stories that require collaborative writing are done like this. Even Breaking Bad, which gets praise for its writing and overall storyline was like this: Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die in the first season, Gus Fring was't suppose to be villain he became, instead it was Hector Salamanca.

 

Even stories from a single author change when because they can have new ideas while they are writing the story. Check the initial outline of a Song of Ice and Fire and you will realize how much has changed since GRR Martin has started writing the books.  

[AlanC9]

One thing I noticed much more in ME3, even though it probably was an issue in ME2 as well was the fact that a lot of key story elements are inconsistent as the story progresses. The biggest ones are the Crucible and what people believe it does,

This isn't an inconsistency. People really don't know what the Crucible does. People believe different things about it, but that's belief, not knowledge.

Are there any examples of really great books or movies that were written up as they went that succeeded despite of being written without the writer having a big precise plan from the getgo?

Does TV count? Almost no TV is written with a big plan. Babylon 5 is the only exception I can think of, and that plan had to be heavily revised twice. You'll never find a movie example because movie scenes aren't shot in order.

Edit: I mean a single movie. A movie series, obviously, can be made up as you go. Has to be, since usually you don't get financing for more than one at a time.

[Han Shot First]

Here's a link that lists several classic and influential franchises that incorporated "on the fly" type writing http://www.cracked.c...ade-up-fly.html.

 

Star Wars is a good example of what can go go wrong when you make it up as you go. Leia originally wasn't Luke's sister. Having Leia revealed as a blood relation to Luke resulted in an earlier kiss scene becoming one of the most hilariously bad romance scenes of all time. Before that reveal no brain bleach was needed.

 

Getting back on topic...I think the Mass Effect series would have been better off had the writers come up with a rough idea of how the series was going to end, at some point during the development of Mass Effect 1. The terrible endings that shipped with ME3 were partly the result of make it up as you go. 

[dreamgazer]

In a perfect world where you know you'll be able to make all three stories in X amount of time for Y amount of money, yes, writing ahead is certainly preferable.

 

Not even going to bother getting into a discussion about "contrivance", because the whole damn trilogy (and space opera in general) is chock full of contrivance.

[God]

Star Wars is a good example of what can go go wrong when you make it up as you go. Leia originally wasn't Luke's sister. Having Leia revealed as a blood relation to Luke resulted in an earlier kiss scene becoming one of the most hilariously bad romance scenes of all time. Before that reveal no brain bleach was needed.

 

Getting back on topic...I think the Mass Effect series would have been better off had the writers come up with a rough idea of how the series was going to end, at some point during the development of Mass Effect 1. The terrible endings that shipped with ME3 were partly the result of make it up as you go. 

 

Star Wars wasn't what you'd call 'made up as they go along'. Lucas always had a story for the 6 movies from the get-go, as early as 1973. It underwent revision and changes like any work, but by 1975, the basic story was the same as what the movies were. Hell, the basic story for Star Wars is older than most civilizations. Hero finds out from a wizard that he has a special destiny, and embarks upon a quest fighting, joining a group of heroic rebels to fight an evil oppressive power led by an insane dark wizard, who has a scarred black knight as his champion.

 

And if you think that Luke kissing Leia once requires brain bleach (trust me, it's not even close to freaky when it comes down to it), I wonder how you'd think of any kind of medieval fantasy series (or history). Cersei and Jaime are a lot more graphic than Luke and Leia. 

[Cette]

Unplanned long term narratives tend to get weird.  Watch Babylon 5 instead.  Except for most of season 1 and 5.... Wait what was I talking about again?

[Han Shot First]

Star Wars wasn't what you'd call 'made up as they go along'. Lucas always had a story for the 6 movies from the get-go, as early as 1973. It underwent revision and changes like any work, but by 1975, the basic story was the same as what the movies were. Hell, the basic story for Star Wars is older than most civilizations. Hero finds out from a wizard that he has a special destiny, and embarks upon a quest fighting, joining a group of heroic rebels to fight an evil oppressive power led by an insane dark wizard, who has a scarred black knight as his champion.

 

And if you think that Luke kissing Leia once requires brain bleach (trust me, it's not even close to freaky when it comes down to it), I wonder how you'd think of any kind of medieval fantasy series (or history). Cersei and Jaime are a lot more graphic than Luke and Leia. 

 

Lucas might have had a basic idea of where was going, but much of the story was made up as he went along. One of the biggest examples of that is with Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Originally these were two entirely separate characters. That was still true as late as the release of the original Star Wars film where Ben Kenobi tells Luke that Vader killed his father. It was during the development of The Empire Strikes Back that Lucas decided to combine those two characters into one, requiring a later scene in RotJ where Kenobi would hand wave his earlier "he killed your father" dialogue as being true from a certain point of view.

 

With Vader and Anakin Lucas making it up as he went along worked out for the better, and produced one of the great twists in film history. But it had some misfires as well, like the now awkward kiss scene between Luke & Leia. 

[chemiclord]

In a perfect world where you know you'll be able to make all three stories in X amount of time for Y amount of money, yes, writing ahead is certainly preferable.

 

There IS a difference between "writing ahead" and "kinda having a general idea as to where you are going."

 

When you're still fighting over the primary theme and how exactly you're going to end a trilogy AS you are writing the final piece of that trilogy... that's a problem.  A story is always going to twist in directions you weren't expecting.  A tale always takes on its own life.  And hell, there ARE people who are able to write a tale pretty much completely on the fly and execute it well... but I have found THAT talent to be rather rare.

It does not seem that anyone at Bioware had that ability.

[Linkenski]

There IS a difference between "writing ahead" and "kinda having a general idea as to where you are going."

 

When you're still fighting over the primary theme and how exactly you're going to end a trilogy AS you are writing the final piece of that trilogy... that's a problem.  A story is always going to twist in directions you weren't expecting.  A tale always takes on its own life.  And hell, there ARE people who are able to write a tale pretty much completely on the fly and execute it well... but I have found THAT talent to be rather rare.

It does not seem that anyone at Bioware had that ability.

It would seem so.

 

If you're looking for writers that have this ability to write on the fly like that though... Shu Takumi (creator of Ace Attorney and Ghost Trick). Nuff said. I was amazed by his talent.

[AlanC9]

Gene Wolfe comes to mind. IIRC he said he doesn't even know if he's writing a novel or a short story until it's done; he looks at the height of the pages to know which. And sometimes a character just shows up in the story and he doesn't know who he is or why he's there until later.

[Alamar2078]

In the case of ME I do believe a lot of the problems were tied directly to a lack of discipline / planning of the overall architecture to make sure that the devs had a framework within which they could be spontaneous and creative within.  While I love to harp on this issue you can go to extremes on either side.  If you over plan you don't have room to be organic with how the story flows.  On the other hand if you don't have some constraints you wind up introducing elements that you have no idea how to handle and you NEVER are able to get the elements under control.

 

I think that lack of planning is one element.  Another element, as others have pointed out, is that BW's goals weren't just to make each entry in the ME series the best they could be but they also wanted to make each game a good "starting point" so some critical elements are apt to be sacrificed in service to these other goals.   Sure enough the product was hurt by not focusing on making the best story & games they could.