On Motivation and the Co-worker Scenario by David McNeill

On Motivation and the Co-worker Scenario

Written by David McNeill

Show don’t tell is some day one writing stuff. It was one of the first topics they covered during my university’s writing course, but while it sounds simple, in practice “show don’t tell” means a great deal of things. And it’s also not always right. Sometimes telling is quicker and neater and better, if the audience doesn’t really want to be shown it.

Sometimes if your story is from a closed point of view, telling rather than showing can reveal a lot about our narrator.

More than anything, the rule exists to assist the craftsman in casting the vessel of their narrative against some northern star - a compass point, generally. A way to guide your work when doing the work of writing prose. Life Is Strange does something unusual, where it continually tells you about your relationship with Chloe and that you have an interesting past. This, despite Max having a handful of dynamic interactions throughout the game with side players. In particular, Warren, who becomes an accidental foil for Max’s increasingly crappy behaviour, despite his own deeply flawed expressions of affection (usb thumb drive aside).

All to say the game can and does render relationships that are interesting, but crucially, we see these develop and change over the course of the game. For example, when an inexplicable eclipse looms over Arcadia Bay and the temperature drops, Warren delivers both a handful of exposition to the player, and moves closer to Max to warm her up. It’s not especially brilliant writing, but it is multipurpose scene work. From this one moment, the game communicates: Warren is still very good at science; Max is physically cold; Warren is still attracted to Max; Max is still comfortable enough around Warren not to immediately push him away; and the eclipse should not really be occurring which means some spooky time stuff must be going on.

Breaking down scenes like this with a lot of the side characters reveal a similar pattern - because the B-listers of the story are rendered from archetypes, the writers leverage them to deliver exposition while subverting the archetypes, leading to a lot of dynamic, interesting little universes of story. Heck, the game doubles down on Warren’s complexity and has him end up with Stella in the alternate reality. Crazy times, indeed.

With Chloe, however, the game equivocates interesting things happening while Max and Chloe are present to Max and Chloe having an interesting relationship. This is not a unique property of Life Is Strange, but the other denizens of Arcadia Bay amplify this problem by contrast. It speaks volumes that the game puts Chloe on a pedestal, weighting her life equal to that of every other citizen of Arcadia Bay combined.

The final choice is not a choice at all: Chloe is bad news and bad for Max, but because you’ve spent the entire game doing things with and for Chloe, it’s hard to see past her constant involvement as anything other than affection and chemistry. Frequency does not equal intimacy, folks. And this in and of itself is a compelling mixture to add to your narrative. Think of all the times you’ve had a crush on someone only to learn they haven’t thought about you twice. It creates tension. Sparks. Drama! Two characters desiring different things coming into each other’s way is what story is made of.

Now to the question of how. How do you communicate to an audience that two characters have conflicting motivations.

The key to this process is writing characters with strong, core motivations. Real people have a myriad of reasons to do what they do, but in narrative, we understand what a character wants by what they do, and what they say (or, in fact, what they elect to not say). I do not know who said it, but character is found in the difference between what someone says, and what they do. In my mind I attribute this insight to Stephen King, but, dear reader, I cannot find a trace of it online. Perhaps I dreamt it up altogether.

Example: You are having a challenging time with a project at work.Your boss and colleagues are making your tasks more frustrating than need be, and it’s affecting your team and their ability to achieve their goals. You discuss with a team member, who agrees that during the next meeting, if you bring up the topic, they will back you up.

The day of the meeting arrives, and you summon your courage. This is a week in the making. You’ve discussed it many nights, resting on the bedhead, and your partner, in-between reading, has assured you saying something is the right course of action. At the meeting, in front of all, you explain the issue - your project will be delayed, this situation is not tenable. And your co-worker, with their promised support, remains silent.

The divide between your co-worker’s words and their actions now colours their character in your mind - they aren’t a person of their word. They are cowardly, perhaps. Or even conniving. We can assume that the reason you feel betrayed is your motivation did not align with your co-worker’s, and they did not do what they claimed they would.

This is an implicit tool in characterisation, but becomes complicated in Life Is Strange because you, the player, bring your own motivation to Max. The lens by which you measure the behaviour of the characters in the story is filtered through the possible reactions Max might have.

Let’s imagine Max in the early example with a co-worker who does not support her. Max would likely not directly confront the co-worker, but might avoid the co-worker for a while, gradually continue to grow in their confidence and ask why it happened a later date. She’s a patient manipulator. In contrast, Chloe would probably walk out of the meeting, right up to the co-workers desk, and demand answers. Neither attitude or approach is right or wrong, but even just from this one example, you’re able to stencil it an idea of who these people are. As I alluded to before, the problem is when the player gets involved. The player can have infinite motivations coming into any given moment of the game, and the decision you make might be flavoured my how you think Max might react, how you react, or for a thousand other meta-fictive reasons.

Show don’t tell is muddied by the fact that in Life Is Strange (and video games) you also do. It’s little surprise the game struggles with characterisation then. It takes needle precision to craft narrative where the player can pick and choose what happens in the story. The most successful moments in Life Is Strange occur on the micro-scale: small interactions between Max and her schoolmates. Single, witty exchanges with Chloe. These beats of dialogue and action show us the motivations of these characters at work. The game struggles against its own nature at each turn, wanting the ensure the player knows Chloe and Max are tight and have a weird past. But also wants you to make choices and explore other characters but don’t forget about Chloe! It’s an exhausting game of keep-me-up that lands more often than it doesn’t. But if there’s one thing we can learn from the co-worker scenario it’s that character occurs in the negative space - the gaps in-between. Life Is Strange is about Teens with a capital T, who use cuss words and say heck and crap - there is rarely room for negative space, and rarely room for quiet reflection. At the very least, I think we can all agree we don’t want to be that co-worker.

DAVID MCNEILL is the lead writer at Digital & Creative Media Works and the author of the Maynard Trigg series, find his other work at www.youtube.com/dcmworks