Charlene Putney & Jana Sloan van Geest

Spring is here, and so are Charlene (writer at Larian Studios on Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2) and Jana (game writer and narrative designer on Battlestar Galactica: Squadrons, Assassin's Creed Origins, and currently at Guerilla Games where she just finished working on Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds)! They join us to talk about what makes a good bark, writing a good tooltip, finding inspiration in others, doing different types of writing at different times of day, solving a writing problem by articulating it to someone else, working with different team sizes, best practices for breaking through creative ruts, honing your judgment, the need for simplicity and clarity in game writing, the craving for more narration through items, and never retiring a tool in the storytelling toolbox.

Our Guests on the Internet

Charlene's Twitter.

Jana's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Hag-Seed: A Novel by Margaret Atwood

Borne: A Novel by Jeff VanderMeer

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Caves of Qud

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.