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Waking up as Alan: Game novelisation and the player-reader-writer
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Waking up as Alan: Game novelisation and the player-reader-writer

Ross Watkins
Text, Vol.22(Special Issue 49), pp.1-13
2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.25648
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Abstract

Performing Arts and Creative Writing creative writing videogames adaptation novelisation fan fiction immersion
What kind of writer are you?' So the question is asked of Alan Wake, best-selling novelist embedded in his own horror story in Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake (2010), and subsequent novelisation by Rick Burroughs (2010). What kind of writer you are is a question which has long vexed not only genre fiction authors, but also those writers whose work feeds on/back into established narrative worlds. Game novelisation, the 'reverse' adaptation of videogames into novels, has attracted almost no academic enquiry to-date, and is much maligned by critics. Yet game novelisation is a writing and publishing practice on the increase, and when considered in overlap with the voluminous quantities of game fan fiction published online, transformative narrative practice is a phenomenon which begs greater attention within creative writing. While there is much work to be done on game novelisation and game fan fiction in terms of its place, reception and impact within gamer and publishing landscapes, from a creative writing viewpoint there is value to be gained in teasing out aspects of writing that are unique to these practices, and to consider how immersion in narrative world building is altered by the player cum reader cum writer. Using Alan Wake as one example, this article presents selected contextual discussion before performing a reflection on my own experience of narrative world building as player, reader and writer.

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