My blog on getting a job in game-writing was too long so I split it up. The main article is here.

This is where you lay it on thick. “It” being this amazing product (‘you’) which is DEFINITELY not an alien. You need to make a coherent argument why Product You is so superior to all the other products they’re being offered right now.

You’ll be tempted in your covering letter to waffle on about how much you love the company, their games, their staff, the floor they hover above, etc. It’s good, but save it for the end.

The core of a covering letter is about you saying you have the skills on the job description and backing them with evidence from the work you have done. It is an argument every step of the way, constructed piece-by-piece. You can disguise it with eloquence, but it needs to be convincing and backed up.

For example, if it’s a narrative leadership role that requires you to liaise with other teams, you might say: “In my time at Inflexible Studios, I was the first point of contact for all other teams. I met weekly with the concept, animatic, VFX and level design leads, documented all narrative decisions on our internal wiki, and led lore meetings once a fortnight. This was all to ensure consonance between the story we were telling and the game’s aesthetics and mechanics.”

(As a side note, I highly recommend the STAR technique for giving examples – as we’ll see, it’s better for interviews, as it can be quite lengthy, but it’s still useful for showing how you moved the needle in a previous role. “In my time at Farnburp Broxile Supplies, I was responsible for communicating safe usage policy to our external teams and worked closely with them to ensure that any accidental limb severance complied with our core values (situation). On a bank holiday, a site manager in Bogston contacted us to say that three severance incidents had occurred. I confirmed that was the duty officer, so I put down my barbecue tongs, studied the photos and confirmed to the manager that the broxile was visually compliant. Then I got back to my meat.”

We’re trying to draft a generic template here though, so just have drafts for each of the core skills of the job you want and experience that demonstrates it. I’ll probably detail these in another blog soon, but for now:

• For writing, that’s writing, editing, proofreading, characterization, and so on.
• For game writing, there are a bunch of specialised skills and styles you need. Barks, branching dialogues, UI text, etc.
• For the contested topic of narrative design, you’ll need documentation, systems design, team liaison, presentation, communication, and so on.

If you can’t honestly claim proficiency in a skill, say that you’re a fast learner and ready to learn on the job. (Then go practise that skill for the next application!)

When it comes to editing this for an actual job, keep the cover letter down to a single page if you can, but ensure you cover all the skills they’ve requested as far as you can.

Once you’ve done that, go over to Samples / Portfolio, where you’ll gather material to back up your claims…