My day job is teaching game design. In our program we use a design methodology called playcentric, developed by Tracy Fullerton (and detailed in her excellent book, Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games.) The core idea is the experience of playing the game should guide design decisions.
We often urge students to think about what we call the Player Experience Goal — namely, what’s the experience you want players to have? And we always frame it as a *emotional* experience. What feelings do you want to evoke in the player? We try to get students to articulate it as specifically as possible, avoiding generalities which aren’t helpful in refining a design. So, instead of “joy,” which is too broad, the experience might be defined as “the feeling of returning to a place you loved and finding fresh wonder and joy” which to me would describe my play experience of The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker.
I don’t know why I never thought to apply this methodology to writing fiction! But a lightbulb went off in my head when I watched Pixar’s The Art of Storytelling (via Khan Academy.) The instructors suggested an exercise that’s very similar to one we do with our students: think of a vivid memory, and try to remember how you felt. Then use that as a prompt to construct your story. How can you evoke that feeling in the reader (or listener, or viewer)?
I thought about my favorite short stories and I realized that many of them evoke a nuanced, sometimes subtle, almost always unique feeling with shades of meaning. The short story is powerful because it conjures an emotion that I can understand, that maybe reminds me of something in my life or my experience, and, in the best cases, challenges me to revisit and learn something new about it. My approach to short stories, previously, was too intellectually driven. I thought a lot about systems of symbols and where the climax was and what drove the characters — all very important things, but now I think those need to serve the emotional core of the story.
Anyway, this approach has so far been fruitful! I’ve written two brand-new stories in the last two weeks and I’ve started notes on three others. We’ll see how it goes.