Boy, I am about to anger a LOT of hardcore FNAF fans! But hey ho, here I go! Full disclaimer first: I’m not gonna explain what Five Nights at Freddy’s is. If I were to go into great detail about the games, the movie, the books etc. I would here all week! So, if you don’t know the ins and outs of this franchise, this article isn’t going to make a lot of sense, because I’m going to assume that those reading are already fans of the franchise, or at least know enough to know what the hell I’m talking about!

Now with that out of the way, as a huge FNAF fan myself, I have to say that I thought the film was…ok. I’m sorry! I know there are a lot of hardcore fans who adored the movie, and I didn’t think it was BAD...but I still had my issues with it.

First of all, I felt like the film couldn’t decide what age demographic it was trying to reach. The games have a lot of young fans because it’s one of those horror games that, while it has a lot of jumpscares and spooks, they don’t portray a lot of graphic violence or gore on screen. So, it can be appropriate for younger kids who are just starting to get into the horror genre. Kind of like how the Goosebumps books were appropriate for a younger audience, even though they were horror. So, I understand why the film would want to appeal to their younger audience, but this caused a lot of unexpected tonal shifts, where sometimes the film felt like it was trying to be a ‘serious’ horror movie, and other times when it was more comedic.

And yes! I’m thinking about the fort scene! And before you come for my throat, I understand that scene was supposed to portray the fact that the animatronics are kids at heart, since they’re possessed by the ghosts of children. But, for me personally, it still felt jarring because the rest of the movie tried to be more serious.

Second of all, some things never got explained in the film. Now, I know! This is FNAF; nothing gets explained easily. But, considering this film is also trying to appeal to an audience that may not know all the ins and outs of the games, I did think it was weird to not explain some stuff. For example, why could the drawings essentially ‘mind control’ the animatronics? And what was the purpose of the torture Freddy mask? I thought, maybe, the mask was to cut people down, so they fit into the animatronic suits better, but then we see later that their bodies are stuffed in without their faces and bodies cut to pieces. I also heard somewhere that the mind control drawings might be connected to one of the spin off books, but I’m not sure.

Finally, there were a lot of little things that really pulled me out of the immersion of the film. For example, Max being cut in half by Freddy’s mouth. As shocking as that scene is, there’s no way Freddy’s jaw is that strong or sharp to cut through a person’s torso! And the bit where Mr Cupcake ‘jumped’ across the room to bite Mike? I’m so sorry, but that part had me howling with laughter in the cinema! It was so clunky and clearly a rope pulling it, I felt like I was watching a low budget 80’s movie!

So, there you go, those are the gripes I had with the movie. But even so, I still enjoyed the film, and I’m glad we’re getting another one in December, and a third one after that. But there’s something else that stood out to me about the movie. The movie is very different from the plot of the games. Now, that’s fine by me! The plot of the games is SO complicated that I’m not surprised they changed a bunch of stuff to make it more understandable for a wider audience. But these changes got me thinking...could you create a FNAF film that was closer to the plot of the games? Is that even possible? Would it make sense? Well, I decided to give it a go and try! So, the rest of this article is going to be a summary of MY version of the FNAF movie, IF you tried to make the plot closer to that of the games.

Full disclosure: I’m not saying that my version of the movie is or would be better than what we got. I’m just experimenting with what a FNAF film that’s closer to the games could look like.

Background Story

I’m going to start by explaining the background story that I would base the movie on. This background stuff would be shown through flashback scenes in the actual movie, but for the sake of clarity, I figured I’d write the whole thing out here first. Fans of the games will see where I have taken parts of the games’ plots to make this background plot for the movie.

So, William Afton starts off as the owner of Fredbear’s Family Diner (not Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place, yet). Back then, Fredbear’s only had two animatronics; Golden Fredbear (a.k.a. Golden Freddy) and Spring Bonnie. William also has a wife and three kids; Mike, his eldest son, Lizzie, his middle daughter, and Evan, his youngest son. (Yes, I’m using the name Evan for the youngest son instead of David, because that was the first name lots of fans agreed on for the longest time. Plus, I prefer the name Evan to David. Also, I’m calling the daughter Lizzie because that’s closer to Elizabeth, her original name from the games, instead of Abby, which is what she was called in the actual movie).

Mike doesn’t like Evan. He thinks Evan is pathetic and scared of everything, and only takes joy in tormenting him by scaring him whenever he can. When Mike is 16, Evan is having his 8^th birthday party, and Mike doesn’t like the attention Evan is getting. So, he decides to play a prank on Evan. He and his friends hold Evan up as close as they can to Golden Freddy’s face, because they know Evan is terrified of the animatronics. Unfortunately, Freddy’s jaw clamps shut suddenly around Evan’s head, crushing his head and killing him. Mike isn’t sure how that happened, and William, in a blind rage, explains to him that the springlocks in the suits tighten and go stiff when water is spilled on them. Evan was crying so his tears are what triggered the jaw to clamp shut.

Evan’s death causes William to become an alcoholic who buries himself in his work, neglecting his duties as a father. Because of the bad press that Fredbear’s received after Evan’s death, William decided to create a new pizzeria with four new animatronics, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place (where the movie takes place). Meanwhile, their mother, William’s wife, becomes a grieving lifeless zombie of a person, and eventually she dies by suicide. Mike essentially has to look after himself and Lizzie during this time.

When Mike turns 18, he announces he’s leaving home and he’s taking Lizzie with him. William tries to fight for custody over Lizzie, but ultimately the courts rule in favour of Mike because William is a drunk now, the mum is dead, and Mike has proven he can take care of Lizzie by this point. This is partly because Mike feels incredibly guilty about what he did to Evan, so he’s been trying to make up for it by being a proper big brother to Lizzie. Mike and Lizzie leave William behind to start a new life, and Mike changes his and Lizzie’s surnames to Schmidt as an attempt to forget the past.

So, there’s your backstory. Like I said, all of these events would have happened before the start of the movie and would be revealed through flashbacks. Now, onto the actual movie!

The Plot of my version of the FNAF movie

The movie would open in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place, as a child is being lured by someone into a backroom. This person is wearing the Spring Bonnie animatronic suit, so we don’t see who this person is, but we do see the child suddenly being killed by this strange person. Then, we’d have the opening credits, during which we see a sequence of news reports of the missing children’s bodies being found stuffed into the animatronics at the pizzeria.

YEP! That’s right! I’m making it so that the children’s bodies get found in my version of the story! I know the whole point of the games if that William gets away with the murders of the children because the police don’t find the children’s bodies in the animatronic suits. But you can thank my husband for pointing out something kinda obvious about that plot point; the police ALWAYS use sniffer dogs when searching for dead bodies. There is NO WAY a sniffer dog therefore wouldn’t find the kids’ bodies, even if they were stuffed into the suits.

So, during these opening credits, with the sequence of new reports, we also see William Afton being arrested. However, he’s charged as not guilty for the murders, because the courts don’t have decisive evidence that he committed the murders. The person who killed the kids always wore the Spring Bonnie suit so no one could see who it was, and there’s no security footage showing William putting the suit on. Someone else could have put on William’s suit instead to kill those kids. So, William is let go, but as a result of the murders, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place is still shut down and becomes rundown and abandoned.

After the opening credits, we watch someone break into Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place. They look like a homeless person just looking for shelter for the night. They start getting stalked and hunted down by something, but we don’t see what yet. This homeless person is then killed by this mysterious stalker.

Now we cut to Mike and Lizzie living together. Lizzie likes to draw and Mike sees that she’s been drawing Golden Freddy and Spring Bonnie (the old animatronics from William’s first pizzeria). Mike is furious and rips up her drawings. She runs to her room crying. When Mike goes to bed that night, he takes his sleeping pills. He’s been taking pills every night for some reason. As he goes to sleep, we see a flashback of Mike arguing with someone about leaving and taking custody of Lizzie, but we don’t see the face of the person he’s shouting at.

Mike has a job as a mall security guard. One day, he spots some older teenage boys picking on a younger boy. Mike absolutely loses it watching these older boys harassing the younger boy, and starts beating them up. He gets fired for beating up a bunch of minors, instead of trying to reason with them or make them leave. He goes home to Lizzie, and Lizzie’s babysitter, Max, feeling terrible.

That night, Mike is so tired he forgets to take his pills. He wakes up in a nightmare, where Nightmare Golden Freddy is hunting him and Lizzie throughout the house. Mike also sees Evan during this nightmare. Evan asks Mike, ‘Why? Why did you do it?’, before Nightmare Golden Freddy eats him. Mike wakes up with a start after Evan is eaten.

For the next few days, we see Mike apply for several security jobs, but he doesn’t get hired for any of them, because of his record after beating up those teenagers. Then one day, at home, Mike and Lizzie get a knock on the door. It’s their father, William. Mike is beyond shocked, asking how William found them. William explains he tracked them down when Mike’s antics with those teenagers ended up in the news. William tells Mike he’s sorry about everything that happened between them, that he doesn’t blame Mike anymore for what happened to Evan, and he understands why Mike had to take Lizzie away. To prove to Mike that he wants to be a better father, he offers Mike a job as a night shift security guard at his old, abandoned pizzeria. Williams explains some ruffians keep breaking in every now and again, so he’s looking for someone to keep an eye on it. Mike refuses, saying he can look after himself and Lizzie without William’s help. William leaves but gives Mike his number if he changes his mind.

We get another flashback and see that Mike was arguing about custody of Lizzie with William. William talks about how Mike ruined his life and his work after ‘what he did to Evan’. He talks about how he has to start all over again with a new pizzeria because of the old one’s tainted reputation. Mike leaves the house, but not before promising Lizzie that he will come back for her soon.

Back in the present, Mike eventually calls William back and accepts the job offer because nowhere else will take him. William is beyond thrilled and hopes this will be the start of their family ‘becoming whole’ again someday. On his first night at the pizzeria, Mike sees the animatronics moving on his screens. But when he goes to investigate, they’re all magically back on stage and in the same positions. Mike believes he must just be seeing things. He then almost trips over this bucket in the middle of the floor that’s collecting dripping water from the ceiling. He gets annoyed by it (and trust me, there’s a reason I’m mentioning this bucket).

When Mike sees Max the next morning, he talks to her about how he could have sworn that he saw the animatronics move. Max is immediately intrigued; turns out she and her friends are big into paranormal stuff and exploring abandoned places, so she gets excited at the possibility that the pizzeria could be haunted.

On the 2^nd night at the pizzeria, Mike sees the animatronics move again on screen. When he goes to check on them, he’s shocked to discover they actually have moved this time! We get Foxy running at Mike, BUT I wouldn’t have him do the typical Foxy run. I’m sorry, I know that’s blasphemy, but considering the animatronics move pretty slowly most of the time, it feels jarring that Foxy can run that fast. Instead, I’d have it that Foxy is at the end of a long corridor with a flickering light, and as the light flickers, he suddenly disappears and appears again every few feet, creating his ‘run’. I also just think that would look creepier. Mike runs back to the office, almost tripping over that bloody bucket again, and locks the door. He convinces himself he must be hallucinating, so he downs more sleeping pills and knocks himself out. In the morning, everything is seemingly back to normal.

Maybe some stuff between Mike and Lizzie happens the next day to show more of their sibling bond, but I haven’t thought that bit through much. But then on the 3^rd night, Mike starts hearing the voices of children whispering, and one of those voices sounds a lot like Evan. He leaves the office to investigate (almost trips over the bucket again), and in a back room, he discovers the broken suit of Golden Freddy, the animatronic that killed Evan. Mike has a total freak out, and that’s when we get the full flashback of what happened to Evan. We see the whole scene of Mike and his friends forcing Evan near Golden Freddy, Freddy’s jaw killing Evan, and William screaming at Mike about how Evan crying on the springlocks would have triggered them to clamp shut, causing his death.

Back in the present, Golden Freddy tries to move towards Mike, but because he’s broken, he can’t move far. Mike tries to run away, but the door is mysteriously locked. He therefore escapes through the vents to get back to the office. While crawling through the vents, he hears something following him. Now it would make sense for Mr Cupcake, Chica’s companion, to be the thing following him. However, I found Cupcake on his own a bit too goofy in the actual movie. There is one way I can imagine him appearing scarier though. Imagine Mike looks behind him while crawling through the vent. Mr Cupcake is just randomly sitting there, in his normal, cute form, looking very nonthreatening. Then slowly, his animatronic body decays and withers into Nightmare Cupcake, before he starts lunging for Mike. Mike scrambles to the office, jamming the vent grate shut. He then locks himself in, takes more pills and goes to sleep.

The next day, Max the babysitter and her friends decide to break into the pizzeria during the day while Mike isn’t there. They enjoy exploring abandoned places and looking for paranormal stuff. They all get hunted down and killed by the animatronics. Again, I’d have the animatronics move via disappearing and reappearing in flickering light. Also, I would have Max die a different way, instead of being bitten by Freddy, since we already have a Freddy bite scene in my version of the movie with Evan’s death.

On the 4^th night, Mike now can’t get a hold of Max to babysit Lizzie (can’t imagine why), so he has no choice but to take Lizzie with him to his night shift. The animatronics then try to kidnap Lizzie. Mike tries to save her, and they try to kill him. But then Lizzie defends Mike, and the animatronics listen to her and stop. Mike and Lizzie aren’t sure why. Lizzie asks the animatronics what they are, since they seem to listen to her. The animatronics show Mike and Lizzie the security footage of someone in the Spring Bonnie suit killing them when they were kids and stuffing their bodies into the suits to try and hide them. Mike and Lizzie then realise that they’re the ghosts of those kids possessing the animatronic suits.

Mike then realises something. He rushes back to where he found the broken Golden Freddy suit. Golden Freddy starts moving again, but Mike isn’t scared, because he realises it’s Evan’s spirit inside. The three siblings are reunited finally and have a big hug. Mike and Lizzie ask what they can do to help set the ghosts free. Evan shows them a drawing of his birthday party, the one he never had because Mike got him killed. Mike then has an idea. Him and Lizzie then spend the rest of the night helping to recreate Evan’s birthday party for everyone. They hope that having a proper birthday party might help the spirits let go and move on. After they finish decorating, they go home to rest, ready to celebrate the party tomorrow night. Lizzie asks Mike whether they should tell William, invite him to the party tomorrow night so he can see Evan one last time. But Mike says he still doesn’t trust William and says it would be better if they kept this whole thing quiet from him. Besides, William probably wouldn’t believe them, Mike says. Mike then comments on the stupid bucket one last time before they leave.

Before the 5^th night, we get one last flashback scene. Mike has won custody of Lizzie, so he comes back to the house to pick her up and take her away. They both say goodbye to William, who acts like he couldn’t care less now. Mike tries to apologise for what he did to Evan one last time, but William doesn’t respond.

On the 5^th night, Mike and Lizzie return to the pizzeria to find that their party scene has been completely trashed and the animatronics are nowhere to be seen. What happened? Then, someone in the Spring Bonnie suit comes out of the shadows, moving threateningly towards them. They take off the mask, and we see that it’s William! He then reveals all; he was the one who killed those kids, and messed up the security footage so the police couldn’t pin it on him. He’s been observing the animatronics all this time, fascinated by the fact they’re possessed. He also reveals that he gave Mike the job because he had hoped the animatronics would kill him, so he could have sweet revenge on Mike for what he did to Evan. When William realised that Mike and Lizzie wanted to help release the spirits, he decided to come here to end things himself. He doesn’t want that to happen because he is determined to ‘fix’ Evan, who’s possessing Golden Freddy.

This all leads to a massive chase/stealth scene. Lizzie hides from William in the arcade and ball pit (instead of hiding from Foxy in the original movie). I imagine William would get really creepy in this scene. Saying things like ‘be a good little girl, come to Daddy, I know you didn’t mean to abandon me, this is all Michael’s fault, once I get rid of him, you, me and Evan can be a happy family again, our family will finally be whole again’, stuff like that. William eventually gives up stalking Lizzie when Mike gets his attention, and he leads William away from Lizzie.

While William then chases Mike, Lizzie finds the animatronics hiding. She realises they are terrified of William, but she gives them a pep talk and helps them realise that they are stronger now than they were before. They aren’t little kids anymore; they can fight back and stop him. Finally, the animatronics then back William into a corner, stopping him from harming Mike. As William tries his best to scare the kids into not attacking him, Mike suddenly remembers how the springlock suits clamp up when exposed to water, like how it did with Evan. He grabs the old bucket full of water and throws it at William (and finally the bucket reveals its true purpose!). The suit’s locks start clamping into William’s body, killing him.

I imagine the scene playing out similar to Naraz –5000’s ‘Purple guy death sound’, an infamous YouTube video made by a FNAF fan, imagining what William would have sounded like dying in the springlock suit. There’s a link to the clip at the bottom of this article, but I warn you, do not watch it if you’re squeamish. The voice acting is incredibly realistic and disturbing!

Mike, Lizzie and the animatronics then finally have the birthday party for Evan and the other animatronics, and finally their spirits are released to the afterlife. They have a teary goodbye with Evan’s spirit, with Evan telling Mike that he forgives him. Mike then locks William’s body, still in the suit, in the backroom before they leave the pizzeria behind forever. But just as they leave and the film ends, the suit jumps to life...

And there you have it! That’s my version of what the FNAF movie could have looked like, if you based it more on the original games. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I hope you can forgive me for my comments about the actual FNAF movie. Thanks for reading and happy Halloween!

Sources:

(Photo by Pixabay from Pexels.com)

We’re back with more writing prompts inspired by some of my favourite video games! Quick intro: this is my way of shedding some light on some of my favourite video games, as well as hopefully spreading some inspiration to any fellow storytellers and writers out there. Make sure you check out the previous parts as well for more story inspiration!

Also, quick disclaimer, my previous posts on this subject were specifically talking about indie video games. However, I’ve decided to expand my scope to just any video games I like, whether they’re technically indie or not. I just love video games too much to NOT include some of my faves just because they were made by a bigger studio.

Anyway, with that out of the way, let’s begin!

1. Doggone Hungry & I Am Fish

Doggone Hungry is a short and sweet game (only 30 mins of gameplay) developed by Dana Speiser, Kristin Mays, Ina Tomecek, Cassidy Elem, William Alexander Berryhill, Carson Hall, and Paige Collins, and published by SCAD Games Studio. You play as a cute Labrador Retriever puppy, trying to save his favourite toy duck, Quackerjack, from constantly being stolen. And believe it or not, the best way to save your beloved duck is to get big and fat! So, you run around eating as much food as you can, while trying to avoid being caught by your owners or other specific humans. It’s free to play and just a really fun, silly little game.

I Am Fish is a physics-based game developed by Bossa Studios and published by Curve Games. You play as 4 different fish in different chapters of the game, who all got taken from the ocean and sold off in a pet store. Now, they’re all trying to get back home to the ocean, so they have to swim, fly, roll and chomp their way to freedom. This game can be very frustrating at times due to the many obstacles you have to face, while also trying to keep your fish in water as much as possible so they don’t die! But it’s also hilarious!

So, here’s my prompt for what could be a hilarious story! – A goldfish ends up snatched away from the ocean and sold in a pet store to a family who already have a small puppy. The goldfish desperately wants to get back home, so makes a deal with the puppy; if the puppy can help them get back home, the fish will help them find all the food they could ever want! The deal is struck, and the puppy helps the fish into a hamster ball with water, so they can roll around. The fish immediately pushes food and snacks off the tables in the house so the puppy can reach them as payback. Then the two go on an adventure into the city to find the ocean. Along the way, they must do their best to avoid humans, while also stealing food for themselves, and befriending other animal friends so they can find the fish’s home.

This would make a pretty funny, young kids’ story in my mind. I can imagine the unlikely pair would end up in a lot of hijinks as they try and help each other!

2. Far from Noise & What Remains of Edith Finch

Far from Noise is a narrative-driven game developed and published by George Batchelor. You play as a person who has accidentally driven their car off the road and is now stuck in the car while it teeters on the edge of a cliff into the sea. While trapped in the car, with no one coming to help you, you ponder about your life and your relationship with the world, life and death.

What Remains of Edith Finch is a first-person exploration game developed by Giant Sparrow and published by Annapurna Interactive. As Edith, you explore your old, abandoned family home, discovering the different stories about how every single other family member died, except for you. Along the way, Edith chronicles all these tales into her journal. It’s an incredibly moving game as you experience the deaths of each family member through their own eyes as you play.

Considering the themes around death in both games, they seemed like a perfect fit for this writing prompt – A woman wakes up in her car, and realises she’s accidentally been run off the road and now her car is hanging over the edge of a cliff. She sees the ocean at the bottom of the cliff and sharp rocks. She realises this will probably be her end, so she takes her journal and writes about her misfortune, how she ended up where she is now, and contemplates on the ways her other family members died. After all, her other family members all died in similar accidents over the years…it’s very mysterious that it keeps happening. Why does this happen to her and her family? Is it a curse? She writes down all her theories, and decides she’ll throw the journal out the car window and onto the cliff if the car starts to actually fall, just so someone might find out what happened to her if she dies.

I think it would be interesting to write the story as if we’re reading her journal chronicling her final thoughts. Also, if she wrote near the beginning of the journal her plan to throw her book onto the cliff if she’s about to fall, it would make it a rather tense read, since it suggests that we’re reading this because she did, in fact, die…or did she?

3. The Novelist & Forgotten Fields

The Novelist is a game about Dan Kaplan, a novelist struggling to write the most important book of his entire career. It was developed and published by Orthogonal Games. Dan and his family have rented a remote coastal house for the summer, so he can try and finish his book. However, Dan’s decision to focus on his writing could end up destroying his relationships with his wife and child. You play as a ghostly presence in the rented house, observing the Kaplans’ lives and discovering their wants and desires. You help influence Dan to make decisions that will affect his career and his relationships. As a writer myself, this game is one of my favourites as it explores the struggles of balancing work life with your home life.

Forgotten Fields is a game where you play as Sid, a struggling writer who travels back to his childhood home one last time before it’s sold off. It was developed by Frostwood Interactive and published by Dino Digital. As Sid relives old memories and sees old friends, he slowly begins to figure out the plot of his next fantasy novel, as his friends and old home inspire him. Again, I’m very biased about this game because I too am a writer. Plus, you get to play out some of the scenarios from Sid’s fantasy book, which is really fun. I also appreciate that the game is set in the developer’s hometown, Goa in India, which I just think is cool because I haven’t played a lot of games set in India before.

The fact that both these games centre on struggling writers gave me this idea for a writing prompt – A struggling writer decides to travel abroad to India to try and feel inspired and finish his book. He rents out this old home, and meets the adult son of the owner, who also happens to be a writer. They become friends and talk to each other about their books. One of them is writing a young adult book about drama at school and dealing with young love and relationships. The other is also writing a young adult book but set in a fantasy world with dragons and magic and a big quest for the heroes to go on. As the two exchange ideas, they both begin to realise that they would be much happier writing the other one’s book!

This kinda feels a little like the Prince and the Pauper story, where the two characters swap roles. This idea was actually inspired by an episode of Bojack Horseman, an adult animated tv show. In one of the episodes, Diane starts writing a book about her life and how tragic it was/has been, but instead realises she finds it more fun to write about a teenage girl who solves crimes at her local mall. I like the idea that sometimes the book we think we want to write isn’t actually the book we’d be best at writing, or that we’d have the most fun with. But, with this writing prompt, maybe there’s a problem with the two writers wanting to swap book ideas. Maybe their agents/publishers are expecting them to stick with the type of books they’ve written before, and push back when they say they want to write for an entirely different genre? There could a lot of potential drama there.

But anyway, those are a few more of my story ideas, inspired by video games! Let me know what other writing prompts you can think of from these games, or if there are any video games you like that would make good writing prompts. Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!

Sources:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1563490/Doggone_Hungry/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1472560/I_Am_Fish/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/706130/Far_from_Noise/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/501300/What_Remains_of_Edith_Finch/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/245150/The_Novelist/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1296980/Forgotten_Fields/

https://bojackhorseman.fandom.com/wiki/Ivy_Tran

(Also, shout out to a particular friend of mine for helping me think up some of the ideas for this article. They know who they are, and they’re the best! Thanks buddy!)

Ok, with that out of the way, let’s talk about this absolutely brilliant game! Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a role-playing video game that came out in April 2025, developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive. It’s about a group of volunteers called Expedition 33 who travel across the world to try and destroy the Paintress, this god-like figure who kills people at or above a certain age every year, until eventually, there will be no people left in the world.

This game took the gaming world by storm! It has been highly praised by critics and gamers for its stunning visuals, incredible voice-acting, engaging story, and satisfying turn-based combat system. Hmmm...a video game with an interesting story? Well, you know I had to talk about it then! And what I really want to talk about is Gustave.

(Gustave from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33)

Gustave is the main character in the game, the character that the player primarily plays as (although you can switch characters in your team during parts of the game). However...he’s not the main character for the entire game...at the end of Act 1, about a third of the way through the game, Gustave is killed! The player then primarily plays as Verso, a new character who basically takes over Gustave’s role.

I think I speak on behalf of most players when I say Gustave’s death was an absolute gut-punch! He’s such a sweet and likeable character that you spend most of your time with in Act 1. His relationship with Maelle as her guardian and adoptive big brother in particular is adorable, but his friendships with Lune and Sciel are also great. And his death comes out of nowhere! It’s so unexpected and cruel that I think it shocked most players, not just me.

(Image from Gustave’s death cutscene)

But I don’t want to focus on Gustave’s death, per say. I want to focus on what I think would have happened if Gustave hadn’t been killed. I genuinely think if Gustave had been saved by Verso (which we find out Verso could have done, if you progress his relationship with Maelle enough), his existence alone could have completely changed the trajectory of the game. And I think we could have gotten a much happier ending, instead of the bad ending, or the better but still pretty tragic ending the game had.

So, Gustave dies at the hands of painted Renoir. This happens just before painted Renoir is prevented from sending Maelle out of the Canvas because Verso swoops in at the last minute to save her. We later find out that Verso actually could have saved Gustave if he had wanted to. He was hanging back until after Gustave was killed. The reason is because he was worried that if Maelle found out the truth about the Canvas, and Gustave was still alive, she wouldn’t help him stop the Paintress, since the Paintress’ death ends in the deaths of everyone else in the Canvas.

(Verso from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33)

This does make a lot of sense for Verso’s character. However, I think it’s also equally likely that, in an alternative version of the game, Verso would have saved Gustave. Since Verso was spying on Maelle the whole time she was travelling with Gustave and the team, he would have seen how much Gustave meant to her. And he would have seen how much Gustave cared for Maelle in turn. I think Verso would have saved Gustave, in my version of the story, because he would have wanted his little sister to be happy. Or at least, happy for a little bit longer, before killing the Paintress ends up killing everyone else except him and Maelle.

With Verso saving Gustave, this also means Maelle would have come to trust Verso quicker and more easily, which I believe Verso would have wanted. And it would have meant Maelle wouldn’t have been so hellbent on killing painted Renoir. She would have been more focused on the Paintress, which again, is something Verso would want.

(Maelle from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33)

However, with Gustave still being alive, I do think this would end up causing some friction between Verso and Gustave. After all, Maelle was originally Verso’s little sister, not Gustave’s. Verso would therefore feel compelled to be her big brother, and I think Gustave would at first find this very suspicious. And in turn, watching Gustave get to do brotherly things with Maelle would have rubbed Verso up the wrong way. I think, eventually, Verso would explain to Gustave that he has a little sister himself, and that Maelle reminds him of her a lot, as a way to throw off Gustave’s suspicion.

I think, in my version of the story, Gustave and Verso eventually would feel like brothers towards each other. After all, neither of them have brothers, both of them only have sisters. I think they would eventually begin to bond over their love for their families, their need to protect their loved ones, and the fact they have both been surrounded by death their whole lives. I also think that since Gustave is fascinated with the world they explore, a world that Verso knows a lot about because he created it, Verso would have enjoyed discussing some aspects of the world with Gustave.

I think these two bonding would have also made it harder for Verso to betray them all when the Paintress is finally defeated, and everyone gommages. Which means, Verso would be more willing to go along with Maelle’s plan on trying to fight the real Renoir and preserve the Canvas, instead of letting it be destroyed like in his original plan.

(Image from ‘One Heartbreaking Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Parallel Hides in Plain Sight’ by Carla Carmona on GameRant)

Once Maelle brings back Gustave, Lune and Sciel after the Paintress is defeated, and they all learn the truth about the Canvas, I have a feeling that Gustave would probably attack Verso. After all, Gustave thought Verso was like a brother, so I feel like he would have a right to be angry. The others would probably have to step in to break up the fight. Gustave would end up reluctantly agreeing that they needed Verso’s help, but would remain pretty icy towards him for a while. But I think eventually Gustave would come to understand that Verso did what he did because he was trying to save his mother. Gustave would do anything to protect the people he loves too, so I think eventually he would forgive Verso.

With Gustave back with the team as well after the Paintress is defeated and the truth is revealed, I think Maelle wouldn’t end up as focused on preserving the Canvas for Verso’s sake. In the original game, when Maelle gets her memories back, she becomes obsessed with preserving the Canvas because she feels guilty about being responsible for real Verso’s death. She therefore wants painted Verso to live the life that she accidentally cut too short. But I think, with Gustave there, she would be more focused on wanting to save all her friends, not just Verso.

I think this desire to save everyone in the Canvas would lead into ultimately what I believe the best ending could be: I believe, at the end, Gustave would be able to convince Maelle to gommage Verso. It wouldn’t be an easy decision, of course, since Maelle still feels responsible for real Verso’s death, and wants more time with her real brother. But with Gustave and Verso becoming brothers, I think Gustave would be able to convince Maelle that this isn’t what Verso wants. Also, Maelle has another big brother now in Gustave, so perhaps that would make letting go of Verso easier.

(Maelle and Verso)

In my version of the story, I think the real Renoir would see Maelle choosing to gommage Verso, with Gustave’s influence, and this is what would convince him to let the Canvas live. With Maelle letting Verso go, he would be convinced that she wouldn’t become obsessed with staying in the Canvas the way his wife did. And Gustave would help Maelle learn to use the Canvas safely, with her coming and going instead of staying indefinitely to her detriment. Gustave loves her too much to let her stay indefinitely if it meant her real body suffered. He would remind her when she needs to leave, and that she can always come back later, and he and the others would still be there. And maybe, with enough time, Maelle could even teach her mother to enjoy the Canvas without Verso being there, or the rest of her painted family.

This is the most ideal ending I can think of for the game. Everyone in the Canvas gets to live, and Maelle and the rest of her family don’t use it in a toxic way. Obviously, I understand the point of the real game’s endings is that they were supposed to be sad. Even the ‘good’ ending is supposed to be tragic. But I’m just saying that, if Gustave hadn’t been killed in Act 1, I think he could have been the key to a much happier ending.

One last thing I want to address is something a YouTuber called FatBrett commented on (he’s made some brilliant deep-dive videos into the characters of Expedition 33, I highly recommend checking him out!). When Brett did a deep-dive into Gustave’s character and story, he said that he thought Gustave would end up being restless in a world where there was nothing left to explore, if he had lived, hence he was doomed to die regardless. But I actually disagree with this sentiment.

Gustave became an innovator because he, first and foremost, loved his home and Sophie. Heck, he wanted to have children with her! I think, if the Canvas lived, and Maelle learnt to use it safely and brought everyone who had died back to life, Gustave would have lived an incredibly satisfying life with Sophie, raising their children together. And I think he would have become someone in Lumiere who could help the rest of the citizens adjust to a world where they realise they were created by a Paintress.

(Gustave and Sophie. Image from ‘The Surprising Reason Expedition 33 Is Outperforming Other JRPGs’ by Trone Dowd on Inverse)

Also, I don’t think he would have stopped inventing. Sure, Maelle can just paint anything into existence, but I think Gustave would have still gotten joy from making things with his own hands. I can imagine at some point Maelle asking him why when she can just create whatever he wants out of thin air, and Gustave would explain that he enjoys the challenge of figuring it out himself, and making something that he can say was made with his hands and his skills, instead of relying on Maelle. I think Maelle would appreciate that and therefore let him keep tinkering away at his projects. Therefore, everyone lives, Gustave lives a happy, meaningful life, and Maelle is eventually healed by embracing her love for Gustave and her other friends.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on what would have happened if Gustave hadn’t been killed in Expedition 33. I’m sure other people have written their own fan stories, articles or videos talking about this topic as well. If you guys know of any, feel free to comment below and let me know about them. I’m curious how other people imagined what might have happened if Gustave hadn’t been killed.

Since I enjoy linking storytelling and video games, it’s been fun imagining how the story could have changed with this one character sticking around. I might do this with some other games I like; write about how a game’s story might have changed completely with one little change. I might turn it into a bit of a series, we’ll see. But anyway, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope you stick around for the next one! (Like how I wish Gustave had!).

Sources:

https://www.expedition33.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@fatbrett

My buddy! <3

Since I don’t have infinite time to write stories, this series is dedicated to story ideas that I will never get around to writing myself. I’m here sharing them with the world so other people might be able to make something with them, should they desire! Some of these ideas are a mix of fantasy and other genres, and some might already exist in other people’s work that I haven’t seen. If any of these ideas sound similar to other work you’ve seen, let me know which ones! And lastly, consider these ideas copyright-free! (I feel like I have to state that to avoid any legal ramifications!)

Without further ado, here are three more story ideas that I’ll never write!

(Photo by picjumbo.com on Pexels.com)

1. Becoming a Proper God

I imagine this story being set in its own fantasy universe, but I suppose you could also set it in modern reality too. The idea is that the world is run by a pantheon of gods. These gods could be based on ancient gods from ancient cultures we already know about, such as the Ancient Greek gods or the Ancient Egyptian gods for example, or you could make up your own pantheon of gods.

The story goes that a new god has been born (or maybe you could have a couple of new gods being born). Once this god is old enough, the other gods send them down to Earth to learn about the world, so they can then decide what they want to be a god of. In my head, the new god would still be a child, maybe a young teenager at this point, since those years tend to be the most formative for young people. It makes sense for them to go on this journey of self-discovery at that age, considering that’s when a lot of young people start to discover who they really are and also who they want to become when they’re older.

I can see this story either being written from the point of view of this new, young god, or perhaps it could be written from the perspective of a human who discovers this teenager is actually a god and tries to help then navigate the world. If you set the story in its own fantasy world, it would be an interesting way for you to explain how this fantasy world works, since I imagine the young god has led quite a sheltered life up in the heavens before coming down to Earth. If you set the story in our modern reality however, it could be fun to explore how humans might react to discovering that there is in fact a pantheon of gods that exist that run the world!

(Photo by CK Seng on Pexels.com)

2. Someone’s Watching Us

In this story, a family moves into this big, old house. Imagine an old-Victorian, mansion-style house. The parents inherited it from a deceased relative, and they have 3 kids (or however many you want them to have). The kids have fun exploring the massive house and the grounds together. But then, one day, one of the kids discovers an old notebook in the attic of the house. As they read through it, they realise that this notebook is talking about their lives. There are diary entries talking about things the family did together, conversations they had, and it even mentions things the kid did in private that only they would know about. The kid shows this to their other siblings, and they all come to the same conclusion: there’s someone hiding in this house and watching them!

Now, when I first imagined this story, the big reveal was going to be that the kids discover the house is haunted, and it’s a ghost that’s been writing in the notebook about them. But now that I think about it again, I actually think it would be a LOT scarier if it was in fact a real person, just living in their house, in the walls and vents and abandoned rooms, for whatever reason. You could make the hidden person simply a homeless person with nothing better to do, or you could easily give that character much more sinister intentions.

I imagine that the kids try to tell the parents, but the parents don’t believe them for whatever reason. So, it’s up to the kids to track down and find out who this mystery person is. Maybe the hidden person is connected to some old, dark family secrets hidden within the house. Maybe the hidden person has some connection to the dead relative who left the family this house. There’s a lot of potential to create a very dark story here.

(Photo by Noelle Otto on Pexels.com)

3. The Ghost Therapist

I said that the previous story idea could have a supernatural element to it, but this one in particular is ALL supernatural! Think Ghost Busters, except in this story, instead of just getting rid of the ghosts, the main protagonist actually talks with the ghosts to help them move on with their afterlife. Basically, the ghost therapist uses the same techniques a therapist might use to help people let go of their trauma and move on with their lives but instead applies those techniques to ghosts who don’t know how to let go and move on.

I imagine you could break down the story into a sort of episodic type of story; each chapter could be centred around the main protagonist having to confront a different ghost, with a whole different back story, in a whole different setting. You could set this story in modern times or maybe make it a historical setting. If you set it back a few centuries ago, that could be interesting because it would be more unusual back then for people to see someone using therapy methods, instead of just forcing the ghost away.

Maybe the ghost therapist is having to compete with other ghost hunters. Maybe the other ghost hunters just use the stereotypical rituals and spells to force the ghosts away to the afterlife, and they look down on the ghost therapist because they think it’s ridiculous to try and reason with a ghost.

Maybe the ghost therapist has a ghost companion themselves. Maybe that’s why they wanted to help ghosts in the first place; they met this ghost when they were young, and helped this ghost let go, but the ghost decided to stick around with the protagonist instead of moving onto the afterlife. And maybe that’s why the protagonist is able to talk to ghosts properly in the first place, because their ghost companion helps them understand the other ghosts.

(Photo by Elīna Arāja on Pexels.com)

Anyway, those are just a few more of my story ideas that I’ll never get around to writing myself. Do you think any of you could make any of these ideas into fully realised stories? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

For the record, I CANNOT play Souls-like games! For those who don’t know, ‘souls-like’ refers to a subgenre of action role-playing games that are heavily inspired by the ‘Soulsborne’ series. This series includes titles such as Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, all of which were developed by FromSoftware, with creative director Hidetaka Miyazaki at the helm. The things that set these games apart from other action-roleplaying games is their intense difficulty, intricate combat systems, and a huge emphasis on environmental storytelling. I fully admire anyone who can complete souls-like games, because of how difficult their enemies are to beat. It’s why I enjoy watching people play these games, even if I could never beat those games myself.

The FromSoft (the abbreviation of FromSoftware) formula for telling their stories through environmental clues and subtle narratives is another main reason why I find games like this so intriguing. They don’t explain the plot through lengthy dialogue; you have to try and piece together the story yourself by exploring the world in the game. So, since these games are known for their unique storytelling, I want to use this as an excuse to gush about my favourite game in the souls-like genre (so far at least). Lies of P! (Especially since the DLC for this game came out last month and was just as excellent as the main game!).

Lies of P was developed in 2023 by Neowiz and Round8 Studio. The game is undoubtedly great in terms of gameplay and challenge, but what really makes this game stand out amongst the sea of souls-like games is the fact it’s based on a well-known fairy tale. Lies of P is based on Pinocchio. Not the animated Disney film mind you, but the original dark tale written by Carlo Collodi in 1883. You play as P (a.k.a Pinocchio), Geppetto’s life-sized, very-human-looking puppet, who has been awoken to try and save the city of Krat from the Puppet Frenzy. Basically, the city of Krat discovered a special mineral called Ergo, that they used to power mechanical puppets to serve and perform various duties around the city. But for some reason, all these obedient, robotic puppets have turned violent, killing anyone in their path. Hence why P, a puppet who seems to have free will for some reason, must discover what happened and stop the frenzy from ever happening again.

Illustration of the original Pinocchio by Enrico Mazzanti, the illustrator of the 1st book edition

I adore stories/films/games etc. that take a really well-known story and turn it into something unique by changing parts of the narrative. You still have to piece together the story of the game by exploring the world, but one thing I admire about Lies of P is it does make its story more obvious. As much as I love them, FromSoft do make you WORK to find out the story behind their games, whereas Lies of P is more forgiving; it’s easier to find the pieces of the story and put them together. For me, it’s so interesting to see how the developers changed parts of the original story to make something so different and yet somehow so familiar.

Now I could simply talk about every aspect of this game’s story, and how cool it is, and the ways it links to the original Pinocchio story. But there’s plenty of articles and video essays that have already explained the story, and much better than I ever could! But something that REALLY caught my attention about Lies of P was something that was revealed right at the end of the game. Without spoiling the ending too much, there’s a quick reveal in a post-credits scene that shows a character from a completely different fairy tale! Which means, the Lies of P world isn’t just centred around Pinocchio, but it also houses other fairy tales!

So, since Lies of P is getting a sequel, and it seems that it will start incorporating other fairy tales into its world, this got me pondering; WHAT other fairy tales could one possibly include in the Lies of P world? And so, that’s what we’re gonna be discussing!

Spoiler warning: I won’t spoil any of the major plot points in Lies of P, but I am obviously going to be talking in detail about certain aspects of the game. So, if you’d rather experience the game for yourself with no spoilers, I suggest playing the game first before you continue to read!

1. Goldilocks/The 3 Little Pigs/Little Red Riding Hood

Goldilocks illustration by Eunji Jung; the 3 little pigs illustration by Nick Sharratt; Little Red Riding Hood illustration by J.W. Smith

So, the reason I’m mashing these 3 fairytales into one section, instead of talking about them individually, is because these tales aren’t really long enough for me to talk at length about. But I wanted to mention them all because I believe the characters from these 3 tales would make for great side characters!

In Lies of P, there’s a faction of people called the Stalkers. These people are the mercenaries and vigilantes of society; they tend to serve the wealthiest as their bodyguards. All the Stalkers wear animal masks that define their rank; the very best fighters get to pick animal masks representing powerful predators, whereas the weaker ones are left with animal masks representing prey animals. This is why I feel like the 3 little pigs, the 3 bears from Goldilocks, and the wolves from both the 3 little pigs and Little Red Riding Hood, could be human characters wearing animal masks.

Mad Donkey, Owl Doctor, and Robber Weasel from Lies of P

Perhaps the 3 bears are Stalkers who were hired to protect Goldilocks, a young, arrogant daughter to a nobleman. Perhaps the 3 little pigs are apprentices to the Big Bad Wolf Stalker, learning how to become stronger Stalkers from them. With Little Red Riding Hood, you could have a similar scenario with Goldilocks, but then again, I can totally imagine Red Riding Hood as a badass woman in a red hood and cape who’s able to fight tremendously well. Maybe she would be a boss you have to fight, because the Wolf Stalker asks for your help in defeating her, as he can’t do it alone.

2. Puss in Boots

Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots

In the original story of Puss in Boots, the cat, Puss, uses trickery and deceit to help his master gain a royal title and marry a princess. Again, a Puss in Boots in the game could easily be a Stalker character. There’s two Stalker characters in Lies of P called the Red Fox and the Black Cat (based on the fox and the cat from the original Pinocchio). They also spend most of the game weaving lies and being tricksy, so perhaps Puss would make a good replacement for this duo in the next game.

Red Fox and Black cat from Lies of P

There are two dividing factions between the Stalkers: The Bastards and the Sweepers. The Bastards are members who came from noble, upper-class families, whereas the Sweepers come from the lower classes. In the original Puss in Boots tale, Puss is left as a gift to his master from his master’s father, after he dies. Since his master is poor and unhappy, Puss sets out to help him achieve royalty. So, maybe Puss in Lies of P could be a Sweeper Stalker who is trying to help his master become recognised amongst the upper classes, so he can achieve the wealth he yearns for. Perhaps we can help him. After all, Lies of P centres around P telling lies, so we could end up helping Puss and his master by spreading lies to the upper classes on their behalf.

The big climax of the original Puss in Boots story is when he tricks and kills an ogre. There are quite a few disturbing monsters in the Lies of P world, so I could imagine the ogre being this giant, grotesque boss that Puss asks for your help in defeating. Perhaps Puss’s master has been kidnapped by the creature, and that’s why he needs help killing it. Perhaps, when we’ve killed it, we lie with Puss and tell everyone that Puss’s master slayed the ogre, and that’s how he gains his reputation amongst the upper-class.

Lies of P screenshot from ‘Lies of P Bosses Guide and How to Defeat Them’ article by Michelle Pereira on GamingBolt

3. Peter Pan

Walt Disney’s Peter Pan

In Lies of P, the game takes place in the city of Krat. It would, therefore, be interesting if the next game took place somewhere completely different. Say…. Neverland? Although Neverland is supposed to be this magical, mystical place, it could easily just be an island where Native Americans, pirates and lost boys just happen to live.

Lies of P has a lot of steampunk vibes about it, so it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine that a boy named Peter could fly using a steampunk flying contraption of sorts. Perhaps Peter crash landed his contraption on the island, and that’s why he’s stuck there now. Maybe the lost boys where a group of boys who escaped a horrible orphanage on the mainland and rowed out to the island together to escape. There is an orphanage in Lies of P called the Monad Charity House, so clearly this is a world where other similar orphanages would exist. Maybe the lost boys decide to help Peter repair his flying contraption, as long as he promises to take them with him when he goes to explore the world. And what if…. Peter’s flying contraption is actually a flying ship! After all, Peter makes Captain Hook’s ship fly at the end of the story to take everyone back to London (this might just be in the Disney movie though, it’s hard to tell). If this was the case, maybe that’s why Captain Hook starts tormenting Peter and the boys, because he’s a pirate and he’d LOVE to have a flying pirate ship!

Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook in the film ‘Hook’ (1991)

In Lies of P, you also have Gemini as a companion (their version of Jiminy Cricket). The game…doesn’t ever 100% explain what Gemini is. He appears to be some sort of tiny puppet or machine inside a glowing lantern that you attach to your belt. Or he might be the glowing lantern itself…it’s never explained. But whatever type of creature or invention he’s supposed to be, perhaps Peter has a similar companion in the form of Tinkerbell. I bet the two of them would really hit it off!

Finally though, there’s one thing from the original Peter Pan story that I would love to see in Lies of P: the Big Crocodile! Like I said before, Lies of P is full of disgusting, nightmare-fuel creatures. So, perhaps the croc is one of those giant, terrifying creatures that you have to battle in a boss fight. Then again, we have now had a giant crocodile boss thanks to the DLC, and from what I can tell, most players found it a b*tch to beat! Soooo maybe another crocodile boss isn’t such a good idea!

Meme by P33BIRD on r/LiesofP Reddit page

4. The Nutcracker

The Twiddlers Large Christmas Nutcracker Soldier Ornament

Now this suggestion seems the most obvious considering there are mechanical life-sized puppets in Lies of P, and the Nutcracker is basically one himself! In the Nutcracker ballet, the Nutcracker turns into a real-life prince once he and Clara, the protagonist, defeat the King of Mice. Considering the whole Pinocchio and Lies of P game is about a puppet becoming human, you can see why I figured the Nutcracker should be a character in the Lies of P universe!

Perhaps the Nutcracker is a similar puppet to P, one made to look more life-like and seems to have more free will than some other puppets. Maybe Clara was the Nutcracker’s inventor, just like Geppetto was for P. Perhaps P helps the Nutcracker figure out how to be more human. There is a character called the Broken Puppet in Lies of P, who wants to learn human emotions. So, throughout the game, P can go back and talk to the puppet to teach him different emotions when P learns these emotions himself. Therefore, the Nutcracker could play a similar role in the next game.

The Broken Puppet from Lies of P

The King of Mice could easily become another abhorrent creature to boss battle with. In fact, since he’s a ‘king’ of mice, I can easily imagine this creature being a ‘rat king’ sort of monster. For those who don’t know, a ‘rat king’ is a rare phenomenon where a group of rats end up getting their tails entangled together, meaning they become a mass of intertwined rats. This phenomenon has inspired many people to create their own characters and creatures based on the ‘rat king’, usually depicted as this mass of rats or other creatures that work together as a hive mind of sorts. Some examples I know of are from the Last of Us 2, and the Hilda animated series. In fact, in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale, his Mouse King had seven heads! So, it would be very fitting!

Artwork by Cidaq (Svenja Muche) on DeviantArt

Also, in the Nutcracker ballet, Clara and the Nutcracker travel to the Kingdom of Sweets and meet the queen, the Sugar Plum fairy, inside her grand palace. She welcomes Clara and the Nutcracker with a banquet and a dance performance from some of her subjects. Obviously, this is a delightful, whimsical event in the ballet. But I can imagine that for the Lies of P world, the grand palace would be a game level to traverse, defeating her subjects, to then battle the queen at the end. There are some puppets in Lies of P that are supposed to be dancers and performers, so I could imagine those sorts of puppets being her subjects. Maybe the Sugar Plum Fairy herself was also built to be a puppet performer and was so skilled that she became a famous puppet performer.

And lastly, throughout the game, you can collect outfits and costumes from other characters to dress P in, and I think a Nutcracker outfit would be perfect for P! There are already outfits in the game very similar to the classic Nutcracker outfit, so it would definitely suit the vibe.

Lies of P image from ‘All 14 Lies Of P Costumes, Ranked Worst To Best’ article by Luke Horwitz on Screen Rant

5. Alice in Wonderland

I wanted to save my best for last! Alice in Wonderland would be perfect for the Lies of P world. Pretty much every character in Lies of P is either a mechanical puppet, a horrible monster, or a human that’s gone insane from all the chaos. So, pretty much every character from Alice in Wonderland would fit into this universe!

This wouldn’t be the first time Alice in Wonderland has been adapted into a dark, disturbing video game format either! ‘American McGee’s Alice’ and ‘Alice: Madness Returns’ are the 2 games in a video game series that centres around Alice facing her trauma after a fire kills her family. In those games, Wonderland is not a happy, magical land, but it is in fact part of Alice’s nightmarish hallucinations, fuelled by her childhood trauma. So, everything and everyone in that version of Wonderland is dark, disturbing and twisted. Lies of P could easily look to these two games as inspiration for adapting the original characters to their own universe.

Alice from ‘Alice: Madness Returns’

Alice could very easily be a human character who’s gone a bit mad in Lies of P and needs our help. Maybe she’s being pursued by these horrific creatures, such as the Mock Turtle, the Caterpillar and the Jabberwocky (oh my god, those three would look TERRIFYING if they got given the Lies of P treatment!). The White Rabbit could be a Stalker trying to help her. Perhaps the Cheshire Cat is another Stalker working for the Queen of Hearts, trying to lure Alice back to his queen. Maybe Alice is a runaway princess; her kingdom, Wonderland, was taken over by the Queen of Hearts, and now the Queen relentlessly pursues her to behead her so she can’t take back her throne.

In Lies of P, most of the terrible creatures we face are actually the results of awful experiments conducted on animals and humans by a group of people called the Alchemists. Maybe the Queen of Hearts is an Alchemist herself, and so these creatures that now pursue Alice are her own creations. Perhaps the whole of the Wonderland kingdom is now running rampant with her abominable creatures. You could have a similar situation to what happens in the city of Krat with the Puppet Frenzy, except everyone is being killed by these nightmarish beings instead of puppets. Maybe it’s up to P to help rid Wonderland of these monsters, just like how he tries to stop the puppet frenzy.

Fallen Archbishop Andreus from Lies of P

The Mad Hatter could be another person of nobility who tries to help Alice hide from the Queen, and the March Hare and Dormouse are his personal Stalker bodyguards. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee could be servants who worked for Alice and her family before the Queen of Hearts took over, and now they’ve run away too with Alice. Interestingly, I didn’t realise this, but apparently Dum and Dee are from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’ novel, not his original ‘Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland’. I just thought I’d mention that since I had no idea!

And so, those are some of my ideas for fairy tales that could be included in the world of Lies of P. Let me know if you can think of any others that would suit the game! Thanks for reading and hopefully see you next time!

Sources

https://lies-of-p.fandom.com/wiki/Ergo

https://lies-of-p.fandom.com/wiki/Stalkers

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wiki/tale-of-puss-in-boots

https://gamerant.com/lies-p-belle-epoque-setting-explained-duality-good-bad/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Nutcracker

https://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/The_Nutcracker

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RatKing

https://alice.fandom.com/wiki/American_McGee%27s_Alice

https://store.steampowered.com/app/19680/Alice_Madness_Returns/

(Photo by Lucie Liz from Pexels.com)

We’re back with more writing prompts inspired by some of my favourite indie video games! Quick intro: this is my way of shedding some light on some of my favourite video games that you’ve probably never heard of, as well as hopefully spreading some inspiration to any fellow storytellers and writers out there. Make sure you check out Part 1 as well for more story inspiration!

Anyway, let’s begin!

1. Postmouse & Hoa

Postmouse is a 3D puzzle platformer, developed by Critters Collective, where you play as a little mouse who delivers post around his woodland home to all of the other animal residents. As calm, cosy and cute as the premise is, you’d be surprised by some of the moments of peril our timid little postmouse must go through! The game is also completely free, as it was actually a student project. I hope the students got top grades cos it’s genuinely pretty good!

Hoa is a 2D puzzle platformer, developed by Skrollcat Studio, with INCREDIBLE Studio Ghibli vibes! If you’ve ever watched a Studio Ghibli film, you’ll know exactly what I mean as soon as you try this game! Also, the soundtrack for this game is one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard! Please go and give it a listen, even if you have no interest in playing the game itself! Anyway, in the game, you play as a little fairy called Hoa, exploring a magical forest to find out what happened to her family in the past.

Since the settings and vibes of both games go so well together, how about this for a crossover writing prompt? – One day, as a little postmouse is busy scampering through the forest to deliver all his letters to the residents of the woods, he comes across a tiny leaf boat floating down the river. On closer inspection, he finds a baby fairy inside! He has no idea where she came from, but she’s all alone, with no one else to take care of her. So, reluctantly, he takes her in and raises her. Over the years, the little mouse takes her on some of his postal deliveries around the forest. They meet the other woodland creatures and have some misadventures, as the little fairy is learning to use her magic. Eventually, the little fairy begins to remember her old home. She has flashbacks to what happened to her, and how she ended up on that leaf boat. Part of her wants to go and find her old home again. But the other part of her doesn’t want to leave her adoptive father behind. What will she do?

In Hoa, you find out specifically what did happen to her and her family in the game, but obviously there’s room here for you to invent whatever backstory for her you feel like. Without spoiling the game too much, Hoa was sent away on her little leaf boat at the beginning of the game in order to escape some sort of catastrophe. I do love a good tragic backstory! And I also love stories about unlikely people becoming parental figures reluctantly.

Weirdly, in Postmouse, the mouse character you play as is never given an actual name. All the other characters just refer to him as Postmouse. Obviously, you could give him any name you like for your story, but if I was to give him a name, I’d call him Tuke! The reason is because, here in the UK, Sir Brian Tuke was the man in charge of creating the 1^st national postal network in our country, back in 1516. So, it feels appropriate, and I think Tuke sounds cute for a mouse!

2. Amphora & Beyond Eyes

Amphora is a 2D puzzle point-and-click game, developed by Moondrop, with a very unique visual style, as the whole game is inspired by shadow theatre traditions. There’s no dialogue in the game; the story is told purely through its visuals. So, it’s a little unclear exactly what you are in the game, but you seem to play as this spirit inside an amphora (a big jar/vase). As this spirit, you are able to manipulate the setting by moving objects in order to help the characters complete certain tasks and progress the story. The story follows a person from babyhood to adulthood, so I suspect this amphora is a family heirloom of sorts.

Beyond Eyes is a walking simulator, developed by Tiger & Squid, where you play as a young girl called Rae who is blinded at the beginning of the game in an accident. She finds it difficult to adjust, but a cat called Nani who comes to visit her house every day helps makes things a little easier. That is, until Nani goes missing, so Rae decides to leave the safety of her family home to try and find them. Since Rae is blind, the game’s visuals are very clever with how they represent her blindness. The entire world is completely white, but then bits of the world get painted in as Rae slowly walks around and discovers her environment. It has a painted watercolour style that is very pleasing to look at!

So, here’s my writing prompt! – You are the spirit of a family ancestor, trapped inside a necklace that has been passed down through your family for generations. Although you are trapped, you can use your spiritual powers to move objects that are near you. For generations, you have secretly been helping your descendants live their lives, while they remain oblivious to your existence. One day, after spending quite a few years inside a dusty old box, you are finally opened up and gifted to your great-great-great-‘however-many-greats’ granddaughter. She was recently blinded in an accident, and her parents believe that this family heirloom brings good luck, hence they gift it to her after the accident. One day, while she’s sitting out in the garden, wearing you, you try and cheer her up by luring a cat to her. You’re delighted to see that she and this cat become fast friends, and the cat comes to visit her every day. But then suddenly, the cat doesn’t come and visit. Several days past, and still no cat. The little girl wants to try and find her new cat friend, so naturally, you do your best to help her navigate the world past her garden walls with your guiding hand.

In Amphora, like I said before, the spirit you play as seems to be trapped inside a large vase. But since that would be impossible to carry around with you all the time, I figured having the spirit trapped inside an item you can wear all the time with ease would make the most sense. How or why is the spirit of this one ancestor trapped inside a necklace? That’s up to you to decide, fellow writer!

3. Rainy Season & Rumu

Rainy Season is a narrative-driven game, developed by Inasa Fujio, about a kid having to spend time indoors because it’s raining outside. Despite how ‘boring’ the initial premise might sound, lots of strange events happen around the house, as this kid uses their imagination to keep themselves entertained. The game is also set within an urban Japanese household, so it was interesting getting to see what homelife is like for a culture different from mine.

Rumu is also a narrative-driven game, developed by Robot House, where you play as a robot vacuum cleaner that becomes more sentient and self-aware as the game progresses. You are guided by the watchful eye of the house’s AI, Sabrina, who…might be hiding something important from you…Anyway, I love this game in particular! For such a simple idea, this game delivers one hell of an emotional gut punch at the end!

And without further ado, my writing prompt! – A young, mischievous kid is sent away to spend the summer with their estranged aunt, in her very modern, state-of-the-art, futuristic house. The aunt is a scientist and inventor after all. Although all the robots around the house are cool, the kid is still pretty bored because their aunt spends all day in their private lab, doing research or inventing something. The kid spends most days outside in the garden playing, therefore. But one day, it’s raining cats and dogs! Now they’re REALLY bored! So, they explore the house again on their own, until they come across an old closest they hadn’t spotted before. It’s strange how everything else in the house is so neat and pristine, but this one closest is a cluttered mess. Inside, the kid finds a tiny robot vacuum cleaner that can talk. With nothing better to do, the kid plays with the robot by making messes for them to clean up. But over time, this little robot starts to become more self-aware, more capable of emotion, and the two become friends. But why did their aunt create a robot vacuum cleaner that can talk and learn emotions? The kid and their new robot friend decide to explore rooms in the house they’re not allowed into to find out!

No spoilers, but in Rumu, there’s an incredibly tragic plot twist that’s revealed as to why Rumu is the way he is. Why he’s capable of love even though he’s just a vacuum cleaner! So, you could have some interesting fun coming up with why someone would want to create a sentient vacuum cleaner. Also, I decided to make the estranged family relative an aunt simply because I don’t think we get enough female representation in science in media, but you could make the family relative anyone really!

But anyway, those are a few more of my story ideas, inspired by indie games! Let me know what other writing prompts you can think of from these games, or if there are any video games you like that would make good writing prompts. Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!

Sources

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2273550/Postmouse/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1484900/Hoa/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/331510/Amphora/

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/beyond-eyes?srsltid=AfmBOorXt1ZntlQNjcf6mWLlJEHGK3d8Yszscs_PL0Dd2O7OZFRr1ck-

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1094420/Rainy_Season/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/723270/Rumu/

So, I knew absolutely NOTHING about the Monster Hunter series, until a friend of mine got me into the most recent game that came out earlier this year, Monster Hunter Wilds. For anyone who doesn’t know, Monster Hunter is a fantasy action video game series created by Capcom, where you hunt monsters…if the title didn’t make that blindingly obvious! There are 11 games so far in the series, and 331 unique monsters altogether across all the games.

With so many monsters for the developers to create, obviously they would have to pull inspiration from a lot of different sources. The developers themselves have stated that they tend to pull inspiration from real-life animals and then mash bits of them together, which is pretty obvious when you look at some of them!

(The Congalala, for example, is a mix between a monkey and a hippo)

But looking at some of the monsters in specifically Monster Hunter Wilds got me thinking; some of these creatures must be based on myths! And as I’ve stated before, I love finding out about myths and legends from ancient cultures, because of how inspiring it can be for my own work. So, in this blog post, I’m going to be talking about some of the myths that inspired some of my favourite monsters from Monster Hunter Wilds.

Full disclosure! I couldn’t find direct information from the developers themselves about their inspiration on these specific monsters, so a lot of this is either from other sources or a bit of my own speculation after having done some research. So please bear that in mind!

1. Chatacabra

The Chatacabra is an amphibian-type monster with incredibly strong forelimbs, that moves around like a gorilla. Its most notable feature is its very long tongue that it uses to lick and attack enemies.

As soon as I saw this creature, I was immediately reminded of Lickitung from Pokémon. Lickitung is a pink salamander-looking Pokémon which also has a huge, long tongue that it uses to attack its enemies. Since the people who make Pokémon also tend to take inspiration from mythology as well, I was curious whether there could be a connection between the inspiration behind Lickitung, and the inspiration behind the Chatacabra.

(https://gamerant.com/pokemon-baby-form-lickitung-fan-art/)

When I looked up Lickitung’s information on Bulbapedia, it mentioned that Lickitung is mostly based on a salamander, which makes sense. However, it mentioned that it could also be based on the Japanese yokai, Akaname. Considering both Pokémon and Monster Hunter are game series created by Japanese companies, this immediately piqued my interest! After all, yokai is the name for monsters, creatures and supernatural beings from specifically Japanese folklore.

So obviously, I then looked up what the Akaname is. Turns out Akaname means ‘filth-licker’! They are these goblin-like creatures that inhabit the dirtiest of homes and public bathhouses, because they lick up and eat dirt, slime, mould, scum, hair, and human waste. They therefore having very long tongues and crawl about on all fours, just like the Chatacabra! They can also come in a variety of colours, including ‘mottled green’ because it’s reminiscent of the mould they eat. Again, the Chatacabra is also green!

I therefore think it’s possible that the developers may have taken inspiration from the Akaname when creating their Chatacabra, just like the Pokémon company did when creating Lickitung. I realise, of course, it’s likely that the developers were just basing the Chatacabra on a normal toad, since toads and frogs also have long tongues, and the Chatacabra is definitely an amphibian-type monster. But it’s still fun to speculate that this monster might have been inspired by this disgusting yokai as well!

2. Lala Barina

The Lala Barina is a large, spider-like creature with sharp spikes on its legs, fluffy hairs on its thorax and abdomen, and a retractable stinger that paralyses its victims. Its thorax also opens up and resembles a rose in full bloom at will.

Considering the creature’s name, and the fact that it spins and twirls so gracefully when moving about, I wondered if it was inspired by ballerina dancers. As it turns out, its name was inspired by the Spanish word for ballerina, ‘La bailarina’, which specifically means ‘the (she) dancer’.

This got me thinking; was there a connection between spiders and dancing in mythology? Well, one story I found isn’t so much an ‘ancient myth’, but it was something people speculated at the time that turned out to not be true, which you could argue is how ‘myths’ are created. Apparently, in Taranto, Italy, in the 17^th century, the city was plagued with a mysterious illness that became known as ‘Tarantism’. The afflicted would dance around frantically for days on end, unable to control this sudden impulse to dance. At the time, people believed it was caused by a spider bite! It was later discovered that it was actually caused by a psychogenic illness, but nonetheless, this connection between a spider’s bite and dancing might have been inspiration for the Lala Barina.

(By Pixabay from Pexels.com)

I also looked up whether there are any specific Japanese myths to do with spiders, since this is a Japanese game. Since spiders come up in a few ancient myths, such as Arachne in Ancient Greek mythology, and Neith in Ancient Egyptian mythology, it didn’t surprise me to find out there is indeed a spider yokai from Japanese mythology. The Jorōgumo is a spider that transforms into a beautiful woman in order to lure men to their nest to feast on. They have a powerful venom that slowly weakens their victims, so they can savour their flesh over several days, meaning they die long and painful deaths.

I found this information about the Jorōgumo interesting because in the cutscene that introduces the Lala Barina, we see one of the male characters, Erik, get lured to the Lala Barina’s nest because he follows a trail of florets that the creature leaves behind. Once he finds the nest, the Lala Barina uses its venom to paralyse Erik and then ensnare him in its web. Arguably, any real-life spider would do something similar, and the Lala Barina doesn’t transform into a woman like the Jorōgumo does. But it does still make me wonder whether the developers did also take inspiration from this spider yokai for their spider monster.

3. Quematrice

The Quematrice straight up looks like a rooster mixed with a T-rex! It’s a type of Wyvern in the Monster Hunter universe, that use their tails to create fire. As soon as I saw this thing, I thought Cockatrice! Turns out I was right, as their name is a mix of the Spanish word ‘Quemar’ which means ‘to burn’, and ‘trice’ from the name ‘Cockatrice’.

The Cockatrice is a creature with the body of a dragon or wyvern and the head of a rooster, from English mythology. Its normally 2 legged to resemble its chicken counterparts. According to legend, it’s created when a chicken’s egg is incubated and hatched by a snake! Some stories say it’s the size of a rooster, while other stories say it’s the size of a dragon. It’s also said to breathe fire or venomous gases, and its feathers can produce toxic gases too.

Needless to say, there’s no way the Quematrice wasn’t inspired by the Cockatrice! Although the Quematrice doesn’t breathe fire, it still uses its feathery tail to produce fire, similar to how the Cockatrice’s feathers produce gases. And even though the Quematrice resembles a T-rex more than a dragon, I believe this is just the developers being a bit more inventive with what a dragon body can look like.

Another interesting little tidbit I gathered from researching the Cockatrice is that, apparently, its natural enemy are weasels. This is probably a stretch, but this made me wonder whether the developers were harkening back to this little factoid in the opening cutscene for the Quematrice. In the cutscene that introduces the Quematrice, it’s harassing some Palicos, which are these small cat-like creatures in the game. As the main character, you have your own Palico, who swoops in to defend their brethren from the monster. Although the Palicos are distinctly cat-like, not weasel-like, I do wonder whether the Quematrice being thwarted by a small, furry, swift creature is a reference to the Cockatrice’s natural enemy!

4. Uth Duna

The Uth Duna is a massive reptilian leviathan with a hefty body that it drags along its 4 limbs while on land. Despite its size, it moves swiftly and gracefully in water. It also has these big, translucent fins that protrude from its body, which it retracts when they’ve been damaged.

When I looked up where the Uth Duna’s name came from, I found out it was a mix of ‘uzu’ which is Japanese for ‘whirlpool’, and the word ‘tuna’. At first, I thought part of its name came from ‘tuna’ because it’s simply a type of fish. But in the Wiki Fandom page for the Uth Duna, it said distinctly, ‘Tuna, a god of eels’. Huh…that sounds like a person or being, not just the fish we eat.

(Photo by Cottonbro Studio from Pexels.com)

Turns out, Te Tuna is the god of eels from Polynesian mythology. The story goes that this massive eel was married to a woman called Hina, who then left him and instead married Maui. And yes, I mean THAT Maui; the demi-god from Polynesian mythology who was popularised by the animated Disney film, Moana.

Te Tuna challenged Maui to a duel for Hina and lost in arguably the most bizarre and gruesome way possible! Maui, being a shapeshifter, shrunk down and entered Te Tuna’s head, and then exploded it from the inside! Maui and Hina then planted bits of his head in their garden, and it grew the very first coconut tree. This story is actually referenced in Moana, in Maui’s song ‘You’re Welcome!’: ‘I killed an eel, I buried its guts, sprouted a tree, now you’ve got coconuts!’

In another version of the myth, Te Tunaroa (his other name), wasn’t married to Hina at all. She was already married to Maui, but Te Tunaroa would watch her and lust over her as she bathed in a nearby pool. One day, he brushed himself against her private parts. When Hina told Maui what happened, Maui chopped him up into little pieces. Those little pieces then transformed into eels and swam away, hence why Te Tunaroa became known as the god of eels.

(Photo by Rachel Claire from Pexels.com)

Either way, considering Uth Duna’s name, and the fact that its head and body do resemble an eel, just fatter and with limbs, it’s not hard to believe that the developers may have taken inspiration from Te Tuna/Te Tunaroa.

5. Mizutsune

Last but not least, my favourite monster in the whole game! The Mizutsune is a long, slender Leviathan that actually has fur on its body! It secretes a soapy fluid that covers its entire body, allowing it to slide effortlessly across any terrain, making it difficult to catch.

As its name might suggest, this monster is meant to be fox-like, as its name derives from ‘mizu’ which means ‘water’ in Japanese, and ‘kitsune’ which means ‘fox’ in Japanese. However, the Mizutsune’s original Japanese name is actually Tamamitsune. The ‘Tama’ part of its name comes from Tamamo-no-Mae, who is widely regarded as the most famous kitsune in Japanese mythology.

Tamamo-no-Mae was a nine-tailed, shapeshifting fox who tried to kill the Japanese emperor and take his place during the Heian period. Although she didn’t succeed, her actions led to one of the most important civil wars in Japanese history. For this reason, she became known as one of the ‘Nihon San Dai Aku Yokai’, the Three Terrible Yokai of Japan.

Before she was given the name Tamamo-no-Mae, she was actually called Mikuzume for a time, which sounds remarkably similar to Mizutsune. Also, before she tried to kill the Japanese Emperor, she also apparently caused the fall of the Shang and Zhou Dynasty in China on two separate occasions, as well as charmed the king of the Magadha kingdom in India to commit unspeakable atrocities during his reign. Like seriously, look up her page on Yokai.com, this fox did some truly awful things while she was alive! She deserves to be the villain in her own movie!

Apart from this obvious connection between Mizutsune and Tamamo-no-Mae, a YouTuber called Romulas actually pointed to another myth that may explain the Mizutsune’s ability to secrete its soapy fluid. There is a famous fox from Ancient Greek mythology called the Teumessian Fox. This fox was sent by Dionysus to punish the city of Thebes for a crime its people had committed. This fox was famous because it was destined to never be caught. Romulas pointed out that this fox’s ability to ‘never be caught’ may have been inspiration for Mizutsune’s soapy fluid, as its fluid makes it harder to catch because its so slippery.

(https://www.ancientgreecereloaded.com/files/ancient_greece_reloaded_website/legendary_monsters/teumessian_fox.php)

And that concludes my research and speculation into some of the mythology that may have (or definitely did in some cases) inspire my favourite monsters from Monster Hunter Wilds! I know this was a longer-than-usual blog post from me, but I hope you enjoyed this deep dive regardless. Let me know if you have any favourite monsters from the series down in the comments, and thanks again for reading!

Sources

https://www.gameshub.com/news/features/monster-hunter-wilds-ecosystem-interview-2648212/

https://monsterhunterwilds.wiki.fextralife.com/Chatacabra

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lickitung_(Pok%C3%A9mon)#Trivia

https://yokai.com/akaname/?srsltid=AfmBOooxqYGIG_8FxiqLRC45W7qMkF5iC9G7fQl4oSWmIdcZxiF_H4GN

https://monsterhunterwilds.wiki.fextralife.com/Lala+Barina

https://monsterhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Lala_Barina#Notes

https://www.learnreligions.com/spider-mythology-and-folklore-2562730

https://yokai.com/jorougumo/?srsltid=AfmBOooYakA4HIaJGcgZDxanl-FDl4b2YF0rWFhxFUphOEQrjhfkRpfk

https://monsterhunterwilds.wiki.fextralife.com/Quematrice

https://monsterhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Quematrice#Notes

https://www.breedersacademy.com/the-mythical-beast-the-cockatrice/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/cockatrice

https://monsterhunterwilds.wiki.fextralife.com/Uth+Duna

https://monsterhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Uth_Duna

https://www.godchecker.com/polynesian-mythology/TE-TUNA/#google_vignette

https://www.godchecker.com/maori-mythology/TE-TUNAROA/#google_vignette

https://monsterhunterwilds.wiki.fextralife.com/Mizutsune

https://monsterhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Mizutsune

https://yokai.com/tamamonomae/?srsltid=AfmBOorWXQKxjyHkPDPy16LzXSJjF-GpPNZ5mTOAc-gO0YCbgnYodhna

https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Teumessian_fox/teumessian_fox.html

And that’s why I thought, it would be a shame not to share some of my ideas with you all, just in case anyone else wants to take any of them and make them into their own stories! So, think of this as sort of a writing prompts list, from the archives of my own brain. I’m keeping some of my best ideas for myself of course, so I won’t be sharing every idea I’ve ever had! But these ones are the ones that I’m frankly not interested enough in to commit to the time it would take to develop them into whole stories.

(Image from Pexels.com)

Also, some of these ideas aren’t full-on fantasy ideas, i.e. they’re set in the modern world, or don’t focus much on fantasy. This is another reason why I’m not that interested in them, but I thought I would warn you in case you were hoping for JUST fantasy story ideas. But hey, you could probably take some of them and add more fantastical elements if you want.

And also, don’t worry about copyright! Of course, I’d love to be mentioned as a source of inspiration if any of you do use these ideas for your own stories. But consider all of these ideas copyright-free. Besides, these ideas are just the bare bones of a story, so as soon as you created your own full plot and characters using the ideas, it would be impossible for me to claim any sort of copyright anyway!

Finally, I realise that for all I know, there may already be stories that exist out there that are based around these ideas. After all, other people may have come up with these ideas before me and actually turned them into stories. If you guys know any, let me know in the comments!

(Image from Pexels.com)

1. How I became an Internet Celebrity Cat!

This one is a VERY modern idea with a smattering of fantasy thrown in. The story is set in our modern world, and the human main character discovers they have the ability to transform into a cat (or you could have them able to transform into any animal frankly). So, what do they do with their newfound ability? Some people might try and become a superhero and fight crime if they discovered they had a superhuman power like that! BUT not our protag! Instead, they get their friend to film them as a cat doing silly things and make it big on social media!

When I first had the idea, I was thinking of YouTube as the place the protag and their friend would post videos, but you could easily make it TikTok or Instagram, or whatever social media site is most popular at the time when you write the story. As long as social media exists, funny cat videos will forever be a staple of our modern culture, so it’s not too far-fetched to imagine a person who can turn into a cat taking full advantage of the hype.

In terms of expanding the story into some more substantial, maybe the protag starts getting jealous because their friend is the one getting most of the credit for their ideas. After all, the protag has to remain a cat when on video or in public meeting fans, otherwise the jig is up! So, their friend would be the one talking on their behalf, pretending that the cat is their pet. I can imagine lots of friendship struggles boiling to the surface as a result, which would make for some juicy drama!

(Photo by Katarzyna Modrzejewska from Pexels.com)

2. The Kaiju Wrestlers

Again, set in our modern world, but no ‘magic’ this time! Just good old-fashioned giant monsters fighting each other! For those who don’t know, ‘Kaiju’ is the Japanese word for a giant monster, such as Godzilla, but it’s become popular over the years in colloquial geek talk when referring to gigantic monsters.

In this modern-day world, Kaiju exist but are intelligent beings. They have become celebrities who battle each other in virtual simulations for the entertainment of humans. Like how one might watch pro-wrestling matches. When they’re not battling for fame and glory, they live in bespoke towns and cities built for their gigantic size.

However, the child of one of the most famous Kaiju fighters doesn’t want to fight. They want to leave their Kaiju town and find their purpose in a human-populated area. As you can imagine though, this causes all sorts of problems! A human city is not built for a Kaiju, that’s why the Kaiju stay in their own areas. And although this child Kaiju is smaller because they’re just a child, they still cause accidents and mayhem just by attempting to live in a human city.

I imagine in this story that the child Kaiju meets a human child who tries to help them fit in, in the human city. There would be the classic parent vs child conflict with the child Kaiju disobeying their parents and not living up to their expectations. Also, there could be a whole moral quandary of whether Kaiju and humans can and should be living together, instead of having a ghetto-type situation.

(Photo by Ali Müftüoğullari from Pexels.com)

3. Cryptid Tours

In case you don’t know, a ‘cryptid’ is a creature that some people claim exists, but its existence has never been proven. Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster are probably the most famous examples of cryptids. Other examples would be Mothman, Jackalopes, the Chupacabra, and the Bloop.

In this story, a little kid lives near this big national park, that they like to explore every day. One day, they meet a bunch of cryptids and they all become friends. The cryptids all live and hide in the park because it’s a huge area where humans most likely won’t find them. So, the kid hatches a brilliant scheme. They make money by offering tours around the park for people looking for cryptids. During those tours, the cryptids play along by letting themselves been seen, just a little bit, so the tourists think maybe they did see something, but they can’t know for sure. This means more and more people pay for these tours, hoping to catch a glimpse of something remarkable.

This little kid’s scheme could lead to some light-hearted banter as the cryptids try not to get caught in the act completely. Maybe the story gets a bit more serious as special secret agents and government scientists become interested in whether there actually are strange creatures living in the national park. I feel like you could have a lot of goofy fun with this story.

(Photo by Anya Juárez Tenorio from Pexels.com)

Anyway, those are just a few of my ideas, but like I said, I’ve got plenty of random ones written down and will probably come up with plenty more in the future. So, expect more writing prompts like these ones at some point. Do you think any of you could make any of these ideas into fully realised stories? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

(Pexels.com Stock Photo)

Because indie games aren’t part of some bigger corporation, this means the person/people making them have more creative freedom, so these games tend to be more unique than your big triple A games. And you know what else I really love? Writing and storytelling, especially if it’s more unique!

So, in order to shed some light on some of my favourite video games that you probably haven’t heard of, and hopefully to spread some inspiration to any fellow storytellers and writers out there, I thought it would be fun to think up some writing prompts based on indie video games.

There are a lot of indie video games out there, so I’m only covering a few in this blog post. But this is only Part 1; expect more posts like this one in the future!

(Pexels.com Stock Photo)

1. Abzû & Submerged

Abzû is an adventure exploration game developed by Giant Squid Studios. You play as a diver, exploring the vast depths of a beautiful ocean. There’s no dialogue or narration in this game, so as you explore, it’s up to you to piece together the clues and hints of what this underwater world is or once was.

Submerged is also an exploration game developed by Uppercut Games. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world where most of the world is now flooded. You play a young teenage girl called Miku, who arrives at a flooded city on a boat, with her younger brother who has been badly injured. You have to explore the remains of the city, by scaling buildings and travelling in your little boat, to try and scavenge for resources that might help your brother.

Obviously, the premise alone for both of these games would make for a good writing prompt. But why not combine the two? Especially since they’re both water themed. In Abzû, the diver is not a human diver; it’s very apparent from how long they can stay underwater that they’re something alien or mystical, or both. And in Submerged, Miku is all alone during the game, except for her brother, but he’s gravely injured so can’t do much.

So how about this for a story? – In a post-apocalyptic flooded world, a young teenage girl and her brother arrive at a flooded, abandoned city in their little boat. The little boy is gravely injured, so his sister must explore the city to try and find resources to help him recover. As she does so, she meets a mysterious humanoid creature that lives underwater. They become friends and work together to help her ailing brother.

This mysterious humanoid aquatic creature could be your typical merfolk, or an alien, or something else. This would give the main character a friend to interact with during her exploration. I imagine the story would centre more around the two characters talking and discovering more about each other, more so than it being an adventure or anything. You could have the teenage girl and aquatic creature fall in love too, if you wanted to create a romance!

2. Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery

Behind the Frame is a point and click adventure game created by Taiwanese developer Silver Lining Studio. You play as an aspiring artist on the cusp of finishing the final piece of her gallery submission. You also happen to live opposite an old man and his pesky cat, who is always grumpy and never wants to talk.

As you finish your piece, you encounter puzzles that unlock memories from your past that you’ve forgotten, including who that old man actually is!

Now before I continue…SPOILERS!!! There’s a very big twist right at the end of the game that I want to talk about, because I think it makes for an interesting prompt. So, if you want to check out the game for yourself, I suggest skipping ahead to the next game/section, so you don’t spoil the ending for yourself!

Now with that warning out of the way, right at the end of Behind the Frame, you discover that you, the artist, are actually a painting yourself! The old man that lives in the flat opposite yours, who you’ve been trying to call to through your open window this whole time, is actually the man painting you! That’s why you can never speak to him; in his eyes, you’re a static painting, whereas in your world, you can move around your flat, and paint freely.

So, here’s my writing prompt for you! – You are a person in a painting. You live in your own boxed-in little world, able to move around freely but you can never leave and explore the outside world. You contently watch the life of the person who painted you unfold. Until one day, your creator starts painting something new, right opposite where you hang. They are painting another person, and you see as this painted person come to life as well. You are able to talk to them from across the room, and you start getting to know each other. Eventually you become friends, and you both wish more than anything in the world that you could leap across the room to each other.

This prompt could easily turn into a typical romance plot if you desired. Or, maybe instead of you interacting with another fellow painting, maybe you just watch and write about what you see in your creator’s life; maybe good or bad things happen in your creator’s life, or maybe you eventually are sold to someone else. Maybe this someone else from the outside world can actually see you moving and can talk to you! There’s a lot of possibilities with this one!

3. Pine: A Story of Loss & Paws: A Shelter 2 Game

Pine: A Story of Loss is an interactive story developed by Made Up Games. You play a woodcutter living all alone in a forest, dealing with the death of his wife. The game takes you through his everyday routine and chores. You must help him hold onto precious memories of his wife while also learning how to move on without her.

Paws: A Shelter 2 Game is an adventure game developed by Might and Delight. It’s based on the ‘Shelter’ game series that this studio has made in the past. You play as a young lynx cub who becomes separated from their mother and siblings. As you traverse the forest, trying to find your family again, you come across a bear cub, who is also lost or has been abandoned or orphaned. Together, you overcome obstacles and face predators together, as you try and find your way home.

Again, I wanted to combine these two games into one writing prompt, because the themes of loss and moving forward fit well, and both games are set in a big forest.

So, my writing prompt would be this! – A woodcutter lives all alone in his cabin in the forest, after his wife passed away. He’s just trying to get by, but every day is harder and harder without her by his side. Then one day, while out cutting wood, he finds a starving lynx and bear cub, snuggling up together in a nearby thicket. He’s surprised to see a lynx and a bear so friendly with each other. He feeds them both just so they won’t starve, but the two cubs follow him home. Reluctantly, he takes them in and takes care of them. And slowly, he starts to feel a lot less alone.

I think with this prompt, you could have any one animal, or two animals be the lynx and bear cub in this story. I just made them a lynx and bear so it matches the game. Maybe you could write the story in a diary form, with the woodcutter writing about how alone he feels, until he befriends and nurtures the two cubs.

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Although I love a good adventure or quest as a fantasy writer, I also have a great appreciation for slow stories that focus more on the characters just living their lives and interacting, in case you couldn’t tell from all these writing prompts!

But anyway, those are a few of my story ideas, inspired by indie games! Let me know what other writing prompts you can think of from these games, or if there are any video games you like that would make good writing prompts. Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!

Sources

https://store.steampowered.com/app/384190/ABZU/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/301860/Submerged/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1634150/Behind_the_Frame_The_Finest_Scenery/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2058340/Pine_A_Story_of_Loss/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/434000/Paws__A_Shelter_2_Game/

For anyone who doesn’t know, a co-op video game is a game that you can’t play on your own, you have to play with at least one other person. In the case of all of Hazelight’s games, you have to play their games with one other person, because their games always centre around two main characters, so you need two players to control both characters.

I’ve been a huge fan of Hazelight’s work ever since ‘A Way Out’. A lot of multiplayer games tend to be less about story, plot or character development, and more around just completing a series of fun tasks/puzzles together e.g. Fall Guys, Heave Ho, and Phasmophobia to name a few. But all of Hazelight’s games focus mostly on the characters and the story, with some puzzles to solve along the way.

‘A Way Out’ is about two criminals trying to break out of jail and get revenge on another criminal who did them dirty, ‘It Takes Two’ is about two parents who are about to divorce trying to patch up their relationship, and ‘Split Fiction’ is about two authors who are absorbed into each other’s sci-fi and fantasy stories and have to find their way back to reality (as a fantasy writer myself, guess which game is my favourite!). This is why I think Hazelight’s games are so much more unique than a lot of standard co-op games.

Because I love their games so much, this led me down a rabbit hole of daydreaming; what story would I write for a co-op game, like the ones Hazelight make? Let’s be clear, I am no game developer, I wouldn’t know the first thing about actually creating a video game. But I like daydreaming and brainstorming, and I like video games, and I like creating stories, so of course I’m going to think up potential video game plots without any knowledge of making something like that a reality!

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Funnily enough, the whole reason I decided to write this blog post is because I realised that a story idea I had from ages ago would make the perfect, funny co-op game!

I had this idea of writing a fantasy story about a classic hero/knight in shining armour character going on adventures and defeating the great evil BUT…the whole story is written from the perspective of the hero’s two animal companions; a horse/mount companion that the hero rides, and a smaller, furry companion that rides on the hero’s shoulder or walks alongside them.

I thought it would be funny if the great hero was actually a complete idiot who kept running into danger without thinking, and the whole story was about his two animal companions constantly having to get him out of danger.

I was even going to go so far as to make the hero and all the people speak gobbledegook, while the two animal companions and all the other animals in the book would speak English. So, when reading the book, you’d only understand what the animals were saying, and you’d be in the same boat as the animals, not able to fully understand what the humans are talking about.

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I think you can see where I’m going with this! Imagine a co-op game where you and friend control two animals, and your whole objective is to help your idiot master get out of the sticky situations they end up in.

Now, I appreciate some people would probably find this concept very annoying! There are a lot of examples in video games of missions where you had to protect a video game character, and because their AI was busted as all hell, it was a nightmare trying to protect them. These are known as ‘escort missions’ in video game terms; your objective is to help a character get from A to B without them dying.

One of the most infamously terrible escort missions I’ve heard about would have to be escorting Natalya in the James Bond game ‘Goldeneye 007’. I’ve never played the game myself, but even I’ve heard about Natalya because of how janky her AI apparently is!

However, video game AI is getting better and better every day, so I believe you could make an entire game around the concept of keeping a character safe without it being annoying, IF you make sure the character’s AI is good.

Also, if you focus on the characters themselves and their personalities, like Hazelight Studios tend to do, then it’s not just a huge escort mission where you’re forced to protect this character you barely know. It becomes a game where you genuinely want to help these animals protect their master.

Maybe the hero/master is very kind and caring towards their animal companions, despite being a complete idiot. Take the stop-motion animated tv and film franchise ‘Wallace & Gromit’ for example. Gromit is constantly having to save Wallace, and he’s always annoyed and fed up about it. But because Wallace is such a genuinely kind and funny character, you actually want Gromit to keep helping him, no matter how annoying it is.

If I was going to write a story for this hypothetical co-op game, I think I would set it in a fantasy world (obviously) and make both the animal companions some form of magical/mystical creatures. One would be bigger so the hero could ride on their back, and the other would be smaller and walk alongside.

With the hero riding on the bigger one’s back, this also means that sometimes the two players could navigate the game without having to run after the hero, because one of the player’s would be in control of where the hero goes while he’s riding their back.

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In ‘Split Fiction’, Hazelight’s most recent game, there are a few sections where the two human characters actually turn into animals, or into things other than humans. So, it’s not a huge stretch to assume that Hazelight would be able to create an entire game where you control two characters that aren’t humanoid at all.

In terms of the plot for the game, it would be a fairly typical ‘hero goes on a quest to defeat a great evil’ story, with lots of side quests along the way. Maybe the hero buys both of his animal companions at the beginning of the game to help him with his quest because they both have certain magical abilities.

Maybe the two companions don’t get along at first, and maybe they also don’t particularly like their new master because he’s such an idiot. But along the way, they see the good in him and become friends themselves, agreeing to work together to help their master defeat this great evil and save the world.

Those are some of my thoughts on a story that could make an interesting co-op game. Let me know what you guys think! What creatures would you pick for the two animal companions to be? Do you think my idea could even work? I’d love to know your thoughts and have a lovely day!

(Pexels.com Stock Photo)

Sources:

https://www.hazelight.se/

https://www.fallguys.com/en-US

https://store.steampowered.com/app/905340/Heave_Ho/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/739630/Phasmophobia/

https://www.wallaceandgromit.com/

Gameplay mechanics-wise, there’s nothing extraordinary about South of Midnight. It plays the same way you’d expect other 3D platform adventure games to play. BUT that’s not why I love it!

The reason I love this game so much is because of the story, the characters and, especially, the lore and mythology that inspired this game! A lot of the characters you’ll meet in South of Midnight are based on mythological creatures from Deep South folklore.

So, I want to shed some light on the mythology behind some of those characters, as well as some other elements of the game. As a fantasy writer myself, I love hearing about old folktales and mythology. I find old stories from any culture so inspiring, so maybe you can find some inspiration in this game’s lore too!

However, before we continue: Spoiler alert! I won’t talk too much about the story itself, but some of the characters I’ll be mentioning don’t appear until later in the game. So, if you want to experience the game for yourself without any prior knowledge of what to expect, don’t read on! Go and play the game for yourself first!

1. Weaving

In the game, Hazel discovers she’s a Weaver; a person chosen by the land to take care of the Grand Tapestry, the very fabric of the universe. The Deep South has a long history of quilting and weaving. The tradition started out of necessity, when colonists made imported textiles hard to come by. But over time, it became an art form, a way for people to display their dreams, beliefs, struggles and achievements.

During the American Civil War, some quilts were even made to hide coded messages within to help slaves free themselves. In the Gee’s Bend area of Alabama’s rural Black Belt, quilting became a way for Black women to gain economic independence as well. Needless to say, the art of weaving is therefore very historically and culturally important to many areas of the Deep South.

2. Two-Toed Tom

In the game, Two-Toed Tom is a massive alligator that you have to evade and eventually fight. In reality, he’s a cryptid in Southern folklore, with sightings reported in Florida and Alabama. He’s still a massive alligator in the folklore, who’s been around since the 1920s and apparently can’t be killed. He’s said to have a hunger that can never be quenched, and he mostly dines on cattle since he’s that big!

A steel trap took three of his toes on one of his feet, leaving only two toes behind, hence his name. However, if you play the game, you’ll discover that he lost his toes another way. He also sometimes goes by the nickname ‘Red-Eye’.

3. Floofs

In the game, Floofs are these ghostly-looking lights you can collect to upgrade your weapons with. They’re most likely based on Fifolets or Fool’s Fire; spectral lights that misdirect people trying to traverse the swamps of Louisiana. It’s believed that they’re the souls of unbaptized children, unable to enter heaven, but too innocent to be sent to hell. Therefore, they roam the swamps instead, lost and confused.

4. Rougarou

In the game, you discover that one of the characters is a Rougarou, a half-man, half-beast creature. In Cajun culture, a Rougarou is basically a werewolf. Sometimes the person can shapeshift willingly between their human and wolf form, sometimes they can’t. Some say that people become Rougarou when cursed, and the only way to free themselves from the curse is to drink the blood of their victims. Without spoiling the plot too much, the beast form of the Rougarou in the game is, surprisingly, not a wolf.

(Art by Claudia Rodriguez - @WroughtInk)

5. The Bottle Tree

In the game, Hazel takes a blue bottle from a bottle tree. She then uses this bottle to collect painful fragments of people’s lives to help her repair the tears in the Grand Tapestry. In West African and Creole culture, placing bottles on the ends of branches in a tree is supposed to protect your home at night from evil spirits.

The spirits are attracted to the bright colours of the bottles, then they get trapped inside the bottles, and die in the morning sun. You would normally place these bottles on the branches of a Crape-myrtle tree.

6. Huggin’ Molly

In the game, Huggin’ Molly is a giant woman/spider hybrid creature that appears to enjoy kidnapping children. However, in original Alabama folklore, she looks very different! She’s actually the ghost of a typical-looking woman, who wears a black dress and a black wide-brimmed hat. If she catches a child outside after dark, she hugs them and then screams in their ear before disappearing.

Some say she’s the ghost of a mother who lost their child, so she hugs any child she can find to try and relieve herself of the pain of losing her child. She’s often considered the ‘bogeyman’ of Alabama, a scary story to make sure kids stay inside after dark. Other variations of her story say she was actually once a teacher, not a grieving mother, who used to patrol the streets near her school at night to make sure her students stayed inside. Although she seems to be kidnapping children in the game, Huggin’ Molly is normally associated with keeping children safe.

7. Haint Blue

In the game, anything important, such as which ledges you can grab to climb the environment and progress the game, is marked in blue. This is an interesting choice because in most video games, yellow is the colour often used to mark important things that help progress the game.

In Gullah culture, the colour blue is used to keep away Haints (evil spirits) because they can’t cross water, so they’re afraid of the colour blue. The most common enemies that Hazel encounters in the game are in fact Haints, so it’s very fitting that the developers picked blue instead of yellow for their game.

8. The Devil at the Crossroads

In the game, Roux is a character whose place of residence you find at a mysterious crossroads, and he makes a deal with you in exchange for information about Hazel’s mother’s whereabouts. In Cajun culture, crossroads symbolise a place between life and death. If you meet the Devil at a crossroads, you can exchange your soul for your heart’s greatest desire. The Devil is usually portrayed as suave, savvy and intelligent in Cajun culture, just like Roux. Another example of this Devil archetype from this culture would be Dr Facilier from Disney’s ‘The Princess and the Frog’.

It’s said that Robert Johnson, a famous Blues musician, met the Devil at the crossroads near Dockery Plantation in Mississippi at midnight, and sold his soul to become the greatest guitar player that ever lived. This is an interesting tale since Robert Johnson was also quite famous for claiming that, in order to play the Blues well, you had to play in a cemetery and wait for the Haints to wake up and teach you how to plays the Blues properly.

Well, those are my favourite little tidbits about the mythology and lore behind South of Midnight. I hope you enjoyed reading this little deep dive and maybe go check out the game yourself if you’re interested! Thanks for reading!

Sources:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1934570/South_of_Midnight/

https://gamerant.com/all-real-life-mythological-creatures-in-south-of-midnight/

https://butwhytho.net/2025/04/south-of-midnight-real-southern-folklore/

https://tennesseerivervalleygeotourism.org/entries/southern-quilting-a-legacy-stitched-into-the-fabric-of-history/c6866375-1c0c-4d4d-a87e-db3679442e90

https://evanstonroundtable.com/2023/03/27/pre-civil-war-quilts-secret-codes-underground-railroad/#:~:text=Slaves%20fleeing%20knew%20to%20look,if%20there%20was%20danger%20nearby.

https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/gees-bend-quiltmakers

https://www.treblezine.com/robert-johnson-devil-myth-two-songs/

Well…that’s never been the case for me! I think I’m in a minority here, but I’ve always loved creating stories with my writing, but I’ve struggled my whole life with reading stories. So, I wanted to talk about why I think that’s the case. Also, if anyone reading this also has the same struggles, I hope this piece helps you feel less alone in your struggles.

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I think one of the main reasons I struggle with reading is because, as a kid, it was very apparent that I had some form of learning difficulties. I got tested at the time for ADHD, but the specialists said I didn’t have it. In fact, a lot of different specialists examined me at the time, and no one could really tell what was up with me, just that something was up with me.

This was back in the 1990s mind you, not as much was known back then about ADHD or other neurodiversities, and I now think that they might have been wrong. From more recent research I’ve read and also from hearing other people’s experiences online, I think I probably do have some form of attention deficit.

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When I try to read for enjoyment, I often have to re-read what I’ve just read multiple times, because my brain gets distracted and glosses over the words. Interestingly though, if I’m reading something for a specific purpose (for example, I’m reading to learn something new about a certain topic), I am then able to concentrate a lot more on my reading. My concentration still isn’t perfect, but it’s way better in those scenarios. I think this is because I trained my brain as a kid to just focus on reading the things that would help me pass school.

Here's a funny little story of one time I managed to concentrate on reading for a specific purpose; in my secondary school (ages 11 to 16 for anyone not from the UK), there was a teenager the same age as me who I had a huge crush on. They also happened to be my best friend at the time, a real classic romcom situation! Nothing romantic ever happened between us BUT there was a particular book that this friend of mine loved.

It was ‘A Tree grows in Brooklyn’; it’s a semi-autobiographical novel written by Betty Smith about a young girl’s coming-of-age in the 1910s – 1920s in America. It’s just a story about the experiences of this young girl living in the slums of Williamsburg, but from what I remember, it’s a really good story. It’s also a pretty long book, and I forced myself to read the entire thing back then, because I knew my friend loved it…so I wanted to impress them and be able to talk about it with them. Basically, not only did I want something we could talk about as an excuse to talk to them, but I wanted to show them that I cared deeply about them by forcing myself to engage with this thing they really loved.

Yes, I was a massive simp! Don’t @ me!

Anyway, the reason the specialists told my parents that I couldn’t have ADHD was because I was still able to concentrate on things I enjoyed. They used my love for drawing as an example. They believed at the time that ADHD meant you couldn’t focus on anything, even the stuff you like doing, therefore I couldn’t have it.

However, there’s a lot of research nowadays that claims that people with ADHD are able to hyperfocus on things they enjoy, but struggle more than neurotypical people when trying to concentrate on something they aren’t interested in. Of course, it’s always difficult for anyone to concentrate on something they aren’t interested in, but people with ADHD or other neurodiversities experience this struggle to a far greater extent.

Whatever I had or still have, all of this is to say, I’ve always struggled with concentrating on things that don’t grab me instantly. I’m a very visual person; I like art, photography, films, tv shows, video games, animation etc. etc. And a lot of novels don’t have illustrations, unless they’re for very young kids. So, my mind tends to wander off and get distracted while reading.

That’s not to say I’ve never read a book or enjoyed reading one, obviously! My favourite book is actually Watership Down, and that’s a pretty hefty book! But something I’ve noticed is that the books that really grabbed me all had one thing in common; they all made it really easy for me to visualise what was happening. For example, Watership Down is a story about rabbits, and I know what rabbits look like. So, visualising the rabbits in the book and what they were doing was very easy for me. As another example, fanfiction of movies, shows or video games can be really easy for me to read. This is because I already know what the characters and settings look like thanks to the film, show or video game the story is based on.

So, why do I love writing so much? If I’m such a visual person, why don’t I make films, graphic novels, shows or video games to tell my stories with? Well, I think ultimately, it’s because writing is something (most of us) learn as kids. It’s an essential skill taught at most schools. And once you know how to do it, all you need is paper and a pencil or a pen, and you can create anything you can imagine…just with words. And I think that’s magical! To be able to create an image in someone else’s head of something that doesn’t exist, just with scribbles on a piece of paper? I don’t know about you, but that sounds like magic to me!

I also love writing because, most of the time, you have complete control over your story. If you’re making a film, tv show or video game, you normally have to collaborate with other people to make it a reality. But you don’t really need that with writing, unless you choose to hire other people to help, such as editors. Also, since I struggle to read unless I can easily visualise what’s happening, writing is therefore a breeze for me; I can already visualise what's happening, because I’m the one writing the story!

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A lot of people say that in order to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. I think this is true, to an extent, because I think reading a lot of books helps you discover different writing styles to help you find your own. Reading is also, obviously, another source of inspiration; if you read other people’s work, you might be inspired by certain ideas that you might want to include in your own writing.

I’m not telling you to straight up steal or plagiarise other people’s ideas, by the way! But it’s impossible to absorb stories and not find elements that you’ll want to incorporate into your own writing.

However, I personally believe you can find your own style and inspiration through other media. For example, lots of people who have read my work say I’m very good with dialogue. That would make sense since most of my inspiration comes from films, shows and video games.

On the other hand, this means that I often struggle with description in my work. Since films, shows and video games don’t need to describe anything because you can just see what’s there on the screen, I’m not used to writing text that describes what something looks like very well. If I was a more avid reader, I would probably have developed that skill more.

The other thing I have discovered is that editing your work is a real b*tch when you aren’t good at reading! Hence why my novel is still not finished yet!

But anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on writing versus reading. Do any of you prefer one to the other, or do you love both? Let me know in the comments and have a lovely day!

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Sources:

https://www.readandspell.com/ADHD-reading-problems

https://www.forbrain.com/adhd-learning/reading/#:~:text=ADHD%20can%20impact%20information%20processing,process%20for%20kids%20with%20ADHD.

https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/adhd-symptoms-hyperfocus

https://www.additudemag.com/understanding-adhd-hyperfocus/?srsltid=AfmBOoq-0LGklVI2yF-jpwbJEw_kheUEiQerdYWvUYOVAgH5hLtoXQM6

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14891.A_Tree_Grows_in_Brooklyn

https://austinkleon.com/2019/01/22/if-you-want-to-be-a-writer-you-have-to-be-a-reader-first/

https://janeyburton.com/do-i-have-to-read-to-be-a-good-writer/