Hi, I follow feministgamingmatters and saw you were offering to answer questions about getting into publishing. I recently graduated with a Media and Game Design degree, and I would like to try to find work writing about games online. I was wondering if you could give me advice. I think my skill set may be too broad and not focused enough, in the program we do art, programming, media editing and so on. I want to build an actual writing portfolio and wondered if you had tips for that as well.
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You don’t need a specific degree for writing - my degree is a BS in CommSci! You just need to be able to explain your ideas in an elegant, concise way, backed up by facts if you’re going a more journalistic route, or if you do opinion pieces, back up your arguments. I started out writing a blog for myself (or you could also get a Medium account) and then started pitching to actual websites. I also threw together a Squarespace site once I graduated from blogging so I could have my published pieces up for display. But what editors are typically looking for are a good pitch, a good idea that can hook into something their readers are looking for.
Focus on websites you want to write for when you’re pitching - read what they post day to day (whether reviews, features, op-eds) and what kind of tone and style they go for. You can direct pitches with a certain niche to a place where that might be seen as part of the “brand.”
Writing a lot, reading other people’s work, is a great way to develop your voice first and foremost and that’s something that will also start to develop once you start getting your work edited, but even blogging every day or once a week can help you learn how to formulate tight ideas and expressing them. I blogged for 3 years before I ever started pitching so I was already used to how to format my ideas for an audience to be reading. Also: don’t just focus on games. Media critics in particular should really not just know games, they should know film, comic books, TV, whatever tickles you. It’s impossible to really look at games as a medium without an appetite and eye for other things in the world. have outside interests that aren’t games. Cultivate your likes and dislikes!
When you’re ready to take the leap to pitching, always go to an editor with an idea! Have a strong idea and maybe an outline but never a fully written piece. The reason for this is because a pitch is an editor often taking your idea and making suggestions as to how it might fit to the shape of the site. So you don’t want to do all that work only to have it changed from the get-go. When you pitch, you don’t need ot have an existing relationship with the editor, but just send the email as if you were looking for a job (which in essence it is!).
Start out with a greeting, introduce yourself. Explain what you want in a sentence or two - the real gist of the piece you have in mind. Then take a few more sentences and extrapolate extra details - how you plan to tackle the topic, what makes it interesting and unique to the audience. I also include a line or two about what makes it relevant/newsworthy/current - you can turn an old games story into something fresh if there’s a hook in it for something currently going on by tying it to something else. After you’ve done ALL that, include any relevant samples (this is blog posts, samples you made up and hosted on your site, etc) that would suggest to the editor that you know how to tackle the kind of topic you are proposing. Don’t link them your entire canon of work. Editors are busy, y’all. Link them the strongest 2-3 pieces you have that illustrate your style or topic you are wanting to write.
Once you’ve gotten comfortable, you could also give them an estimate on how long it will be and how long it will take you, but I tend to let editors dictate turnaround time (how long it takes from pitch to you sending in your draft)
After that? Hope and wait! But if they like it, they will discuss it with you, get you set up with tax information (because you’re a contractor) and get your financials settled, and then you write it! All editors/editorial staves have a different approach to the process but typically you submit a draft, they look it over and edit it, make suggestions and don’t be afraid to push back if you think something got changed unfairly, but also learn how to take criticism and really let editors give you tips on how to really kick the tires on an idea. They are editors for a reason - they want to bring your work to their audience and they know best what’s going to work and they’ve read a lot of pieces. Developing a really strong relationship with an editor has easily made me a better writer since I then can internalize those ideas myself when I’m drafting.
If you’re awesome, you’ll get published on site and whatnot! Then just don’t forget to invoice the team for your work (most sites have a policy for 30-60 days of payment so keep them to that but don’t expect the money immediately. (Also I could go on and on about how many places don’t pay you half of what your writing is worth, but unfortunately many sites run on a shoestring budget. But if a site HAS a budget, they should be paying you. Also if you make over 400 bucks in a year in the United States, you have to pay taxes on that income and I’d put away at bare minimum 20% of your check.)
But keep pitching, keep writing, keep improving and hope for the best!
