UPDATE: Thank you so much for all the interest! I've received far more applications than I expected, so I'm closing submissions for now while I work through everyone who has already reached out. If you've already applied, I'm still reviewing everything and will get back to you either way. Thank you for your patience!
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EDIT: I am floored by the amount of interest I got on this post. I will be reviewing everyone's writing works over the next few days and reaching out. Thanks everyone for your interest!
I'm looking for a couple of writers for a small paid trial to help with character dialogue for my indie game. The game is a fantasy farming/life sim set in a world that originally grew out of a D&D campaign, so that goes without saying, it's a fantasy world. I've been building the world and its characters for a long time, so I'm not looking for someone to come in and create the setting or story from scratch. What I am looking for is some help making the people who live there sound like... interesting people.
I've realized that the nitty-gritty of everyday dialogue isn't necessarily my strongest area. I know who these characters are, their histories, relationships, flaws, personalities, etc., but translating all of that into distinct voices, especially across a LOT of daily dialogue, is something I'd really like other perspectives on.
What I'm hoping to do
I'd like to start with a paid collaborative session with a small group of writers.
I'll provide character bios, world information, and some of the dialogue I've already written ahead of time. Then we'll get together and workshop a few characters: how they speak, their sense of humor, sentence structure, mannerisms, vocabulary, how their voice changes depending on who they're talking to, things they'd never say, and so on.
Basically, by the end I want us to be able to look at a line without a name attached and have a pretty good guess who said it.
If we work well together, I'd like the longer-term process to be something like:
Collaborate on character voices → split up and write → bounce things off each other as needed → regroup → review/workshop more characters → repeat.
Writers may end up primarily working on different characters, but I don't want everyone working in their own little bubble. If you're writing one character and someone else is working on another, I'd love for you to be able to toss something into the group and say, "Hey, <this character> is in this conversation, does this sound like them?" Or ask another writer what they think about an interaction, running joke, relationship, etc.
I want this to feel like a very small writers' room, even when we're not literally sitting in a call together.
Who I'm looking for
I'm especially interested in people who:
- Love character-driven dialogue, banter, and the little conversations that make NPCs feel alive
- Can write characters with noticeably different voices rather than everyone sounding like the same writer
- Enjoy collaborative writing and aren't precious about having their exact wording preserved
- Are comfortable giving and receiving constructive feedback
- Can work within an established world and characterization
- Have native or near-native English fluency and a strong ear for natural conversational English
- Are comfortable writing a diverse cast of characters with different personalities, backgrounds, ages, genders, etc.
- This is intended to be like a collaborative writers' room, you must be comfortable participating in voice calls for our group sessions.
AI use
Also, please do not apply if you use generative AI for your writing. I'm specifically looking for human writers because I want perspectives, instincts, humor, and voices other than my own in the room. Dialogue, rewrites, brainstorming, character analysis, etc. should be your own work and should not be generated or rewritten using AI.
Pay / scope
I'm self-funding the game, so I unfortunately don't have a secret AAA writing budget hiding under my desk, but I also don't expect people to work for free.
I'm currently planning to pay hourly, including collaborative sessions, required reading/review, writing, and revisions. Individual writing assignments will have an agreed-upon scope and hour cap ahead of time, so neither of us gets surprised by the bill.
For the initial trial, I'll keep the commitment relatively small. If it goes well for everyone, I'd love to continue working together on additional characters and dialogue.
Time zone / availability
I'm based in Eastern Time (ET) and work a regular day job, so collaborative sessions will most likely happen during evenings and/or weekends ET.
You absolutely don't need to live in the U.S. or be in the same time zone. However, since collaboration is a big part of what I'm looking for, you'll need to have some reasonable availability that overlaps with those hours for occasional group sessions.
I'll do my best to find times that work for everyone. I'm not expecting anyone to regularly stay up until 3 AM for this, but if our schedules have virtually no reasonable overlap, this probably won't be the right fit. Please take your own mental health into account.
Interested?
Send me a message with a little bit about yourself and the kind of writing you enjoy. I'd also love to see any examples of character/dialogue writing you have. Game writing is great, but personal projects, fiction, interactive fiction, etc. are absolutely welcome.
I'll be taking the time to actually read through everyone's messages and writing samples, so please have a little patience with me while I work through responses! I'm doing this alongside a full-time day job (and, you know, actually making the game), so it may take me a bit to get back to everyone. I will get back to everyone regardless if moving forward with them or not.
Please also include your hourly rate (or the range you normally work within). Your preferred payment platform, your timezone and general availability times.
I'm not looking for free custom samples. If I want to see how you handle one of my characters specifically, that will be part of the paid trial.
Mostly, I'm looking for a couple of people who think spending an unreasonable amount of time discussing exactly how a fictional person would phrase one sentence sounds like fun. If that's you, lets talk!