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by Will McDermott

Read by Misha Grifka Wander

If you write narrative content for a video, role-playing, or board game—or even write fiction within a game world or for an intellectual property (IP) like Marvel or Star Wars—you will likely be asked to sign a Work for Hire (WFH) contract. These contracts have several major differences from fiction contracts you may have signed when writing your own original fiction. If you’re looking to make the leap from writing original fiction to working within a licensed game or entertainment property, this article will break down some of the differences you can expect to find between writing for yourself versus writing for someone else.

Rights Ownership

Chief among these differences is that you will not own the material you create for that IP. Essentially, you are playing in someone else’s sandbox. WFH contracts almost always stipulate that any materials you deliver under that contract are owned by the license holder upon delivery.

Here is an example taken from such a clause: “Author assigns and transfers all intellectual property rights in the work, and the ownership of and sole rights to the intellectual property rights in the work shall be vested in [COMPANY] from the date of delivery of the work.”

Some WFH contracts will take this a step further by specifying that the WFH contractor freely assigns all rights to the work to the company even when other laws, contracts, or qualifications may say otherwise. Plus, a WFH contract may stipulate you give up your rights to derivative works based on the content delivered. This means later authors working in the IP can freely use any character, locales, plot points, etc. that you created. You no longer own or control their use.

Lastly, some WFH contracts state that revisions are at the sole discretion of the company. Here is an example: The company may “publish, produce, or market work in whatever form or format it deems fit in its entire discretion.”

WFH writers rarely retain any rights to their work, but I have seen one contract that included specific clauses dictating how the author could reprint their story after first use. This involved seeking permission in writing from the company and following their rules about the use of those elements of the story derived from the IP.

Confidentiality Clauses

The other major addition to most WFH contracts is a section on confidentiality. This is especially prevalent in the game industry due to the intense competition between game companies. They must guard their secrets (game titles, release dates, settings, game mechanics, etc.) for many reasons. For example, they don’t want competitors to get wind of an upcoming product and try to beat them to market. They also don’t want to undercut their marketing efforts until the time is right to begin releasing information.

These companies have a vested interest in ensuring that their contractors keep any proprietary information confidential. Here is an example confidentiality clause: “Contractor shall not provide, leak, disclose, or use Confidential Information acquired in connection with this Agreement to any third party without prior written consent.”

The rest of the confidentiality clause details what information is considered confidential (often covering a very broad swathe), when and how much information the contractor can disclose (usually nothing until after the game has been officially announced), and, most importantly, the ramifications and remediation the company may seek if the contractor leaks confidential information. Most often, the immediate result will be termination, but the company could take legal action as well.

Many WFH contracts also demand the contractor return or destroy all confidential information provided to them once the work has been completed. I have rarely seen these clauses enforced, but it is a good idea to remove this material from your physical and digital files at the end of the contract to avoid any unintentional leaks (say if your laptop gets stolen or your files hacked).

Even when you sign a contract with a section on confidentiality, you may also be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. NDAs are common practice in the game industry and IP tie-in fiction. This topic is discussed in another article in this series, but it’s important to note that NDAs and confidentiality agreements do not prevent you from discussing the contract with your attorney, or any payments or royalties with your accountant.

Other Differences

Rights and confidentiality are the main differences between original fiction and WFH contracts, but here are a few other items to consider: 

• Royalties and scope: Most WFH contracts pay a flat fee for the work, and there will be no provision for royalties. The scope of the work required (500 trivia questions, 100 quest cards, etc.) will be spelled out in the contract or an addendum, along with deadlines. You will often get paid for milestones and/or final delivery, and that will be the end of it. When writing fiction for a game world, you may or may not get royalties depending on the publisher and your status—some tie-in publishers do pay an advance and/or royalties, but not all. 
• Author credit: Whether your name will appear on the game is heavily dependent on the company. Some game companies do not include any credits in their games and attribute the creation of the game to the entire design studio. Other game companies celebrate all contributors on a credits page in the rulebook. Either way, there may be no clause in the contract that ensures your name will be attached to the product.
• Author copies: Many WFH contracts don’t stipulate that you be provided a copy of the game or published product. Many companies do provide these anyway, but you may need to request that copy once it has been published. The common fiction contract practice of providing author copies (especially when the pay is low) is notably absent from WFH contracts. 

Why Sign a WFH Contract

The reality is that if you want to write for the game industry, you will often have to sign a WFH contract. It’s the way that business is done in this industry. The good news is that many game companies seek external writers because they don’t employ staff writers, so there is a decent amount of work out there for contract writers. Plus, the video, board, and role-playing game industries all run on reputation. You will hear about companies that don’t treat their contract writers well. Ask me. I have tales.

Explore more articles from Writing for Hire

Will McDermott turned a love of science fiction and games into a writing career. He has published nine novels, 30 short stories, and helped create numerous worlds, characters, and stories for card, board, and video games. His fiction is often set in gaming universes, including Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, Renegade Legion Universe, and Mage Wars. Will is known for bringing larger-than-life characters alive, including Warhammer’s Kal Jerico and Mad D’onne, Magic’s Balthor the Stout, and Night Stalker’s Carl Kolchak. Check out willmcdermott.com for more.

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MILESTONES

WENDY N. WAGNER is stepping down as editor-in-chief of Nightmare Magazine and senior editor of Lightspeed to focus on her own writing. Founding editor John Joseph Adams will resume the role at Nightmare starting with the January 2027 issue; in her place, associate publisher Christie Yant will assume the role of senior editor.

 

BOOKS SOLD

C. RHOAD ELLIS sold The Poison Vein, first in the Saga of …Read More

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The Sunburst Award Society hasannounced Helen Marshall, author of The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death (Titan) [amazon / bookshop], as the winner of this year's Sunburst Awardfor Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.

Other shortlisted works include:

• The Works of Vermin, Hiron Ennes (Tor) amazon / bookshop
• Horsefly, Mireille Gagné, tr. Pablo Strauss (Coach House) amazon / bookshop
• Wild Life, Amanda Leduc (Random …Read More

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The Indiana Authors Awards have announced the 2026 winners. The awards celebrate the best books by Indiana authors written in eight different categories and published during the previous two years. Works from the Genre category follow.

Genre

• WINNER: Departure 37, Scott Carson (Artia/Emily Bestler)

• Breath of Oblivion, Maurice Broaddus (Tor)
• Sisters of Fortune, Anna Lee Huber (Kensington)
• Veil, Jonathan Janz (Blackstone)
• The Lost Heiress, Elizabeth Klehfoth (Lake Union)

Winners …Read More

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The HWA (Horror Writers Association) has undergone several changes throughout August and early September. Many of these changes were announced via video message by the organization's president, Lisa Wood, as well as a September 6 text update on their Facebook page.

• Due to timing conflicts with World Fantasy convention, the HWA general meeting has been moved to 3:30pm, October 3.
• Wood stated, We have dissolved the Executive Director position …Read More

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The August 30 LAcon V WSFS business meeting voted to censure and place bans of varying lengths on four officials for their actions related to the 2023 Worldcon : Dave McCarty, the 2023 Hugo administrator, Yao Chi, a 2023 Hugo co-administrator, Shi Chen, a 2023 Worldcon co-chair, and Ben Yalow, also a 2023 Worldcon co-chair.

According to a recap of the session posted by Business Meeting Chair Jesi Lipp, future …Read More

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Dream Foundry, a non-profit dedicated to bolstering the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts, hasannounced the winners for its 2026 contests.

Writing Contest

• N.A. Blair (First Place)
• Natalie Anai Nowo Lydick (Second Place)
• Tomás Xavier Díaz (Third Place)

Art Contest

• Emelia Feldman (First Place)
• Niko Kristic (Second Place)
• Marcus Leon Solomon (Third Place)

First place winners receive $1,500, second place receives $750, and …Read More

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Baen Books, an independent publisher of military science fiction and fantasy, has announced the creation of a new short story award, named in honor of the author David A. Drake. The reward is in addition to their currently sponsored awards, the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award and Jim Baen Memorial Award.

Baen hopes to find new writing talent and will reward winners with professional publication contracts for their stories as well …Read More

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The shortlist for the2026 Prix Utopiales(honoring the best SF published in France) has been announced.

• Heureux comme jamais,Guillaume Chamanadjian (Aux forges de Vulcain)
• Spectres, Thomas Gunzig (Au diable Vauvert)
• Bordure, Lucie Mosca (L'Atalante)
• Gogmagog, Jeff Noon and Steve Beard (La Volte)
• Les Dieux lents,Claire North (Le Bélial')

Youth short story competition winners were also announced.

• Godet Rochette , Clément - …Read More

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Wolf Moon, Antler Moon by A. C. Wise (Reactor 1/13/25) is the winner of the 2026 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fictionfor stories that are irreplaceable, that inspire, enlighten, and entertain.

Other finalists were:

• Concerning the Multiplicity of Children in Central Florida's Suburbanized Wet Lands , Ichabod Cassius Kilroy (Analog Science Fiction & Fact 4/25)
• Four People I Need You to Kill Before the …Read More

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The winners of the 2026 Dragon Awards were presented at Dragon Con, held September 3 – September 7, 2026 in Atlanta GA.

Best Science Fiction Novel

• WINNER: Operation Bounce House, Matt Dinniman (Ace)

• God's Junk Drawer, Peter Clines (Blackstone)
• The Faith of Beasts, James S.A. Corey (Orbit)
• Radiant Star, Ann Leckie (Orbit US)
• Slow Gods, Claire North (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Shattering Peace, John Scalzi …Read More

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Rachel S. Cordasco, Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium (University of Illinois Press, 2021)

Jean-Paul L. Garnier: What was your initial attraction to works of science fiction in translation, and what made you decide to start reviewing them?

Rachel Cordasco: I started reviewing Anglophone science fiction for John DeNardo’s SF Signal in the mid-2010s. One day, he asked if I’d like to review a work of Chinese science fiction in translation—The Three-Body Problem. I jumped at the chance and absolutely loved that book. But it was only when he then sent me Jacek Dukaj’s The Old Axolotl and Marek Huberath’s Nest of Worlds that I actually started thinking about what it meant that these texts were all translated. I had never thought about where science fiction was written, and I realized that, of course, it was written around the world. This led me to think about what other works of science fiction there were in English translation. I started a list on a personal blog, and before I knew it, I had found dozens of titles. Ten years later, I’ve catalogued thousands of short-form and long-form works of SF in translation. I’ve always loved learning other languages and I read a lot of classics in English translation when I was a teenager, so bringing together two of my favorite things—speculative fiction and translation—made so much sense. I started asking John to send me as much SFT (science fiction in translation) as he could, and then, when SF Signal shut down, I started my own site dedicated to SFT.

JPG: In the ten years since founding https://www.sfintranslation.com/ what are some of the most interesting things that you’ve learned, and some of the biggest gaps in the field that you’ve identified?

RC: One of the most surprising things I learned is that there is so much SFT out there. Early science fiction texts, especially from Western Europe in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, were being translated into English very quickly (though apparently not very accurately, in some cases, ahem ahem Jules Verne’s stories). When you start looking into the speculative novels, anthologies, and collections that were published in translation throughout the 20th century, you find that so many of these books just flew under the radar or went out of print quickly. This process of finding and cataloging as much SFT as I can is basically my way of excavating items that aren’t buried but just hidden in plain sight.

I’ve learned that Japanese science fiction developed at warp speed following the American occupation of the island following World War Two; I’ve learned that giants of American golden age science fiction like Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon wrote introductions to anthologies of Russian science fiction at the height of the Cold War; and I’ve learned that, despite the fact that so much speculative fiction has been translated into English, the Anglophone genre world has mostly (except for the 70s and 80s) ignored SFT…until recently. Hopefully, the tide is shifting once again toward SFT and more speculative fiction readers will learn about what people are writing and thinking about around the world.

JPG: You wrote the book on SF in Translation, Out of this World. What did this process look like for you, and why did you decide to go with University of Illinois Press as your publisher rather than an SF publisher? 

RC: I realized, after working on the site for several years, that it was time to write an annotated bibliography of SFT, à la Neil Barron’s Anatomy of Wonder books. I had just finished reading Dale Knickerbocker’s excellent edited anthology about global science fiction, Lingua Cosmica, and asked for his advice regarding my own book idea. He suggested the University of Illinois Press, which had published Lingua Cosmica, so I sent them a proposal, which they accepted. Instead of an annotated bibliography, though, Illinois wanted me to develop each source language chapter into a full-blown essay. Ultimately, this worked out well, because it gave me the opportunity to offer readers analysis and context for each chapter that might otherwise have been left out. Illinois was great to work with, and, as I mentioned in my previous answer, the speculative fiction world mostly ignores SFT, so I don’t really know if, back in 2019, any SF publisher would have even looked twice at my proposal.

JPG: What are your motivations behind starting Small Planet magazine, and what are your plans for its future?

RC: The idea for a magazine had been kicking around in my brain for a year, and one day earlier this year, while working on a review, I just couldn’t wait anymore. The magazine had to happen! I want to read and learn about so many aspects of SFT, but as one person, I simply don’t have the time or energy to take on more than one or two projects at a time. A magazine, I figured, would be my selfish way of enlisting all of the brilliant people out there, who I knew were already writing about SFT, to write about it…for me! I had all of these ideas about interviewing translators and finding people who would write essays on Polish fantasy or French horror or Japanese surrealism and enlisting people to review underappreciated SFT. All I had to do was put the word out that I wanted to start an SFT magazine and so many wonderful people jumped on board right away, offering to design, write, edit, interview, and help in any other way they could. I want this magazine to be the Locus of the SFT world, providing readers with a steady stream of interesting essays, interviews, reviews, stats, and more.

Rachel Cordasco, ed., Small Planet Issue 1 (May 2026)

JPG: What do you think are some of the most effective ways that readers and the public can motivate publishers to publish more works of SF in translation? 

RC: One major way to encourage publishers to bring us more SFT is for readers to buy more of it. And yet, an interesting thing I learned recently is that a lot of SFT doesn’t even come from speculative fiction publishers. In fact, New Directions, which focuses on international literature, published more SFT in the last few years than any genre publisher. To make matters even more interesting, the 90 works of long-form SFT last year came out from 60 different publishers/imprints. Ultimately, I’m waiting for SF publishers to start dedicating more of their resources to SFT and acknowledge that these stories, told all over the world and in many different languages, are all part of the same effort: humanity trying to understand itself and its place in the cosmos.

JPG: For you, what are some of the most important aspects of cross-cultural exchange through literature?

RC: One of the most exciting things I’ve discovered while reading SFT is that writers from all over the world will take up the same theme or event or technology and explore them in fascinatingly similar and different ways. I started tracking this on my site (under the tab “Subject Index”) and I’m going to delve deeper into this in the magazine with a special column in each issue called “Crossing Borders.” Cloning in Greek and Spanish SFT, vampires in Hungarian and Swahili SFT, monstrous mothers in Hebrew and Japanese SFT—I find this stuff thrilling! You’ll hear this discussed whenever two or more literary translators are together in one space—reading what others around the world have written is how we deepen and enrich human civilization. Anglophone culture and language is rejuvenated when it comes into contact with other cultures and languages. We learn from one another, celebrate our differences, and learn about our surprising similarities. After all, one would hope that, if aliens do swing by Earth for a tour one day, they’ll see that, on this one small planet, we actually have a working knowledge of one another. It would be pretty embarrassing otherwise, right?

JPG: What are the top 5 SF books that you’d like to see translated?

RC: As always, I’m keeping a list! In no particular order…

– the rest of Élisabeth Vonarburg’s Tyranaël series (1997) (Mon frère l’ombre, L’Autre Rivage, and La Mer allée avec le soleil)

– Cheon Seon-ran’s A Broken Bridge (2019)

– Harry Mulisch’s The Future of Yesterday (1972)

– Shimon Adaf’s Rose of Judea series (2010-2012)

– Gilda Musa’s Domesticated Jungle (1975)

JPG: What are some of the greatest challenges you face when working as a translator, and are any of these specific to SF?

RC: A professional translator would be better able to speak to this question, but as someone who has translated several short- and long-form works for various Italian authors, especially the brilliant Clelia Farris, I can say that trying to capture the author’s tone and style while trying to make my translation read well is always challenging. It’s the nature of translation—making choices about how a word or phrase gets brought over into English. Working with Clelia on my translations is always fun because we get to discuss, for instance, exactly how certain sayings would best translate across languages. In fact, in this most recent issue of Small Planet, Clelia has an essay in which she describes some of the choices we had to make when I was translating her story “Gabola,” like turning the literal translation “you don’t get out much” into the more emotionally accurate “you’re behind the times.”

In terms of translating SF specifically, working on Clelia’s novella Veg-humans was more difficult than anything else I’d translated before because this is a story that includes a wide variety of plant species and technologies the characters use to try and survive the punishing heat of a near-future world that is being swallowed up by drought. Finding the words in English to reflect Clelia’s terms for these things was challenging, but we worked patiently together to find what sounded best.

JPG: Can you tell us about the push to get works in translation as a category for the Hugo Awards, and your work with https://translatedhugo.org? 

RC: Jake Casella Brookins, the editor of Ancillary Review of Books, kickstarted the latest effort to push the Hugo Awards to include a translation category (Chris Barkley had tried this a few years before). Casella enlisted me and many other SFT critics and enthusiasts in the project, but the process is slow because the rules and requirements for adding a category to the Hugo Awards are apparently very stringent. Hopefully, this effort will, down the road, lead to a category that recognizes the wonderful work that translators do in bringing us SF from around the world.

JPG: What’s coming up next for you, and what are you currently working on?

RC: I’m excited to continue publishing Small Planet and roping in people from all over the world to write for it. I also have ideas for at least three more books, one of which will be about the history of SFT in the Anglophone world. Hopefully I can also translate much more of Clelia’s work because Anglophone readers really do need more of her stories—they are intriguing, unexpected, and beautiful.

Rachel Cordasco

Rachel Cordasco founded the website SFinTranslation.com in 2016 and regularly reviews SFT for Strange Horizons and World Literature Today. She also translates Italian speculative fiction, which has been published in Clarkesworld Magazine and Future Science Fiction Digest. Rachel’s book Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation From the Cold War to the New Millennium is out from the University of Illinois Press. Her second book, Speculative Fiction in Translation From Around the World, is forthcoming from the University of Wales Press.

Jean-Paul L. Garnier is the owner of Space Cowboy Books bookstore and publishing house, producer of Simultaneous Times Podcast (2023/25 Laureate Award Winner, 2024 BSFA, Ignyte, and British Fantasy Award Finalist), and was the editor of the SFPA’s Star*Line magazine from 2021-2025. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Brain magazine. In 2024 he won the Laureate Award for Best Editor. He has written many books of poetry and science fiction.  https://spacecowboybooks.com/  

by Deanna Richards

Read by the author

Speculative fiction offers YA writers something that realistic fiction cannot: the freedom to craft worlds with fantastic, supernatural, or technologically or scientifically enhanced elements that serve as a protective container for catharsis—allowing young readers to safely explore trauma and experience individual and collective liberation.   

Transmuting Trauma Through Genre 

Before diving in, let’s start with a few definitions. Traumatic events are often described as frightening or dangerous experiences, and can include natural disasters, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, experiencing or witnessing crime, violence, death, or war. An overwhelming emotional and somatic response to a traumatic event, which can oftentimes contribute to long-lasting distress, is defined as trauma. Liberation, in this context, means the act of release—which may result in freedom from physical imprisonment, oppression, or harmful psychological states.

Young readers are bound to encounter challenging topics in books, and while some may be comfortable or even prefer exploring those topics in realistic, contemporary fiction, speculative fiction offers readers the chance to experience difficult content in a way that may feel less directly threatening. It also allows for the inclusion of liberatory outcomes that would not be possible in a non-speculative work.

Tomi Adeyemi is one of many writers who has intentionally used speculative fiction to expose, explore, process, and combat trauma with historical roots, such as colonization, the legacy of slavery, and racism. In the Author’s Note at the close of Children of Blood and Bone (2018), she names her intentional choice to use fantasy as a way of transmuting the sense of helplessness and grief into a liberatory experience:

Although riding giant lionaires and performing sacred rituals might be in the realm of fantasy, all the pain, fear, sorrow and loss in this book is real. Children of Blood and Bone was written during a time where I kept turning on the news and seeing stories of unarmed black men, women, and children being shot by the police. I felt afraid and angry and helpless, but this book was the one thing that made me feel like I could do something about it.   

Authors A. S. King, Tracey Deonn, and Justina Ireland also use speculative fiction as a vehicle to explore trauma within interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships, as well as in systemic structures. King’s Dig (2019) addresses family trauma alongside gender-based violence and employs a supernatural element—the spirit of a murdered girl—to exact justice. Deonn’s Legendborn Cycle (2020–2025) tackles traumatic grief alongside racial trauma and allows characters liberation through the reclamation and harnessing of ancestral magical powers. Ireland’s Ophie’s Ghosts (2021), exposes racial injustices in the aftermath of slavery, and justice and freedom are brought about by an unlikely partnership between the living and the dead. These works are a few examples of texts that successfully create a safe space for readers, transform instead of vicariously traumatize, and turn trauma into triumph. 

Empowerment and Liberation

As SF writers, you are uniquely positioned to provide young readers safe passage during the exploration of trauma and to allow them to experience release in new and creative ways. While YA texts may include realistic representations of extreme violence, loss and suffering, life in poverty and war zones, or impacts of generational trauma, the liberation characters can achieve is confined only by the imagination of the writer. Whether by spells, claws, uncanny physical prowess, or with the aid of deceased ancestors, fairies, or divine entities, you possess endless opportunities to empower your characters, devise innovative strategies to break down oppressive structures and disrupt destructive family patterns, and forge paths toward justice, healing, and catharsis. 

If you want to explore trauma and liberation in your work, consider these questions as you craft your story: 

1. In what ways is your hero empowered? What have they learned to do to survive within their deeply flawed and destructive society and/or family? 
2. Ask this of your hero: What parts of themselves can they embrace to turn the traumatic wound into a source of strength? Into a weapon?  
3. How are SFF elements—the fantastic, the supernatural, the technologically advanced, the magical, the alternative histories, or the secondary world—being used to aid your characters in healing themselves, freeing others, achieving justice, or dismantling oppressive structures and disrupting trauma cycles?

Keeping Your Young Reader Safe 

Although speculative fiction inherently offers a layer of protection by being outside of our reality, the genre alone cannot protect a reader; a made-up world containing traumatic events can still become unsafe. However, you can avoid unintentionally harming the young reader by reflecting on the areas below:  

1. Violence: What is the purpose of violence or cruelty in your work? How does what’s happening shape the character’s psyche?  
2. Pacing: When do your characters have space to breathe, even among the traumatic moments? Where are there moments of lightness? Of joy? Of calm? 
3. Empowerment: Are your characters constantly being acted upon? Are they perpetually disempowered?

By wisely using the tools that speculative fiction offers, you can care for your young reader while grappling with difficult subjects.  

Difficult Worlds, Safe Journeys

All fiction, to some degree, can offer the kind of distance that makes reader engagement with trauma feel safe and empowering. Speculative fiction, however, can push the boundaries of resistance and resilience beyond what is possible in real life (or realistic stories). And for younger readers especially, both those reimagined possibilities and the safety of the fantastic world can provide the chance to safely accompany characters on their complex journeys, experience new ways to challenge oppressive structures and patterns in society, and achieve liberation.

Explore more articles from The KidLit Chronicles

Deanna Richards is a queer-identified writer and licensed mental health counselor of Jamaican descent. D has participated in several writing workshops, including the Tin House YA Novel Workshop and the Whole Novel Workshop for SFF genre at Highlights Foundation, and graduated in June 2025 from Lesley University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, Writing for Young People track.

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Several awards for services to fandom were presented by the First Fandom Foundation during the opening ceremonies of LAcon V, the 84th Worldcon, held August 27, 2026.

First Fandom Hall of Fame Award

• Mike Glyer
• Craig Miller
• Bjo Trimble

First Fandom Posthumous Hall of Fame Award

• Fredric Brown
• Myrtle R. Douglas

Sam Moskowitz Archive Award

• Andrew Porter
• David Ritter

[via File 770] …Read More

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The winners for the 2025 Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were announced August 31, 2026 at LAcon V.

Long Form

• WINNER: Ten Incarnations of Rebellion, Vaishnavi Patel (Ballantine) amazon / bookshop

• Pagans, James Alistair Henry (Moonflower) amazon
• Tobacco Republic: What If The 13 Colonies Never United?, R.A. Moss (Beck & Branch) amazon

Short Form

• WINNER: Caesar at Sea , Alan Smale (Skull X Bones)

…Read More

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Author and editor David Kopaska-Merkel, 69, died August 26, 2026.

David C. Kopaska-Merkel was born January 11, 1957 in Charlottesville VA. He attended William & Mary, earned a doctorate in geology, worked for the Geological Survey of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and wrote several articles and books on geology and paleontology. He began writing speculative work in short fiction, starting with his first published story Mecroniya (1981), but soon began publishing …Read More

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The African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) announced the shortlist for the 2026 Nommo Awards, given to works by African authors as defined by the ASFS and Nommo Awards Guidelines, on August 27, 2026 at LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention, in Anaheim CA.

Ilube Award for Best Novel

• The Bone River, Nkereuwem Albert (Phoenix)
• Black Navel, Paul Olisaeloka Anozie (Griots Lounge) amazon / bookshop
• Firstborn of the …Read More

  The post 2026 Nommo Awards Shortlist appeared first on Locus.

by John Ryan

Read by Misha Grifka Wander

If you work in game narrative writing for an extended period, you will eventually be working in someone else’s intellectual property (IP). Whether you write for cultural titans like James Bond or Star Wars or if it’s something smaller (like your friend’s D&D campaign), you’ll be tasked with writing “inside the lines” of their world. This comes with challenges as a writer but also opportunities to bring your own voice to the table.

This article is about game writing, specifically. I can’t speak about what it’s like to write for IPs in other media, but I can talk about my experiences writing for IPs in gaming (Horizon, Guild Wars, Iron Man, Fable, Destiny). 

It’s the Money

Games have always been attracted to big IPs (there have been Star Trek video games since 1971!), but after the 2022 financial downturn, established IPs became the safe bet for game development, whether the games were sequels, reboots, or remasters. The most anticipated game of 2026 is a sequel: Grand Theft Auto 6. And it’s not alone. Check out how many of this year’s games are sequels, ports, expansions, compilations, or somehow connected to an established IP.

For the foreseeable future, well-known IPs are going to loom large in the gaming development space.

Knowing the IP

This is a self-selecting issue during the application process. When you apply for a role (or if you are recruited), you’ll be interviewed and tested on what you know about the IP and if you would be a good fit for writing in the IP’s space. You need to know the difference between Jedi and Sith, between Imperium and Tau, between minotaur and mind flayer. Without having that foundational knowledge, you won’t be taken seriously. The IP’s stakeholders need to know they can trust you with their baby. If you have IP knowledge and the writing chops, you’ll be set up better than a lion’s share of the candidates. 

Mastering the Foundation

One of the biggest mistakes I see from younger game writers is immediately leaping in with their ideas for elaborate missions, epic quest arcs, and complex characters on their first day, even before their first narrative debrief.

In the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, we meet aspiring chefs under the tutelage of sushi master Jiro Ono who must first be able to properly squeeze a hot towel before they can learn to cut and prepare a fish. After ten years of fish work, they’re allowed to cook eggs, and only after 200 failures did one young chef gain Ono’s approval.

In game writing, you won’t have the luxury of 200 tries to get a scene right, but the fundamentals apply: After you’re hired to work on an IP, you’ll always need to show you can write in the IP’s voice. The good news is, IPs will usually have reference materials (for example, story bibles, pronunciation guides for VO performers, timelines) to read if you have questions about the spelling of a name, how a character might sound when they talk, and when certain events happen. 

This is a crucial point where you talk to other writers, stakeholders, and anyone else who has ties to the game’s narrative. Don’t assume you are the expert. I learned a lot more about how a studio approaches an IP’s narrative from conversations than reading internal wikis. Your goal here is twofold: learning how the studio works, and becoming a subject matter expert on the IP and everything set in place before you showed up.

Only once you can prove you have a mastery over what came before will you be trusted to add your own voice and ideas into the mix. 

Yes, You Have a Voice

Once you get the IP down and you have gained the IP stakeholder’s trust, you’ll be able to bring your voice and ideas to the table. This can take the form of pitching original quests, creating new characters or fleshing out existing ones, and contributing to the lore of the IP. Typically, you need to deliver a brief for your new contributions to your narrative lead (the person on the team who is in charge of the game’s narrative vision) on what you want to add, but this is the point where your hard work starts to pay off and you’re trusted to put your stamp on things.

The most important thing you need to do at this stage is keep communicating with your narrative lead to make sure you are on the right path with your idea because…

Everything Is in Service, Everything Is Experience

Remember that everything you create and add to the game is in service to the IP. Your work is yours, but it takes place in someone else’s sandbox. In game development, you will work with anywhere from 2 to 2,000 other developers in various disciplines (hopefully) rowing in the same direction. Everyone works toward a unified vision but still gets to add their own insights and imagination into what they make. 

Lastly, writing for someone else’s IP can help you with your own writing. It gives you experience with pacing, voice, and lore, just as some creatives got their start writing fanfic or coding game mods to develop the chops and confidence to work on their own stuff while understanding what it takes to make and release a game. Being able to show voice mastery across different genres and franchises will prove you’re versatile to work anywhere. 

Writing for someone else’s IP comes down to trust and competency. Once you get your foot in the door, it’s on you to show your professionalism and attention to detail for the assignment.

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John Ryan is a veteran game writer/narrative designer who has worked on franchises including Fable, Horizon, Marvel’s Iron Man, Guild Wars, Destiny, Forza, and Lily’s Garden. He’s brought stories to life across multiple genres and platforms, including VR and XR. He is currently working on unannounced projects but is always looking for the next adventure. He currently lives near Seattle with his wife, their cat, and a growing backlog of games on his Steam account. You can read more about him and his work at his site: johnryanwrites.com.

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The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has named Nancy Kress the 43rd recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

SFWA President Kate Ristau said,

When we choose a SFWA Grand Master, the discussion begins with the Past Presidents. Year after year, Nancy's name has come up as an author who is long overdue for this award. She has made an incredible impact on our …Read More

The post Nancy Kress Named SFWA Grand Master appeared first on Locus.

LAcon V has announced that Aussiecon 5 and the Brisbane in 2028 bid won the right to host the 2028 Worldcon. The 86th World Science Fiction Convention will be held July 27-31, 2028 at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, Australia.

Guests of honor announced so far include Claire G. Coleman, David Gaider, Kathleen Jennings, Seanan McGuire, Perry Middlemiss, and Jonathan Strahan.

According to File 770, Brisbane …Read More

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