Mock Video Game Writing Sample - Dialogue

This is a writing sample I've put together demonstration video game applications of creative writing. Specifically in this one, I've focused on basic plot and character foundations, along with three dialogue samples. I wanted the voices to be real, and authentic--conducive to the story and not distracting.

Mock Game Dialogue Sample

Brief Game Premise:

The game is a mystery-thriller that follows a middle-aged doctor as he investigates the bombing of his abortion clinic in suburban Texas. Along the way he encounters hostile militant activists belonging to the underground ultra-conservative terrorist organization responsible for the attack. As the game progresses, it is revealed that the terrorist organization is secretly and deeply rooted throughout the local community.

Background:

Dr. Richard “Rich” Decker is a 44-year-old OB/GYN specializing in pregnancy termination (abortions). For eight years, Dr. Decker had practiced at Huntington Memorial Hospital’s maternity ward in Pasadena, CA until complications with his youngest son’s Cerebral Palsy forced his family of five to relocate. The doctor, his wife Violet (“Vi”), and their three children—Sean, Abby, and Owen—left California and settled in Friendswood, a small suburb in the Greater Houston area. When the conservative social and political climate in their new neighborhood made finding employment impossible given the nature of his work, Richard opened a private sexual and reproductive healthcare clinic. Despite its controversial reputation in the local community, the clinic was moderately successful until it was leveled by an explosion just minutes before the doctor was scheduled to arrive for appointments. Corrupted by their affiliations with fundamentalist “interest” groups, the local authorities show little interest in resolving the matter justly. Now Richard faces leaving his family behind as he searches for information that will lead him to the attackers, before they come after him.

Character Profiles:

Dr. Richard Decker – Middle-aged abortion specialist, father of three, realist, book smart, jaded by life’s circumstances but invigorated by dangers to his family and well-being.

Tradition for America (TFA) – Traditionalist and fundamentalist terrorist organization rooted throughout local communities. Founded and lead by Ken Spitz and his wife Katrina.

Violet Decker – Wife of Dr. Decker, hard-working mother but exhausted with home life, displeased with husband’s lack of attention towards family, short-tempered, snarky.

Chief Timothy Whitman – Chief of Friendswood PD, experienced and decorated, important intermediary between TFA and local law enforcement.

Agent Samantha Foster – Federal Agent designated to overseeing investigative proceedings following TFA attack, diligent, clever, but involvement bound by federal red tape.

Fr. Robert Flick – Local clergy, prominent community leader, liaison between TFA and local community, well respected.

Det. Jim Clarkson – Senior Detective presiding over the investigation. Privy and adherent to TFA influence.

Officer Lawrence Delagardelle – Young officer of Friendswood PD, suspicious of PD senior officers, committed to aiding Dr. Decker and his family, and bringing justice to the community.

Ken Spitz – Founder and leader of TFA.  Calm, calculated, influential, manipulative.

Katrina Spitz – Wife of Ken Spitz and second in command of TFA. Ruthless, hot-tempered, irrational, unpredictable.

Dialogue 1: Dr. Decker and his wife argue in the living room as he plans to track down the bomber.

VI: Are you out of your fucking mind?!

RICHARD: Jesus Vi, the kids…

Richard motions upstairs with his hand at Violet’s swearing.

VI:  What, now you care about the kids?

RICHARD:  I’m doing this for the kids!

VI:  How is this for the kids! Leaving them so you can run after some punk—

RICHARD: These are terrorists! This isn’t some fucking game.

VI: Yes it is! It is a fucking game to you! They tagged you and now you’re it.

RICHARD: Nobody is ‘it’! It’s not like someone’s winning or losing.

VI: We’re all losing Richard! We’re losing a husband and a father. For God’s sake Rich, Owen needs you here.

RICHARD: He’ll be fine. You can handle it.

VI: I can handle it? What, am I their fucking babysitter? Is this house a fucking daycare?! You’re their father—

RICHARD: And you’re their mother! You—

VI: I’m your wife Richard!

RICHARD: Vi…

VI: I need you here. They need you here. You’re not—

RICHARD: Vi, listen.

VI: You’re not a cop Richard! This isn’t your job. Your job is—

RICHARD:  My job is a pile of ashes and rubble because some asshole—

VI: Your job is to take care of us!

RICHARD: Well I can’t do that if these people go free! Vi, don’t you understand I have to find out who did this or we’re all targets—we’re all in danger.

VI: But mister Clarkson said—

RICHARD: The police aren’t going to help, Vi! They don’t care about us; they want us gone. Clarkson isn’t going to do shit.

VI: But he said they would find—

RICHARD: They aren’t going to find anything! They aren’t even looking. This is the fucking Bible Belt, this isn’t California—it’s not the same.

VI: So what are you going to do if you find them?

RICHARD: I don’t—

VI: Kill them? Are you going to kill—

RICHARD: I don’t know!

VI: Well, what if they kill you?

Dialogue #2: Ken and Katrina Spitz, leaders of Tradition for America, confront Chief Whitman about Officer Delagardelle’s involvement with Dr. Decker.

KEN: Who’s his little friend?

WHITMAN: Who?

KEN:  Decker’s friend—the black guy. Tall, some kind of thing on his face, good look—

Katrina looks at Ken in disgust.

WHITMAN: Lawrence.

KEN: Lawrence?

WHITMAN: Yeah, Lawrence uh Delagardelle. He’s a pup, ya’ know, he’s a little wet behind the ears.

KEN: Is he a problem, this Lawrence Delagardelle?

WHITMAN: Nah, no, not at all. I’ll have Clarkson talk to him—tell him to leave it alone. It’s nothing. He’s nothing. He just uh…

KEN: He doesn’t seem like nothing. It seems to me like he’s doing a lot of talking—talking to people he shouldn’t be talking to, about things he shouldn’t be talking about.

WHITMAN: Lawrence? Yeah, I mean, he’s new. He just wants to wet his beak a little, that’s all. He’s not a problem.

KATRINA: He just gave up Robert!

WHITMAN: Father Flick?

KATRINA: No shit you fucking moron! And let me remind you: If Decker gets to Flick, Decker gets to you. And if Decker gets to you, Decker gets to us. Now doesn’t that sound like a fucking problem to you?! Don’t you think that might be a little alarming to us, here, where we do business with shits like you, and pay shits like you, to keep other little shits out of our fucking hair!

KEN: Alright Kat…

WHITMAN: Look he’s fine, everything’s fine. He’s not going to—

KATRINA (Cont.): And don’t you think that when little shits like you, who work for us, do an especially shitty job, they should be fired? Huh? Isn’t that how this works? I’m the boss and you’re the little bitch mopping the floors and if you can’t keep these floors fucking sparkling, you’re gone. Except here, at this company, we don’t fire incompetent little shits like you—we kill them.

KEN: Katrina! Enough!

Katrina looks at Ken in annoyance.

KEN (cont’d):  Look Tim, we pay you to keep all your little duckies in a row. Sometimes a little duckie gets out of line, and that little duckie can cause us problems. He runs around—

WHITMAN: He’s not causing any—

Ken puts his hand on the table signaling for Whitman to be quiet.

KEN: Tim. You’re not listening to me. That little duckie runs around quacking about, making a ruckus. Now I don’t know about you, but I hate noise. I can’t sleep, I can’t think with all this quacking, and quacking, and quacking…

WHITMAN: I told you, Clarkson will talk to him. What do you want me to do?

KEN:  Get all your little duckies in a row—every last one—so that we can sleep, and think, and do all the wonderful things that we need to do to keep you happy, and your wife happy, and your kids happy.

Whitman is irked by the mention of his family. He reluctantly stands up to conclude the conversation.

KEN:  Oh and Tim…

Whitman freezes.

KEN (cont.): Katrina wasn’t kidding.

WHITMAN: About Father Flick?

KEN: About killing you.

Dialogue #3: Whitman and Clarkson speak in his office after statements made by Officer Delagardelle on local news following his expulsion from the police department implicate them with TFA and the bombing. Whitman grows impatient with Clarkson’s incompetence and is coming undone beneath the pressure from Ken and Katrina.

CLARKSON: What are we gonna do about this boss?

WHITMAN: We? No, no. There is no “we”. This is on you…

CLARKSON:  How is this on m—

WHITMAN:  If you did what you were fucking told, what you were paid to do, this wouldn’t have happened.

CLARKSON: I did exactly wha—

WHITMAN:  If you took care of this situation more like a senior officer and less like an incompetent, worthless piece of shit…

CLARKSON:  I told you, I did exactly what you said! Exactly. I reassigned him to the Bilesky case, just like you said.

WHITMAN:  Well then why was he still snooping around Decker? Why was he at his house? Why—

CLARKSON: I don’t know! Look Tim, man to man, we know this situation is fucked. This whole thing is fucked. Okay, I get it. Now we can argue about it all night but that ain’t gonna fix it.

WHITMAN:  So how do we fix it?

CLARKSON:  C’mon Tim, you know the answer to that.

The two men lock eyes momentarily in understanding. Whitman shakes his head.

WHITMAN:  No. No way. It’s too obvious.

CLARKSON:  What’s too obvious?

WHITMAN:  That’s too obvious. It’s too easy to trace back. We could never cover that up with Agent Foster up our asses the way she has been.

CLARKSON:  So we don’t do it. Maybe someone else does it.

WHITMAN:  Who? We can’t trust anyone else. If someone with TFA affiliations gets caught, they’ll know it was us. Delagardelle just told the entire county that he had reason to believe we were in TFA pockets. Then all of a sudden he goes missing and the suspect turns up TFA?

CLARKSON:  So then who?

They pause in thought.

WHITMAN:  Flick.

CLARKSON:  Jesus Tim…

WHITMAN:  Exactly. He could do it.

CLARKSON:  Are you out of your damn mind? We can’t ask Father Flick to—

WHITMAN:  Sure we can. His ass is as much on the line with TFA as ours. If not him, then who?

Clarkson pauses in contemplation.

CLARKSON:  He won’t do it. There’s no way he would.

WHITMAN:  He has to. He doesn’t have a choice.

CLARKSON:  What do you mean he doesn’t have a choice? Yes he d—

WHITMAN:  Ken gave Father Flick almost three million dollars of TFA money to launder into the church. He was supposed to make renovations and what not—you know, spruce it up a bit.

CLARKSON: Yeah, have you seen the place? It’s gorgeous.

WHITMAN:  Oh, it is, it really is. The new ceiling, the new stained glass—it’s great. Only it didn’t cost three million.

CLARKSON:  What do you mean it wasn’t three million?

WHITMAN:  Mitch Davis, he runs Apex Construction, the guys who did the job. I talked to him two weeks ago, just after they finished it up. He told me the whole thing was quoted at two point three.

Clarkson furrows his brow in confusion.

WHITMAN (cont’d): That means Flick would have had seven hundred thousand dollars left over. Seven hundred thousand dollars of Ken’s money that just went poof!

CLARKSON:  So what, you think Flick’s got it?

WHITMAN:  He has to. He’s the only one that had it in the first place.

CLARKSON:  But Ken’s gotta know how much the job was. You think a guy like that drops three mil’ and doesn’t check his receipt?

WHITMAN:  You can grease a lot of palms and pad a lot of pockets with seven hundred grand. Fifty-K to Mitch, a new car for the accountant’s kid, and boom, you’ve got an invoice for three million dollars and the books to match. Walkin’ away with six hundred grand isn’t a bad pay-day for a man of the cloth.

CLARKSON:  So, say he does have it. What do we do, just tell him he’s gotta take care of Delagardelle or Ken hears about it.

WHITMAN:  Not Ken. Katrina.

Clarkson raises his eyebrows.