Writing The Legend of Mass Effect

A series of videos about The Mass Effect Trilogy was truthfully one of the handful of projects I started ArTorr for. From the outset, my goal was to explore in-depth why the Mass Effect Trilogy is so compelling and resonant for the many that have played it, utilizing the various aspects of the YouTube medium to create an epic exploration of characters, themes, and heart. It wouldn't be as straight-forward as simply making a video essay about each individual game; I wanted to track the development of themes, motifs, and storytelling across the three videos, employing language or visuals that viewers would associate with specific ideas I touch on along the way.

Early on I understood that, to realistically accomplish this, it would be far more efficient for me to focus on ensuring a strong foundation for the discussion in the first video, and treat the two subsequent discussions as layers that build upon it. Of course, I was fairly familiar with the Trilogy from my various playthroughs of it, but would replay Mass Effect 1 again with the launch of The Legendary Edition in preparation for the video. As you've likely gleaned from the videos, I did at least two playthroughs of each game: one Renegade MaleShep playthrough, and one Paragon FemShep playthrough. For 1 and 2, I used a third playthrough to capture pick-up shots of dialogue or choices where needed, but this was done during editing, not writing. 

Once I completed my first replaythrough on Paragon FemShep, I sat down and brainstormed. Literally. I sat on my bed, put on the Mass Effect 1 soundtrack, and scribbled absolutely everything and anything on a whiteboard that I could think of wanting to discuss with a Mass Effect 1 video. 

There's a lot of ideas there, and not all of them made it into the video. But it helped me start thinking about how to structure the discussion and what key things would be emphasized along the way. 

For those that read my post on the writing of A Gunslinger's Odyssey, I describe a pretty tight process for my writing; from pitch, to outlines, to rough drafts, to the final draft. At the time of making this video, I hadn't yet formulated the process. But certain things-- like making an outline-- started because of the Mass Effect 1 video.

In the above excerpt from the outline for The Legend of Mass Effect, chapter paragraphs were used as a touchstone for what each chapter would be "all about," while the bullet points below them are largely borrowed from ideas on the whiteboards. Nowadays, my typed outlines are more fleshed out and better resemble the final video, while this excerpt represents what I usually figure out in my rough outlines written in notebook beforehand. The reason I distinguish the two is because the final Mass Effect 1 video varies quite a bit from the outline above-- it's usefulness was very limited. I get a chuckle now out of stuff like "Bible-Verse to kick off video in lieu of ME3 Revelations quote" (starting the ME3 video with a quote from the book of Revelations in the Christian Bible was an idea I had from the start of doing these videos; I ultimately abandoned it because the idea I would come up with for the intro to the ME3 video was way cooler and more original). 

That being said, you can certainly see a lot of the structure and ideas that did end up in the video in that outline. The most important one being to create a parallel between the story of Mass Effect and BioWare themselves. 

Video essay, documentary, review, or analysis are descriptions of my videos that I will always welcome. But for every project, the question that drives me forward is always thus: what story am I telling? This was no different with Mass Effect, and no less crucial to creating an emotionally-captivating discussion about a game where your choices can spiral into a variety of different outcomes, much of which can leave players with a variety of conclusions that won't be the same. The parallel between ME and BioWare was at the center of the story. But why did it matter? Why does BioWare's story warrant being told? That was a question I couldn't address-- until I heard this song.

For me, Thomas Bergersen's "So Small" of his four-part Humanity project captured all the emotions conveyed at the heart of Mass Effect, and at the root of what needed to be captured in my videos. A story of ambition, pursuit of greatness, failing and falling short, but just before pushing beyond where none have tread before. In chasing the stars, one will become familiar with where their humanity falls short to the rest of The Milky Way, but also what makes humanity beautifully unique. In Mass Effect 1, that uniqueness was the determination of humanity. In Mass Effect 2, as I would discover, it was our ability to inspire. And with Mass Effect 3, it was our capacity for and acceptance of failure. The last lesson feeds into the first lesson, and just like the Reapers, the cycle continues.

By attributing a lesson about humanity to each game, each video would be built around culminating to that lesson. What key moments in each game foreshadow that lesson? What obstacles prevent us from learning it? And after it's been learned, how does it lead to the next lesson? This ultimately produced a much more efficient outline than what I had been working from-- a story 'flowchart,' of sorts.

There's a lot going on there, but the two graphs to follow are 'Tone / BioWare's Journey' and 'Humanity's Purpose.' 

• Parts 1 - 5 correspond to the chapters of the video.
• The block text at the start and end of the graphs present a thesis / sentiment before and after the discussion has been had.
• The bullet points along the graphs identify key moments in the game and discussion that contribute to the progression of the graphs.
• The arc of the graphs chart the overall shifts in tone, emotion, momentum, and intensity. In short, I drew it based on a very abstract feeling of how I wanted the video to feel as you watched it. The highs are exciting and optimistic. The lows are crushing and full of doubt. 'Reach for the stars' vs. 'down to Earth' were two expressions I used (or something similar) throughout the three videos to personify these shifts.

My process for going from rough draft to final draft was a bit chaotic at the time of the Mass Effect 1 video, and there weren't many sweeping changes between drafts either. I remember starting off the script with what became Chapter 2, knowing I would go back later and write out an introductory chapter about BioWare prior to Mass Effect when I had done enough research.

The above excerpt is from the start of the video, and largely represents how the script is formatted. Though I started writing the script before developing the flowchart, this intro emerged as a result of the flowchart, realizing there was an opportunity for an epic introduction to the core themes for the videos; namely what makes humanity unique, and the pursuit of becoming legendary. The writing for the intro was guided primarily by what I could imagine watching in my head, and timing it alongside Jack Wall's Spectre Induction on the Mass Effect 1 soundtrack (despite the fact I used The Normandy Reborn in the final video).

Here is a look at an early draft of a more critical stretch of analysis during the Citadel chapter of the ME1 video, Close Encounters. A big shift that took place over the writing of the first video was moving away from a singular first-person perspective, to a more inclusive, plural perspective. In simplest terms, replacing "I" with "we," and omitting or modifying statements where the replacement made no sense. This had the biggest impact on the Citadel chapter, as a lot of the chapter reckons with the impressions a player might gather from their encounters with the design of the Citadel and the colorful characters that populate it. This, in-turn, informed a shift in how the previous chapter was written in regards to player choices. Additionally, the address of 'you' was determined by when and where I wanted the viewer to reflect on an aspect of their own personal playthrough. 

Chapter 4, A Space Odyssey, was the biggest battleground of the writing process. In this rough draft of the chapter's start, ideas and direction would change greatly over how to balance a discussion about Therum, Noveria, Feros, Virmire, uncharted worlds, the shortcomings of the game, and the affecting story beats along the way. The flowchart was a game-changer here, dictating that our criticism of the game would climax in this chapter, but just before riding through the highs of Noveria and Feros, with Virmire serving as a thrilling, yet emotionally devastating moment for the first Mass Effect. Determining whether to talk about Noveria or Feros first was simply a matter of feel. Deliberating more heavily on Noveria before a quicker-by-comparison dive into Feros served the chapter's momentum better than the reverse order. Especially considering how the interaction with Benezia's mother on Noveria provoked a conversation on companion interaction that acted as a buffer for the two planets. 

This is the last excerpt I will share, and it's from my favorite portion of Mass Effect 1. Very little of To Infinity and Beyond changed throughout the final draft, which is a common phenomenon in my writing, as all the big creative and tonal battles of the script have already been fought and resolved by the end. This represents a key moment in my writing where I exert more scrutiny over word choice and syntax in describing something. The feel of the Prothean Archives is very particular and moving to me, and so it was very important I use my words to convey those feelings as accurately as possible. 

"Neverending plunge past lost tomes and ancient knowledge" conveys the hurried stroll through vast amounts of invaluable knowledge beyond our meager understanding. Given the rare use of singular first-person in the script up to this point, "nothing has ever made me feel as small as the conversation with Vigil" boldly frames the interaction with Vigil as personally moving and significant. Finally, culminating on the realization that the Protheans 'made a choice' was a moment that needed capitalizing on, as it would be a key distinction in the conflict between organics and synthetics for the next few videos, encircling the value of not just humanity, but the much grander whole of advanced organic life that our quest would soon encompass. These micro decisions about language and emphasis are made all over the script with virtually every sentence.

By the end of writing the Mass Effect 1 video-- a roughly 5 week process-- I felt I had developed a solid foundation for the next 2 videos, and an approach to themes and story that could be reliably applied to Mass Effect 2. I wouldn't know exactly how I would continue the discussion until after replaying Mass Effect 2, but it was a bridge I believe I could cross with ease when the time came.

Little did I know how wrong I would be, and how the very design of Mass Effect 2 would so severely challenge my writing process. Nevertheless, that is something I will get into with next week's post. Thank you for reading, and for Tier 2 Patrons--stay tuned for my behind the scenes commentary on The Legend of Mass Effect later this week! :)