In this episode of Storyline Sessions, Eric R. Burgess talks about an array of topics. We covered game design and its connection to other aspects of life, his upcoming books (actually 3, not 2 as stated in the intro), using his creative work and degree in writing for software products, use of AI in writing, its implications on the future of art, as well as Disney’s approach to entertainment.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Start

00:56 – Conversation start

01:25 – About the importance of board games and Eric’s upcoming book Optional Rules

05:10 – Rewriting and the second book

06:17 – Working with an editor – the big picture edit

07:14 – Research about decisions

09:02 – The connection between life, business and board games

11:12 – Dealing with shorter attention spans

12:50 – The evolution of games

16:10 – Gamification – applying games to other things

19:40 – Minecraft is life-ification of games

20:32 – Changing expectations from games

23:17 – Collaborative storytelling

26:15 – Impact of stories

26:44 – Hopes for AI tools

27:01 – How Eric uses AI in his writing

31:00 – Bulletin board system and digital relationships

33:06 – First draft of Eric’s BBS novel

34:04 – Online communities

38:02 – Eric’s writing process

43:54 – About love

45:14 – Creativity vs Structure

48:22 – Structure tips from James D. Houston

50:29 – Transferrable writing skills

54:27 – „Piffles“ on Medium

56:18 – Working with (creative) constraints

1:00:32 – On Stephen King

1:02:42 – AI helping writers and AI getting worse

1:04:25 – Protecting authors from AI and industry standards

1:14:10 – Opportunities for creators

1:15:45 – Writing for Disney

1:20:03 – Disney’s approach to quality

1:22:42 – Inspiration for his magnum opus game

1:26:17 – Keeping focus on priorities

1:29:54 – Outro

You can find Eric at https://twitter.com/erburgess and https://medium.com/@erburgess_AI

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