dilemma: dialogue for hire?

[silverwhisper]

i've been offered a gig to write the dialogue for a game (platform), but i have a problem: i have no idea how to price my work. i could evaluate it on one of 2 bases:

1. lines of dialogue produced: IOW, results
2. hours worked to produce: IOW, effort

i have no experience w/ writing on this basis, and hence don't know if there's a standard means of compensation, nor do i know what value to ascribe to this effort.

does anybody have any ideas how to make sure i ask a fair price w/out either shortchanging myself or seeming like i'm trying to rip off my client?

ed

 

[thambok]

Have the given you an idea of the scope of work (how many lines, etc?)

 

[silverwhisper]

i'm staring at a 140 pg document game outline. short answer: not exactly, but not a small amount.

ed

 

[thambok]

i'm staring at a 140 pg document game outline. short answer: not exactly, but not a small amount.

ed

I am guessing that they have final editorial decision. If so, you may produce 300 lines but the only use 10. Wouldn't be fair to pay you for just the 10, but it isn't fair to them to pay for the 300 either.

If you had a good idea of how many lines you are looking at writing, you could do lump sum for final product.

Without that, I would say go with hourly.

Then again, they may have thier own ideas.

 

[silverwhisper]

thambok: i hadn't considered the editorial aspect at all! thanks for bringing that up.

yeah, the more i think about it, the more i think that this is gonna have to be on an effort basis, not a results one.

ed

 

[Kev H]

Each assignment must vary wildly, but I'd pick a game like Elder Scrolls 3, which had tons of great writing done for it (readable books all over the world in addition to great dialog), and see if you can get info from them. Precedents are your only hope of being accurate in your requests, imo.

 

[silverwhisper]

excellent idea. thanks!

ed