Is Alan Wake Supposed to be a Good Writer? | Show of the Weekend

[@JsL33]

Alan wake is not a bad writer but he’s also not an excellent one either. It’s implied that he has the potential to be an amazing writer but his personality holds him back. The first game gives a lot of clues that his books sold very well because people ate up his destructive rock star image he held in the public eye. Alan was also not good to the people close to him either. That’s why the dark presence was able to manipulate him so easily at first. Every time he’s outwitted the darkness was by him being a better person, which is also reflected on his writing and made him less vulnerable to being possessed. I think the games are trying to say that once he’s able to rise above himself he’ll be able to write a story powerful enough to defeat the dark presence and escape the dark place.

[@gunflesh]

This hits the nail on the head.

[@codaish]

I really like this analysis

[@FelipeKana1]

Exactly! Very on point. As I said in another comment, Alan is a conflicted writer. Not good, not bad, conflicted. Blocked. Self sabotaging to the extreme. He surely could've left the dark place a long time ago, but he keeps getting in his own way (as "Scratch" but also as all those writing rules he creates for his art... one of Door's dialogues points to this, Door being maybe the only thing around NOT created by Alan's drafts at this point)

[@theguitarman5311]

Couldn't have said it better myself. I love the games and I love the medicine and I love Alan as a character but he has his flaws just like everyone and he can be a complete dick at times. But there are generally parts where he is trying to be a better person and trying to do what's right and that's when he eventually accomplices his goal in the first game. But at the end of his journey and at the end of the work he's made he is also left with a lot of questions just like the audience because of the cliffhanger endings he finds himself in.

[@dr.catherineelizabethhalse1820]

Yeah he being only ”good enough” as writer was perfect for the Dark Presence to use him as a tool. However the longer it takes for the Dark Presence to use him to release itself the more time Alan has to become more powerful writer to win this fight. Also Alan can literally write himself to become better writer because that makes sense for the story.

[@moddingaom5622]

Alan Wake is almost like a fictional version of Dan Brown. Most of my creative writing teachers absolutely hate his writing, but he is a world famous author who is far more famous than my teachers.

[@lyledal]

Came to say something similar to this. Wake's bad but readers love him.

[@infernas]

The first couple of books of his that I read I actually really enjoyed (can't remember if it was Digital Fortress or Angels and Demons, as I liked both). But once you've read them, you've read them all. His plot twists are so predictable because they're just rehashes, by the third book I could tell who would betray the protagonist and who would turn out to be a good guy even if suspicious at first, almost as soon as they're introduced lol. He overuses character tropes more than Japanese anime. 😂

[@davidioanhedges]

Dan Brown plots move so quickly if you read them fast then so much is happening that you enjoy it ... then you realise you could summarise the whole plot in a couple of sentences ... Hard Boiled Detective stories are the same but slower ... there is huge amounts of detail described in many words, underneath the plot is often paper thin

[@PatGunn]

Michael Bay is a pretty shoddy director, but people like explosions and hammy dialogue.

[@Agent719]

There are definitely lots of artists (umbrella term) who have mass appeal but are disliked or considered bad at the craft by others who are in the craft. Like once you understand the medium, you start to see how things are "wrong", "basic", "repetitive", etc. But are still very popular.

[@willyum3920]

1 second into the open I paused, Luke is being weird, Andy has that face that says mischief and faux frustration and now I know this is going to be a good Saturday. xxx

[@cognitivefailure]

Re: Andy's comments at about 9:15, I just wanted to point out that "bad writing" and "writing that can change the world" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Nor do I feel like there's any problem with Alan Wake having grandiose opinions about writing even if he's not the world's best writer. I mean... WE all have such opinions ourselves! We wouldn't be having this conversation otherwise.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Absolutely! A huge part of AW2 is Alan's own cycle of self-criticism and self-destruction, and of course we've got Mr. Door criticizing him for making up rules he doesn't actually need to follow. I think a huge part of him getting out of this spiral (started by his own writer's block, by the way) will be him gaining the ability to say "my writing sucks usually, and that's OK" rather than either denying it or flagellating himself for it.

[@toadcola]

Stop changing my world/simulation with your writing, random internet person/artificial intelligence!

[@marhawkman303]

@@colbyboucher6391 and of course realizing that "best" is subjective.

[@Winter_hatt]

In my experience, all writers who are serious about writing talk like this. Or people who are serious about stories. It doesn't really have to do with skill

[@marhawkman303]

@@Winter_hatt Yeah, it's a sort of goal to aspire to, and such stuff.

[@jedihorjus]

Third option: you're experiencing Alan's point of view, and not being able to tell if your work is the best ever or absolutely awful is an extremely artist thing.

[@Glassandcandy]

Except you’re not experiencing it solely from Alan’s perspective. Half of the game is told from Sagas perspective and the writing style of the manuscripts in her sections are just as bad as when we see them from Alan’s. I think it’s safe to say that they intentionally write Alan’s writing to be generic Shlock lacking any serious literary merit.

[@zupasha]

Alan Wake doesn't have a super power. The lake turns artist's works real. In the first game, there's people that have been trapped before him, lake the two musicians (old gods of asgard) and another guy I cant remember his name who was screen writer. I might have got the details wrong, but basically it's the lake doing all the weird stuff, not Alan. Alan's job is to get out of the lake by writing a satisfying ending, or else it wont work. The genre is horror, and most horror stories ends badly for the protagonists, so he's in a weird position where he can't just be like, "and then I survive." It's basically a commentary on how writers are forced to write tropes and stick to the safe, mass marketing option, which is represented by the lake. Edit: You know, I did not imagine I'd have a ton of people reply to this comment. So, to make things clear for those who see this, read some of the replied comments to get a better understanding of the topic at hand. I honestly don't even care about what I said any more, considering I was only talking about what I understood when I played the original Alan Wake, like, a couple years ago. I don't know all the lore, and there are other's who do, so listen to them, please.

[@TheRawrnstuff]

You're missing a few details, but I agree. Spoilers and theorizing below, reader be warned: Tom Zane and Barbara Jagger were caught by the lake, and they are the first ones we've really explored in the games, but there have been others. A long time ago a group of people caught on what was happening at the lake - potentially with the help of "the Board" (the triangle from _Control),_ or at least the Bright Presence - and they formed a secret society called the _Torchbearers_ to keep the Dark Place in check. The Koskela brothers revitalized the society later on as the Cult of the Tree, but presumably without the Board's/BP's help, as they seem to be getting a number of details wrong and seem somewhat directionless. Since the Old Gods of Asgard refer to Torchbearers in their songs, it's likely the Torchbearers were an already existing group during Zane and Jagger's coming to Bright Falls. Seems like Thor and Odin weren't part of the society, but knew about them (they are seers), and if it had been just a recently created secret society, Old Gods probably wouldn't have been making songs about them. My guess is the Torchbearers were founded soon after the American Civil War, when the US saw a lot of immigration. These immigrants wouldn't have known to avoid settling near Cauldron Lake, and probably explicitly ignored the warnings of the natives from doing so. The lake had remained calm for decades, and the number of Torchbearers waned. Then Zane - who had made a movie on a book written by Veikko Alén - came to Cauldron lake with Jagger. Both were caught by the lake, and the Dark Presence infected Jagger, while the Bright Presence infected Zane. I think both need an actual person to do things for them to get anything done. My theory is that Zane created Alan Wake, and based him on his favorite author Veikko Alén. Alan Wake, later on, based his character -Max Payne- Alex Casey on the Nightless Night actor Aleksi Kesä. I've no idea how or why the FBI agent Alex Casey looks identical to Aleksi Kesä. Son, maybe? Alex Casey Jr.? Kesä would be around the same age as the Anderson brothers.

[@hawkins347]

Not quite true. Alan does have superpowers, but it's not related to his writing. He's a clairvoyant, he can see people and events, but up until now he just thought they were products of his imagination.

[@johannord4778]

The lake mening the game director?

[@AthAthanasius]

@@johannord4778 No, Cauldron Lake near Bright Falls in the game world.

[@Joe90h]

@@TheRawrnstuff Honestly, I was always under the impression that every bit of lore that the lake has now was created by Alan Wake, as well as elements of his own backstory, Mr Scratch, the involvement of the Old God Of Asgard, Thomas Zane having magical light powers...It's hard to trust anything when the main premise is that reality is being changed.

[@lizzywolcott98]

This had “games are back” energy and I love that

[@WildfireMagni]

They should have discussed the author physics more.

[@lizabee484]

Indeed! But there were no rats in this one! Bring back the rats! 8/10 video, 11/10 if there had been rat physics. ;D

[@ericemigh3869]

My take: Alan Wake is portrayed simply as a writer with a particularly pulpy, purple style. Some people hate it, some people love it, some people are indifferent on it; the game does not want to definitively state that his work is objectively good or bad. Also, Alan did enjoy writing most of the Alex Casey books; the whole reason he has writer's block in Alan Wake 1 is because he feels overwhelmed by the praise that series got.

[@M_M_ODonnell]

Alan dealing with impostor syndrome and constantly worrying about whether he is (or can be) a "real" or "serious" writer also doesn't tell us whether he's a good writer or not -- just that he's a writer.

[@metteor8]

Alan Wake's writing is not changing reality because it's the best writing in the world. The transdimensional prison he's trapped in is what's making fiction come true, and it doesn't have to be good fiction. Wake is supposed to be a not-very-good writer who is super popular because the masses like shallow books that are easy to read.

[@AthAthanasius]

Indeed, Alan's writing mostly has to be *consistent*, fitting the genre and what has gone before. No "and then I woke up and it was all a dream", that just won't work. He's portrayed as having enough knowledge about the process of writing to have a chance of manipulating the story within the constraints already defined. That says nothing about whether his writing is objectively good or not.

[@ArkaneStephanie]

Being a popular writer doesn't always mean being a good writer. He got popular too early and ended up stuck on what people liked. He couldn't improve or change his style or risk losing his audience. He ended up hating his books, because he had to write them the same way. Then in changing, he got writers block and spiraled out of control. Then his writing stopped being about a story and started being a fight with words against something that could weasel and twist his writing. He then got stuck writing the same way again because he needed to describe everything with extreme detail to avoid the Darkness weaseling through the gaps of what he didn't say. That is likely why he is still stuck, because his writing isn't good enough to get him out and there is no space for him to improve. The manuscript could also being explained because it's essentially a list of instructions for reality. They need to be exhaustive detail. They have also (minor spoils) [been written by two people.] He isn't the best writer, but he has been locked into a specific way of writing and has been unable to improve.

[@adelaidebonner7161]

Please do a follow-up to this when Andy finishes the game; there’s a ton of really cool analysis here that I’d love to see expanded on as he sees the rest of the game!

[@henry-nj8zb]

+1. andy is totally thinking along the right sort of track, i’m glad he’s thinking of it as more theory crafting than “lol game is bad because alan writing bad”. please keep playing andy 🙏🙏

[@TheRawrnstuff]

I think Alan Wake is supposed to be a good writer in terms of audience accessibility. Not in the way like the legendary authors of the past, but in a way that gets people who don't normally read, to read. Alan Wake's writing skill isn't the source of his "superpower" - the supernatural aspect of his writing is enabled by the dark place, and its inhabitants the dark presence and the bright presence. And maybe whatever it is that's behind Mr. Door's powers.

[@Prawnsly]

"Alan Wake is one of the few people who has written more books than he's read"

[@FelipeKana1]

​@@Prawnslyfrom where is that line from? I just half remember it

[@Prawnsly]

It's from one of the two 30 minute faux-interviews that were released to cap off Darkplace, between the characters of Garth, Dean and Todd. I think specifically it was the one titled Horrificata Illuminata, but it might have been the other one. Totally recommend re-watching the whole series, it's even funnier than you remember!@@FelipeKana1

[@KoGeFan]

I genuinely think he is a good writer being a prisoner to the genre. Trying to break out of these constraints is a main game theme. It is kind of represented by his prose, being very formulaic, but at the same time not bland. It is also supported by his perpetual desire to go through endless loops of writing and rewriting his work, until he can achieve the perfect piece of literature

[@marhawkman303]

Of course, in this context, "perfect" is subjective and thus variable, so what's perfect from one PoV is not from another.

[@synecdoched]

Whether intended or not (probably was, IMO), the cold opening and ending sequence where Andy and Luke struggle to creatively come up with compelling narratives seems to be the perfect symmetry to the discussion on whether Alan Wake was a good writer or not. Was it obvious to everyone else? It wasn't for me. If true, their lack of writing for the segments was the perfect writing for the segments. Kudos.

[@rovaan57]

Reminds me of the episode of Community where Abed takes a class on whether or not Nick Cage is a good actor.

[@СергийТихомиров-в4н]

Can't say for sure about his writing skills, but what's more important is that Alan Wake, in my opinion, is a good storyteller - that's one of the reasons why he was taken in the first place. He is convenient.

[@kintoshmalae1]

I wouldn't say that Alan himself even identifies as the best writer - competent, certainly; and clearly a popular writer, but not necessarily himself "the best" writer. He has strong concepts of what writing is capable of; of what an excellent writer can/should be; but personally I didn't really get that he saw himself that way - the popularity of his work was somewhat unexpected (see his backstory presented in-game in the musical number "Herald of Darkness"). There's a level of self-depreciation in his view of his own work, and all the examples of his writing are heavily constrained in some way - the Alex Casey works to a publisher to make them mass-marketable, and the in-game work as a rewrite to control someone else's plot and highly limited by the genre of the work itself. Alan also doesn't seem to identify any of the work we encounter as being in any way exceptional, with an emphasis on functional, or popular, but not "great" writing. Overall, I get the impression that the intent is that he is actually a skilled writer; not necessarily confident in his own work, but nonetheless reasonably talented (not necessarily "the best in the world" level, but certainly not a "bad" writer). The place provides the supernatural abilites to change reality, not any level of supernatural skill in their craft; and any decently skilled artist in any field (having confirmed a poet, an author, a painter, a rock band and a photographer in-game) can use their skill to begin to reshape reality around the lake. [For your lack of in-fiction writers, I'll see your Shining, and raise you Jessica Fletcher, of Murder She Wrote 😉]

[@grumble]

Oh also, the comparison to Patterson is fun because that guy employs ghostwriters and then slaps his name on there. That's why there's so many of his novels in a year. Librarians HATE HIM. Alan at least toils away honestly, I guess that counts for something.

[@laterkater4213]

As a writer, I appreciated this discussion on writing from two professional writers. 👍

[@jackolantern_8239]

Just to be clear, Alan Wake doesn't shape reality as a super power. Alan is a Parautilitarian and he does have powers including some form of precognition and insight. That's why his Alex Casey books (allusion to Max Payne) have many many details that are close to real life Alex Casey's and investigations. Alan was not knowingly writing about real life Alex Casey and in fact didnt know he existed - he thought what he now knows to be his visions were just a form of writer's inspiration. However, it's the dark presence within the dark place threshold that changes an artist's art into reality. This can happen with film, TV, music, writing, any form of art. The artist must believe in the art and yes i do think the better the creative artist the more powerful their art would be / more likely to be used by the dark presence to change reality. Alan himself relies on a lot of bits of truth and ideas he has to shape reality as he will truly believe in the art then. It's very clear that the Alex Casey books are shlocky and not masterpieces - even in the first game sheriff breaker says that his books are good but over rely on metaphor. But that isnt to say that Alan isn't a good writer but he also doesn't need to be the greatest writer ever. Within both games, he shows a good understanding of writing theory, structure, genre, sense of place and meaning and knows that his writing needs to fit rules and make sense and be 'real' and believable within the rules of the dark place for it to be utilised it to shape reality. I'm afraid you're incorrect. Remedy haven't been lampshading Alan's writing years since the first game. This was very much present within the first game. Alan is full of self-doubt, self-hatred and self flagilation and this is reflected in how the dark presence targets him and messes with him.

[@abydosianchulac2]

The one little connection you're missing (that I'm sure you already know, but just didn't spell out for the uninitiated) is that it's Alan's being a parautilitarian that allows him to interact with the Dark Place's reality-shaping abilities. Not any random human can do that; that's why the doctor in the first game had his clinic to try to isolate/identify those people who were both artists and parautilitarians who could manifest the lake's abilities. This is the same reason Jesse in _Control_ can gain so many powers as you play, even though she only starts out with some baseline telepathy or something. Her being a parautilitarian allowed her to safely interact with anomalous objects and get the most out of them, while others couldn't.

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@abydosianchulac2 YES, and I think in Alan's case (and the Andersons) it's a little deeper than just "they're Parautilitarians": American Nightmare has the most explicit explanation of how this reality-altering stuff works. A good chunk of what's written (or sung about, or whatever) needs to "ring true" because it literally _is_ true already, before the untrue parts start happening like a Rube Goldberg machine. AW2 clarifies that what people _believe_ to be true factors in as well, and of course it's easier to lie to people if there's lots of believable detail. Alan and the Andersons being "seers" who get inspiration from real events makes them perfectly suited for managing this.

[@mrspiderhead8794]

I feel like Alan's meant to be a good writer - writing to a specific genre is difficult and requires skill. I think people just think he's bad because the manuscript pages are written to sound good with Alan's vocal delivery and not take _too_ long to read out each page rather than to be good prose. Edit: Also, he was never set up to be the best writer of all time, just a good genre writer. As others have said, it's not the quality of his writing that changes reality (the main rule is that the writing has to have internal consistency to come true), it's the power of the dark place and it works with _all_ creatives. If Bob Ross had fallen into Cauldron Lake, we'd be playing Remedy's version of Art Academy. The whole idea of his struggle is that he's having to be the best writer _that he can be_ in order to not completely screw himself over, and in order to not free the dark presence (which is actively working to manipulate artists in the vicinity of the lake to set itself loose on the world).

[@hiatusinc]

I feel like Alan Wake is the kind of author whose books you would see a lot at airports with "New York #1 Best Seller" written on the covers. These come and go, and sometimes get turned into movies. You always know of someone who is reading it. But you may not have read it yourself. You hear the author's name around and you recgonise it. A good writer? probably not. But popular enough for a time.

[@Dead-EyeJuncan]

I had to Google what purple writing meant. It turns out it is writing that is more elaborately spankingly gorgeously massively complex than it needs to be and distracts from the original point.

[@BigMcLargeHuge125]

Meta joke. Meta game. Stuck in a loop!

[@thundercookie3214]

I think Alan Wake is supposed to be a struggling writer. Not struggling in the sense that his books don't sell; they sell well. That is part of the problem. I feel like he is supposed to be like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Dame Agatha Christie who both created characters and stories that were immensely popular and very successful from a financial and cultural perspective. But they eventually resented that body of work and their attempts to branch into different genres failed, forcing them to write more of those stories they loathed. I also noticed that Alan, like Doyle and Christie, attempts to kill off his protagonist, but only Christie managed to do so successfully by releasing the novel "Curtain" depicting Poirot as an old, sickly man at the end of his life. Doyle had to revive/rescue Holmes, eventually. However, it is not the fact that Alan is a writer that helps him shape reality; it's the location. I think in the first game it is established that the lake in Bright Falls "turns" any art into reality. Alan being a writer, creating a form of art, therefore can shape reality. The art's quality does not appear to be a deciding factor, which opens up disturbing possibilities for children's art projects.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Yep, this is how I think of it, too. It's telling that Alan's "writer's block" after killing off Casey is what leads him to Cauldron Lake, though. He wrote lots of other things before those novels but they're what made him famous and his earlier stuff is more explicitly supposed to be cheesy (it's mostly brought up in "The Alan Wake Files", a PDF you can find in the files of the original Alan Wake on Steam, includes a whole early short story he wrote). I think Alan is an ideas guy who struck gold, and once he exhausted that tank, he's struggled to come up with anything new but longs to write something more literary, more innovative (represented by Departure, Initiation and Return themselves).

[@dranusgamecave]

One thing I remembered to take into consideration is that when Alan Wake began, he was coming from a place of writer's block. He went to Bright Falls to help his relationship with Alice. Alice had another agenda in she wanted to help him get over his writer's block. She went so far as talking to Hartman behind Alan's back to again help Alan out of his writer's block. So not only is Alan fighting writer's block rather reluctantly, but also under pressure from Alice, possibly Barry, Hartman, and now the tremendous pressure from the Dark Presence as well as being trapped in the Dark Place. All that, and he has to stay within certain writing constraints to first free Alice, and then in Alan Wake II, free himself. I would think anyone's writing would suffer at that point. Falling back into old writing habits, cliches, and familiar prose would be the quickest way to come up with ideas for someone under all that pressure.

[@rojh9351]

Great intro guys. It’s “Alan” the delivery.

[@outso]

It's always weird to see Alan Wake because Ilkka Villi (the actor who provides the looks of Alan Wake) was very prominent face in finnish ads for a phone plan provider for quite a long time. Or maybe that was just Alan Wakes side hustle to gather money for his upcoming book.

[@johannord4778]

That is true of most writers

[@colbyboucher6391]

There's something deeply funny about learning this and remembering how Alan Wake was littered with Verizon advertisements.

[@ArDeeMee]

BAM. Headcanon.

[@paxmelchizedek6095]

Late to this party, I wanted to finish the game first, I think the key element that you guys didnt bring up is that the emphasis isnt on whether or not his writing is good, but that it conforms enough to the idea of art to hold up as an art object. Iterated again and again throughout both games, he knows that in the act of telling a story, you have to follow certain rules, and his understanding of thise rules is what makes him a writer who is able to manipulate and be manipulated by the Dark Place. I personally think his writing is good, as (imo) the gamut of noir writing is about evoking a feeling and style more than the quality of the line by line. That's what it feels like Rememdy were going for (to me) and I think they nailed it. In the fiction of the world, Wake is a successful author, and there's still a baseline quality needed to get a work published such that you have an agent and editors, even if your wife is one of them. Also, Karen Eiffel in Stranger Than Fiction, the movie is about her writing a book where the primary character is an irl person who can hear her narration as she's writing it, and the way the movie blends the film being told with the writing of the novel is so beautiful to me, and I think she's a great example of a great author being writen ss a great author, would highly recommend the movie!

[@echo12345ish]

What makes the Sam Lake stuff even more meta is that he's the face model for Max Payne, which Alex Casey basically is for the Remedy Connected Universe

[@colbyboucher6391]

Not only that... Apparently in one pre-release interview (which I haven't seen) he gets "kidnapped" by the Cult of the Tree at the end, and in AW2 we find Sam Lake (like, _actually_ Sam Lake) strapped to a chair by the Cult of the Tree as a ritual sacrifice for Alan to kill.

[@OhYeah_]

@@colbyboucher6391 I've never heard of that interview did you ever find it?

[@OscarHazeGaming]

I never viewed Alan as the supposed greatest writer in the world, because, as you said, it would set up Remedy to failure as writers themselves. He's like Taylor Swift: he's very good and competent, but not absolutely genius outstanding, and for some combination of circumstances he was launched to superstardom (again, not implying it's a bad thing). He's like an everyman writer with a heavy impostor syndrome (cue Mr. Scratch) who is forced to perform at the peak level, even though neither himself, nor we as the audience are not sure if he can possibly succeed. Also, Cauldron Lake doesn't need the greatest writer to change reality, it's an inherent property of the place. You have to bee good and consistent enough for the fiction to take effect, as shown in FBC experimenting with nursery rhymes, which are one of the collectibles that Saga can find.

[@Kwn92]

The rain outside hit the window like a thousand whispers of regret, and in walked Sam Lake. His silhouette cut through the dim light of the office, casting shadows that danced with the memories of a thousand broken promises.

[@TheRawrnstuff]

Is this what they call a "cold open"?

[@alonosh7184]

"Brr. The nights are gathering in. It's cold outside.... But I'm staying warm here, on the sofa... With *Andy*." Phrasing, Luke.

[@Prawnsly]

Alan Wake is actually an anagram of Garth Marenghi

[@Sleepless_Chaos]

Here's the other thing that I thought of: the writing we're seeing is from Wake losing his mind. It's possible he is a marginally better writer (even if he isn't a *fantastic* writer but just happens to be a *popular* writer in the not-Dark-Place), but the way that sentences are fragmented and thoughts are asynchronous sounds more like someone struggling to wrangle any coherence out of themselves. There is a scene in the game where Alan has a breakdown, and in it he says something along the lines of "I've written so much, and all I want to do is sleep." It's been 13 years. In a way, this might be alluding to some of the "madness" Sam Lake started feeling when he kept churning through iteration after iteration of AWII's script for 13 years. I've been working on a novel series for 14 years, and yeah, at times, it gets absolutely maddening. Sometimes I want to quit, but the project drags me back in. Another line from the game, "how do you run away from a story that lives in your head," also feels like it's Sam Lake commenting on the art form of writing and how the process of creation can, at times, be like a sort of madness. I don't think Wake is "supposed to be" any sort of writer--good, bad, popular, camp, all of that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that he is being driven bonkers by his art form, by his love, by the thing that gave him everything, and he is powerless to escape its pull. So when the writing stopped, when his muse stopped talking to him, and he couldn't create anymore, he started spiraling. That spiraling got twisted into a loud rock star personality that the public ate up. His cries for help (which he didn't even know were cries for help, because he wasn't in the business of introspection or getting therapy) got turned into a circus act--and while it gave him money and fame, it still didn't give him his writing back. He didn't know who he was if he wasn't a writer. The Dark Presence found that vulnerability and consumed him for it. The Dark Presence could represent depression and anxiety. Ascending through it could mean that he needs to get himself in order--understand his own fears, his shortcomings, his faults, work through them, be better, and then be able to make his magnum opus to escape the Dark Place (or, if you like, escape the rut of depression and anxiety by getting help and doing the work on himself to become a better person and therefore a better writer). And because this is Remedy and Sam Lake and they like going meta, it's also possible that the Dark Presence isn't "supposed to be" anything, either. Sam's a writer. As a fellow writer, sometimes you just create something and it has no deeper meaning than "this story wouldn't leave me alone." The Dark Place won't leave Alan alone because the idea of a Dark Place, somewhere morbid where fiction comes true, haunts Sam Lake. It needs to exist to get out of his head.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Y'know, you've got a point here, particularly because Alan's writing in the original game wasn't anywhere near _this_ terse, where this time around it's getting to Blood Meridian levels of "wait, what?" (Not saying Blood Meridian is bad, there's just a similar quality to it)

[@CreighExbridge]

After all these years the intro has truly peaked

[@syaoran5476]

One thing GamingUniversity noted in his playthrough is that in AW2, Alan has ditched the heavy metaphors he USED to use, likely for the reason of giving the Dark Place less room to manipulate his works against him.

[@trankia1224]

I'm pretty sure Alan and Alice came to Bright falls in the first place because he had a writers block. So It very well could be canon that he's not a good writer. He had a few hit books that made him famous, but he struggles to do it again, which could be what the dark place represents, his struggle to write another good story.

[@TransmitHim]

Writer's block doesn't necessarily means he's bad. Lots of good writers have struggled at times. It's the bad ones who don't realise they're bad that seem more able to just churn out work undeterred.

[@JNSRfilms]

I think you touch on an important, if not the most important, symbol of the first game at least. The darkness can be taken literally but also is a metaphor for writer's block, or any other creative inability. There is other ways to interpret it, but in the first game at least it seems an obvious stand in.

[@hermes2002000]

In my mind, Alan Wake is the video game version of Garth Marenghi, complete with self important prose and pulpy writing.

[@Michael_Lindell]

Two things: Popular does not mean good. A "bad" work of art can be as inspirational as a "good" one.

[@tslice114]

Love Andy's take on this. This is my favorite game of 2023. I agree with everyone that Alan is a complicated character. The game is so good and Finnish and weird.

[@samuxan]

He is a best selling author within the game universe so, just like in real life, selling a lot gets you a lot of hate whether your good or average, but you'll never sell if the writing is truly bad.

[@kiwikratos]

Andy Wake. Alan Westaway. Ellen Wake.

[@DEVILTAZ35]

I spent over 50 hrs with this game and it clear it is inspired by Stephen King’s work. He used a type writer for years to create his masterpieces too so I don’t get the contempt about the use of a typewriter in this game.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Plus, it's because that was Thomas's Zane's typewriter back in the day. That's just what Alan had in front of him on Diver's Isle.

[@Artificer1911]

"masterpieces"

[@Gamehen9]

Alan Wake games are in same world as Control (each has references to the other) and the implication is that the typewriter is an Object Of Power with the ability to bring what’s written on it to life, and the lake is a Place of Power containing a Dark Presence. So the immensity of the trouble he gets into is from bringing these two preternatural objects into proximity. I think he’s supposed to be a good writer who got popular using a shlockey style influenced by old noir fiction and he ended up trapped in that style by his popularity and his publishers doing the same overwrought airport fiction. That’s supposed to be the primary source of his writer’s block in the first game as I understand. Most of his writing you encounter in Alan Wake II is by him and his dark self competing to use the typewriter to escape the lake. He frequently makes comments to the effect of he doesn’t like what he wrote but it fits the genre and the scene so he’ll keep it so he can use it to escape. So he’s supposed to be a good writer writing okay popular fiction, who could do better things if he could just escape himself.

[@AZ-rl7pg]

He's supposed to be good but the quality is due to narrative game design and him trying to deal with his current situation. He has to write a good story and also live through it in order to escape. I mean you try writing a best seller quality horror novel that you have to live though while writing it.

[@Ghostel3591]

While the place where you write makes you CONSTANTLY forget. It is like writing while having dementia. And in IRL only Terry Pratchett was THAT good of a writer to do it. (Also man always took notes and was frickin' dictating to his editor what to write when his health detoriated too much) Alan Wake has been always shown as just a "good" writer and not "Legendary". Which is why he barely can mitigate Dark Place influence much less being able to triumph over it.

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@Ghostel3591 Of course, every time Alan finds his own writing in AW2 after forgetting, he's like "Goddamn I can't have written this, it's Scratch! He did this!" It's more "I wouldn't hurt people like this" than "wow my writing sucks", but I think the metaphor still stands.

[@Ghostel3591]

@@colbyboucher6391 to be fair considering how everything loops around, how he keeps forgetting etc etc - It is simply up to Player to decide what to believe... Maybe it was Scratch and Alan stopped himself from fixing the book. Or maybe it was Alan fixing Alan's book thinking it was Scratch and then ending up shot by Alan. At least we definetely know that Mr. Scratch is a twisted mirror image made from Alan, a stand alone entity and is NOT some kind of runaway split personality. It is simply that we never find out whether it was really Scratch behind new story or Alan proverbially "shot himself in the foot" due to brain damage inflicted by 13 years long stay in a Dark Place.

[@shasshybear]

Loved the well thought out intro

[@nathancarter8239]

I remember reading a page from TV Tropes that was like this trope which I cannot find again, but the nearest example is *Informed Ability,* where the audience is told of a skill a character has but it's not shown. There's a range of reasons and applications for this trope, but in particular sometimes characters are writers and we're told some part of their writing. It's difficult to make something good, and if you want a story about a great story then you have to *make* a great story! That's why a lot of writer characters are hacks who can't write well; paradoxically, it's easier to write a purposefully-bad story than a purposefully-good one. And this isn't taking into account that the pages in _Alan Wake 2_ are just there for the player to get up-to-speed. I am reminded of Brian David Gilbert's video on the literature in _Skyrim,_ which is usually not very good by regular story standards and mostly serves to educate the player on the nature of the world. Though there are some exceptions, it's serving a different purpose, more mechanical than literary.

[@Ray_of_Forks]

Nor really on the topic of the video, but i do love the fact, that game CAN give you a proper bloody flaslight (one that actually gives off some decent light) and let you use it at the same time as a gun, while still being scary. So many games need to learn from it.

[@OptimusSledge]

I think flashlights are to horror game designers as mobile phones are to writers. Modern ones are so small and powerful that you basically have to come up with a reason for them to not be there if you want to maintain a suspension of disbelief, or you do the harder work of creating something that still works with those items around.

[@Ray_of_Forks]

@@OptimusSledge Precisely my point, crappy flashlights that light up three meters ahead or just make darkness slightly more grey or ones that hold exclusive right to your hands so you can't carry anything else at the same time, are the path of least rsistance. Alan Wake proves things CAN be done right, just aren't.

[@AmyDentata]

Everyone else has made some really insightful comments, and I'd just like to add: Alan

[@hmspretender]

Alan Wake is a really good writer, he's award winning. The issue I think you're seeing is that when the fame and money hit he didn't handle it well. I'm guessing that he didn't have the capability to handle everything he was "seeing" or "glimpsing" from Casey's life (I'm 99% certain that I wouldn't be able to handle the worst of the worst humanity has to offer, like Casey can, either). So to deal with the pressure from fans, the publisher, life in general, and his "nightmares", he started self medicating. His writing style now is still really good. But he's not writing a fictional novel so it doesn't have to be "great writing". He's writing what real people are saying, doing, and seeing. So if someone, like one of the deputies for example, speaks/acts kind of dumb then he writes them kinda dumb. He's not trying to write a great novel. He's trying to write a novel that will get him out of the Dark Place. But the Dark Place operates by a set of rules, and responds to tragedy and horror, so he can't simply write "and I escaped" because that wouldn't balance things and the Dark Presence, who's also trapped there (almost like it was a prison made for it, hmm) could just follow him out. That's my understanding anyway.

[@Joseph-sk4rl]

Alan wake is a good writer and all the bad criticism in the subway is part of him criticizing his own work Because the biggest critic for a writer is himself

[@Brian-tn4cd]

Also i recognized those lines Andy said, they're from the first game, from a possessed guy who didn't like Alan

[@insainraven9875]

This is the exact kind of content I want. An in depth look at the Videogame’s world and more into the parts that really show love and care. Or rather the absolute passion and love fans of these games have that we want to genuinely know these questions.

[@FictionWriter95]

Disappointing to see that the Alan Wake episode isn't co-hosted by Luke's most frequent collaborative partner, Allen Rose.

[@jacobwilkinson5479]

Even in the little clips here it is really cool to see all the links to control lore in the game. I haven’t played the Allan wake games myself but played the control dlc and love the links there.

[@screetchycello]

As someone from the US, I kind of adore the unashamed Finnish America. There are a lot of places that actually _are_ kinda like that where there were large diasporas from the 1800s - there's lots of Polish influence in Chicago, lots of Nordic influence in the upper midwest, and everyone will claim to be slightly Irish on St Patricks Day lol. And that's not getting into things like Chinatown which are equally old or more recent diasporas who make "Little [Country]" areas. For me having _that much_ Finland helps the familiar unreality? Because it's _almost_ something you could find, it's just more Finnish than you'd usually get these days lol. It feels familiar but also archaic and out of time, like you went back in time 70 years

[@erickiernan1578]

There's a certain amount of difficulty in creating a story within a story. You can't write it better than the main plot. I think it's one of those situations when you see actors acting within a show badly, you need to do it to separate the fictional reality. So I would say it's done on purpose but within the context of the world it's supposed to be good

[@eternalvigil8464]

Maybe its one level deeper, think about it this way. Sam Lake himself is trapped within the world of his own creation, a character he created is affecting the way he's perceived, the same way he was thanks to his portrayal and connection with Max Payne. Hes trying to escape the world his creation is trapping him in. In Max Payne he was a detective from America and it kind of erased his own Finnish personality to so many players - that same persona that's only seen in small snippets in Alan Wake's interview segments - the same thing thats happening here with accents and his face being used. Meanwhile Alan Wake is stuck within a Lake...Sam Lake. Their names rhyme too, they're like parallels. The use of light can even be a link to that

[@AlmightyFuzz1]

I'm also about 10 hours or so in to Alan Wake so I know there's still a lot of game left to play, but I've not noticed the game trying to say anything about if Alan is good writer or a bad one. He is a writer trapped in his own(?) horror story trying to figure out how to change it so he can escape. I've also not noticed it saying anything about him being a "legendary" writer beyond just being a successful one (unless that was covered in Alan Wake 1 which I've not played)

[@TheRawrnstuff]

In Alan Wake 1 he is a best selling author suffering from writer's block. But best selling doesn't mean good. It does imply accessible, though.

[@Storm0483]

Love the intro and outro. You know your viewers well enough to know that this’d be funnier and more entertaining than scripting anything :D I haven’t played Alan Wake 2 as I’m not good with horror games, but I have seen a few of the cutscenes and lore, and I agree it’s very meta and looks like an entertaining game.

[@worsethanyouthink]

He is repeatedly stated to have writers block for the duration of both titles and the expanded universe, and it's also implied the reason he remained trapped in the lake is because he couldn't write a good enough plot. So no, he's not meant to be good during the events of the games. But he also writes the events of the games, which I would argue is fairly well written. And the Casey books are implied to be Max Payne which is notoriously cliche and mid writing, yet a household name in gaming.

[@jcsmiley1255]

The part with the old gods of asgard song is by far one of the craziest things I've ever played through

[@barbararowley6077]

I really love these sorts of discussions, it’s always fascinating and engaging. I think it’s probably deliberately difficult to tell if Wake’s a good or bad writer. Purple prose is rather grandiose, and is there any situation more grandiosity-generating than your words having literal world-shaping power? That’s a situation that would impact the ego of even the most modest and level-headed writer.

[@GriffinWolf]

This was a really fascinating discussion. You're right that any excerpts of books that appear in games or movies tend to be absolutely awful - the sort of carefully structured sentences that are of technical merit but do not form part of an engaging sequence. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of the guy who writes the "Cassandra Snow" novels in the Hitman universe (Patient Zero - the Author).

[@catoninetales]

I love listening to you all talk horror. I don't really enjoy consuming horror but it's fascinating when you analyze it because of the way it plays with the audience's psychology and expectations. Anyway, an unreasonable request: play all of Alan Wake II on the channel because that's the only way I'm going to enjoy it. 😛

[@csabalako1788]

That intro lol 😂Shows the dynamics very well, Ellen is the brains who comes up with the innovative fun, and Luke is the eye-candy 🥰

[@f0ur_G]

I mean, being trapped in a horrific nightmare dimension for 13 years would take a toll on anyone's mental state. In the case of Alan I can't imagine its done wonders for his writing either. Plus he's also rushing to get his manuscripts done as he's racing against the dark presence/Scratch

[@BENch_Gaming44444]

That was a pretty good *cold* open

[@leonielson7138]

In the context of the Remedyverse, Alan Wake is a parautilitarian with the powers of remote viewing and precognition, who started out writing episodes for 'Night Springs', an in-world version of 'The Twilight Zone', bringing him to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Control as the episodes mirrored altered world events that they were investigating. He became famous for the 'Alex Casey' series of novels, profiling the life of New York City PD Detective Alex Casey, for which he unwittingly drew inspiration from the life of FBI Special Agent Alex Casey and a series of murders/events that wouldn't happen until years later. The murders his books predicted would later be carried out by a group of superfans, which were investigated by FBI Agent Alex Casey in a "which came first" situation. As a writer, Alan Wake is good, but he used a lot of metaphor that can easily be misinterpreted, so while trapped in the Dark Place, Alan tries to change his writing style to make it more concise, so that the Dark Presence can't misinterpret it, using a format that seems abrupt and leaving the reader with the impression that he's not a good writer.

[@wwklnd]

I think my favourite fictional writer in a game is Terrence L. Greenbriar, the dad from Gone Home, whose books show up through that game and one of them also pops up in Firewatch.

[@iain1541]

I just love the game, it has ticked all my boxes as a big fan of the original. Only finished it last night and am desperate for more, bring me Control 2 and AW3!

[@penyuwan]

Wait NG+ on Monday new ending/alternative narrative.

[@quingster3420]

I had similar sorts of questions about The Talos Principle. I found the discussions with the Satan character in the terminals to be sort of first-year Philosophy student stuff that were two dimensional and somewhat manipulative, and how I feel about the game sort of depends on whether that was intentional on the part of the game's writers (that is to say, Satan as a character isn't deep but likes to think he is) or whether it was just the best that the writers could do.

[@laurenbastin8849]

Alan Wake is himself arguably supposed to be a self-insert of Sam Lake, and the original game is very much Lake kinda venting his frustrations about being the “max payne guy”, and at the same time is being very self-critical… there’s a whole lot of layers to it, but arguably Alan Wake is supposed to be a bad writer who at the same time resents the kind of fiction he is made to write, because that is itself how Sam Lake perceived himself at the time when he was lead writer on the Max Payne games and first Alan Wake

[@Liesmith85]

I’m loving the game as well. To me Alan Wake’s writing is overwrought but that’s the fun of it and it’s absolutely intentional. Often when fiction is presented within fiction it needs to be a bit overdone to fully establish that it is fiction within a fictional world. There’s tonnes of examples of this; what’s coming to mind for me is Angels with Dirty Faces from Home Alone. So I think. Alan Wake is a bad writer to us in our world but one layer down in Alan’s reality he is considered good one or at least on the level of Stephen King or Dean Kootz.

[@CulturalBarbarian]

If you are not deep enough into the ocean, you'll miss the diver's influence.

[@notoriousbmc1]

I think, in the reality that Alan Wake created...he is a very good, accomplished writer. The Enid Blyton of his dreams.

[@renaigh]

Sam Lake is an Eldritch Being who uses the medium of film and video games to communicate with Humanity. (english is his second language)

[@NateHohl]

I'm pretty sure the voice actor who provides Alex Casey's voice is the same one who voiced Max Payne (which is ironic since Same Lake's likeness was also used for Max in the very first MP game). Yet another fun little meta nod for long-term Remedy fans. My personal take was that Alan likes to think he's a good writer, but he also knows deep down that "successful writer" and "good writer" aren't always one and the same. He's also clearly frustrated at having to keep writing the stuff that made him successful in the first place, and I'm sure that frustration is part of what made him such an ideal target for the dark presence. I also don't think it's a coincidence that so much of Alan's part of the campaign involves him having to reckon with how much his seeming success as a writer warped his sense of reality and how he treated those around him, especially his wife. Not sure how on the nose I am, but I agree with Luke and Andy that it's worth considering.

[@b.u.l.1734]

Alan Wake's powers to change/influence reality with his writing doesn't come from the fact that he's "the best writer ever", it comes from Cauldron Lake/The Dark Place. All works of fiction or art can become a reality in there. It happened to Thomas Zane and the Anderson brothers too.

[@garetheggleston7807]

The “cold” opening was something to behold

[@Isaac-ph5co]

What do you mean he is good or bad, he connects with people, and he is famous, can't good writers use clichês? This is like asking if George RR Martin is bad

[@joeldfisher]

Alan Wake is an author. A visionary. A dreamweaver. He's written more books than he wrote and his work is radical, risky, dangerous and goddamn crazy

[@sambridgett]

Absolutely love Andy's comment that if you asked David Lynch to explain anything he'd get you to go and stand in a field with a cow. Spot on.

[@djturley509]

What I thought would happen *Post it appears after intro* “Alan please add details”

[@lady_draguliana784]

"It was a Dark and Stormy night, I'd taken a creative writing class!" -Crow T. Robot, MST3K: Pod People

[@sandermall]

This show of the weekend is like the media analysis of Mom Cant Cook distilled. Love it.

[@ethanlappin]

This has such 'last thing filmed before a bank holiday weekend' energy at the beginning

[@nutsymcgregor]

I feel like Alex Casey was never supposed to be a series but proved so popular Alan was pressured by the publisher to make more. Thus his writing became more and more formulaic. When he does get to the end of the series he now has writer’s block as he hasn’t written anything new in so long.

[@nicholasklofta1268]

Andy... I honestly love that shirt

[@GatBodZ]

I’m pretty sure it’s established from the first game that he was a good writer and is now a bad writer. He never really got over his writers block, there’s multiple points in this game where he states he’s only writing the way he does now because “it’s how the formula of a story works” it’s not what he wants to write but he has to

[@ruthejbooth8661]

So this is basically part of my Creative Writing PhD thesis (in progress) in reverse. Full disclosure: I'm an author with a couple of awards to my name (as a labrador, the typing is the hardest part), not a game designer, but someone who knows a few. Basically, Andy's question looks simple, but it's absolutely huge. It's not just a case of whether AW is a good writer, or even a good genre writer. AW's writing is both extracts from a novel written for a very specific purpose (AW's escape) but with passion, but also fulfills different purposs at different points in the game -- flavour text, clues, character development, commentary on the player character and npcs, quest text, scene setting -- and this text has to do this while remaining consistent to the style and format of a novel while obeying game constraints. So what kind of writer are we talking about? What do we mean by good? What about the Stephen King parallels and how that affects the notion of good writing? And that's even before we get to the idea of him being a character and whether these are supposed to be straight extracts or representative of his writing -- or even whether we can count him writing under duress as good writing. All we really know is he's a successful writer and he's got to write in a way that helps him escape. On that score is he a good writer? Spoilers, innit.

[@shokmunky]

Literature major here! Alan is meant to be a schlocky, middle-of-the-road author who found success with the Alex Casey novels, the "writers block" leading into the Cauldron Lake incident was actually about him trying to write something different and cement himself as a "proper" author. His writing being bang-average is intentional, giving the Dark Presence an ideal target as Alan's work is easily manipulated. I could write a whole essay on the way this is portrayed and the meta-narrative that solidifies this, but I have spent far too long rambling about it already 😂

[@KevinNHaw]

"A writer should know that changing writing venues causes supernatural shennanigans and being menaced by ghosts." If I'd only seen this video sooner I wouldn't be banned from working on my screenplay at Starbucks.

[@emillie3962]

Could it be that he is just an average writer technically speaking but that the content of his works grips people despite that. Twilight for example, is not a technical marvel of writing but because it came out at the right time and had kernels of really interesting concepts it still really changed the world with the power of writing.

[@laurasaurus7399]

I spent so much of this video distracted and delighted by Luke's mug

[@ryadinstormblessed8308]

15:14 the fact that we have a trope of unsuccessful writers traveling to a different place to get inspiration, doesn't mean successful writers don't also use that tactic. I've heard plenty of examples of writers who do that. One example would be Neil Gaiman traveling to various parts of the US to research life in those areas while he wrote American Gods.

[@emmaiblass]

In the most off topic way: It reminds me of my struggle with Jersey Boys’ central premise being “nobody can sing like Frankie” that either their lead will never be good enough to play him or they’ve found at least 17 actors on par with THEE Frankie Vallie

[@yutti311]

Wow. Tall Ellen really struggled on that opening without Normal Ellen around

[@vaskildo94]

The signs on the subway are mostly lines from the original Alan Wake, especially from the first chapter.

[@waterinmyotter6245]

I love that Andy is dressed as a colourful Luke 😂