What are the steps to getting "in the know"?

[Matt]

I've been pretty adamant about my goal of getting into game journalism for a career. Just in case that never comes to fruition, what I want to do is expand to other interests and find other niches that I can work with. I'm thinking tech, anime, and movies, specifically. However, I'm a bit bogged down by where and how to start because I only have a passing-glance knowledge on each of those topics.

Not only that, but I find myself in a rut even in my preferred field of choice. I've been interested in gaming for a while now, but I have only started to get into game news and features (maybe about a year and half). I'm uneasy about talking and voicing my opinion because I don't have that extensive knowledge of all the developers, publishers, and the plethora of games out there. Sure, I've played games since the NES days, but it was more a childish delight; I wasn't worried about playing them to rack up my experiences for comparisons or to write about the history of a series. I don't have that. Can you believe that I have never played a Zelda game for more than an hour? I have also never finished a Final Fantasy game. And while I can go back and pop in the cartridge of Ocarina of Time, I know that it is partly in vain because I won't ever have the experience of playing it in its intended context. This takes a toll on my confidence.

So, I guess what I'm asking is this- where did you get your knowledge about all the fields you know so much about? How can I become a conduit for information and insight in those topics I mentioned? Where and how do I start?


Thanks in advance for any advice.


I know this seems like an asinine question, but due to the fact that I believe I have a higher than average knowledge pertaining to video games than most people, and still don't feel comfortable talking about the industry, it makes me a little worried.

[John "Wardrox" Kershaw]

I have never completed a Zelda game but I don't think that matters, unless I was tasked with writing an in-depth feature about Zelda.

Knowledge just comes with time. Start blogging, reading books, following the news etc. It all slowly seeps in after a while. Also, if (when) you start a blog, do plenty of research for every article. Even an hour or so spent trawling the web yields a lot of often useful information.

Remember the true skill isn't really knowing everything (though that helps), it's knowing where to look for that information.

Well, that's my advice anyway.

[Nathan Meunier]

The more you immerse yourself in games and write about them, the more you'll pick up. The trick is being able to do good research and educate yourself about specific games you have to write about but might be unfamiliar with. Very few people have experience playing every single franchise or niche they wind up writing about. If I have an assignment to cover a game or subject I'm not familiar with, I simply do enough research to get a working knowledge of it in order to be better informed while writing the piece.

Essentially, good research and strong writing ability will fill in the gaps. And the more you do it, the more you'll amass familiarity with new gaming subjects.

[Brendon Lindsey]

I pretty much only write about things I already know about, which happens to be games, movies, sports, and at one point anthropological studies. (But that was boring ;).)

Like the others have said, if it's something you're interested in, following the news and just having a genuine go at being part of that group will give you the info you need. (IE playing games, watching movies, messing around with the latest tech, etc.)

There is one big problem with deciding out of the blue that you want to write about niche topics you're admittedly not very familiar with: the audience who will be reading it is intimately familiar. I can't even begin to keep track of how many times I've written (or seen) something where a random reader knows more on the subject. If you don't know more about tech than the average Best Buy employee, writing about tech topics likely isn't going to be a good move, unless you find a market suitable to your own personal skill level. For example, at some blog where the whole aim is to write about new technology for a general audience who may not know about tech.

(PS, we all have our own little dark secrets as to what popular games we haven't played, movies we haven't seen, etc. So you're by no means alone when you say you haven't finished an FF or played a Zelda ;).)

[Jared Newman]

I will second what Nathan said. Do the research, and start modestly with your writing. Don't try to be a know-it-all unless you're sure you know it all. Here's a personal anecdote:

Up until last year, I had never written about general technology topics, and I certainly didn't have the vast knowledge that a lot of tech-savvy readers do. By chance I got a gig at a gadget blog that allowed me to write in a fairly straightforward manner, but the daily obligations slowly gave me a lot of knowledge on current happenings.

When my next gig asked me to be opinionated in my writing, I started small, looking at both sides of any given debate and weighing in on what made sense to me. I played to my strengths of what I had experienced as a consumer and slowly stored ongoing news in my memory banks. Sometimes analysis is all about looking at what worked/didn't work in the past.

It also helps to be a good writer. As Brendon said, a lot of readers may know more on a given topic than the writer. That's going to happen, because not everybody knows everything about everything. What separates professional bloggers/journalists/essayists from readers is their ability to articulate their thoughts and do research/reporting. A lot of people have the knowledge, but if you can show a potential employer that you've got the skills, they may give you a chance.

[Stew Shearer]

As long you have the will to research something, there isn't much you can't write about.

Point in case, a ways back I was picked up to do a retrospective on the Disgaea games. I had barely even heard of them before, but the price was right, so I took the job. Over the course of a weekend I basically spent all my time reading about Disgaea and then on Monday I was able to write a piece that, if nothing else, sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

No writer is ever expected to know everything about any topic. The franchises you mentioned? I have played the Zelda and Final Fantasy games both pretty extensively and I know I'd still need to research them if asked to do a feature on them.

Honestly the best way I can think of to shore up the knowledge you're missing is to just dive in there and tackle a feature about something you're uncomfortable with. It might be difficult, but if you do a good job, you'll come out of it having learned a lot that you can then take on to other jobs.

[Eugene Neubronner]

Like everyone else has said, research, research and research some more.

Want to get into anime? You could dive right in by gorging yourself on the current season of anime and going back through the seasons, or go for "greatest hits" (Things like classics such as Macross, X, Card Captor Sakura) or "latest hits" (Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann, Code Geass, Kuroshitsuji) Just watching enough from different studios and, as someone else said, it'll seep in.

I now know, for instance, that the studio Bones tends to produce very high quality animes, while Gonzo is known for their CGI whiz-bang.

If you're asked to write about something you have no knowledge about, it also depends on how easy it is to gain knowledge in the field. Anime. games and and movies are generally easier to get knowledge on, since the first two tend to geeks and thus have plenty of forum opinions and information both online and off, while the latter is usually pretty straightforward (Unless you do "art" films. Good luck on that.) If someone asked me to do a camera review, I'd have to do research on esoteric stuff such as aperture lighting, ISO shutter speed and more and that will take longer to review and research.

But the bottom line is, even if you don't like it, play it. Understand it. Analyze it. Don't ever stop doing it.

I've reached the (sad) point in my life where I'm playing a game for leisure and my brain automatically goes "ah bug, this isn't good, that's not too bad" etc instead of just going with the flow and saying "awesome!" *laughs*

[Stew Shearer]

Lol, I do the same thing. Flaws in games bother me so much more now than they ever did before!

[James Abels]

Crackdown for a few months, here is what I did, I took on news jobs, free and one paid, and just did news hard for a few months I mean like 10 hours a day between the 3 or 4 sites I was writing for, in that time I managed to learn TONS of the developer and publisher information, back stories, scandals, all of that good stuff, and with news it's more about knowing how to structure your work and respond to the editors corrections and changes than beating a Zelda game, and you meet a lot of cool people along the way XD.