One thing that often amuses me as a writer is seeing how writers are portrayed in fiction. I've encountered quite a few fictional characters who are writers and bookworms that you can just tell were written by writers because they gush over every bookish thing and make all the references. Aside from them, writer characters typically fall into two zones—the bestselling author living their best life and the struggling artist who is uninspired and just trying to get by.
Apart from writing, I spend a lot of my spare time gaming (and it definitely shows across the blog). And one of my favorite genres to play is horror. Until Dawn was the game that was my first introduction to the gaming side of YouTube and remains a favorite of mine to this day alongside its spiritual successor The Quarry. Lady Dimistrescu from Resident Evil: Village is a dream cosplay of mine and longtime readers know how I feel about the nightmare fuel that is that godforsaken demon slug fetus abomination lurking in the bowels of House Beneviento. And although I only watched Let's Plays of the first two since I didn't own the necessary console at the time, I'm very excited by the rumors of a third The Evil Within title (and my PS4 and I are praying it's not a PS5 exclusive).
So imagine how stoked I was to learn there was a horror game with a writer as the protagonist!
Like I mentioned in my post inspired by playing the Uncharted series, I didn't have a gaming console growing up apart from secondhand Game Boy handhelds my DS so I've been gradually catching up on the hits I missed when they first came out, but I hadn't heard of Alan Wake until the trailer for the sequel found my feed.
Originally released in 2010, Alan Wake follows the titular crime author as he and his wife embark on a vacation in a small town, inspired by his desire to get away and his wife's hope of helping him break through his writer's block. Things quickly go awry. His wife goes missing. Alan is stalked by mysterious shadow entities. And the events on scattered pages of a horror manuscript he doesn't remember writing are coming to life.
And as a writer who loves a good horror game, I knew I had to play it.
I actually started Alan Wake in January 2023 with a plan to write this post and a similar one about its sequel, as it was coming out that October. However, my mental health wasn't in a good spot at the time and there was a point midway through the first game where a character says that, "all writers go insane" and it hit a nerve so I set the game aside. Interestingly enough, I remember him saying it but actually didn't hear it in this second round so I'm hoping it's a throwaway line I inadvertently skipped by progressing the story too quickly and not me losing my mind...
But now it's 2025 and I'm in a much better place, and I'd forgotten a good chunk of the game's story, so I started up a new playthrough to finish what I started and finally write this post.
With the prologue out of the way, here are some of my thoughts after playing Alan Wake as a writer myself.
Spoilers Ahead!
Following a quote from Stephen King—whose work the game draws significant inspiration from in addition to Twin Peaks—we're introduced to Alan Wake, a crime author who has been facing every writer's greatest fear: writer's block.
The tutorial nightmare sequence thrusts you into the middle of the action. As Alan, we're chased by shadowy figures who he explains are the characters from his current WIP, accusing him of playing God and shouting things about deadlines approaching that would strike fear into the heart of any writer. And, fun fact, in the original script I stumbled across online, they're even more vicious, saying things like, "There wouldn’t be a single readable sentence in your books if it wasn’t for your editor" and "It’s not like your stories are any good, not like they have any artistic merit. You’re a lousy writer. Cheap thrills and pretentious shit! That’s all you’re good for." Talk about impostor syndrome personified! Oof.
Jokes aside, these are genuine fears that writers often have and seeing them brought to life had me laughing at the relatability just as much as I was freaking out because I didn't properly ration my ammo. As much as I'm sure we'd love to meet our characters face-to-face, I'm just as sure they'd probably have a bone or three to pick with us.
Following this sequence, Alan wakes up in the passenger seat with his wife, Alice, at the wheel. Having not written anything in two years, they're traveling to Bright Falls, a small Washington town where he hopes to break away from everything and she hopes he'll have a creative breakthrough.
Already, we're met with a common writer trope: the jaded bestselling author who hasn't been able to write in the wake of his success. The first local he interacts with is a radio host who recognizes him right away and asks for a photo with him, which Alan quickly denies. The waitress at the diner is his self-proclaimed biggest fan, who proudly has a cardboard standee of him on display in the eatery that she got from the bookstore's promotion of his novels. He's especially annoyed with her. We later discover she has also a shrine devoted to him in her bedroom (which had me cringing at my middle school self and her collection of Zac Efron memorabilia).
A little after arriving at the cabin, Alice surprises Alan with a new typewriter, hoping it will encourage him to work on his manuscript. This provokes an argument before he storms out, knowing she won't follow because she is afraid of the dark. Not long after, he hears Alice screaming and when he goes back to the cabin to see what's going on, she'd vanished.
Alan wakes up in a crashed car and is soon confronted by more shadowy figures. And to complicate matters further, he's finding pieces of a manuscript titled Departure, the title he planned to use with his next book—only, he doesn't recall writing it.
Despite it being our main character's profession, writing is a seasoning sprinkled into Alan Wake, at least in the main game. At the time of writing this post, I've not played the DLCs entitled The Signal and The Writer, so I may do a follow-up post on those in the future. The manuscript pages, as far as I've noticed, are more of a collectible than anything that impacts the story like taking photos as Max in Life is Strange or finding totems in Until Dawn; latter, like some of the manuscript pages, hint at things to come but don't impact the story.
We don't see Alan actively writing outside of security camera footage we can watch on TVs scattered throughout the game, though the Alan in the footage is being manipulated by the Dark Presence, pacing about and rambling like a madman. Still, as Alan himself might attest, being wholly consumed by your art can be catastrophic to your psyche.
It's important to have things going on in your life outside of writing (though I personally would recommend finding a hobby that's not fighting off entities like the Taken unless you absolutely must). It's not just about being a well-rounded individual with experiences to inform your writing, but preventing the burnout Alan's been dealing with for the past two years.
Though it went horribly wrong, Alice was doing her best to help by getting Alan the typewriter and talking him into this vacation. I find that if I'm in a slump, changing the way I'm writing (eg shifting to pen and paper when I'm struggling to find the words to type) or writing in a new location can help shake those cobwebs loose. That's one of the reasons writing retreats can be beneficial to writers and why I personally don't mind writing on the go.
However, sometimes having someone so supportive of your writing can provoke a new kind of pressure that isn't always talked about because it can come across as being ungrateful. You don't want to let them down. Alan's already frustrated with himself because of his writer's block, and it's clear that he can have a temper when pushed too far. Alice's attempt at helping him get back in the swing of writing, especially trying to connect him with a psychiatrist at a creativity-centric resort that feels more like a rehab clinic, was bound to make him snap.
And it doesn't help that Alan's agent, Barry, is calling frequently to check on him (and the progress on his manuscript). As is often the case with any creative profession, our relationship with writing might change once it becomes commodified. No matter your creative outlet, be it writing, music, pottery, painting, baking, or anything else, when it's given a monetary value, your relationship with it may change. You may end up driven to create more because you feel that your worth as a person is defined by your productivity.
I noticed that about my blogging once I got approved for Google AdSense. Even though I was only generating 1-2 cents daily early on, the bulk of my writing time in the first couple of months was dedicated to writing posts. More specifically, writing posts I hoped would appeal to the algorithm, posts on topics that would get pushed out to more readers and rank higher on search engines. More views would theoretically mean more revenue. Getting wrapped up in that had me feeling bogged down and hitting creative blocks (especially when it came to my fiction). Unlike Alan, I have a day job separate from my creative pursuits, so my income isn't as dependent on my productivity as a writer at the moment, but my experience with Alan Wake was a good reminder that we need to have a life outside of writing, too, lest we become obsessed with it.
Barry will often call Alan his best friend, though Alan initially brushes him off. For one thing, it's a business relationship. As his agent, Barry might like Alan well enough as a person, but he might also think of him as a product in some capacity. He's waiting on that unfinished manuscript not solely because he's worried about Alan losing his love of writing and not knowing where to go now that the crime series he's been working on for the past seven years has come to an end, but because he's waiting for the next Alan Wake story to sell. The first exchange we see between them is a phone call, during which Barry doesn't greet Alan by name, but as, "Bestseller." It's not so much an encouraging endearment as it is a reminder that he's waiting on Alan's next great novel. Alan himself, as we see from a talk show appearance in a flashback, is a commodity like his writing. It's only once they team up to face the Taken in a situation wholly removed from the publishing industry that they started to come across as actual friends to me, instead of overzealous agent and disgruntled client.
On a similar note, one of my favorite moments in the game is a brief conversation between Alan and Bright Falls's sheriff, Sarah Breaker. She's been pretty no-nonsense all the while but takes Alan seriously concerning the Taken and the Dark Presence, a notable contrast from most other residents we interact with in town. Yet she does mention reading his books and joking about the similarities between her father and Alan's detective protagonist. Alan is admittedly surprised to hear this, to which she says he's got talent but is a little heavy on the metaphors at times, which Alan appears to sincerely appreciate. After all, between Rose fawning over him at the diner and the display at the bookstore making the most of his being in town, Bright Falls might as well be the headquarters of his fan club. And of course, Barry champions him at every turn. To have someone recognize his work for what it is, merits and flaws and all, may feel more genuine to him.
Receiving positive feedback on your writing is great. But when that's all you're hearing about your work, it can hold you back. Constructive criticism is so valuable because it's often not limited to identifying aspects you might want to improve but suggestions for refining them. That objective perspective comes in clutch for writers who have been working on a project for too long or are too close to see those details through the eyes of a reader.
We don't hear much about what Rose or even the talk show host liked about Alan's work. We just know that they did (or, in Rose's case, that she likes Alan himself). That's not helpful information, necessarily, at least not as helpful as Sheriff Breaker's note about Alan's use of metaphors. It shows she was paying attention, which may resonate with Alan even more than hollow praise.
Speaking of being genuine, another thing I noticed about Alan was his pretentiousness at times, which is another fairly common writer archetype.
In video games or any other storytelling medium, a silent protagonist might result in audiences not connecting with that character on an emotional level because they don't get to know them as well as they might come to relate to a character who shares their innermost thoughts as the events of the story unfold. For example, I personally connected more with Jin in Ghost of Tsushima than with Sebastian in The Evil Within because we get so many moments of Jin's contemplations and recollections from him directly, while Sebastian's backstory is uncovered through readable files scattered across the game. Though one method of delivering this information is more correct than the other, I felt more distanced from Sebastian.
But while Jin's inner monologue feels more like he's talking to the player, Alan's feels like he was talking at the player. There's almost a stiffness to it at times. He's narrating the game with the same tone he would likely use when narrating his books. I personally think it fits the game, or at least my interpretation of the game's events being the story he's been writing while trapped in the Dark Place, but I could also see why some players found him to be an off-putting, moody jerk.
It's not uncommon for characters who writers to come across as pretentious. That brooding, loner artist type who's either lost in their thoughts or thinking they're above it all because no one understands their vision when they're really just bland. Or they're cocky. Alan comes across as both at times. The latter is especially prevalent in the late-night TV interview we can watch in a flashback.
But in that interview segment, Alan seemed like he was putting on a persona compared to the way he's acted throughout the game up until that point, playing to the audience and the host hyping him up. There were a few instances that I'd been rolling my eyes at his narration of the game, but that was the first point I was getting secondhand embarrassment (though I was fascinated by it being live-action). I'll be blunt—if this were the first time I'd seen Alan in any capacity, my immediate thought would have been something along the lines of, "Wow, this guy is kind of a massive dick..." And it doesn't help that he's hungover as he's watching it and gets into an argument with his wife who really is just trying to be supportive.
Here's the thing: my "writing voice" is different than my everyday conversation voice. Heck, my blogging voice is different from my historical romance-writing voice. And as a writer planning to publish under a pen name, that's kind of a persona, too.
Plenty of writers are introverts. Only a few of us (hopefully) are assholes. The majority of us are multi-faceted human beings, even those who are full-time writers.
I'm certain there are writers out there who act just like Alan, but in a way, this portrayal of writers was at times too cliche to take seriously.
And, of course, we need to talk about the ending. It's cryptic and bleak, which is fitting for the whole of the game. Alan alters the ending of the manuscript awaiting him in the typewriter, appearing to defeat the Dark Presence, and we seem to go back in time to the moment before Alice was dragged into the lake. Alan dives in after her. As night turns to day, Alice manages to swim to the surface but Alan is nowhere to be found. He did not defeat the Dark Presence, only restoring balance by taking Alice's place. As he sits down at the typewriter to work on his next story, we hear Alice's voice telling him to wake up, just as we did when Alan woke from the nightmare tutorial at the beginning of the game.
He is not free from the Dark. in fact, the game's events are the story he has been writing in the Dark Place. Or, at least that's my interpretation. Again, at the time of writing, I haven't played The Signal or The Writer, or the Alan Wake sequel yet so this might change.
Wrapping up my playthrough at 1:00 AM, I wasn't sure how I felt about that ending. It was bleak, to say the least. I didn't mind that so much. It actually felt most fitting to me. Let's not forget how dark my favorite horror movie to date, Speak No Evil, gets in the last fifteen minutes! And I absolutely loved it for that.
It also ties in with the way the writing process is in general. Writing The End on your first draft is only ever the start. You'll still have plenty of editing to do, plus all of the steps that go into publishing no matter if you're self-published or going the trad route. Is a writer's work ever finished? There's a cyclical nature to all of it, even when you're breaking away and starting on a new story as Alan appears to be doing.
So, initially, I wasn't a fan of the game's ending montage. The longer I sat with it, however, the more I could see the symbolism in it—whether intended by the dev team or not.
This second attempt at Alan Wake went so much better than the first. For one thing, I'm more comfortable with Playstation controls if you ignore the happy little jig Alan did anytime I found a generator or ammo since I'm so used to X being the button to interact with objects in-game instead of jumping, and I was much better about rationing supplies.
I'm eager to see how things progress in the DLC and in Alan Wake II. But I'm also interested in seeing what other details I pick up on as a fellow writer.
And who knows? Alan Wake might even be my next video game cosplay!
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