Dragon Age Senior Writer Interview
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Who are you and what is your role at BioWare?
My name is Jennifer Hepler and I'm a senior writer on the Dragon Age franchise. I wrote the Dwarf Commoner, Orzammar and the Deep Roads for Dragon Age: Origins; Anders, Sebastian, Bethany and most of the mage-Templar plots for Dragon Age II; and the Act 2 and3 Smuggler and a whole ton of Taris, Tatooine, Nar Shaadda, Balmorra, and Alderaan world quests for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I also handle a fair amount of training for our new and junior writers, and do some pinch-hitting as an editor when time gets tight.
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What does an average day look like for you?
It depends a lot on what stage the project is in. At the moment, we are at the end of pre-production and beginning of production, so I am bouncing between outlining new stories and starting to write dialogue for the larger plots that are already developed. But generally, I have about an 80-20 split between doing my own work and reviewing other writers' work, either in formal meetings or an informal mentoring role. I have certain stories and characters that I am responsible for writing, so I need to keep on top of any other plots that use those characters and make sure they don't conflict with any intentions for them. Also, all the writers sit in the same room because at any given time, someone is likely to be stuck or come up with something that we hadn't considered in outlining (like (hey, what do people call the Champion before he becomes the Champion?)) and we'll have an impromptu brainstorm.
