We're writing voiceover for a global leadership experience. The hard part isn't clarity - it's keeping the narrative alive.
We're writing voiceover for a global leadership experience - 20,000 people who don't all speak English at home. The hard part isn't clarity - it's keeping the narrative alive.
The easy move here is to simplify everything - short sentences, plain words, nothing that could trip anyone up.
But this project is narrative-driven.
The language isn't just instructions; it's atmosphere. It's how people feel inside the thing.
Strip too much and you lose the texture. Keep too much and you lose people.
The crew here at Wavetable are in the final sprint of building a digital game experience, along with a set of 20 live workshops, running across 3 timezones, for people doing all kinds of different roles.
How do you weave the thread? It's tricky. A few things we're learning:
Idioms are expensive.
Every "hit the ground running" or "get the ball rolling" costs someone a few seconds of translation. Sometimes it's worth it. Usually it isn't.
Vivid beats clever.
"The room goes dark" works in São Paulo and Mumbai. "The lights take their leave" might not. Concrete images travel better than wordplay.
Read it aloud... slowly.
If it feels awkward at half speed, it'll feel impossible for someone processing in their second language.
AI writes American.
If you use an AI tool, it'll likely default to US - and specifically the kind of US where people "double-click" on ideas and "level up" their thinking. Not always helpful when you're writing for Jakarta or Belgrade.
Clarity and immersion aren't opposites - but the overlap is narrow.
Language matters.
