Interactive Choose Your Own Adventure Stories

[Madman Starryteller]

I've been trying one of these out a little. And damn me if they aren't complicated and hard to write. Nothing compared to a straightforward, one ending type stories.

And I only have two options to choose between at each intersection. And.. I've only done the first few intersections. The story is already feeling like it's branching into all kinds of directions where it's getting hard to keep track of things and sort out what will happen.

Anyone who has experience with these kinds of stories? How did you handle them?

Other thoughts about such stories?

 

[Homer Potvin]

I've been trying one of these out a little. And damn me if they aren't complicated and hard to write. Nothing compared to a straightforward, one ending type stories.

And I only have two options to choose between at each intersection. And.. I've only done the first few intersections. The story is already feeling like it's branching into all kinds of directions where it's getting hard to keep track of things and sort out what will happen.

Anyone who has experience with these kinds of stories? How did you handle them?

Other thoughts about such stories?

Do you have any of the old school books available? There might be a dozen paths but they invariably ended in 2 or 3 ways. You can probably Google a plot map for some of them.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

Do you have any of the old school books available? There might be a dozen paths but they invariably ended in 2 or 3 ways. You can probably Google a plot map for some of them.

No, but I have played some such text based adventures before.

I think my main issue with this is that I'm a pantser, but these kinds of stories probably must be planned more intricately. Right now I've just written from the start whatever takes my fancy, including whatever option that comes up and sounds interesting.

 

[Homer Potvin]

There are a bunch of templates and Youtube videos for it.

I think my main issue with this is that I'm a pantser, but these kinds of stories probably must be planned more intricately.

Yeah, I could see that be an issue. You probably have to work backwards, but you might be able to pants backwards? Like Kris Kross!

 

[Luxuria]

Just FYI, I LOVE reading these books. So, let me know when you are in need of a beta reader!

 

[Stuart Dren]

This Imgur gallery was an interesting read. It's got those plot maps Homer alluded to, along with some critiques:

https://imgur.com/a/3LnDb

 

[Homer Potvin]

Oh, yeah! I remember a few of those.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

This Imgur gallery was an interesting read. It's got those plot maps Homer alluded to, along with some critiques:

https://imgur.com/a/3LnDb

By the looks of the maps, some endings come quicker than the intended endings.

In my adventure, I'm hoping to make every decision lead to a separate and equally long ending. Might be very difficult to do, and take a lot of writing, but it would feel more rewarding I think. And would be good for if someone wants to replay.

Or maybe I will go the more common route, will see.

 

[Banespawn]

By the looks of the maps, some endings come quicker than the intended endings.

In my adventure, I'm hoping to make every decision lead to a separate and equally long ending. Might be very difficult to do, and take a lot of writing, but it would feel more rewarding I think. And would be good for if someone wants to replay.

Or maybe I will go the more common route, will see.

Unless you seriously limit your decision points, you're going to end up with a lot of different endings.

If every choice is a binary, and they have to choose 3 times, that's a total of 8 endings. 4 choices would be 16 endings. 5 choices 32 endings. It will get out of hand very quickly, and if you decide at any point to give them more than 2 options, it's going to be even worse. If it's 3 options at every decision point, and they have to choose 5 times, that's 243 endings. Even if you wanted to write that many endings, imagine how big the book would be.

Some of the options have to lead back to the same outcome. You are better off figuring out how many endings you want, mapping those out, and then figuring out the various paths that will get the reader to those specific endings. Maybe going one path will be a 2 or 3 step process, while another path is only a 1 step process, but they both lead to the same place. And maybe if you take the one step path, you have to do at least one of the steps in the other path later on based on another decision.

I won't say you can't pants it, but planning it out is likely to work a lot better.

 

[Schism]

I vaguely remember reading "Give Yourself Goosebumps." Partially re-read a few last year for nostalgia's sake. So going off of that, seems like one way to do is it have two main paths, which will branch off to smaller paths. If memory serves, toward the end of the series a number of the books went for more endings (which vibed as less effort being put into the stories). Generally speaking, referring to the smaller branching paths, you don't need to stick to two options, although the more options you add, the harder it will be to write satisfying narratives.

If you're looking for other series to riff off of, there's Choose Your Own Nightmare books as well.

 

[Homer Potvin]

By the looks of the maps, some endings come quicker than the intended endings.

In my adventure, I'm hoping to make every decision lead to a separate and equally long ending. Might be very difficult to do, and take a lot of writing, but it would feel more rewarding I think. And would be good for if someone wants to replay.

Or maybe I will go the more common route, will see.

You should get your hands on one if you haven't already. They were super-duper short and loaded with redundancies. Complicated to structure for sure, but not verbose at all.