This is the Forty-first article in a permanent column for Stroud Arts that appears in the Stroud American. The mission of these articles is to inform, educate and inspire you, the reader, to Make Art Happen in your life and the life of our community.
Last week’s column introduced the readers to `Interactive Fiction’ and the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure Gamebook’ concept. This week’s focus will be on creating your own Interactive Fiction story.
Ss a reminder; An Interactive Fiction story is a story written from a second person point of view with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character’s actions and the plot’s outcome.
What kind of story do you want to tell? Is it a Romance? An Adventure Story or Science Fiction? A Who-Done-It Mystery of Horror?
It’s your story, so any choice you make is the correct one! Regardless of the genre you choose, the format for story creation is the same.
The First Thing you have to do is: 1. Sketch out the story.
Write out the sketch of the story, sort of a Zero Draft, and then go back through it and break it into plot or story blocks.
These blocks of text are linked together to form narrative chains. The number of text blocks a narrative chain has can vary often from ten to twenty.
A block of text could be either a scene of descriptive text, a transition scene or a dialogue between characters. The key is that it always ends with the protagonist making a choice.
One technique authors of traditional fiction utilize is to write a short synopsis of the scene on a note card and once the cards are laid out in order, you have a visual chain of events that lead from the beginning to the end.
The unique component of Interactive Fiction is that each card ends with the reader making a choice, so from the beginning, you as the author, must provide alternative or branching choices for the reader to follow.
For those familiar with if/then charts, an Interactive Fiction Story follows the same format.
The Second Thing you have to do is: 2. Choose Your Story Endings.
As this story format relies on the reader making choices to ultimately bring the story to a resolution, and that some choices are better than others, you should create multiple endings for the protagonist. There are many types of endings but you should consider beginning with these five basic kinds of story endings:
a) The protagonist is captured.
b) The protagonist is killed.
c) The protagonist acquires treasure.
d) The protagonist finds love.
e) The protagonist fails in his/her quest.
There should be a handful of endings somewhere in the middle that cut the story short. The protagonist might die or just fail to achieve his/her goal. What this means for the reader is that they will need to go back to the last block/section and make a different decision the next time round.
Now you have the beginning, format and endings for your own ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ but what else should you include?
Find out in Next Week’s Column as we ...literally... Make Art Happen!