Hello, and hello again. A bit of a text wall incoming, but I hope you'll be kind enough to read it and offer suggestions. I have a fantasy idea I've posted about a couple times, and I really want to solidify a foundation for it because I've been wishy-washy on some details. I have sort of three main things I'm excited to try with it, but I'm wondering if doing them all at once might be overwhelming for readers: Destyn. In my story, Destyn are especially important vassals to a given king, whom he swears a Vow of Fealty with. These vassals can be anyone from personal chefs to mighty warriors, as long as they are chosen by the king. Not all vassals are Destyn, but all vassals strive to be. This yearning for the title of Destyn is the force behind cultural fashion styles, and also the reason that sex and duty/loyalty are intertwined. (This said, I'm beginning to wonder if it might be more interesting to have these characters chosen by "fate" or "religion" rather than by the king's own hand, to add some variety to encounters and relationships.) A story with tons of optional [Side Quests] and [Character Events]. In this way, my story would be structured more like a video game than a novel, with a standalone main story complimented by dozens of hours of side content. If you've played Sengoku Rance or Eiyuu Senki you'll understand the side event system I'm going for perfectly, and if you haven't, just know it will be very expansive (and completely optional, with the main narrative being self contained and not reliant on understanding of optional events.) Tying somewhat in with my second point, the third thing I want is a lot of characters. A game series I really love, called Suikoden, revolves around recruiting 108 characters, most of which are optional, for your rebel army. The concept of collecting all these cool looking and interesting characters appeals massively to me, but it's very difficult to write over a hundred characters in a traditionally structured novel. Hence, my second point. I may end up with 60 optional characters who don't contribute to the main narrative, but for me it is the discovery of those characters that is most exciting, not necessarily their importance to the plot. That said, their storylines and character quirks should be unique. I'm not talking about writing 10 nearly identical brooding elven warriors just for the sake of inflating character count. So those are my three shticks. I'm very passionate about all three of them so I may be a bit stubborn, but I'm asking you fellow readers and authors for your opinions knowing I might not like the answers. Can they be shaped better? Do you absolutely hate one or more of these ideas and think they should be scrapped? Did I not explain any of these concepts properly and you need more info to understand? Let me know!
This sounds... incredibly ambitious. You'd probably have to make extensive use of the game features of CHYOA, and it could end up needing you to be a decent programmer to make all your many story lines flow well together, as well as a very good writer, not only to keep all the many characters apart, but also to allow your readers to keep them apart, which is much harder, because they're not as invested in the story as you are. I don't really have any feedback other than, well, good luck.
Nothing technically wrong with this, but MOST stories that try this simply end up with tons of orphan branches that don't go anywhere, cluttering up the map and generally turning off readers because they get intrigued by the branch plot, only to discover there is no payoff.
I'll be honest, this project seems way beyond the bounds of CHYOA. I think you'd be better served looking into TWINE or Rpgmaker or something similar to handle that scope.
Oh, huh. Never heard of Twine before. I'll look into that, it actually looks pretty cool. Thanks! That said, I fear I may have overstated my intentions by saying "dozens of hours" of side content. I should instead say that however many words make up the whole game/story, about 40% will be main story and 60% optional content. Basically flow would be Main Story Chapter > 1-4 optional side events (each should typically be one chapter long) > Main Story Chapter, with the player allowed to do whichever side events are available before being linked to the next main chapter. The only real conditional logic I need is "Did player see this previous side event, yes/no" to unlock subsequent side events. The reason for that being, if a player decides "wtf I don't want all this side shit" then when they skip character events etc, those entire event lines will be hidden to avoid story bloat. So I guess calling them side quests wasn't all that accurate, it's just what popped into my head at the time. They don't give rewards that affect the main story or anything, they're just more reading for players who like specific characters or situations and want to delve deeper into them, without destroying the pace of the main story. Side/optional events would be more accurate. (That also means that dead branches as Aman mentioned shouldn't be too likely, as each side event is only one chapter long and then directs players back to the main story)
That sounds more manageable, but one thing to keep in mind is that those chapters will screw up the map something fierce The side chapters will grow increasingly separated from their parent chapters UNLESS they come first, rather than second. The longer the story, the worse it will get. So... If you write the main chapters first, then the side chapter, it will look like this: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Side chapter - Links to chapter 9 Side chapter - Links to chapter 8 Side chapter - Links to chapter 7 Side chapter - Links to chapter 6 Side chapter - Links to chapter 5 Side chapter - Links to chapter 4 Side chapter - Links to chapter 3 If you write the side chapters first, then the main chapters, it will look like this: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Side chapter - Links to chapter 3 Chapter 3 Side chapter - Links to chapter 4 Chapter 4 Side chapter - Links to chapter 5 Chapter 5 Side chapter - Links to chapter 6 Chapter 6 Side chapter - Links to chapter 7 Chapter 7 Side chapter - Links to chapter 8 Chapter 8 Side chapter - Links to chapter 9 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Hmm, so basically if I want to make it user friendly I need to plan out side chapters first? That's a bit unfortunate for bottom of the page navigation with the main chapters listed below any side chapters, but it looks like it might be necessary... Is the story map the primarily used method of navigation for a lot of people? (Edit): I guess it would be, especially if they later decide they want to look at optional chapters they skipped.
Indeed, though it's not the end of the world if you don't. In the end, it's often inevitable, if unfortunate, and sometimes you have to scroll down for miles and miles just to find the next chapter, and then you can't remember if it's the right column, so you scroll back up, then back down...it's a pain, but it happens to a lot of stories. The difference is that you plan on doing this extensively, rather than just a few here and there. Therefore, for you, it's probably worth planning it out so that it looks right.
Makes sense, I don't mind planning it out in that case. Good call. It's already going to be a pain for people having to navigate such a large story with game mode on, no need to make it worse
Maybe you can start not with the characters themselves but with factions and build down. You could then put the leaders of the different factions at the end based on what factions the reader chose. The sneaky part about doing it this way is that multiple people might fill the same roll, but belong to a different faction, cutting down on the number of individual characters that need to be built. Maybe some factions are willing to work together so reader can have access to multiple factions in a single play through? Maybe different factions have different ways of appointing vassals and destyned. Hopefully that line of thought opens up some options or ideas.
It does, thanks so much! I hadn't thought about having different faction routes, but that could give me considerable breathing room with character scenes. I'll throw that one into the wheel house and see what I can do with it.
An easy way to break it up might be something like asking what each faction controls. Church- do they answer to the king? Polytheistic? Military - Army vs. Navy? City defense, Royal guard. Clear hierarchy. Trade - Money and finance can be included Artisans- building goods and supporting other factions, maybe most neutral Diplomacy and Espionage- could be independent factions or can lumped together. Diplomats make allies easier? Academia- does most research, magic and non magic, siding with this faction means all the best new toys.
That's a great breakdown, but the continent is made up of several nations, which will soon be in conflict with one another (like the Warring Kingdoms or Sengoku periods if you're familiar with those), so it would probably be more like picking a nation to follow, but your point is still valid in that context.
Each nation should still have a organization that handles these things. So now you can have a whole bunch of characters that are spies but all serve different nations. The factions in one nation should work against rivals to consolidate power, but also band together to defend from other nations. Carefully considering the balance of power, looking to be on the inside of the winning alliance.
Or you just push the minus beside the sibling of the chapter you want to access. (Given that the story map isn't too large or not completely loaded.)
