I thought it'd be interesting to try and identify patterns in the structures of CHYOA stories. Authors go about writing in different ways, and some can be more liberating, while others are more narratively consistent. I've tried to identify common key features of stories, especially how they are planned and how they make use of the multiple options feature. Basically, I've made up categories of stories. I hope any authors that read this can glean some insight of the model of story that ideally suits their intentions. MAJOR TYPES OF CHYOA STORIES - which I'll refer to later on. Open. These stories are open or lightly moderated and allow anyone to add to them. It is very rare for these to have any sort of plan, though individual branches might have an intended direction. Closed. These stories are private or, perhaps, heavily moderated with unprompted entries being deleted. In this way, the owner has full control over the precise structure of the story. They're more likely to have a plan and reach an ending, and have the potential to end up Complete (as defined below). Complete. These stories are the same as Closed stories, except they have multiple options at every decision point AND no loose ends. They are very rare and require a great deal of advance planning, and I imagine they would be extremely difficult to achieve when coordinating multiple authors. The only one I've seen so far is Karen's Secret. As such, the types given are little more than suggestions. OPEN The Trunk. The owner writes in a single path, ocassionally adding an extra option, and hits a high chapter depth without necessarily aiming to give the reader significant agency. These are public or moderated, and other authors add their own branches to take the story in different directions. These are never truly 'complete', not in the sense of reaching endings nor in having multiple options between every chapter. I've named it the Trunk because the owner's branch is generally the longest and forms the pillar of the story. However, the most distinctive trait is that authors tend to consult the owner's work, both to begin branches off the side of that storyline and to consult it for accuracy. Example: The Gamer, Chyoa edition. The Stem. This is much like the Trunk, except the owner doesn't work on one long path... because the owner doesn't really work on it at all. The Introduction consists of a premise or concept for other authors to continue with. It's rare for these to be successful, since authors generally don't want to write for a story they don't own when they're the only contributor. No author should be making Stems except in special cases; for instance, they might have other authors already organised to continue the story and the original owner intends to jump in later. There's no point in me giving an example for this. The Scatter. This is similar to the Trunk, except the owner frequently writes new chapters at early decision points, rather than continuing down one long path, to ensure the reader has a variety of options. Sometimes, other authors might be encouraged to do the same. Example: Sex, Love and D&D The Golden Goose. A story in which the owner encourages the authors to write endings and include a variety of options, so that the story becomes Complete at some point. It's essentially crowdsourcing chapters for a big, messy, fun story. I'm including this classification with NaNoWriMo in mind. Example: NaNoWriMo 2019: Chyoa Edition The Anthology. A story that consists of an Introduction that may or may not present a premise or inspiration. Authors are encouraged to add their own short stories onto this. Example: Spooky Scary Sisters CLOSED The Noodle. The owner writes out a single path, much like the Trunk, but never strays from this single storyline. The multiple options feature of CHYOA is not utilised, and the story is a linear, fixed plot. These tend to be more carefully planned, since there's only one direction for them to lead. These appear to be the most popular kind of Private story. Example: Now Mother's Gone The Project. The owner adds options and branches at their own discretion, with or without planning. This only differs from the Trunk and Scatter in that there are no other authors, so these stories tend to be updated less frequently. However, they often have a tighter, more consistent narrative, since the owner knows exactly what's going on in every branch and chapter. Example: Lois Lane's Night Out The System. The owner writes in some systematic method other than those outlined above. They might write out every chapter at a particular depth before starting on the next depth, or they might write one large path then go back and fill it in with branches, or they might use some other procedure of their own devising. These will almost always be planned to some extent, and may be aiming to reach a Completed status at some point. Example: Ruined Order COMPLETE Disclaimer: As mentioned earlier, I've rarely seen any of these successfully completed. These are just possible methods to approach the problem of writing an entire finished story. The Classic. A story that doesn't use Game Mode or linked chapters. It's filled with options that lead to abrupt endings, and a playthrough in the same story could be as short as two chapters deep or as long as ten. These follow the successful formula devised by the original Choose Your Own Adventure book series. The Exponential. Similar to the Classic, but avoids the random endings, instead aiming to have most endings at roughly the same chapter depth. It's the most intuitive and obvious way to write a story systematically. The Introduction is just one chapter, and two chapters, representing multiple options, follow from that. Then, you need four chapters - two for each of those two chapters. Then, you need eight chapters. In maths, this is called exponential growth, and it's the main problem with complete CHYOA stories, because though it doesn't look it, it's kind of impossible to write a particularly long story using this method. The mathematical formula for the minimum number of chapters you'll need to write is 2^n - 1, where n is the desired chapter depth. So if you want an Exponential story with an average chapter depth of 20, you'll need to write more than a million chapters. Good luck with that. The Looped Trunk. The main path is such that each decision point has multiple options, but these options simply link, or 'loop', back to the main plot, no matter what. Their impact on the story is either temporary or stored in Game Mode and reflected in the writing or in later events. Think 'Life is Strange' and 'Heavy Rain'. For example, your story might have Lara Croft choosing what outfit she wears, but you plan for her to be captured by neo-Nazis shortly afterward. Her clothes might change the details of the writing, so the choice matters, but her capture by Nazis is inevitable. In this way, you've given the reader a meaningful decision without doubling your own workload. This is how Karen's Secret is structured, I believe. The Objectives. This is what I'm aiming to do with Darkest Challenges. The story is made up of a limited number of scenes called 'objectives'. Each objective is in itself a tiny Exponential story, going up to only 2-4 chapters in depth, to keep it manageable. The objectives only have two possible outcomes each, but a score is kept in Game Mode so that every decision has some impact on the plot. Then, the objectives are interconnected so that, for instance, Objective 1 could lead to Objective 2 or Objective 3. The details of this system remain up to the writer. In Darkest Challenges, I've used the player's inventory as the score, and a pass/fail system to justify the binary outcomes of the objectives. Keep in mind that this is still a laborious task: at time of writing, I'm on 243 chapters at a depth of just 26. Nevertheless, it's much easier than an Exponential story and a little more forgiving and interesting to the reader than a Classic. If anyone wants to suggest a type of story that I've failed to consider to here, a more reasonable method for writing a Complete story, or an example story, don't be shy. I'm especially interested to hear if there are substantially-sized, finished stories out there, and I've just missed them.
Not sure where Lois Lane's Night Out goes in this schema; I reckon it started out as The Stem and became The Project.
Uh... yeah A Special Hell is absolutely "The Project". Neighbors Next Door as well, but that one's a collab between two authors. I try to stick to somewhat of a daily schedule... but life... uh... gets in the way...
The way I see it, if you're coordinating enough, a collaboration is no different to just one author. And thank you for the suggestions. I'll add the first one as an example.
I think Karen's Secret is finished. (If I remember correctly, it has a nice premise but lacks somewhat in quality and plausibility midway.)
Nice catch! It seems to follow the looped trunk - there are a lot of links that just take it back to the main story. I'll put it there as an example.
I think my story 7 Days of Incest probably counts as a looped trunk with meaningful choices and contributions from trusted authors.
My main story, Twilight Eden seems to be, The Project, and a bit of The Noodle, nice. I want to mainly finish the one branch then move onto the next, only occasionally going to another for a quick break.
I started something I intend to be a looped trunk but I'm trying to make the score have more of an impact. That is, certain paths are only available if you have a high enough score. Nothing is inevitable except that you'll either come back to Ganymede University or be expelled.
That's the ideal way of doing it, imo. If you're trying to include lots of options, then you need to ensure they have an impact on the story, or the reader will feel cheated. Game Mode is the most effective way to pull that off.
