Raindrops' Wrap Up: the CYOA conundrum · 8:42am Aug 30th, 2012
Here's an interesting bit of maths for you; CYOA stories present an exponential writing challenge.
Here's the skinny:
Everyone reads chapter 1. That's 500 words written, of which everyone reading the story will read 500 words per readr. Lovely.
If there are 3 choices at the end of chapter 1, then I need to write 1,500 words to fill out those choice- 500 each. By this point, I've written 2,000 words, but anyone reading the story will only have read 1,000. Huh.
If those all have 3 choices, then I need to write a colossal 4,500 words to fill them out. that makes 8,500 words in total for a measly 1,500 word story. If I want you all to be able to get a 2,000 word story out of it, then I have to write a humongous 22,000 words.
Eep.
So how can I deal with that? I'm enjoying writing Raindrops' Wrap Up, but it needs to stay manageable. There are two techniques I'm using; merging and endings. Merging means different choices will sometimes take you to the same place in the story, preventing the choice-branching from getting out of control. Endings prevent any choices at all, and eventually- hopefully- every story path in Raindrops' Wrap Up will have an ending.
In any case, as it stands there are 26 chapters up, at an average of about 500 words apiece- I've put in 2 endings and 2 merge points. I'll need more as we go along (although I prefer to end than to merge, since it's more honest as far as your decisions go- it lets them have more impact) but I think we're doing okay. If you've not checked it out yet, come and have a look- there's still a few spaces that need filling as far as options for Raindrops' actions go.
Um, I didn't know that I'm not allowed to read the other chapters. Am I a bad pony now?
322803 Hah, you're totally allowed to read them! But not everypony will, and the first read-through needs to be good enough to convince them to try a different route next time.
At least you didn't read the chapters in order, right?
Right? 
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Yes, I did! Muhahaha
No.
I had a total browser-tabs-extravaganza to follow the storylines. I'm not that mad, or am I?
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What if I both read through all the chapters in order then read then through storyline?...
322962 Well, that would be a bit weird. I sort of expected people to play by the storyline rules! You CAN go from chapter 1 to chapter 2 and then so on, but NOTHING WILL MAKE ANY SENSE.
Except the phrase "SUCK FLOOR COCOA, PINKIE!" which may be the greatest thing I have ever written.
I demand a full pyramid of options! Geometric series! 500 x (1-3^n/-2) words!
Or, you know, merge some paths. That's fine too.