What Will It Be?
A book is just a book. You read it once, twice, maybe a couple more times and then you’re done. For the greater part a book stays the same forever, it’s static. And this is not really what I was looking for…
For the past few months I brainstormed a lot about my writing project. Thinking, thinking, thinking, about what it was going to be. I wrote, changed, wrote and changed. I wrote a lot, but was never actually satisfied. So I gave myself some time off with writing and tried to bend my mind on what was really the case behind my rewriting skills.
I tried to visualize my thoughts, so I made a few drawings on paper. In the end I came up with something like a tree with branches. You can see the branches as decision points within the story. You start the story at a certain point, and from thereon you decide the way you want to go. These decisions then can have consequences and all sorts of possible outcomes. I’m not talking about one or two key moments (like in a lot of video games that claim to be a sandbox), but a whole array of different branches. Rereadability and replayability are the key. It needs to be a variable experience, not a static roller coaster ride.
I chose this kind of approach because I am not the type of person that can write one certain storyline and be fully happy with the end result. By the time I’m done with a story and look back on what I wrote, I always see a lot of things that could eventually be redone in some sort of way. The “what if?” scenario is probably the best way to describe it. It is just who I am, and I kind of like it that way. For reviews, videos, reports, blog posts and things like that, I can easily set this behavior aside. But unfortunately not for writing stories. This is why you would probably never see a full blown 500 pages novel written by me.
The idea always was to make a series of short stories and publish these on the Internet for everyone to read. Completely free.
This idea largely stayed the same, but I do had to switch to a whole other format of writing when I wanted to do the things the way I envisioned them with my tree branched setup. Something like this is called interactive fiction. It is somewhat of a mix between a writing and a video game. And since I have a not-so-secret love for video games, this is really something for me. However, there was one main thing standing in my way: programming.
Ugh, do I need to explain myself here? To be short and simple: programming is not for me. The endless strings of nonsense for months and months to come… No thanks! But… there must surely be a way around all this! So I made a little trip to the land of the Internetz, and at the end of a long search I found a couple of programs (toolkits for creating interactive fiction) that are going to make me help creating these “games”. The two best programs (that suite my style of “programming”) are ADRIFT and Inform. Currently I’m deciding which of these two systems I will be using for my creations.
To give you a little example of what’s possible with these kind of programs, please take a look at the video below.
Something like this is exactly what I need, and what I was hoping to find! =)
As a last note to this post, I would like to share some information about what the project is going to be:
Type
Interactive fiction. A series of short stories with multiple outcomes.
Genre
Fantasy and science fiction, with various themes (dreams, paranormal, psychology, suspense, etcetera).
Created with
A design system for interactive fiction based on natural language and/or a visual interface.
Language
Since my English is pretty good and it is considered the world language of today: English. When enough interest exists: Dutch conversions. I could also just do everything in Dutch, but I think that the interactive fiction audience is not quite large enough in The Netherlands. But, I dare you to make me think different.
Business model
100% free, forever! And yes, you may quote me on that. =) Most likely released under some form of the Creative Commons license. I don’t write for money. Donations are always welcome though.
Your possible input
Artwork, music, videos, ideas for future stories, ideas for new branches in existing stories, etcetera. I will take anything into consideration as long as it’s in line with the original idea of the project.
Release date of the first story
When it’s done.
Theme of the first story
A girl with serious issues.
Dedicated to
You know who you are! =)