Main Page

Creating a Story

If you have an idea for a story, you might like to try pitching your idea to other users and seeing how interested people might be in playing your story, what you could do to make playing your story fun, and who might be interested in collaborating with you to write it. Once you have done that, you can create it by entering your desired name for the Story into the search box and clicking Go. If the name has not already been taken, click this exact title to start the story.

There are three general types of story. The first is the branching-plot story (an example of this is the Choose Your Own Adventure series of gamebooks), which require the reader to make choices but are otherwise like a regular novel. The second type is the role-playing game adventure, which combines the branching-plot novel with simple role-playing rules such as attack points and monster battles. The third type is the trivia quiz, where the player must answer questions as if they were on a game show.

Instructions

Starting Template

Copy and paste this for new pages:

Page text here


Do you:
*[[Adventure/Option 1]]
*[[Adventure/Option 2]]
*[[Adventure/Option 3]]
{{Status|Equipment=''Equipment''|Health=#|MP=#|Level=#}}
[[Category: name of story you're working on]]

The next to the last line here is the status indicator. The status indicator shown here is the basic status indicator. Different stories use different status indicators, and some use none at all. Look at the edit screen for the page you're starting from and copy that status indicator to the new page you're adding. Modify as necessary.

To edit a page

Just click the edit tab on the top of the page

To add an option

[[Adventure name/New option name]]

Options that appear red on the page have no content. Click the link, paste in the above template, and then add your own content.

To avoid accidentally crossing with other users' stories, it may be best to create pages with more than just an option name, like Unicorns or Open your eyes. Instead, when you create a new page, call it You have to slay The Dragon/_Page 1 or YOUR CRAZY/Give up. You can have the link name be whatever you want though, like this: [[You have to slay The Dragon|Enter The Dragon's Lair]] will appear as Enter The Dragon's Lair on the page.

This is for fun!

Tips

• Don't give too many options when starting a new story and leave half of them redlinked. Focus on a small number of story threads at first.
• Outline a general plan for what the intention of your story is when you start it: What genre and themes it belongs to.
• As alternative to plain formatting for your story, you may try using Italics to write the Narration, regular Font for character Dialogue and Bold for Character/Item/Location names or important developments. Example: As you walked through the Forest, you heard a young girl calling out for you. "Jack! Wait for me! I have a gift for you!" Kate runs up to you and gives you the MacGuffin. Whatever style you choose, try to keep it consistent throughout the story.
• If you are having difficulty spacing out paragraphs, you can use <br>. Example:
• This is an example of how to break up paragraphs on a page.<br><br>This is the same example. will show as:

This is an example of how to break up paragraphs on a page.

This is the same example.

• Don't inject crude humor into a story that's intended to be played straight.

Rules

People have a tendency to create branches where the character dies. To prevent the story from being just a tree with all dead ends:

• For each page where you kill the player's character, you must create at least 2 pages (with content) where s/he can go on.
• Please stick to the theme and setting of the story, and discuss ideas for major changes on the discussion pages. Although creativity is encouraged, radical plot changes and inconsistencies will ruin the flow.
• If something is off topic, remove it.
• Try to capitalize and spell your words correctly. We have a spell checker here.
• ADD OPTIONS AND NOT JUST TEXT! Complete pages include options so the story can continue (unless the page is an ending). Incomplete pages will be edited or deleted.

To Do List

• Go through and fix or remove status indicators from pages.
  • Some are not needed in stories and were copied and pasted from the template.
  • Some are missing the level and MP from the line of code.
• Remove off-topic pages.
• Correct capitalization and spelling mistakes.
• Add a basic, or main, timeline of background events during the period that the character is making choices in - those events are usually out of the character's control. This will help add consistency.
• Pages with major spelling, grammar or other problems, but not problems that render the page spam and a candidate for deletion, should be categorized in the Pages Requiring Attention Category to get other editors to help fix it up. If a page is not yet complete, add it to Category:Pages Under Construction so people know the editor is still working on it and it does not need to have someone improve it.
• Story Endings should be categorized with Category:Endings.