Define the Problem
What am I trying to say, and why?
A Choose Your Own Adventure story is, for the uninformed, a novel written in second-person perspective where the reader is presented with choices and turns to a certain page to see how they've affected the narrative.
The genre fell into obscurity after the early 90's, most likely due to the prevalence of videogames, which presented a far more visceral experience for a "player" than the classic Choose Your Adventure. I want to return to the roots of gaming, as it were, with this project.
Who are you talking to, and why?
I suppose this story would be targeted at individuals such as myself who are old enough to remember Choose Your Own Adventure stories; probably not the originals, but certainly the Goosebumps ones at least. I want to stir up some nostalgia, and remind people that you can use that thing called an imagination in conjunction with text to make images in your head.
What can you say that the competition can't?
What competition?
What is your reason for being?
Omniscience.
Restructure Your Problem
1. Make it more global/specific
The Five Whys
- Problem: I want to write a Choose Your Own Adventure story.
1. Why? - I'm interested in the genre.
2. Why? - I enjoyed Choose Your Own novels when I was younger.
3. Why? - The fact that I could be involved with a story and influence its course was awesome.
4. Why? - It was the closest I could get to a videogame experience that leveraged all of my imagination.
5. Why? - There's no code or graphics involved, just traditional text used in a non-traditional way.
Who, What, When, Why, Where, How
Who: Myself as the author and my potential audience of children to young adults.
What: My handy-dandy Word Processor, and also a pen and paper on occasion.
When: Over the course of the next five-odd weeks whenever I have time.
Why: I've been over this already.
Where: My dorm room most likely, or wherever I'm struck by inspiration.
How: I found an old Choose Your Own Adventure book while volunteering at the library and it sparked nostalgia.
2. Separate the parts from the whole
3. Rephrase the problem
Change the Words
I want to write a Choose Your Own Adventure game.
I want the right to a Choose Your Own Adventure game.
A Choose Your Own Adventure game is right.
Choosing to write a game is an adventure.
I am game to write an adventure with many choices.
I choose to game, and write my own adventure.
Create a Word Chain
adventure
quest
road
travel
ground
catacombs
skeletons
scimitars
steel
superhero
law
light
warriors
victory
Make it a positive action statement
The Action: I'm going to write.
The Object: I'm going to reintroduce Choose Your Own Adventures.
The Qualifier: I'm going to go back to the roots of gaming.
The Result: I'm going to create an engaging story.
Switch perspective
Look for polar opposites
Well, this is easy. The opposite of a Choose Your Own is a normal book. If I were to consider my project from the standpoint of a normal novel, it would have a single end and an overarching narrative with recurring characters.
Da Vinci's Multiple Perspectives
My point of view: I would author an engaging Choose Your Own Adventure.
Alternate perspective: Many of the established Choose Your Own Adventures come across as cheesy.
Alternative perspective: The idea is sound, but in the end the choices always wind up being limited which disappoints the reader.
All-inclusive statement: In order to create an engaging adventure, I need to avoid cheesy elements and keep the reader from feeling that they have no true choices in the narrative.
Use questions
Why is it necessary?
It will reignite my interest in writing in a way that still ties into my interest in gaming.
What is unknown?
The plot and exact genre of the adventure.
What do you understand about it?
Choose Your Own Adventures are fun for children but can get frustrating easily.
What do you not understand about it?
I don't yet know how to construct a narrative that doesn't lead into an unwieldy number of forks.
What info do you have? Is it sufficient/redundant?
I've read every adventure story known to man, so that's probably helpful.
Can you draw the problem as a diagram?
o
->
->
What are the boundaries?
Good taste.
Have you seen the problem before? or something similar?
Why yes, I have. It was a series of books of the actual name Choose Your Own Adventure; Goosebumps also did a number of Choose Your Own Adventure stories.
What are the best/worst/predictable scenarios?
I create something awesome/everyone hates it/I create something mediocre that serves as a jumping-off point.
Why is it necessary?
Because I said so.
Think of the problem as:
a living creature. What would it look like? Draw it.
It would look like a hydra. I can't make a badass-looking hydra, so in place of that check this out.
being edible. What would it taste like?
Everlasting gobstoppers.
being the top of something. What is underneath it?
Treasure.
being a color. What color would it be and why?
White, because the essence of a Choose Your Own is free choice, and white represents an unlimited opportunity to create.
being a sound. How would it sound? Loud or quiet?
It would sound like classical music, intricate but with a definitive theme.
being a texture. Describe it.
A rough, gnarled texture with myriad ridges and whorls.
define something beautiful about it.
This adventure should be a pure link between text and the imagination, placing the reader directly into the story in the role of protagonist.
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