The trickiest aspect of writing fan fiction is, of course, making the plot accurate for the fans while still entertaining to the general audience. Unfortunately for aspiring fanfic writers, this challenge is increased exponentially when writing interactive fan fiction. Not only must one come up with multiple accurate and entertaining plots, but they must be able to smoothly connect them together - all the while preventing the story from becoming linear!
Anyways, one of the most important decisions to make early on is - how do you want your story to be structured? When coming to a decision, many factors should come to mind - like the demographics of potential readers, the type of fan fiction you are writing, and the demographics of the people you hope to attract. There are many structures you can use for this purpose, and the best part is, almost any structure that makes one game run smoothly can also work for your fan fiction!
Keep in mind when structuring though, while there are many ways you can shape the plot, you have to keep in mind how you want your fan fiction to end - and this is where many screw up, both in fan fiction and in regular interactive fiction. Again, there are many ways you can structure the endings as just about anything could work, but here are two of my favorites:
Module A - “Grade Scale”
Ending S - Best
Ending A - Great
Ending B - Good
Ending C - Fair
Ending D - Poor
Ending F - Worst
Module B - “Variety Endings”
Ending 1 - Great
Ending 2 - Great
Ending 3 - Great
Ending 4 - Good
Ending 5 - Good
Ending 6 - Good
While they are both acceptable modules for writing interactive fan fiction, they depend wildly on the demographics. Take module A, what I like to call the “Grade Scale”. This is excellent if you want to write a fan fiction that rewards making the right choices while punishing the incorrect choices - much of the reason I call it the grade scale. Another perk to this one is that they are all usually variations of one or a small number of base endings. However, this can be tricky to create if the genre of the media you base your fan fiction on does not have a genre to allow negative or positive endings. There is also the risk of having a linear story should you slip up on the writing of the other parts of the story - since the endings are too similar to act as safeguards against that.
Module B, on the other hand, is perhaps the polar opposite. They all have one ‘quality’, which is helpful if your base media is generally on the positive or negative side of things, but the catch is that they are usually much different from each other. This could work out fine if the structure of your story has a lot of branching paths, but on the other hand, this could prove to be a nightmare to work with if the story doesn’t branch enough.
Allow me to plug in some example endings with say… Minecraft - everyone should know that one.
Module A - “Grade Scale”
Ending S - You somehow tame the Ender Dragon and become the supreme overlord
Ending A - You find a stronghold, and you prepare to fight the Ender Dragon; you end up killing her, and you are hailed a hero
Ending B - You end up finding a nether portal; you have access to the nether, allowing you the materials needed to make potions; you make a living as an alchemist
Ending C - You come back from a cave trip with some good spoils; you get some wealth and live comfortably for a while
Ending D - You end up terribly lost after a cave trip; your inventory is full but you can’t find home
Ending F - Your house and possessions are blown up by a creeper; you are wounded and left with nothing
Module B - “Variety Endings”
Ending 1 - You tame the Ender Dragon and become the supreme overlord
Ending 2 - You become a traveling alchemist, selling your brews to those that can afford it
Ending 3 - You become the village’s hero, a legendary figure who can be defeated by none
Ending 4 - You become a traveling prospector, getting rich as a result.
Ending 5 - You become a general, with an army of golems and villagers that actually fight at your side
Ending 6 - You become the leader of the undead - a necromancer if you will
Even without reading the fan fiction, you can guess by Module A that the story involves one particular cave visit, which ends in a variety of ways depending on the choices you make before, during, and a little bit of after the caving experience.
On the other hand, Module B’s endings are all over the place, from being a prospector to a general, or even to a necromancer or a dragon tamer overlord, you would never guess that all this was from one caving experience - because it wasn’t. For a variety of endings like that, you need several small split plots instead of one bigger plot, such as having the option to go into the forest instead of caving, allowing you to meet a witch, and so forth. Of course, that would also mean more work of making sure that it is accurate, entertaining, and of course, not all over the place.
Now, take into account which demographics would work best for the modules. For module A, the story would be more enjoyed by people who would prefer that one main route. On the other hand, having several other smaller plots that share attention all from a common beginning would appeal to a more broad audience - who most likely wouldn’t appreciate getting shitty endings on the fan fictions based on media they may or may not be used to.
Then again, all this is coming from a guy who is consciously trying not to fall asleep at his desk - having had less than 36 hours of sleep this week, who has never published anything other than a few mediocre short stories - so take all this with a grain of salt. I'm going to bed - I'll regret this mess I made in the morning.
