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http://chooseyourstory.com/story/viewer/default.aspx?StoryId=52091

 

This is my first storygame, even though I've been reading around here for about 4 years. I'm really stuck on what to do next? any ideas? Thank you.

What the fuck are you trying to write? Why are people drinking spiders in this world, or what's going on?

I'm trying to create a fucked-up victorian vibe. I really should've expanded on that, maybe?

What story are you trying to tell? What characters do you want to write about? What setting would you like to expand on?

Okay. That makes sense. So use the spider shit as a hook, then go deeper with it?

I'm not suggesting anything, I'm asking you. Why are you writing this? 

The setting, characters, and what they do and why and what the point is at the very least are questions you need to answer before you get too far along.

A story is Setting & Characters > Conflict > Rising Action and Conflict Resolution > Falling Action and Aftermath. Try to come up with ideas that roughly fit that framework and you should be good.

Although since it's a CYOA you'll likely need to plan how to do the last half more than once, building off the same characters and setting.

Seems like a reasonably mad start to me. I'd say, just keep doing what you're doing. You may find however, that having some sort of idea of where you are going with this will actually help you to finish it. If you're just writing off the cuff, you will eventually run out of steam or write yourself into a corner.

Gonna offer my advice, look through it and see if anything is useful.

I'd say that you might want to consider not letting the player 'try again', and instead continue on with the character's day to further establish the setting and their current life.

However this is probably a bad idea if you want to try and keep the whole thing on the shorter side. I don't know if you are using variables/scripting either, and if you aren't it might be difficult to offer choices that don't cause heaps of unnecessary branching during these early setting establishing parts.

I suggest thinking about what you think would make for an interesting story, or a fun one to write, then working towards that. Being a CYOA means you can have a rampaging path where you let the character does try again and then goes on to do a bunch of stuff that doesn't shed much light on the setting, but that has a lot of 'acting out their angry thoughts' sort of action. Then you can also have a path where they keep bottling it up and the reader learns more about the world.

Look, you have a lot of ways you could take this, and as I just read your description it seems you plan on having everything revolve around the spiders in tea, or is the title only meant to refer to the beginning? Anyway, if the title is meant to tell you pretty much everything, I'd suggest thinking up potential endings to the starting scene

ie. Character kills other person.
Character leaves angry.
Other person leaves angry.
Character accepts their life.
Character becomes a spider farmer for being ungrateful.
Character becomes a tea farmer for being ungrateful.
etc.

Then you can figure out what choices would lead to what endings and then fill in the gaps. I'd suggest having different facts come to light on the different paths, so that if someone reads it all they would have a very good idea of the whole picture. I mainly mean stuff like backstory, more information about the main character and the other person, maybe how they catch the spiders even, etc.

This would also help make the paths feel different in more than just their endings, since lets be honest, there isn't going to be all that much crazy differences if the whole story revolves around spiders in tea (don't misinterpret this for meaning the story can't be good tho, since it definitely can).
This does depend on how you go about it tho, since you could have big differences if you so choose.

Anyway, since you mention playing Fallen London, you could make the whole thing fan fiction and add in a bunch of references to stuff.
As an example, you could have a third character barge in later, and depending on the choices made they are either Dangerous, Watchful, Shadowy, or Persuasive. Heck you could have a mix if you enjoy self harm (cause it would be a lot more work, probably).

Heck you could have the Eater of Chains show up. You could have those Clay people who have their own comics show up. You could have someone show up selling a bottle of Black Wings Absinthe. You could have the Bazaar show up. You could have a Sun show up... somehow.

Obviously, going the fan fiction route is also a way to avoid having to think up creative stuff yourself, but you can always put your own twist on the things that happen, which is sorta the point if you are going to be writing fan fiction (if you ask me).

Hopefully some of these ideas help you out, I'm trying to keep them (mostly) pretty broad, but if you'd like me to give a bunch more specific ones I could probably try doing that.

TL;DR
Maybe think of what sort of endings the scene could have, then figure out the choices that lead to all these. Good luck writing!

P.S. I know you didn't ask for writing feedback and what not, but I still have to mention that on the page 'I always hated spiders with a burning passion', it starts with your character putting their hand in the jar, but they already took the spiders out, didn't they? I mean this might be intentional if you want me to question the reality or the sanity of the character or whatever, but as it ends pretty quickly after that I am assuming that it is just a continuity mistake. (Different descriptions for what gets pulled out as well, which is why I mentioned the reality/sanity thing).
Hey come to think of it, you could have a path where the character goes crazy. Maybe a 'it was all a dream' path as well... altho I wouldn't recommend that one (mainly cause it is hard to have it be a satisfying ending if you do that).

For the P.S. I accidentally wrote that bit twice, thanks! I understand it's hard to coach someone when they're new to a form of writing, so thank you so much!

I find a lot of times, my best writing comes from whatever's brewing in my head at the moment. It's pretty unsuitable for larger pieces and imo, a really bad habit tbh

That's understandable, people tend to have different ways that they go about writing.

You can still make good storygames without having them be long. I'd say writing good short storygames can be pretty challenging as well, in its own way.

Anyway good luck w/ the writing.

P.S.
Don't worry too much about the P.S, as long as you proofread at the end and make sure it is what you want, it's all good. (I mainly mentioned it because it gave me another idea for where the story could go xD).