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Good evening!

Here's a concept I'm currently developing.

Title: Office Life

Setting: reader takes the role of an ordinary office employee.

Plot: the office employee must look through the office in search of a particular document after their computer stops working. Along the way, the story's protagonist is met with additional inconvenient obstacles appropriate to an office. Some of which will be unconventional.

Objective: find the document before the end of the business day or get fired.


What do you think of this idea? I realize it's not a particularly exciting setting, but I think there may be something here. Another off-shoot idea I'd like to explore would be a situational-comedic story similar to the Stanly Parable.

Thanks'!

Honestly it's really tough to give feedback on an idea that's this simple.  With good writing skills and craft, someone could take this concept and make it excellently hilarious, or creepy, or emotionally impactful.  Or it could written to be extremely boring.  I can't really give any feedback without knowing what tone/plot/anything you're going for, and seeing a significant portion of a draft to see if you've pulled off an interesting take on the subject.  Rule of thumb:  Any author can make any idea engaging if they're passionate about it themselves.  Just write the ideas that excite you personally.

That’s completely fair. The tone I intend to establish throughout the story is a comedic one. Without a doubt I realize that this could be a very boring story.

Stanly Parable is a far more evocative title than 'Office Life'.

But needless critique of your title aside: what Gryphon said.

I'd also suggest thinking about theme.

To use Stanly Parable as an example again, and to quote Wikipedia: 'The game carries themes such as choice in video games, the relationship between a game creator and player, and predestination/fate.'

Wikipedia mentions the themes in the first paragraph. It doesn't do that for Call of Duty.

My point is that with a strong use of themes you can make a more meaningful experience, even while retaining a major focus on comedy. I mention this because I know you don't have to consciously think about themes to write (I know I rarely do), but doing so can really help.

But I'm not good at themes nor comedy, so I'll let you decide on if this is good advice or not.


(Altho I guess my other piece of advice is to start small, since you've returned after seven years, and CYOA stuff can easily spiral. Already having a objective in mind alongside a loose idea of the plot should help ensure you are always working towards finishing, and this helps keep the scope manageable.

But find what works for you, since there are many ways to go about writing. Experiment!)

Thank you! Finding a theme is going to be important for this for certain. Maybe making a story board or a rough outline would help before actually writing this.

It could help, and since you brought it up you should try it. (Unless you mentioned it while dreading the thought).

It is actually possible to write with no plan at all, or with a hyper detailed one. It is a spectrum, and finding where on that spectrum you work best is a good idea.


Some people will dislike planning too much since then they feel they've sort of already told the story by the time they finish planning, or they'd dislike the process of 'filling out' the plan with the actual writing.

Further, if you plan a lot the writing can devolve to just hitting milestones in a boring fashion, of 'this happens, then this'.

Writing 'in the moment' can produce more natural character actions, while also risking a meandering plot or inconsistencies. Planning a lot can make things feel less natural but more structured, and the background setting would likely be well-defined (but whether the story needs a well-defined setting also depends).


But notice the language I use, it is all 'can' and 'maybes', because editing can fix pretty much any problem, and this is all general stuff which might not apply to you (they are just general risks).

It is something to think about, but it boils down to: experiment!

You might even find that certain approaches work better for different kinds of stories, and depending on what you are going for / writing, you might want to plan more or less. Who knows!


So, either go and start making that plan, or start writing. (But maybe you're busy, idk).


Oh, proofreading is also generally a very good idea. Drafts are also powerful. But, again, for one last time, find what works for you!

I think you're going to have to do some kind of work on the story and come back with examples of writing to show. It isn't really possible to give any kind of meaningful feedback at this point.