Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

Hi,

As a newbie to this place, I have been reading some great storygames and am now seriously considering writing one of my own. Toying around with the editor, I realised that I will have to use a flowchart of some sort to map out the story, because otherwise I will get hopelessly lost after a page or five.

Can anyone please give me some pointers as to how one creates, updates and actually sticks to a good flowchart? I've searched the forum, but was surprised to find that no one seems to have any examples of useable flowcharts handy. If you could point me in the right direction, or give me some general advise on how to chart out my story (including variables and whatnot), I would be forever in your debt. I might even reward you guys by writing some legendary stories!

Look up Twine software.  It's a program designed specifically for CYS works, and after you're done with using that, you can transfer all the pages to here (manually though).

I know that Google has a free app called Lucid Chart which lets you make your own free flow charts. You can get it on the chrome web store for free. Keep in mind that you need an internet connection to use it, but it has A LOT of features.

Depends on the purpose of the flowchart.

I've had a lot of success with outlining the branches and choices in a story using visio, but it'd never work if you wanted to map out every single page.

If you want every page mapped out, then yeah, twine might be an option.

Whenever I have to plot a multi-path story, paper, assessment, etc., I draw it out as a tree. Draw a line to represent your initial scene then draw a line for each choice that branches off from it. Then do the same for each subordinate scene.

On a separate sheet of paper I write a short blurb of what happens in each scene and correlate it to the tree with a number system. For example, after the initial scene, if you provide the reader with 3 choices, I dub the options 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Now suppose you select option 3 and you plot two more choices for the reader and you want to focus on the second. I would dub that 3.2. I continue to follow this pattern, so I can relate where I am on the tree by using the numbers. 

This helps me organize my thoughts for each main path of my story and allows me to visualize the connections. The downside is the string of numbers can get rather long if you have a long story.

It helps if you already have an idea of how long you want the story to be and the number of main pathways you want the story to have. 

I hope I explained that without being too confusing and hope it helps.

Never used one, never needed one. I think it's a good idea, though.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your replies. I downloaded Twine, which looks great and is just the kind of thing I was looking for. Should make mapping out a storygame a lot easier.

Lucid Chart looks cool too, and more advanced. Might consider signing up, but I don't like its cloudishness. Obviously I can't be bothered to read the terms and condition, but I do know that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.