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I'm currently researching and outlining a very large story. With my current estimates, it's going to be a lot of pages for a small amount (compared to the entire story) of plot. Now, these are just estimates, but the story - if put into a single storygame - would be immeasurably large.

The first part of the plot would be at least 100 pages on it's own, and the adventure would barely begin at that point. Each chapter would be (estimated) minimum 300 pages, maximum 1500 - and for each story arc, that would be a total of over 50,000 pages packed full of words. HOWEVER I have the option (since I haven't started the story yet, I've simply outlined it in a third-party program) to split the story into a giant series of giant stories. So, I ask, would readers prefer a super-massive storygame on it's own which could very well take days to complete, OR a series of stories which would each only take hours to complete?

This is where it gets complicated - since the largest part of the overall story takes place in a large fictional land, I would have to split up a single piece of the overall journey - into possibly several other storygames. I'm not sure how to cut a journey from one city to another into parts without completely killing the reader's eyes, or my eyes as the author (although, my eyes can probably handle a few days of constant computer screen without many problems).

P.S. before you reply with questions - here are some answers:
-I can't quite say much more about the story than I already have.
-This isn't my first storygame I plan to publish, it's just the biggest.
-I'm taking my time and being excruciatingly patient. I do plan for this project to take years, although I would prefer if it didn't take more than 3 or 4.

P.S.S. My biggest fear is that for some reason I will loose all of my work or the site will close down. I also fear that if I put it all into one storygame, it will be impossible to publish or save due to it's size, I'm not sure what the limit is, but I'm deathly afraid of hitting it with this project.

Any opinions are appreciated :D

Hm...uhh...

Well, regardless of the page count, how far do you think the longest path would be, and how long are the pages themselves individually?

I'll always try my very best to keep the page length to under 5 paragraphs (3 - 7 sentences) | the longest path? Well, a better question would be the shortest path. If it were a massive story put together in one storygame, the longest path would easily top 4,000 pages. The shortest path, however, would be at least 900 pages if the reader is unlucky or chooses the worst possible choices. Though pages will vary as far as singular length, some pages might be conversations while other pages will be flashbacks or narration. (Not sure if I want narration yet, without it adds mystery - but too much mystery just leaves the reader frustrated and asking "Why is that the way it is?")

ONE STORY.

If you successfully pull it off, you will have assured your place in the CYS Heavens.

And just make multiple copies of your work and save it on various drives.

Yes, I'm dedicated and I believe I can do it.

I was thinking of copying progress to multiple flash drives, but the problem is the tedious way of doing so. With my cautious nature that anything can malfunction at any time and nothing is 100% going to work, I would have to copy a page and it's code before saving the page. If I edit the page, I'll have to copy-paste it in place of the old saved page. Perhaps a regular update schedule would be nice to have - so I don't have to copy-paste for each page every day, but instead copy a ton of pages every month (or so) and save it as a latest version.

Listen to End. Hes speaking truth.

nate

I think that's a legitimate fear, and frankly, I'd recommend something other than CYS. Twine for ease of use, or ChoiceScript for the possibility of commercial publication. Either will enable you to back up your work however you'd like.

I've heard about Twine before, I might try it. The advantage of CYS is that it's in-browser, and doesn't need to be downloaded, it also allows me to code and do exactly what I want 100% of the time. I put code directly into text boxes all the time, and the variable link system of CYS is a massive advantage to control the story.

Edit:: ChoiceScript of ChoiceOfGames looks horribly under-developed for large pages, it looks more like a fast-paced click-and-go game with context than a story - and this project is definitely more story than a game.

EditEdit:: Twine looks the same, like I can't make large pages - it's more like a game than a novel.

They're working on in-browser Twine, but it's not production-ready. Other than that, though, I'm pretty sure that there's nothing you can do with CYS that you can't do with Twine.

Also, the graphical view of how all your nodes (pages in CYS-speak) connect to each other is really nice to have.

Edit to add: Who says you can't make large pages in Twine? AFAIK it's just a bunch of fancified HTML, your pages can be as big as you want 'em to be.

You and your twine.

Make one story, if only for continuity.

I would say that I'd like a large single story game like that. It sounds awesome. From the sound of it, we would need to make it so you can rate the length a 50/8. I don't think our system for length would capture just how BIG it would be. Though I suppose that would be the least of your problems. How are you planning on keeping track of all the odds and ends of the story though? I would think it'd be really easy to forget about a link here or there. Are you planning on having Co-authors to help? (I am not saying I want to since I already am working on my own.)

I have an outline format that works. And before I publish it I'll go through it making sure everything is connected and lined up. I might have others test it as well, but that's a long way off. I also use Polish My Writing to check spelling and grammar.

Well, with how long your planning to make it, there could areas no one gets to because of how massive it is. And how are you planning on getting every page through that thing?

I'm good at making backdoors for devs :P

Sorry. I'm not trying to discourage you or anything. I just can't wrap my head around something that epic and how it'll be done. I know, curiosity killed the cat and all that, but I still can't help myself from wondering how it works.

I apologize, my Lord Ford of Wonders, if I offended you in any way for doubting your skill and miracles. *bows deeply before kissing thy shoes*

I have been known to be miraculous...

Yes my lord, and brave for tackling such a beast  in which no one would dare to consider doing so.

Have you finished Eternal yet?

I can't read it. The maturity rating is too high. Same with all the rest of the EndMaster's work (that I know of).

Also, I believe that the shortest path on Fords game (~900 pages) would be at least twice as long as the longest path on Eternal. (though I don't know since I haven't read it) It'd have to be 450 pages or more for that statement to not be true.

Cut it into a series and you'd have to choose which decisions are canon, and that kinda kills the game

Series suck. By virtue, they force linearity.

Not if they are done right. The different endings could be made to not affect the beginning of the sequel enough to where the player's choices are not ignored completely.

What? If all of the endings lead to the same beginning, it's linear by definition.

It sort of "lessens" the ending for the first story though. I mean it's one way to get around the issue, but the endings in the previous story would have to be fairly similar in the first place. If you became a demon king in one ending and a master paladin in another, you're going to have a time of it trying to come up with a logical beginning to the second story to explain how those endings could wind up as the same beginning for the second story. Youd probably still sort of need to choose a few of those endings as canon.

I suppose making a lot of time pass (Like decades) that it makes the events and outcome of the last story "hazy" could work, like nobody really directly addresses what happened or only hints of what might've occurred. But you still have to have similar endings for it to work so you're probably still choosing a few of those endings as canon.

The only way you could really do it, is if the next story in the series offers choices at the very beginning that link up with the various winning endings from the first story. That's sort of cumbersome though.

I suppose it does unless I want to tediously make the series choice-based and add passwords and complicated stuff and blegh - it'd be unnecessary work when I can make one big long storygame.

One story.

All branches unified under ONE STORY.

All plot lines unified under ONE STORY.

ALL THINGS IN ONE GLORIOUS STORY.

(Plus you'll beat Berka in longest story on the site)

Yes. A fantastically magnificent work of art that will be, ONE story.

Also, have you ever noticed how many "first story in a series" on this site end up being the only story that was ever completed?

 

Only series I know is the Homos Perfected one but I ain't gay so I haven't played them

Going to have to weigh in on the side of ONE STORY. Writing a series rarely works out...though either way you're going to have to be extremely dedicated to pull this off.  Have you considered writing a smaller story you can definitely complete first as a sort of warm up? Maybe even taking place in the same setting to help keep your brain on the right track.

I don't use Twine for the writing itself (and it would likely be impossible for a project that size anyhoe...) but I find it pretty invaluable for outline mapping and notes. Also suggesting that you paste your rooms into a giant Notepad or Wordpad file or something as you go, and every so often email it to yourself as an alternate means of backup. With all the branches it'll eventually be a huge tangled mess, but the raw text will still be there and all you really have to do is search for keywords and copy and paste to whatever site or program you want to reupload it to to sort it all out.    

This isn't my first story, but it's definitely the largest. I'm in the middle of writing several other smaller stories - no worries, I'm not completely inexperienced. Speaking of smaller stories that I can definitely complete, I'm almost done with 2 of my storygames that I've been working on, so they'll be published long before this project is even half way done.

Emailing myself is a good idea! I didn't think of that. I'll definitely be keeping records of every page I make so that I don't loose progress. Emailing myself is a great idea so I have an online backup to reference, and it's extremely unlikely that yahoo or google will misplace or delete an email without permission.