A Guide to Writing Epic Storygames

by Mystic_Warrior

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Introduction

Chances are, if you’ve been on the site for a while, you’ve read some of the longer storygames like Eternal or The Price of Freedom. Maybe you’ve even said yourself, “That was a great story. I wish I could write something like that.”

Well, you’re in luck! This article will take you through some of my best tips when tackling an epic storygame.

Defining An Epic

There are many definitions of the word ‘epic’. For instance, it could refer to a long narrative poem or an adjective meaning impressive. In this article, it would be used to describe a storygame with a wordcount of 100k or more. 

Even if you’re looking to write a slightly shorter long story (the irony of that phrase is not lost on me), maybe in the 50k to 80k range, a lot of this advice could still apply. 

Preface

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Mystic Warrior and I’ve written eight storygames. Five of these are above 100k and two others are quite close (89k and 92k). This guide is inspired by a thread about writing epics which I highly recommend you check out.

In fact, here’s a link to Gryphon’s post which I would suggest you read as a prerequisite to this article: https://chooseyourstory.com/forums/writing-workshop/message/30279#903380 

Let's start with a disclaimer: this advice is based on my own writing process, but every writer is different, so don’t be discouraged if your writing journey doesn’t match mine. Take what works for you and leave the rest. 


So You Want to Write An Epic?

First, I urge you to examine why you want to write an epic in the first place. Contrary to popular belief, a story is not automatically better by virtue of being an epic. Every story has its own optimal word count, depending on its scope and the complexity of its plot and theme.

Essentially: You don’t have to write an epic for your storygame to be epic. 

If you want to write an epic, you must be prepared for it to be a commitment. I won’t say that it completely takes over your life—I am living proof that you can write an epic while securing top grades in a difficult degree and have enough time for friends, hobbies and traveling—but it will not be easy. 

I want you to visualize the following:

  • Spending your weekend writing instead of going out
  • Waking up before the sun rises so you can edit a few pages before your classes start
  • Listening to playlists that remind you of your story until you’re sick of playing those songs on repeat
  • Planning the next scene in your head as you take a walk, wait on public transport, or preparing your meals
  • After a long day at school, university, or work, when you're ready to head to bed, sitting yourself down by your laptop and not leaving the desk until you type out a few hundred words

A lot of the time, new authors want to write an epic because they see the final product. But what they miss is the mess: the unglamorous evenings spent agonizing over that one scene; the frustration of missing your daily word count goals; the late-night urge to delete everything you've written and start over again. There will be days where you will be living and breathing your storygame.

But is it worth it? For me, it totally is. 

There’s something so special about watching the story unfurl before your eyes. As you write, you're building a masterpiece that has the power to inspire, to bring hope, to take your reader on a rollercoaster of emotions in a world you created. With an epic, you have the ability to fully immerse your reader in your storygame without it feeling rushed or abruptly halted (unless you struggle with pacing, in which case you’ll want to work on that first). 


The Pros & Cons

Readership

I will not sugarcoat the truth: if you write an epic, your stories would have fewer readers and comments at first. After all, readers make a larger time commitment when deciding to read your story.

But the advantage? Most epic storygames on this site are featured. In the long term, featured storygames draw the most attention, so you’re likely to find yourself receiving comments on your storygames years after they’ve been published.

Scope & Depth

With a longer storygame, you can explore your themes in depth and put forth more nuanced perspectives. Readers are likely to connect to your characters more, as these stories tend to have stronger arcs and more space for character development. Foreshadowing and plot twists become more meaningful when you have ample words to set the stage beforehand. You'll also have more opportunity to let your worldbuilding shine! 

The disadvantage? Your story needs to be well-written. There is no point in having more words if you’re not using them well, as illustrated below.



Let me explain: if a story is of epic length and has good writing, many members would love and remember it. A shorter storygame that’s good has the potential to be just as memorable (if not more), but the epic length makes it easier to craft a remarkable story in my opinion.

Yet, if a story isn’t written very well, some readers may at least enjoy parts of it. But what happens if it is a very long story and written poorly? Chances are, readers wouldn’t finish the story, or worse, force themselves to read it while preparing a strongly-worded negative review.

Some issues with pacing and character development are less glaring in short stories. Want to make your whole story a fast-paced, action adventure? Sure, it’ll be amazing as a short story, but 100k words of the same character always in life-or-death situations would bore your reader. You’ll need to master pacing: slow down some scenes to let readers catch their breath and speed up others to get their heart racing. 

Pro Tip: End every chapter with a shocking revelation or important unanswered question that keeps your reader clicking the next link until the end. Switch between personal stakes (e.g. a character realizing a best friend lied to them about an important thing) and wider-world stakes (e.g. finding out the main villain has obtained a powerful weapon). 

Prefer to focus on your plot over developing character? In a short story, you can simply say it’s a plot-driven story. But with longer narratives, if readers cannot bring themselves to care about your characters, an interesting premise alone cannot keep their attention until the end. 

Pro Tip: Your characters cause the plot, not the other way around. Yes, things can happen to the characters, but at least half of the story must be your protagonist’s reaction to the things that happen, otherwise they become a ‘punching bag for the plot’. It is not fun to read about someone who life just happens to. 

An Important Reminder

Before we delve into the stages of writing a 100k storygame, there are two things you should be mindful of.

First, there is no requirement to write a short story before a long one. My first storygame on the site was 137k words. However, it is important to understand the basics of storytelling before you tackle an epic. This is significant for all stories, but the last thing you want is to put in a lot of effort and time into writing a story only to realize your plot is non-existent.

Second, I know it’s tempting but do not pad your word count to reach 100k. I did this with my story In Moonlit Waters. Not only was the prose overly descriptive and bloated at parts, but it didn’t actually work: I tapped out at 92k. The funny part? When you focus on enjoying the writing process, the word count came naturally. These Shackled Souls was planned as a medium-length storygame but I liked writing it so much that it surpassed 113k words. 


Conceptualizing Your Idea

First, we need to start with an appropriate idea for your epic. For me, planning larger stories comes naturally, but I’ll try to break the process down.

There are two main types of epics: those with depth and those with scope.
 



Those of you who are familiar with branching structures would recognize that ‘depth’ storygames are often bottlenecks or gauntlets, whereas ‘scope’ storygames follow a cave-of-time approach.

Depth

First, let’s talk about depth. This could be a story idea with one or more of the following:

  • A character arc that takes time to develop, e.g. a character must overcome their hatred for an enemy group through gradual exposure to one of their kind
  • A story where the protagonist ‘levels up’ and each chapter is them mastering a new skill or ability, learning a new thing, or resolving a different conflict
  • A narrative planned using an outline like the three act story structure

Before planning a ‘depth’ story, ask yourself these questions: what about my story needs to evolve over time? How can I split my protagonist’s journey into different ‘stages’?

Here are some more examples across different genres:

  • An adventure fantasy story where your protagonist starts fighting lower-ranked enemies until they reach the boss fight
  • A mystery where the protagonist solves a different part of the crime each day, from the murder weapon up to the killer’s identity
  • A historical piece following your protagonist’s story from life to death

Scope

Now, onto scope. This would be the type of story that spans multiple branches which rarely intersect. In a way, I think of them as mini-stories within the larger story, though they share the same beginning, protagonist, and sometimes setting. 

When writing an epic this way, if you have ten main branches, each one could be 10k words. Alternatively, you could have five main branches with 20k words each.

Before planning a ‘scope’ story, ask yourself these questions: What do I want the different paths in my story to show? How can I split my protagonist’s journey into different ‘main branches’?

Here are some examples of when it may be good to use scope:

  • An horror storygame where the protagonist dies many times before finding out how to survive the monster
  • A modern story where the protagonist takes on different roles in society to find the one which works best for them
  • A grimdark fantasy with an expansive setting and a multitude of characters, creating seemingly endless possibilities for the protagonist to explore 

Differences Between The Two

Personally, my preferred way is to create depth because you can reap the benefits of longer character arcs that are developed as the plot progresses. However, scope works really well in stories where each path reveals something deeper and darker about the world (especially if readers have to play more than once to uncover the truth). In that case, each playthrough enhances the narrative.

These are, of course, not mutually exclusive. The best stories use both depth and scope. With only the former, your story would be linear; the latter leads to many ideas being introduced which are ultimately unresolved.

TL;DR

The key takeaway? Make sure your idea has enough depth and/or scope to justify being an epic. It is not enough to simply take any idea and declare it to be the outline of a 100k storygame.


The 100k Storygame Process

For more advice on completing a storygame for contest or general motivation, click here. This article would instead cover epic-specific tips & tricks.

1. Create a Writing Routine

If possible, the best way to write everyday. This is because you want to become so accustomed to writing that it is more difficult to not write than to write. 

You can complete a shorter story by writing whenever the motivation strikes. However, unless you want to take 10 years to finish your epic, this wouldn’t be possible. You need to train yourself to write even when it is uncomfortable or inconvenient.

Think of it like regularly going to the gym or showing up at your lectures each day. If it helps, designate specific hours for writing (e.g. 8am - 10am every morning) or set a goal  (e.g. three hours on weekends and one on weekdays). Track your progress and evaluate performance to keep yourself accountable.

If you think this seems like too much work, this next section is for you. Our brains are trained to automate tasks. That’s where autopilot mode comes in. If you start each morning with light stretching, over time, you won’t even need to choose to make this decision because it just happens. Conversely, starting each morning with social media might make this your automatic response to waking up.



(Productivity and procrastination are polar opposites, so technically you’re removing a stone from productivity whenever you choose procrastination, but I wasn’t sure how to convey that in the diagram)

Each time you sit at a blank page and think, ‘This is too difficult, let me curl up in bed and watch Netflix’, your brain creates a mental shortcut. Avoid short-term discomfort over long-term goals. The next time you face the same decision—‘write vs no?’—it becomes harder to choose to write. Why? Because your brain says, “We’ve evaluated this exact scenario before” and opts to repeat the past. 

2. Enjoy the Writing Process

This might seem to contradict the previous section, but writing shouldn’t be a chore or another burdensome task on your to-do list. That’s why using a reward system where you gain something after writing isn’t ideal because the fun comes after the writing session. If you like rewarding yourself, give yourself something that causes your brain to associate writing with fun!

Some ideas:

  • Listening to your favourite playlists 
  • Visiting cute cafes to write in
  • Ordering an iced caramel latte as you edit pages

Remember, you’re here because you enjoy writing. Perhaps there’s a story that tantalizes your mind and grips your imagination; you want to share it with the rest of the world so they can experience that sense of wonder too. But somewhere along the way, you lost that spark. Writing became difficult. Unlike when you were a child, you feel the pressure to make it good, to meet the standard you impose on yourself. 

No wonder you hate writing! When your mind judges your unfinished product against words that have been edited, refined and reworked a dozen times, and decides you don't measure up, it’s no surprise you don’t want to return to the keyboard. 

Here’s the truth: first drafts are allowed to be messy. You’re allowed to put utter garbage on the page and still be a writer. Because a lot of the time, it takes editing pages of terrible words for a paragraph or scene that shines. 

3. Every Writing Session Is Different

This may seem obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. There will be days when you’re doing really well, in a flow state, maybe reaching your personal record of 10k words. And there would be others where even putting down a hundred words is painful. Of course, you have those average days, the baseline, which is how you can predict your writing speed.

It is important not to judge yourself by your best or worst days. Those great days will feel amazing—and you’re allowed to feel amazing—but it’s normal to crash the day after, no matter how motivated you are. I’ve experienced many super-productive days followed by a day where I’m unable to concentrate or focus. 

Give yourself grace for bad days. Remember: the most important thing is you’re showing up for your story each day. Just because you had a terrible day (or terrible week) doesn’t mean you’re a terrible writer.

At the same time, don’t expect yourself to always perform at your best. I’ve been guilty of consistently moving the goalposts: if I can write 100k in two months, I think, maybe next time, I’ll try to do it in a month. But that is how you burn out. It’s a marathon, not a race. 

4. Consistency > Speed

Honestly, it doesn’t matter how fast you write. Many see me as a fast writer. But am I really fast when compared to people who speedwrite 20k words in the last 72 hours of a contest? 

Pro Tip: Your writing speed increases the more time you spend with your story. If you’re writing 1k words a day at the start, as you tap into your character voice more easily, knowing how they think and what they will say, you can expect to reach 2-3k words a day near the middle of your story onwards. Writing becomes easier, too. Prose comes more naturally; dialogue seems to write itself.

The most important thing is consistency. Keep showing up each day. Take the Summer Reading Contest as a case study: people who consistently review a story every three days perform better than those who speed-read stories for a week and disappear when losing motivation. Speed doesn’t matter unless you’re in a contest. Even then, considering contests are usually two months or longer, you won’t have to write more than 1.5k words daily to reach 100k.

5. Track Progress

Keep two things in mind: how far you’ve come and how far you need to go. The former helps when you’re doubting whether completing the epic is possible. As for the latter, it stops you from procrastinating at the moment. 

Here are some of my techniques:

  • Keeping a ‘finalized pages’ document where I can look at past scenes (it's useful for cross-checking details too)
  • Starting my main document with a table of contents of each section and ticking them off when I complete them
  • Celebrating each small chapter’s completion 
  • Re-reading my favourite quotes and scenes when I doubt my writing abilities
  • Setting mini-deadlines for each section and plot point


Stages of Writing an Epic

Planning

We’ve covered this in the conceptualizing your idea part of the article, but it’s important to plan your writing strategy too. How often can you write? When do you aim to publish your storygame? Calculate the time you have and your word count goal to determine if your project is feasible.

If you enjoy planning, this stage may include allocating a rough wordcount to each path or chapter of your story. Keeping separate sections in your documents for character names and personalities, the locations, and the overall plot might be helpful too. With 100k storygames, you’ll probably have more information about your story planned than you can remember.

However, I know not everyone is a planner. I used to hardly plan aside from the general concept, yet it worked out with my earlier epics. The important thing is to have a sense of where your story is going. Especially with an epic, you don’t want to introduce a plot twist near the end only to realize you must rewrite a few thousand words to foreshadow this.

Starting Your Story

There are two possibilities for how you’ll feel at the start of your story. First, you may find yourself struggling to write. This is especially true if you haven’t written in a while. Every distraction calls to you; each badly written line makes you wonder why you call yourself a writer.

Pro Tip: When you don’t feel like writing, reframe it as 'braindumping your favourite parts of the scene on a page' or 'pretending to have a conversation with the protagonist about what happens in the upcoming scene'. Trick yourself into thinking that it isn't actual writing - you're just playing with creativity. This allows you to transition into writing more easily (and if not, your next writing session would be easier). 

Another thing: productive procrastination is still procrastination. You can curate playlists, create moodboards, or design cover pages all you want, and maybe these will help with inspiration, but none of that is actual writing. Don't get carried away with these.

Alternatively, at the start of your story, you may feel extremely excited and ready to write. Make the most of these moments. Eventually, this enthusiasm would fade, but that is not a sign to give up. If you leave whenever motivation runs dry, you’ll never finish anything.

The Boredom Block

There might come a time where you completely lose interest in your storygame. Perhaps it bores you, or maybe a chapter just ‘doesn’t feel right’. Should you abandon ship and start a whole new story? Most often, the answer is no.

Here are some things that help me reignite my excitement for a story:

  • Flip the scene on its head - what happens if you change the scene’s setting or central conflict?
  • Add or remove a character - could a new arrival or departure change up the dynamic of your main cast?
  • Create a plot twist and foreshadow it - perhaps you know a secret about this scene that your readers are not currently aware of?
  • Write a more exciting branch - if you’re not interested in the planned plot, could you come up with a new choice and make that the main branch instead?
  • Delete that scene - if you’re struggling to find value in a scene, could you remove it and reveal the information/character development elsewhere in your story?

Burnout

Writing an epic is not easy. With almost every storygame I’ve written, there comes a point of complete and utter exhaustion. Burnout is a real possibility with any task that requires prolonged periods of intense focus and effort. Note: this may occur at any point, whether it’s the second week or the day after your storygame is published.

Despite one of my personality traits being ‘insanely productive’, this wouldn’t be a comprehensive guide without full transparency. Did I tell you that after one of my storygames, I was burnt out for half a month? It nearly affected my grades and health too. Hence it is important to warn you that there might come a time where forcing yourself to continue with your story would actually be more destructive.

That’s why it is important to know when and how to rest. The best way to recover from burnout (or even exhaustion) is not mindless doomscrolling, but things that nourish you. Sleep well, take walks in nature, or spend time in the company of loved ones. Return to creative hobbies like painting and reading for fun. Set your story aside for a weekend or maybe even a week guilt-free.

But when your break is over, you must return to your story. In fact, coming back with fresh eyes, you’re likely to love what you’ve written and see it for the masterpiece it truly is.

The Second Half

This is where you get into a rhythm with your writing and it becomes super fun. If you’ve spent several scenes increasing the tension between characters, they can finally explode in a messy argument! After a detail has been subtly foreshadowed throughout your story, you are now free to write the grand reveal! It’s like finishing the sketch and being able to paint it in. 

At last, these are scenes where everything comes together—every page has led up to this moment, creating a sense of significance and intentionality, something which can’t be emulated to the same degree in shorter stories. This is one of my favourite stages. I love seeing my storygame come together.

Right Before The Ending

Perhaps this is exclusive to contest epics, but I almost always run out of time. If you’ve read my storygames, you’ll probably notice there are two kingdom visits missing from Spell of Slumber, the last chapters of In Moonlit Waters are uncharacteristically short, and the final two cases in Constellaris Court are much less interactive than their counterparts. 

Thus, make sure you know what your non-negotiables are and what you can cut. Are there additional scenes which might be fun but aren’t necessary for your ending to make sense? Any subplots you can conclude in fewer scenes? If you went for scope, this might mean some smaller branches get cut off. 

Pro Tip: if you must choose, sacrifice your second-last chapter rather than your endings. Most readers can forgive a somewhat rushed third act but the conclusion itself is their last impression of the story. That is what will stay with them the longest.

The Ending

Before you know it, you’re finishing up your endings. And trust me, you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment when looking back and seeing that you’ve told the tale you wanted to tell. Weeks and months of dedication have paid off—you’ve written an epic!

It’s the same drive that leads explorers to scale mountains and place a flag at the top, saying, “I was here. I made my mark in the world.” That is what finishing an epic feels like.

Closing the final page is bittersweet. The story is done; the publish button is clicked.  This tale that has been a central part of your life leaves behind an empty space. What do you do now? So, my friends, that’s when you work on your next epic!