Writing Interactive Stories for Video Games & Other Formats

Explore how every story centers on conflict and a journey, driving the hero from setting out to return with both external and internal challenges.

Explore conflict types like character against self and against fate, illustrated by Pinocchio’s conscience, Simba’s self-doubt, and Oedipus’s struggle with destiny, plus technology’s threat in modern tales.

Explore the stages of the story—from the ordinary world through the incident, mentors and allies, death-defying ordeals, the midpoint climax, to the return with the elixir in interactive fiction.

Explore how interactive fiction creates multiple story outcomes from a single world, using a modified traditional structure with convergence at the climax and later divergence, starting with journaling.

Explore how backstories reveal a hero’s identity and craft your own through journaling, prompts, and a character work sheet.

Analyze how backstories are conveyed in games, movies, or books, exploring prequels, sprinkled throughout the narrative, hints, or major chapters in telling the hero's history.

Explore character archetypes beyond the hero, including villain, mentor, trickster, and shapeshifter, and learn how threshold guardians and allies test and support the hero to drive the story.