Gamebook Writing 101 - Page numbers (Part 1)

Hello,

Have any of you ever thought about writing an adventure gamebook but don't know where to begin?  Writing a gamebook certainly requires some skills not needed when writing an ordinary book. 

Today I am beginning a series called "Gamebook Writing 101".  My plan is to share some of my experiences and ideas concerning gamebook writing with the hope that these articles are of benefit to you.  I also invite discussion (via the commenting section) about each article I write, so we can hear thoughts from other writers as well.

Today, I will begin with the most obvious difference between regular books and gamebooks - The page numbers.

Tip 1 - Don't try to write an epic on your first try
The first serious gamebook I wrote was when I was about twelve or thirteen years old.  It was a 100 section story, called "City of Bakhad", that I wrote in a standard exercise book.  Even though the story had about 100 sections they only took about 10 pages of the exercise book, as each section was usually only 3 or 4 lines long, on average.  (I did write small, though, and still do!)

My suggestion for new writers would be to write a small adventure of about 50 sections for a first attempt.  The "Choose Your Own Adventure" series, popular in the 1980s were usually stories of about 110 pages (sections) most of the time.  So starting out with an adventure about half the size is a good starting point, I feel.

Tip 2 - How to make use of page numbers
Now, the basic mechanic of a gamebook comes into play when the reader is required to make a decision about what to do next.  The reader will be presented with 2 or more options and will turn to a particular page based on the decision the reader decides to make.  For example:

Page 1
You continue walking north along the path until you arrive at a crossroads.  The north path continues across the open plain.  The path to the east appears to head towards a small forest nearby.  The path to the west heads towards a large lake, some distance away.

If you wish to continue north across the plain, turn to page 25.
If you wish to turn to the east, towards the forest, turn to page 17.
If you wish to go west, in the direction of the lake, turn to page 115.

OPTION 1 - Use the next available page number.
The simplest option, when writing, is to use the next page number available to you.  Using the above example again:

Page 1
You continue walking north along the path until you arrive at a crossroads. The north path continues across the open plain. The path to the east appears to head towards a small forest nearby. The path to the west heads towards a large lake, some distance away.
 If you wish to continue north across the plain, turn to page 2.
If you wish to turn to the east, towards the forest, turn to page 3.
If you wish to go west, in the direction of the lake, turn to page 4.

As you can see, the story begins at page 1.  At the first request of the reader to make a decision, I have allocated the next available number, page 2, to the first choice, page 3 for the second choice and page 4 for the third choice. 

I would then write page 2.  If I gave the reader two choices at the end of page 2, I would allocate the first choice to the next available number; page 5 and the second choice to page 6.

ADVANTAGES OF OPTION 1
* You know how many pages long your story currently is, without having to count the pages.
* As the page distribution occurs in an orderly fashion, it is very easy to track the multiple story paths as they begin to branch out, without much effort and complex record keeping.

DISADVANTAGES OF OPTION 1
* When the reader makes a decision and turns to a page, they will often see one of their alternative decisions on the same two page spread.  This can be distracting for the reader if they are trying not to see the choice they didn't make.  Having it on the same page as the other choice causes this distraction.  If one of those pages happens to be a conclusion to the story (or a bad event), they can easily see it and know for next time to choose (or not to choose) it.  This can spoil the excitement for the next read.  Admittedly, a lot of readers will "cheat" anyway, by looking at alternative choices, if they come across an unpleasant ending or event, but to those who don't, they don't want the story "spoiled" by seeing options they did not choose.
* As a natural course of events, this option results in the vast majority of the endings being piled together at the end of the book.  As a result, the reader will get a reasonable idea when the story is more likely to end, the higher the page numbers become.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you don't want the reader to feel like the story is necessarily about to conclude as they read, this method of page numbering doesn't help the situation.

That's all for now,

I will continue with Part 2 of Page Numbering in a following article.

Jasan