18,776 Words Later, I Figured Out The Story I Was Telling

Yup. That sure is a lot of words. They are good words, too! I'm proud of many of them. Most of them! Here's the problem: they don't really tell a story. I went into this project with a great setting and a decent character and a vague feeling that maybe I should have a plot. I decided that I would figure out the plot as I went. And I did! After nearly nineteen thousand words and four and a half vignettes.

My original plan to deal with this was to go back through the vignettes I'd already written and add plot. I'd just put in a few extra scenes, throw in some choices, and voila! - a story. I've realized that that's not quite how it works. Often, the best way to improve a work of writing is to take stuff out, not put stuff in. Plus, it turns out that the IF platform I've been using, Inklewriter, makes it incredibly difficult to go back over stuff I've already written and add more choices.

So I've decided to rewrite the story in plot-oriented way. I've switched to a new platform, an IF tool called Raconteur (which is a wrapper utility for a platform called Undum). Undum is an HTML and JavaScript framework, which makes it pretty much infinitely more powerful than Inklewriter, and Raconteur makes creating IF almost as accessible as Inklewriter does. I can write code directly in my work, making it easy to create dynamic content.

I won't be starting entirely from scratch. I do have 18,776 words from which to draw characters, dialogue, events and scenes. This new version will be significantly shorter, though - around 5000 words total. This is a much more achievable goal given that the semester has almost ended, and writing with tight constraints motivates me to make sure every word adds something to the story. Before, I was trying to paint a picture of Jasper's life in Adriata with extended vignettes about his experiences. Now those vignettes will be backstory, informing and shaping the short, focused story I want to tell (whose plot I will not spoil quite yet!).

My original schedule had me finishing four weeks from now. I've revised that; my new goal is to have a first draft of this short IF done by the end of the semester. I no longer need to worry about building an engine from scratch for it - Undum gives me raw HTML that I can format however I want and host on any webpage - so I can use that whole time to write. At that point, I will send out copies to anyone interested in helping me edit and polish the work, and aim for a final release by the end of the summer.

Thanks to everyone who has been following this project this semester. Your support keeps me going. Stay tuned next week for a progress update!