Creating Interactive Stories

One popular activity that students enjoy is the Interactive story form known as “Create Your Own Adventure”.  I’m sure that most people have fond memories of working your way through one or two.  You read a paragraph or two and then you’re presented with options for where to go next.  One branch takes your story in one direction or another branch takes you in another.

If you go back far enough in computer gaming, you may remember the role playing game Zork where you explore an imaginary universe with commands like “GO WEST”.  I worked with an annoying person who felt compelled to repeat over and over “WHEN YOU COME TO A FORK IN THE ROAD, TAKE IT”.

inklewriter is a free online tool that lets you create your own interactive story.  Rather than creating a contrived example, click here to try a real story!  In this case, “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”

inklewriter is very easy to work.  Features include branching and looping, including images, and formatting of your works.  The interface, web-based, makes for easy creation of your story.

But, it would be very easy to get lost in the story with all the branching!  To make this understandable, a Map option displays an overview of your story.

In that respect, inklewriter is a wonderful tool to take a task that we might normally do and moves it to the world of the electronic.  I was wondering…could it be used in other ways?

Driving through town last night, I noticed a sign for Grade 8 orientation night at the local secondary school.  Lights went on.  What about a “Create your own adventure” to tour the school?!

For example, entering my old school would look something like this.  I could create a little adventure just exploring the school.  I’m starting to really like this.  I wonder…

As you’re editing and creating your story, not only do you add text and branches, remember I said that you could add images?  Why not include images of the rooms or artifacts that you might see along the way?  And, if we can do that, we could certainly insert a QR code linking to oh, say a YouTube video interviewing a teacher or student at a particular location?

inklewriter is a very easy powerful creating environment.  The website even includes an offer to convert your story to an e-book for a small fee.

I could see this as a very motivating and exciting tool for young authors.  Give it a shot and see if you don’t agree.