Coming from linear writing

A linear story is a line. Every reader gets the same scenes in the same order, and your job is to make that one path as good as it can be.

An interactive story is a map. Readers take different routes through the same set of scenes, and your job is to make every route worth walking. The writing skills carry over. The planning does not.

Think in decisions#

Pick the moments where a character could reasonably do one of two things, and where the story would go somewhere different depending on which. Those are your branch points. Everything else is just getting from one to the next.

You do not need many. Most readers finish a Wyoot story in under ten minutes, so a story with three or four real decisions is plenty.

Start from the endings#

Before you open the editor, write down three or four endings. Not full prose, just a sentence each: what happens, and whether it is good, bad or somewhere in between.

Then work backward. What did the character do to earn each one? Those actions are your choices. This is the fastest way to make sure the choices matter, because each one already points at somewhere different.

Let paths rejoin#

The first thing every new interactive writer runs into is the branching explosion. If every scene has two choices and no paths ever rejoin, five scenes deep you have thirty-two different paths to write.

Rejoining is normal, and good writers do it constantly. The two routes felt different on the way in, and the shared scene is written so it works either way. The story graph covers the common shapes.

Write each scene so it stands alone#

You cannot assume the reader saw the scene before. If two routes lead into the same scene, the opening lines should make sense to both. Start with what is happening now, not with "as you saw earlier".

Write choices as actions#

The reader clicks the choice, so it should read like something the character does or decides. Full phrases beat labels.

What carries over#

Voice, pacing, specific detail and a good last line all matter here as much as in any story. The ending text in particular is the last thing a reader sees. Give it the care you would give the last page of a short story.

Next#

Build a tiny one in Your first story in 10 minutes, then read Scenes, Choices and Endings in order.