Researching the possibilites of CYOA's (28/1/2014)

In an article in Jezebel 'Why Choosing Your Own Adventure Can Really Pay Off' (2009) by Doree Shafrir, Shannon Gilligan was interviewed about choose your own adventure books. She described how children in the past had loved to play these books as they allowed them to "try on other personalities. Then try on other roles." This is interesting, as she went on to say that often these CYOA's focused on children as the protagonists who were often young people themselves. However, she raised the fact that playing as a character in a CYOA is similar to creating an 'avatar' online, a different persona as it were that allows online users to take on new personalities.
She continued to say in her view that there is no definite way for writing a CYOA but, starting with a mind map, as I did is certainly the best way, since it allows the book and game play to be more structured.

I will admit however, that although I mapped my story initially, I ended up constantly adding to it as I always love to come up with new ideas and these often occur after I have planned. So I ended up writing rather like the other method Gilligan mentioned where writers would write the CYOA as it went along in order to make it feel organic. Gilligan explained that if she used this method she would always run out of pages. Although I never confined myself to a number of pages, I did however cut 2000 words from my final piece as I felt some of it was not entirely central to the plot. Therefore, despite her method being a good one in order to come up with a complete book within the page constants, I think that my method allowed me to be more creative and use good ideas I hadn't originally planned for.   
It's interesting she considered that an average CYOA is "between 100-110 manuscript pages", therefore my 37 pages of demo (excluding the front and back cover) make up nearly one third of an entire CYOA. This is a good thing, as my book is intended to be the first act made available as a demo before the final release.

In another article 'The Surprising Legacy of Choose Your Own Adventure Books' (2014), Patrick Wensink stated "I didn’t realize that the magic of Choose Your Own Adventure wasn’t the fantastic stories or the unique method of storytelling." (but rather) "The secret of the second person". This made me think, as I spent so much time focusing on my story and the characters that the reader interacts with, that I never thought of the player as a character. In this case they are neither the first or third person, thus they are the Wensink's 'second person' since they (the reader) are directly told what options they have and the consequences. Therefore, from including the reader within the experience you make them feel important and as a result want to find out what happens to themselves and the characters they meet and grow to like. This is something that ordinary books generally don't do as they either refer to the characters in the first or third person. 

I find all the above research fascinating as, although I did this research after writing my CYOA, I do in fact see what they were getting at. It could just be because I was the one to write 'Home Base 2-7-1', but I did feel just as immersed in the experience as those who will go about reading it for the first time.
Not to blow my own trumpet, but I believe this is because I concentrated on making an epic story with believable/living characters, not just lifeless drones who might tell you what to do next. It also helps that I was using my own personal experience from reading and writing CYOA books both as a child and more recently as an adult (see previous posts).

Within my CYOA I included numerous conversations between the characters. By doing this I feel that I was able to hint at the relationships the reader may have already had with the characters before the events in the book. As a result, I believe the reader will feel more inclined to react as the character would to a new and dangerous situation. Having choices that allow the player to decide what kind of person they want to be also helps the player to believe they are the character they are playing and as a result choose to do what would make sense for them. Thus making sense of Gilligan's believe that readers "try on other personalities. Then try on other roles."

Wensink's statement becomes especially true when you are faced with a simple moral dilemma e.g. whether or not to return a purse. By returning it you would gain nothing except perhaps a feeling of self worth as a result of having helped someone. Otherwise, by stealing the item you commit a crime, but receive something for your trouble despite possibly feeling bad about it later. It is these two 'paragon' and  'renegade' decisions that may lead to the same path, but will allow the reader the opportunity to role play. After all, what if the player was a security officer who stole it? They could consider themselves to be a bent cop. Whereas a mechanic who may only have a busy job with not many apparent benefits who chooses return the purse can achieve more than wealth by gaining pleasure from doing a good deed.

It's these little touches that we don't always think about and only realise after analysing a narrative that can add greatly to a reader's / player's experience, and one that I am glad I have discovered through this research and module.

Harvard Referencing:

• Shafrir, D (2009) Why Choosing Your Own Adventure Can Really Pay Off. Available at: http://jezebel.com/5342799/why-choosing-your-own-adventure-can-really-pay-off (Accessed: 28/1/2014).
• Wensink, P (2014) The Surprising Legacy Of Choose Your Own Adventure Books. Available at: http://www.theweeklings.com/pwensink/2014/01/15/the-surprising-legacy-of-choose-your-own-adventure-books/ (Accessed: 28/1/2014).

Page images (26/1/2014)

* Realising that I still had concept art that I hadn't posted yet, I have decided to include them now.

Below are some of the original designs I had for the spread pages in the book (fig 1) that were meant to capture the most exciting moments. I then decided against the concept for reasons explained before.
You can also see a couple of possible sketches (fig 2) that would have filled in the blank parts of some pages and kept the underwater feel thanks to the sea life and subs.

Fig 1

Fig 2

From posting the above I then remembered to work on the possible covers for the book as I remembered those are needed to grab the audience's attention. I decided at this point that I wanted the images to show the small one man sub in comparison to the large scale of the underwater city in ruins. 

Although I had come up with some good concepts, I felt that because my weakest drawing area was environments and perspective, that using an environment on the cover would look less professional and off putting.

Therefore, taking my family's suggestion that they thought the image of a giant fish eye on the cover would be awesome (as they felt this was a good tense scene), I decided to experiment with this concept for an hour or so. Using gradients and brightly coloured (but low opacity) brushes, I was able to create a great atmospheric image with a glowing eye. Thanks to the fish, seaweed and bubbles I was also able to suggest the size of the monster's eye and some perspective which helps make it clearer that the eye is behind a giant crack in the wall.  

Overall, I am very pleased with the above fish eye cover as only those who read the book will understand what it is, whilst at the same time it's a rather mysterious cover that grabs any potential reader's interest without giving away too much.

Play tester feedback (28/1/2014)

* Having finally spell checked my work and rearranged it to look more like a CYOA. I decided to send it off for play testing in order to make sure my game was completely up to standard before handing it in.

You can see the feedback I got below...

• Loved the starting chase scene as it was tense enough as well as the atmospheric conversation with the woman in red that made a good juxtaposition as opposed to the other scene mentioned.
• Spotted the odd spelling mistake and sentence structure that I then fixed. 
• Replaced the odd word that would fit better depending on the scene, for example. I changed 'early' to 'ahead of schedule' as it seems to fit in when writing about someone going on shift.
• One play tester was a bit confused about the scientist and thought they should be a doctor due to the scene with the pregnant lady. However, I reminded them that in this world scientists are considered both medical and scientific as the poster in the class room tells the player they will learn brand new sciences including marine biology and chemistry.
• Noticed at some points that I had 'go ahead' or 'go back' to certain pages when in fact it was the opposite, thus I changed this. This is very important in a book like this.
• Another play tester was confused by the fact that they started in the present only to be sent back to the past, then to the scene before they got on board the sub in the first place. I admit that looking back at this it seems a bit odd since its so early in the game, however, I felt it was important to have an establishing scene for the fact that the world is underwater. Otherwise that may never have come across during the classroom. This scene also adds to the atmosphere of the book and allows the reader to imagine quite a strong image in their head from the start e.g. a ruined city underwater.
• Overall, the book functions as intended and all the decisions seem to go to the correct pages.   

Layout (26/1/2014)

* Having spent so long making the contents of the book I had actually forgotten to make a front and back page. Therefore, I decided to work on those today as seen below.

Overall, I am very pleased with them as I used a simplistic colour scheme and good text. Despite it having similarities to the font used in 'Bioshock', which I didn't want to link to in case people confused it since both are set in underwater cities. However, it was the only good text available and therefore despite the reasons stated I feel 'AR BONNIE' was a good choice.
I especially love the blue and black background as it looks very underwater esk. Despite the colours being the wrong way round since water should get darker the further down it is, I found that it didn't look as good and upset the balance of colours. Therefore, I decided to keep it in this manner. 

* I also decided during this point that I needed to make sure that I had a cover. Even if I didn't include whole pieces in my book (due to messing up page numbers and ruining the reader's imagery of characters) I still felt that the cover should have at least something. 

 
* Realising I hadn't looked online for a website that would print my book, or even how much it would cost me, I decided to look today on a couple of websites which seemed to suggest it wouldn't get dispatched in time. Therefore, I will check some local printing shops as soon as I can as I would love to make my hand in look as professional as possible.

Early blog analysis (27/1/2014)

* First speaking to my lecturer, I found out that everything he wanted to see I had practically already done on my blog. In fact, when he did get round to reading my blog he mentioned that despite needing a few more examples for the blogs posted early in the year, the actual work and process on my book was very good and that I didn't need to worry too much about it. Though I will make sure to obviously double check it before the final hand in.  

* I then spent the rest of the session checking over my blog and writing my evaluation in advance.

Character Profiles (20/1/2014)

During the creation of my CYOA I decided to write a document so as to be able to refer to my characters more easily, thus making sure to define each one and make them unique and interesting.

Where I could, I decided not to give any of the characters a definite age, thus avoiding messing with the players age, when they were born or the rough time frame the game could take place. The only character I gave a specific age to was Captain Capri, as I merely came up with a good explanation that I felt warranted referring to it.

You can see the list of characters below, though I would advice reading the CYOA first to avoid possible spoilers...

Name: Jenkins
Age: Late twenties 
Gender: Male
Appearance: Black male who has a bald head and wears an orange jump suit and round glasses. 
Personality: Friendly, loyal, loves to tinker with things and hates being kept in the dark. 
Background: Long time friend of the player and mechanic. 
Inspired by: No one in particular. 

Name: Daniels 
Age: Early twenties 
Gender: Female 
Appearance: Olive skin, has short dark hair and wears a security outfit. 
Personality: Hot headed, cocky, tom-boyish and easily bored. 
Background: The player's partner if they are a security officer. 
Inspired by: No one in particular.

Name: Old man Bean

Age: Old / Unknown 

Gender: Male

Appearance: White male who wears an orange jump suit and has a plaited grey beard

Personality: Has a country accent, Bean is a warm hearted, hard working man often considered as a family man and the voice of reason.

Background: A friend of the players if they are a mechanic.
Inspired by: Scott Wilson's voice and facial appearance as Hershel from 'The Walking Dead' TV series.

Name: Captain Capri

Age: Thirty five

Gender: Female

Appearance: Wearing a dark blue navy uniform and a face which looks as if she’s sucking something sour, Capri looks older than her thirty five years. Her long curly red hair is mostly hidden under her captain’s cap.

Personality: Has a German accent. Capri is 100% dedicated to her job which makes her seem harsh at times although, it’s only because she wishes to complete missions to their fullest without any casualties. It also doesn’t help that she isn’t good at making regular conversation and unless it's mission based struggles to think what to say.

Background: Navy captain.

Inspired by: No one in particular.

Name: Miranda Scarlet (Woman in Red)

Age: Late twenties 

Gender: Female 

Appearance: A beautiful woman with smooth white skin. She has a slender body and long glossy blond hair with bright blue beautiful eyes and ruby red lips. She wears a bright red dress and a large red hat.

Personality: Mysterious, seductive, sophisticated and somewhat cheeky. 

Background: Lives with the mutants in a secret mountain base.

Inspired by: Fan art of the cartoon character Carmen Sandiego, though her hair is meant to be blond and her skin lighter.

Name: (Mutant)

Age: Forties

Gender: Male

Appearance: A six and a half foot tall mutant. He has sunken green eyes, sickly skin, a shaggy brown beard and both gills and fins on his neck and arms. He wears a long brown trench coat.

Personality: Wild and breathes heavily.

Background: Lives with fellow mutants in a secret mountain base. 
Inspired by: A character seen in 'Attack on Titan' whose name escapes me.

Name: Glaslo Briggs

Age: Late thirties

Appearance: A big black man with short dark hair and a goatee. He wears a dark blue navy uniform and has green eyes.

Personality: A determined and calm individual who believes in progress and is not afraid to do what must be done in order to survive. Some would call him cold and calculating, as if he is always judging with his eyes that seem to pierce into people's very souls. However, this is just his way of working out people are really like.

Background:The mayor's right hand man.

Inspired by: Keith David's voice and partly the appearance of the character he voiced in 'Mass Effect' David Andersion (Though his character is meant to have a goatee and be younger).

Name: Mayor Taro

Age: Eighties

Gender: Male

Appearance: An elderly Asian man with a walking stick. He wears an expensive looking white suit and despite his balding head, still has a well groomed moustache.

Personality: Intelligent, business like and honorable. The mayor is still going strong despite his age and occasional cough.

Background: Mayor of Home Base 2-7-1. 
Inspired by: Partly inspired by the actor George Takei, though obviously the character would be older. 

Name: Mrs Patel

Age: Thirties 

Gender: Female

Appearance: A heavily pregnant woman with long brown hair.  

Personality: A caring and kind mother.

Background: Expectant mother of ten other kids. 
Inspired by: No one in particular. 

Harvard Referencing:

• Goldberg, L (2013) 'Walking Dead's' Scott Wilson on Midseason Finale Shocker: I Could Sense It Was Coming [Online Image]. Available at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/walking-deads-scott-wilson-hershels-661079 (Accessed: 20/1/2014). 
• Max (2012) DAVID ANDERSON, LEADING THE RESISTANCE ON EARTH [Online Image]. Available at: http://citadel-space.com/index.php?showtopic=334 (Accessed: 20/1/2014).
• Trumbore, D (2013) Hollywood! Adapt This: WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO? [Online Image]. Available at: http://collider.com/carmen-sandiego-movie-adaptation/ (Accessed: 20/1/2014).
• Unknown (2013) Thread: WIW Attack on Titan! Major series spoilers, no manga spoilers please [Online Image]. Available at: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?703478-WIW-Attack-on-Titan!-Major-series-spoilers-no-manga-spoilers-please/page8 (Accessed: 20/1/2014).
• Unknown (Unknown) George Takei Picture 12 [Online Image]. Available at: http://www.aceshowbiz.com/events/George%20Takei/george-takei-2nd-annual-lgbt-heritage-month-02.html (Accessed: 20/1/2014).

Describing Characters (17/1/2014)

Having always been unsure of how to best describe the appearance of my characters, I decided to look over some example character descriptions from books I have read in order to get a better understanding on how to write them. After all, if I really want to write a novel in the future, then I should really be getting my descriptions perfected.
You can read my research below...

* Harry Potter from 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone':

"Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead which was shaped like a bolt of lightning." 

Deciding to start with one of the first books I ever read, looking back at J.K Roling's character description for the main protagonist Harry Potter I must admit that I find that it is not as interesting as I remembered. Nothing against the writer, after all, I am a big fan of the series and it is well written. But, I just find the description of Harry to be rather bland. Yes it describes his face, but not his hair style or build, plus I don't find knees of all things to be interesting unless it builds up to a bigger picture. I am also surprised by the lack of adjectives, as although she has used words such as "thin", "knobbly" and "bright" you would think she would go into further descriptions of what they may resemble. Or at least separate the facial description from the body. 
Although the mention of him liking something about his appearance (the scar) is a nice touch as it shows a human's desire to look good. I felt the added description of the glasses was a bit forced and could have been left for a later point, although I understand the importance of telling the reader why the glasses have sellotape on them. 

* Luke Skywalker from the script of 'Star Wars: A New Hope':

"Luke Skywalker, a farm boy with heroic aspirations who looks much younger than his eighteen years. His shaggy hair and baggy tunic give him the air of a simple but lovable lad with a prize-winning smile."

Considering this is only from a script which relies mostly on dialogue and very few descriptions, I have to say nearly all the characters are clearly introduced with interesting to the point descriptions. This is especially so for the protagonist Luke Skywalker as it tells you something about his occupation, appearance, personality and even a characteristic that we (the reader) can envision throughout the rest of the story e.g. his "prize-winning smile.".  
Despite its shortness, it also makes great use of adjectives in order to give us this image of a rather scruffy looking kid thanks to the words "shaggy" and "baggy" used that also add to his character e.g. preoccupied with other things rather than how he looks (though this isn't evident in the films). 
Even using "lovable" is a good means of making the character come across as more likable. 
Granted from including his occupation and personalty you remove the opportunity to show this in his actions rather than tell us, but at the same time everything isn't revealed all at once since later the character will express his desires and what exactly his aspirations are.

* Josh Lee Hamilton from 'The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury':

"It takes a great deal of conscious effort for Lilly not to stare at the black man’s arm as it pistons up and down. Even crouching in his sleeveless denim shirt and ratty down vest, Josh Lee Hamilton cuts an imposing figure. Built like an NFL tackle, with monolithic shoulders, enormous tree-trunk thighs, and thick neck, he still manages to carry himself quite gently. His sad, long-lashed eyes and his deferential brow, which perpetually creases the front of his balding pate, give off an air of unexpected tenderness."

My favourite author Robert Kirkman, has always known how to create a fantastic image of a character in the readers head. Using great adjectives, metaphors, alliteration, intertextuality and descriptions, Kirkman is able to refer to a characters build or physique using terms and objects for refrence. For example, saying someone is muscular or well built is one thing, but saying they are "Built like an NFL tackle" and have "enormous tree-trunk thighs" allows us to use existing examples and images in our heads to put together the character piece by piece.  
Granted, this type of character description is much longer than either of the other two examples and isn't spread throughout a book on multiple pages as other books would e.g. only referring to something else about the character when it comes up. However, I feel that by getting all the important descriptions out of the way you don't have to spread the appearance of the character out on to multiple pages. This is also a good thing as myself and many others hate to think we have a picture of a character in our heads only for it to completely change later on.


Conclusion: 
Looking back over existing examples I was better able to describe my characters in my CYOA using better descriptions and adjectives to bring them to life. Granted, I couldn't make the descriptions nearly as long and in depth as Kirkman's, but I feel that I have given enough to allow my readers to truly imagine each one. 
Some examples of the changes I have made can be seen in the two character descriptions below... 

* Originally my description for Captain Capri was...

"Wearing her dark blue navy uniform, she is in her thirties and has a face as if she’s sucking something sour. Her long red hair is mostly hidden under her captain’s cap as she gives you a disapproving glare."

Then I changed it to the following...
"Wearing a dark blue navy uniform and a face which looks as if she’s sucking something sour, Capri looks older than her thirty five years. Her long curly red hair is mostly hidden under her captain’s cap. She gives you her usual expression, a disapproving glare."

From doing the above I was able to describe her usual expression (characteristic), aged appearance and use adjectives such as "curly" and "sucking something sour" to give a better vision for my readers. 
  
* I also did this for the character Mayor Taro which started as...
"Wearing an white suit the old wrinkled Asian man in his eighties rubs a hand though his well-groomed moustache before waving you forward."

 I then altered it to to the following...

"Behind it, sitting in a grand chair is the unmistakable figure of Mayor Taro, an elderly Asian man in an expensive white suit. The mayor, now well into his eighties, rubs a hand across his well-groomed moustache before beckoning you forward."

From doing the above I fixed things that would be obvious such as "old wrinkled" to "elderly" as it would mean the same thing. I also made it so her rubbed a hand "across" his moustache and not "through" it as I believed the latter to describe what you do with a moustache to be more accurate.
I was also able to be far more subtle with my description of the character. For example, by making him beckon them forward rather than wave them forward I am able to show the power his position as mayor would have. This also shows more clearly by using the word "expensive" for his suit as it means he also has money.

Harvard Referencing: 

• Kirkman, R (2012) The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury. London: TOR an imprint of Pan Macmillian, a division of Macmillian Publishers Limited.
• Lucas, G (1997) Star Wars: A New Hope. London: Faber and Faber Limited.
  
• Rowling, J,K (1997) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.