Interactive stories

Storytelling toolkit

I run story through two tools: a three-act structure for scene pacing and Dan Harmon's story circle for a character's arc across episodes. My design approach has always rested on the pairing of story and game mechanics, one working through the other. Below are the circle's eight steps, the ones that the arc actually moves through.

Monetizing the choice

In a mobile story, a choice turns into a product the moment it is about to disappear for good: the closer a scene gets to vanishing, the higher its price. The player pays to hold onto what was already almost theirs.

The audience

I researched the genre's audience separately, and here is who reads it: women who love fantasy, homemakers, women whose personal life exists but lacks an edge. They do not watch or read explicit content, for ethical or aesthetic reasons, and the genre gives them that edge without crossing the line. They are the heirs of pulp romance, grown up on fanfiction.

The spice/smut line

Holding that line, spicy but not explicit, is a craft skill of the genre. One step past it and the text loses part of its audience; too careful, and it loses the tension readers open it for.

The mechanic of attraction

Familiar plots and many “touches” between characters work through slow burn: tension builds but stays unresolved for a long time, a kiss or intimacy always half a step away, the resolution delayed again and again. It is a standard device in slow-burn shoujo and josei fiction, and I build it into the plot on purpose.

The mobile format

• A mobile session is short and one-handed: the story has to work inside that constraint and cannot lean on memory of a previous session.
• Narrative RPGs and heavy branching setups do not work on mobile: I build the story through the player's choice, and depth comes from the consequences of that choice.
• Among the titles I produced, story and choice sit inside the core game loop: Criminal Stories, Love Choice (with MGVC / My.com).