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taken that this may also lead to frustration on the reader's part should he or she be, for some reasons or the other, unable to obtain the required page number. Dungeon crawling, another common feature, should also be used with caution as it may deaden and dull the pace of the story. " You find yourself in a dark tunnel, with exits branching off to the front, left and right. To go right, turn to page 40. To go left, turn to page 145. To go straight forward, turn to page 67." Upon turning to page 40, " You are in a cross junction of tunnels. To go down the right path, turn to page 113. To go down the left, turn to page 90. To press forward, turn to page 201." After several wrong turns, the character may find him or herself back where he or she had started. While this may serve well as a page filler, it may bore, or even frustrate the reader. Should you want to use this feature, it would do well to sketch a map of the dungeon, and position events that would occur at certain locations, in an attempt to liven up the otherwise dull series of chapters. Remember, what you would provide as a choice would have to be written, so keep the number of choices in check, lest you end up with an endless list of chapters to write.

Another special distinction of a choose-your-own-adventure story would be the multiple endings that you could have. As a bad ending would usually be a rude shock to the reader, it would do well for the writer to soften up the ending by substantiating the ending with some form of resolution. Some writers may even want to heighten the shock factor by the usage of graphic details, though that would usually leave the reader with a bad taste in his or her mouth. The writer should also remember to create a canon good ending that would be positioned at the end of the book. Generally, a substantial adventure book would have about 20 or so endings, with a larger proportion of them being bad. Make it reflective of life.

A choose-your-won-adventure story writing provides a new perspective and new form of writing for the writer, allowing one to logically bind together various strands of storyline and thus train a form of consistency in one's writing. Likewise, it also provides a more interactive form of reading for the reader, and allows one to choose one's own path, and participate in the book instead of reading merely what has happened.

Learn more about this author, Victor Schmier.
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