Thursday, May 9, 2013

The Challenge of Prose: Realism vs. Plot

Often times while writing "The Storm Upon Us (Working title)" I've had difficulty in balancing how  I want the story to play out with the necessity of keeping the story slightly believable. I've tried to stay far away from anything that might cause my story to dissolve into a Walking Dead knockoff,  but sometimes that's difficult.

Example: The player is transporting ammunition from checkpoint to checkpoint driving a truck when he comes across a small horde of Limblex (Zombies missing limbs that can are fast-moving due to a high virus concentration in their bloodstream). The horde chases him off the trail and he runs into a tree. At this point the player is forced to choose between attacking the horde and fleeing the vehicle. Now arguably, hitting a large tree while traveling at an extremely fast speed in a small vehicle is probably enough force to kill someone at the very least, but because I need the plot to move along, they are completely unharmed. If they player tries to fight, the vehicle explodes and they die. If they flee, they are rescued by a fellow militia member who has been holed up in the woods for several months.

Current Family Plans

So I did some brainstorming on how I could incorporate my family into my project and I decided there were some creative ways they could assist me.

1) I will be interviewing each member of my family about how they would feel in different situations in a hypothetical zombie apocalypse and using their responses as story ideas

2) My mom is a Music Ed Teacher for K-8 students in District 15 and specializes in bringing music technology into her classroom. One of the programs she uses most to compose is Finale Notepad. I'm going to ask her to compose a short theme piece on what a zombie apocalypse might sound like if put into music.

3) My family will serve as my lab rats for this story and I will see which paths they take most often while playing through it in it's beta stages.

More Clarity on CYOCYOA

"Choose Your Own Choose Your Adventure" is the website I have chosen to write my story with as it requires the least amount of HTML coding to use. I simply add "branches" for each different choice and then type up the paragraphs for it. Right now the plot takes two different directions depending on the player's choices. You either are part of a "last stand" against a large horde on the roof of a warehouse, or you and your militia members help survivors escape to a boat that will take them to a safe zone. Sidequests include trying to find members of your estranged family and trying to find the missing scientist who has developed a cure. Right now most of the endings are negative, usually involving the player being eaten because of a dumb choice.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Update: A lot of progress on the story

The reason that this blog has been inactive is because the majority of my work has been put into editing and rewriting the "pathways" for my zombie apocalypse adventure on CYOCYA.com. Unfortunately, CYOCYA does not allow me to edit my work after it has been made available to the public so it's impossible for me to actually display my progress. Currently the story is at about 50% with one of the two pathways for the first story choice complete. I currently have about 12 endings and my goal is 24 so as long as I keep my current pace of writing sections I should be done by mid-May

Monday, April 1, 2013

Current Adventure on CYOCYOA.com

http://www.cyocyoa.com/view.php?id=492

This is the adventure as of now. It is obviously incomplete but I have gotten some solid work done for it.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Um, Well this is awkward.

Nate here, and I'm the only left. That's right! Jasmine, Lily, and Andy all quit leaving me here all alone with this zombie-apocalypse project. I will continue working on the "choose your own adventure" project solo and post as I go

Monday, March 18, 2013

NEW!!

Nate and I have begun the drawing of the map of events for the choose your own adventure book. We will post pictures of our progress with it and eventually finalize it by typing it up all fancy-like. Mrs. Sheehan has advised us to make a website instead so it is easier to follow and Ryan can help set it up with his technological genius. Keep in mind, Grocery Store or Gun Store?