[Army of One]

Submissions have now closed. Since there was only one entry for this contest, they have been announced as the winner here.

General Contest Rules:

• All stories submitted between 12:00am July 1, 2022 UTC and 11:59pm July August 31, 2022 UTC that fit the topic criteria will be accepted. (See below regarding the change in duration.)
• Stories can be submitted to any of the story writing boards (this excludes the Roleplay boards); non-English stories will need an English translation linked to them, which must also be in the relevant story section, in order to be accepted.
• Stories must be started in the month stated, and listed here for submission before month's end.
• General site rules apply to contest entries. If any changes to site rules occur during the contest, violating entries will have until close of entry%u2014or end of any amnesty period, whichever is sooner%u2014to adjust their entry accordingly, or risk disqualification. If changes occur during the voting cycle, votes for violating entries will be ignored.

Okay, sorry for the lack of warmup when I promised it; it's winter here, and everyone has come down with some kind of cold over the past fortnight, including me. However, what I can say is that I have the next nine months of contests planned out, courtesy of you guys.

(Now, at this point, I was going to include a picture containing a censored contest schedule. Sadly, because of aforementioned illness robbing me of pretty much all will to do anything, I didn't get round to it. It should be up soon, I promise; if not this contest, then next.)

But now, let's get to this month's contest: it's a Choose Your Own Adventure style story!

• Each branch in the story will have its own post in your story thread. Yes, this'll cause post bloat, I'm fully aware of that. But that's fine for this competition.
• For branch selections, you will be using the iurl tag, which works exactly the same way as the url tag, but will not open a new window for the link. I'll put a tutorial down below on how to do this.
• Because of how much fiddling around you'll need to do, while you're posting, please put a WORK IN PROGRESS tag on your story, along with a warning in the initial post that you are still posting all parts of your story, and thus should not be commented on. Once you're done, these can be removed.

(Mid-contest edit: As it turns out, I did an absolutely horrific job explaining what this kind of story is, and also how to write one for the forum. I have a clarifying post that should help clear up some of the confusion I've left here, hopefully. But still keep asking questions, folks.)

Okay, go for your lives, folks. You have between the dates listed above to enter. Good luck, and good writing.

[Army of One]

How to Do Inline Links for a CYOA Story
(I am sorry, folks, there will be no images for this, because, as I said above, I really have no energy to do them right now. That may change when I am a bit more well.)

• Prior to putting all this in, it's a great idea to type it all up in a text editor, so that you have an idea on the structure of your story, and know where each part links. You can also put in empty iurl tags for where your post links will go. (I'll get to that in a moment.)
• Start posting each part in a separate post. As you do, check the title of the post. That title will have a link attached to that post. Right-click on the link, and copy it.
• Now, time for the iurl tags. These have the same structure as the regular url tags: [iurl=<url>]Text[/iurl] The only difference is that these will open inside the window instead of in a new one. Make sure to add in the URL of the post in question with each linked branch (in the post if it is already up and posted, in the draft if you have not yet done so).
  

And that's it. A very rough, but hopefully understandable, guide to CYOA stories on this forum. Now go out and write folks!

[90lbsofdynamite]

I'm confused. Can't we submit a completed story? Must it be published in parts? To be completely honest, I don't understand the post on the rules of the story contest at all. I don't understand the comment about the branches of the story. I don't write a story as if it is a tree. Other than, perhaps, a novel with chapters.

[Army of One]

I'm confused. Can't we submit a completed story? Must it be published in parts? To be completely honest, I don't understand the post on the rules of the story contest at all. I don't understand the comment about the branches of the story. I don't write a story as if it is a tree. Other than, perhaps, a novel with chapters.

Hmmm. I thought I had explained this as best I could, but apparently not. Okay, I'll try and explain this better:

The idea behind this month's contest is a Choose Your Own Adventure style of story. If you ever encountered these kinds of stories back in school (or, to a lesser degree, played a Telltale game or one of the Dark Pictures Anthology), then you'd be familiar with what I mean. If not:

A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style story is one where the reader can decide the direction the story takes based on what decisions they make at certain points in the story. At these "decision points", the reader is presented with a predetermined series of choices, and, depending on what they choose, are sent to another part of the book in order to continue the story.

This contest has you writing one yourself. Each post in the story thread will continue the story from a certain decision earlier in the story. This will require some planning, as you need to look at what could happen at certain points, and decide what the consequences could be for each decision. This means that the story will end in multiple ways, as per the decision-making.

In order to prevent multiple tabs from opening, when you get to linking up your decisions (and we will be using hyperlinks to transport the reader to each new branch, because then you can send them to the exact branch they need to be at, instead of relying on the reader to find it themselves), we will be using the iurl tag, which will open the new page in the current window. These links will take you to whichever post has that branch of the story. Because you will be posting each new branch in a new post in the story thread, there will be a couple of consequences of this, both of which are unavoidable:

• Your post count will bloat a little, depending on how many decision points your story contains. It may be a few, if you're keeping it simple, or it could be a hundred or two, if you're opting for a more intricate decision tree.
• Your story basically cannot be commented on until you're finished posting everything, mostly because it'll make zero sense while everything is still being written, plus will have unlinked branches.

I hope that makes a bit more sense, but please, keep asking for clarification if you feel it is needed.

[SoftGameHunter]

I believe he is talking about those types of choose-your-own-adventure where at the end of each section you pick from two to four options and follow the link to see what happens as a result of that decision. They're popular in second-person children's book formats where you turn to the correct page and there are twenty or thirty possible outcomes after making maybe three to twelve different choices, some of which have you die and some of which have you save the universe. In this case you probably either try to complete one or more rapes or evade one or more, depending on if the story is for the attacker or the victim. I haven't tried the links for doing that, but it seems like that is what's going on. So no, it's not a traditional block story with a single beginning, middle, and end.

[90lbsofdynamite]

I can't possibly write that type of story. Not right now. It may be a fun read for someone to control the direction of the writer, but I cannot write that unless I have all the time in the world, which I don't. I don't write stories other people pick up the next part, either. When I write with another person, it is a constant back and forth between them and me. Like I said, I have some freedom from work obligations for a week or so. I'll try to write a story for posting, not for the competition.

Please do not consider this as a complaint, but the writing style this contest requires isn't in my wheelhouse.

[LtBroccoli]

A CYOA story is something I've wanted to try, but to make it work in a month it would have to be short and sweet, each scene and section getting straight to the chase.  I'd have to be a lot more succinct than normal.  Figure no less than 10 to 20 posts in a thread for a short story, so each post could only be a couple hundred words at most.  Each post would have a branching point, and each branch another point it breaks off at. 

For example, say the story is about whether the protagonist decides to stalk Girl A, Girl B, date them, or rape them.  One post for setup, one for deciding the girl, one for the path, then more for the attack.  Then it can go on as far as you want.  Does he keep them as toys, let them go, sell them, kill them?  Does he get away, get caught, kill himself, etc?  Then there's all the formatting.  That will take some time and need some run-throughs to make sure they work.

I have a few other stories I'm working on this month, but I'll see if I can come up with something.

[LtBroccoli]

Any chance of extending this contest out until August?  I won't have time to make a good effort this month, and no one else has entered yet, either.  I have a couple ideas floating around, but this month has been a little crazy.

[badsammie]

Not that it's relevant to this contest itself, but I highly recommend Twine to anyone wanting to try something like this. Great software to make a html based choose your own adventure (or even to create a collection of your stories).

[Army of One]

Any chance of extending this contest out until August?  I won't have time to make a good effort this month, and no one else has entered yet, either.  I have a couple ideas floating around, but this month has been a little crazy.

Under normal circumstances, I'd say no and call this contest a bust. However, we are in this situation because of my procrastination, so I have to accommodate.

While I had something planned for August, I am willing to shift it to the new year and extend this month's contest out another month. This'll be changed in the original post.

[LtBroccoli]

Any chance of extending this contest out until August?  I won't have time to make a good effort this month, and no one else has entered yet, either.  I have a couple ideas floating around, but this month has been a little crazy.

Under normal circumstances, I'd say no and call this contest a bust. However, we are in this situation because of my procrastination, so I have to accommodate.

While I had something planned for August, I am willing to shift it to the new year and extend this month's contest out another month. This'll be changed in the original post.

Thanks.  I have a couple ideas, trying to decide if I want to go sci-fi/fantasy or more grounded in reality.

[LtBroccoli]

The Mindstone (CYOA, MF, oral, anal, ncon, mc). John lives a simple, normal life until the most unexpected visitor shows up, asking him to hold on to something for him.  What happens when an average man gains powers no man should have?

The main parts of the story are up, just need to figure out this whole internal hyperlink thing.  The main part is up in the Sci-Fi section, but navigation is manual until I get the links working.  Hopefully not too long.

EDIT:  Hyperlinking done.  I think after this I'll keep the story going in the future, but everything up to GIVE IT UP and KEEP IT was written for this contest.