All about choices and consequences
An interactive story is broken into short passages or scenes. At the end of each passage, the reader will be given one or more choices. The story may give hints to the best course of action, or it may be up to the reader to choose.
If you have used a decision tree or dichotomous key to identify a plant or animal, you will have used something very similar.
Here is the planning and outline view in the free Twine tool. You can see the arrows showing the links between passages. There are two possible endings to this story and several branches.
A fun element of surprise or risk can also be introduced using coin flips or dice to supply random choices. You may also hide clues in some branches of a story that help a reader later on! The creative potential is HUGE!
Planning an interactive story can be done very simply on a large piece of paper. Use drawn shapes or sticky notes with titles for each passage and a brief outline can be written for each. Where there is a choice, a drawn line or piece of string can show the link to the next section or scene.
Software for your interactive whiteboards may also feature tools for mind-mapping or concept mapping. You could explore these to show students the planning approach.
You may choose to have some branches that come to dead ends, or the writer may choose to offer a choice to return to an earlier place in the story.
Click Next page for ideas on making a paper based interactive story.
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