Authorial Jealousy

There's a group of authors with a progressive story with the best title ever. Nine Naughty Novelists decorated their blog with terrific spoof.

I bet a lot of people have heard of the Harlequin Title Generator that builds similar fun for you. This blog has given me a terrible, terrible plot bunny. I'm totally jonesing to create a interactive romcom/homage along these lines. Talk about taking an already narrow audience and limiting it further. I'm going to be writing in a micro-genre before long. The Mayan Merchant's Feminist Virgin is the latest title the generator handed me, but I really really want to use the Nine Naughty Novelists' title. Fanfiction is worthy of a free read, isn't it?

Adult Wiki Swim

I found another community of CYOA stories online. The twist, unlike with Infinite-Story, is that it's a wiki! Take the complexity of a CYOA and times it by a progressive authorship. Holey Peep-Toed Pumps that's weird. The Adult page features a whole array of fanfiction and genres. I'm less fond of this model. I guess I am too bossy to share my stories with the world and watch them get stranged by others.

Instead of unique programming like at Infinite, these texts use basic internet hyperlinking to present the choices, with each chapter its own wiki page. Ah, the good old days of Hyperstudio call to me!

The Cache

Demian Katz, you are so cool. For more than a decade, this guy has been keeping track of all CYOA stuff. So if you go to his search box on gamebooks.org and type "romance" as a keyword he has a whole list of goodies. (And also some necromantic goodies because the search is string based, not unit based, but I quibble with my librarian mind.) Take a gander at this British series from the early '80s!

I'm actually quite speechless. Here's another series, Follow Your Heart Romance, same era, for teens.

And for some reason, one Silhouette was converted into a gamebook when it was translated into Italian!

"Libro Game!" Where's Ms. Menozzi when I need her? Perhaps the translator decided to get creative? Did someone think Italian women wouldn't read a romance if they weren't in control somehow? *dying laughing*

And then there's this book which somehow got labeled "Romance" through the wonders of translation when it went to Brazil. Those wacky Brazilians, always sexing up the strangest things.

This treasure trove is awesome. I now have a little geek dream. Maybe someday my series will be listed on this site for posterity! Seriously, I'd love that.

Gods Bless Engineers Part Trio

So for anyone who didn't spend time, as I did, actually reading all of the CYOA analysis webpage (it doesn't even have a proper name) I've been talking about, I need to point out a freaking brilliant thing the mystery man noted at the end.

I REMEMBER THIS!

I don't know if you've ever had the experience of picking up a book or a toy, maybe at a garage sale, that you played with as a child but had completely forgotten about and getting this electric sensation of recognition in a rush of memory. Sometimes I even get whiffs of scent. When I saw his images from the bottom of that article, I could smell the poor acidic pages, feel the gritty-soft paper between my fingertips.

Back to my epiphany. The sick puppies who wrote one particular CYOA included an easter egg. There was an ending that did NOT link to any story stem. Obsessive, notebook-toting child that I was, this so riled and confused me I took it downstairs to rant at my mother. "They forgot to put in a story!" I can remember shouting, "They have an ending with no match!" I completely missed the metaphorical point that mystery engineer man makes, that to find the planet you had to go outside all parameters, even those of the book. Freaking brilliant.

So. I'm now fascinated by the option of doing this myself. He argues that the format of the book allowed for browsing. In the act of flipping back and forth, the illustrations stood out, so there was more of a likelihood of this type of thing being found.

In a hyperlinked story, there's no such browsing, no such flipping, and of course, no shinyhappy planet leaping out at you. But. What if I did include an illustration? And what if it was the start of a new hidden story? Like a minor character's little mini-adventure? And this story would not be indexed. Just stuck in the middle for a reader to find at random. Too far outside the parameters of an ebook readers are unlikely to scroll through?

Ta-Da!

Thanks to RazzleDazzleDesigns for my trio of lovely ladies! Coming this summer to a bookstore online!