Friday Writer Roundup: Twine

And welcome once again to the Friday Writer Roundup. Today I bring you a piece of software very close to my heart, and possibly very close to the hearts of some of my readers. Did you ever read the Choose Your Own Adventure (or similar) books growing up? They were some of my favorites in elementary school.

That's what Twine is all about. It's a simple program for organizing interactive fiction books, and it then spits them out as HTML, which means that they can be put up just about anywhere on the Internet, from self-publishing sites to blogs to web pages. Or you can use it simply to help you track your interactive fiction and then put the full product together in the word processor of your choice. It's a little more work, doing it that way, but it gives you a lot more freedom when it comes time to hit publish. More on that a little later.

For those unfamiliar with interactive fiction, it's sort of a hybrid. Part game, part story. The writer creates many possible plot arcs for the reader to follow. Traditionally, this is where we actually see second person point-of-view in its natural habitat. You walk into the creepy old house. A puff of dust hits you in the face. If you turn around, go to page 3. If you hold your breath and continue forward, go to page 17.

And it continues from there.

Twine starts you off with three boxes: a title, an author, and a Start. You can mess with whatever you want except for the word Start. It has to remain that way. Otherwise, when you go to try and preview everything (which I recommend whether you intend to compile it in HTML or just use Twine to storyboard), it's going to be all screwy. And, if you go the HTML route, messing with the word Start will change around the HTML file it spits out, too. So don't touch it.

From there, you add your events and, via internal links, begin to open up your lines of interaction. Believe me, having a program to help you keep track of everything is much easier than trying to do it all on paper or, even worse, in your head. You want to leave your reader with as much freedom as you can manage, which means a lot of possible ways of interacting within the fiction.

Now, Twine is not the only one you can use for this, but it is one of the few, and it's the easiest to learn and deal with, even if it doesn't have a nice, flashy appearance. The other one I would recommend possibly looking at is Inform7, but only if you think interactive fiction is going to be a major part of your writing lifestyle. It's a little easier on the eyes, and it, like Twine, is free and cross-platform. Inform7 takes a little bit more dedication to learn than Twine, however, so it's a matter of personal choice. For me, Twine is the best option.

For those who intend to use it just as a storyboarding tool, you don't have too much more work to do. But, when and if you format it for print, you will have to edit it after the fact to put in appropriate page numbers. For eBook, depending on how you go about it, you may be able to just use your exported HTML and keep the links, or you may have to go through and manually add the links after the fact. But I trust you can figure it out.

If you believe me, turn to page 62. If not, turn to page 38. If you want more like this article, go to the top of the page and subscribe.

Voss

What's New, What's Not, Where's Neverland

I answer everything but the last question. Everyone knows you just go to the second star on the right and then straight on 'til morning.

I hope you had a glorious weekend, everyone. I had company and so couldn’t get on too often. Sorry about that. But what matters is that I'm here now, and I've got an update on what I've been doing lately. I want to let you, my loyal fans and followers, get the first taste of what's been happening in the Vossverse… or UniVoss… I haven't decided on a name yet.

A lot of my time has been taken up prepping to launch The Jester Prince next month. It's the first time I've never released a direct sequel before, so it's proving interesting. Watch out for that touring the blogosphere in mid-August.

As for active, butt in chair, fingers on keys writing, it's been going between a few things, including blogging. I've been slacking off on my blog for a while, but I'm rising back up to the challenge. So you'll get to see a lot more of my smiling… words?

I've also thrown together a few shorts for various anthologies: Mortimer, the story of a girl and her pet monster, The Bruja's Gate, a tale of Dia de los Muertos gone off kilter, and Saur, a quick bit of flash set after an interplanetary war. So, keep an eye out for those.

Most of my time, as of late, has been spent dealing with The Park, a record of a controversial reality show from. Journals kept by the contestants, eMails from within the production company, reviews; all combined together to create a single cohesive record.

So, you can keep your eye out for that in the near future as well.

That's what's been happening lately. If you want to keep caught up on all my other goings on, just follow me up top. It only costs a couple seconds and a bit of your soul. But souls are highly overrated, anyway.

Voss

Friday Writer Roundup: Written? Kitten!

Hello, writerly types, and welcome again to the FridayWriter Roundup!

This week, we're going over one of my favorite tools: Written? Kitten! Those of you familiar with Dr. Wicked's Write or Die will understand the premise. However, Written? Kitten! is a much softer, more user-friendly version. And, unlike Write or Die, there's no option that deletes your words… ever. And that's wonderful. Missing words keep me up at night.

Written? Kitten! is a fantastic tool for the simplest, and sometimes hardest, part of the writing process: getting out the words. Sitting down and plugging away, throwing one word right after the other until you have a sentence. Then a paragraph. Then a chapter. And then, finally, a book. It sounds easy, but sometimes, the motivation just isn't there. Or just isn't stronger than vegging out on TV and video games all day.

You set Written? Kitten! to a certain number of words and begin typing. Once you hit the word count you selected, guess what? You get a kitten! Yes, a cute, fluffy kitten will pop up on your screen to remind you that, hey, writing actually is worth it! That's the sheer beauty of Written? Kitten! Positive reinforcement, but somebody else does all the work, leaving you to plug away at your keyboard.

Now, it should be noted that Written? Kitten! does not, in any way, save your words for you. You absolutely have to, have to, have to copy and paste them into a file that you can save. Otherwise, all the work was for naught. An that makes kittens sad. And nobody wants sad kittens.

"But I don't like kittens!"

Shun the non-believer!

Oh… sorry. Freudian slip. What I meant to say was this: there's a way around that. You don't have to have a kitten. You can put in just about any search term you like, and those are the pictures that pop up. Just modify the URL like this:

writtenkitten.net/?search=searchterm

Obviously, you would modify it to whatever you want instead of searchterm. It will then pull pictures at random from Flickr.com's 'Most Interesting' category for that search term. There are three built in options that hang out below the text box, down with the word counters: kitten, bunny, and puppy. But, of course, you can do anything. I like chocolate, myself. Nothing better than an endless stream of chocolate floating by on your computer screen, after all. Well, eating it would be better… just not for my waistline.

(If you have a search term with a space in it, just replace the space with '%20.')

Now for those of you out there with different tastes, you can of course use the traditional Write or Die, or the new and improved Writeor Die 2. They've adopted the positive reinforcement model introduced by Written? Kitten!, and I actually kind of love it. Dr. Wicked may convert me yet, despite my love for kittens. There's also an interesting dog based one called Write orBite. It rewards you with a cute puppy picture, but if you fall below your set WPM, you get a picture of a biting dog, instead.

I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Friday Writer Roundup! If you want more, go up top and subscribe to keep receiving these posts.

Voss

6 Warning Signs That You're a Fantasy Addict

Sit down. I think we need to talk.

You see, your friends and family are very worried about you, dearie. They think you might have a bit of a problem. An addiction to fantasy books. So they called me in. It's sort of my specialty. We're just going to go over a few little things. We'll take appropriate action from there.

1: You can rattle off your top ten fantasy books at the drop of the hat.

Oh, you can? That's… interesting…

2: Your idea of a good Halloween costume was always witch, wizard, dragon, or some other such thing, rather than Frankenstein's monster or pirate.

A dark sorcerer? Four years running? All right, then…

3: You fight tooth and nail to prove that Dragonriders of Pern is just fantasy with some sci-fi sprinkled over the top.

Really? That's on there? Well, that's ridiculous. Everyone knows that's true…

4: An unviable system of magical laws can completely ruin a book or movie for you.

Well, you can say no all you like. The whole point was to see how well you understood the concept of a magic system.

5: You can (and do) rank authors on the originality and presentation of their version of high elves.

I personally prefer Douglas Niles' Sylves… but we're not talking about me, are we?

6: You can name at least three publishing houses or imprints that deal in fantasy. Without Googling it.

Well, of course you can.

I have some news for you. You're a fantasy addict, dearie.

Oh, now, don't cry. It's nothing to get upset about. In fact, you should smile. See, I have a secret for you. You aren't alone. Not at all. There are millions more just like you out there. Millions more just like us. Yes, yes, I'm in the same boat as you. A longboat. A longboat piloted by giants.

If you, like me, are a true and honest fantasy addict, stick around. You can subscribe through Blogger, through RSS, and through eMail.

Dreaming of fairies,

Voss

Cover Reveal: The Jester Prince

Last year, we saw the fall of Zirkua Fantastic. We saw the escape of King Jester, spirit of discord. We saw Marley kidnapped.

Now, this August, comes the next installment of The King Jester Trilogy. What has become of Zirkua Fantastic? What has become of Earth, with king Jester loose once more? And what will become of Marley, the Jester Prince?

The Jester Prince available August 13^th from Prizm Books.

Friday Writer Roundup: StayFocusd

Hello, and welcome to a new feature here at Demon Hunting and Tenth Dimensional Physics: the Friday Writer Roundup. Rather than posting writerly advice and finds and such on the rest of the log, from now on, I'll be doing them here, every Friday. Fun fun fun!

This week is a doozy, at least for me. I'm sure I'm not the first to talk about StayFocusd, and I probably won't e the last. For me, it's a godsend. Like a lot of writers, I have a nasty habit of procrastination, and my biggest crutch is Facebook... and the occasional online game I get obsessed with. With Stayfocusd, that's not much of a problem. I load up my list of blocked sites, however many I need to keep myself from, and I just hit the button. Then I pick my time (I just stuck with the default ten minutes) and there you go. That's the amount of time you have per day to go to your sites. Not the amount of time you have for each site, the amount of time for all of them. Now, you can change your time... but only while you still have time left. If you use up all ten minutes and then decide you want more Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest... sorry? You have to wait until the next session.

Now, if you're disciplined enough to have specific blocks of time where you work, you can also set the program to only run during those specific blocks of time and then leave you free outside of those blocks.

And then there's Nuclear Mode... we don't talk about Nuclear Mode. Just like we don't talk about Kamikaze Mode in Write or Die. Nuclear Mode is a complete Internet block. If it's not in the allowed sites, you don't go there for however many hours you set the timer for. It is t be sued with caution, as you will definitely be without distraction but you may lose access to research material, your eMail, your bank account... important things. Definitely not something to use for more than a couple hours.

The downside? It's a Chrome Extension only. No other browsers. But there are programs out there to help with the same thing. Firefox has an Add-on called LeechBlock. There are programs you can download. The most popular I've heard of is Anti-Social. It works on any OS and blocks all of the social networking sites for you. That one, however, costs fifteen dollars. Leechblock and StayFocusd are both free.

One more issue with StayFocusd, which most Chrome users will be familiar with, is the somewhat finicky attitude the Extensions can have. You may be uninstalling and reinstalling the extension a few times, with no notice. It doesn't take long, and it remembers which sites you've blocked.

So, there's the Friday Writer Roundup. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. I'll be back next Friday with more advice from the trenches,

Voss

A-Camping I Have Gone

Hey there, folks.

I know it's been a while. I would have posted sooner, but I've been prepping to go camping... and then I went camping. Campcon 9 was down in Oregon this weekend, and I was more than happy to take a trip down there, laptop in hand.

The Cons: it was wet and a little bit cold.

The Pros: everything else.

Literally, this is the single best con I've been to. Just a small collection of writers, sitting around campfires, typing under tarps. Typing a lot of words, too. As a group, the 20 or so of us broke 77,000 words. I did about 8,000, myself. But, more importantly, I not only plotted a whole new book, I pumped out a short story and (finally) got started on the new book. Expect to see more of that in the coming months.

And now that I'm out of chaos mode for a bit, I'll get back to more regular posting. I'm moved into the apartment, no more cons until February (barring the unforeseen). I can write and hang out with you lovely people once more.

Voss