Welcome to the handy-dandy online version of On the Run: A Creative Writing Choose Your Own Adventure. This story was written by Miss Haws as an example for the BJHS creative writing kidlets. If you already know how choose your own adventure books work, click on the link to page one below.
If you need a refresher course on Choose Your Own Adventure Stories, keep reading. If you read the whole explanation, there is a short video clip as a reward!
A Choose Your Own Adventure Story is a story, which means it needs to have all of the elements of storytelling, including settings, characters, conflict, and dialogue.
Because it is an ADVENTURE story, every page should have at least one element of adventure. So feel free to include things like police chases, alien abductions, zombie attacks, ninja battles, dragons, kidnappings, pirates, explosions, treasure hunts, daring rescues, etc.
Most books tell one story, with one beginning, one middle, and one end. What makes a Choose Your Own Adventure Story special is that it has one beginning, a couple of middles, and several different endings. Instead of reading the pages in order, there are choices at the bottoms of the pages. Every time the reader makes a different choice, they read a different story.
In this example, some pages will have two choices at the bottom. Once you have made your choice, just click on the words ... go to page ___. There are also links to all of the pages on the right-hand-side of your screen. After you make it to an ending, you can use those links to go back and read a different story by making different choices.
When you write a Choose Your Own Adventure Story, you want to make the person reading the story feel like they are actually IN THE STORY. There are two important things you need to do to help your reader feel like they are the main character.
First, whenever you write about the main character, you should use 2nd person pronouns (you, your, yours, you're, yourself). Writing in 2nd person point of view makes your reader part of the action. So instead of writing, "Benedict put on his bravest face and challenged the evil ninja space pirate zombie to a duel," you would write, "You put on your bravest face and challenged the evil ninja space pirate zombie to a duel."
Second, you should use present tense verbs so it feels like the action is happening right now, in the present. Instead of writing, "You knew that this might be your last chance to escape, so you headbutted the kidnapper who was sitting closest to you, then opened the door of the speeding car and launched yourself out into the night," you should write, "Knowing that this might be your last chance to escape, you headbutt the kidnapper sitting closest to you, open the door of the speeding car, and launch yourself out into the night."
Before you start reading, there is one more important thing that you need to know about Choose Your Own Adventure Stories: At least half of the endings are unhappy, so don't be surprised if your choices end up getting you eaten by a shark, put in prison for a crime you didn't commit, or losing your memory after getting beaten up by Chuck Norris. The unhappy endings are a big part of the fun, and it makes it a lot more fun when you finally get to a good ending.
Now you can have fun reading this example, but remember...
