CYOA — Author Guidelines

A brief summary and FAQs writing ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ stories for our publication.

Thanks for joining us! This guide will be updated periodically.

This story adds to the general submission guidelines at The Fiction Writer’s Den, and focuses particularly on how to write and share stories inspired by ‘Choose your own adventure’ (CYOA) and similar books that we all loved as kids.

First, you will need to be added as an author via our submissions guidelines page. Then, read on.

Note that new CYOA stories should now be sent to us at The Den, having formerly been hosted by a separate publication, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure — Collaboration’. Guide last updated December 22, 2023).

General requirements

1. We now ask for all stories to be written in the second person, present tense. For example, “You are in a dark cave… what do you want to do?”, etc.
2. Please follow the format of other stories by including a link to the beginning of the story arc, and to the previous chapter (or another relevant past chapter (see FAQs). Check out the examples via our homepage!
3. Aim to keep instalments fairly short, so that the story/stories keep moving along (in certain story arcs, they strictly are limited to a 100-word drabble). If you write something longer, consider splitting it into two or more parts.
4. Each instalment must end with 2+ choices, or a ‘continue’ link, or with ‘The End’.
5. As well as writing follow-up chapters, you can also write chapters that come before another story, looping forward to stories that are already written.
6. Stories can be either written solo, or as a collaboration. Make this clear in your sign-off comment, and if you wish to collaborate, it is helpful to say at the end or in the comments what your own plans are, i.e. which path you are going to write, and which ones are free for others to develop.
7. Likewise, you can add to other people’s collaborative stories, but if you do plan to continue a very recent story, you MUST leave a comment or private note to check that this is ok (just in case they have already drafted the next chapter). If there is no response in 48 hours, you can assume that you are good to go.

New Story Arcs

You an submit new chapters any time.

However, if you want to start a new story arc, this requires some work and oversight from the editors.

For that reason, please follow the guidelines for serial fiction at The Den:

In short, this means letting us know your plans for any ongoing/serial fiction, and emailing an overview.

Without this step, we can’t accept a ‘chapter 1’ of a new CYOA story arc.

Style and formatting

Please stick as far as possible to the standard style and format of Medium articles as set out in our general submission guidelines. For example:

• Heading (‘big T’ title case) and subheading (‘small T’ sentence case).
• An image. Please include attribution/source, and alt text. Please also keep images in keeping with the setting/genre (e.g. avoid modern images in a fantasy story).
• Choose suitable tags — one must be ‘Choose your own adventure’, otherwise your story won’t appear in the correct tab on our homepage.

Here are some more CYOA-specific points:

• Each story/chapter should have a new title; use the ‘kicker’ and subheading to indicate which overall story/story arc it belongs to. For example (editors will confirm the numbering for you!):

• Include some basic information and a link back to the start and/or the previous chapter under the image. For example:

• End the story with one or more choices or ‘The End’. Usually it’s best to keep it to 2 or 3 choices, to keep things manageable!!
• If you include a set of choices, number them, so that it’s easier for others to discuss them in the comments. Use the ‘small T’ to make a headline above the choices. Optionally, you can include “click here” in the text. For example:

• After that, insert three dots before putting in any signature or call to action, or embeds to your other work, helping to make it clear that this stands separate from the choices. Please don’t put any other links/embeds midway through your story.

A Note on Diversity and Inclusion

As an inclusive publication, we welcome stories that contain diverse characters.

This could apply to main characters, but it’s great to see representation among other characters, too. Consider writing stories that include a range of races, sexual orientations, genders (including nonbinary, gender fluid, etc.), and other identities.

Consider the choice of images for your chapters, too (sometimes MidJourney defaults to white characters, for example). The story below by Sweet Chaos has some great tips:

FAQs

• What genre should I write?

You can write in any genre you like. Part of the fun of these stories is that they can blend genres… a crime story can suddenly turn into fantasy with dragons, or a sci-fi story into a horror. Overall, they tend to be adventure/thriller-type stories, and we have a lot of fantasy too.

• Can I include adult content?

To an extent, because the readers on Medium are adults, not children. However, overall the tone of the stories in this publication should be relatively light-hearted, and suitable for a general audience. In addition, all pieces must follow our publication’s general guidelines (which exclude NSFW content), and Medium’s rules on sensitive content.

• Can I use ChatGPT?

Please don’t. We want to publish original, human-written stories from your imagination, and it will be much more fun if you write the material yourself.

• How can I link back to the previous chapter if more than one ‘branch’ ends up at the same story?

Just list all previous chapters as links (see an extreme example below!). The editors can help with this! We also advise you to tag the author of the previous chapter (if you didn’t write it yourself).

• Can I link to any other chapter from the same story?

Our preference is for the story to move forward, and to avoid loops. It’s best not to link to something that in general appears to happen before in same story, if this would cause the reader to wind up back at your chapter again. Therefore, read the other chapters and figure out what needs to come next.

• Can I link to an entirely different story arc?

Yes. This has been done in some stories already (e.g. here). We suggest that in general, we always link to a story arc with a higher number (e.g. from arc 1 to arc 2, or from arc 2 to arc 4), so that the story doesn’t loop back to the same place.

• Do I have to specify the name/gender identity of the main character?

This is up to you. Some stories do, others do not. For example, in ‘Through the Black Door’ we learn that the main character is a woman called Isabelle. In ‘The Castle of Shadows’, their identity is left open to interpretation.

(More tba).