What kind of wealthy are you?
There are a lot of different kinds of wealth, and in an effort to gain some perspective for myself, I am diving in.
MONEY
This is the obvious one, uh, obviously.
It is also relative to your environment. If I decided not to pay my mortgage for a month and instead sent it to Indonesia, it could pay for at least ten times as many mortgage payments. Amazing! But I still can’t do that, because I also need a place to live. This is something I’ve struggled with all my life but in 2019 I had a few epiphanies about how my suffering doesn’t actually benefit others so it’s okay for me to want my most self-actualising possible house (with room enough to foster cats, run a small business or charity, and have medically useful things like wide spaces—so I can use a wheelchair around the house if I need to—plus various water therapies, and nice views to lift the spirits when I’m bedbound). Sadly, wanting something doesn’t make it appear.
I think today I’ll define money wealth as how much spending power you have after your needs are met (in the context of your environment). So, food and shelter and medical needs and insurance and bills, plus social costs eg when your friend invites you out to dinner you don’t have to pretend you’re busy because you can’t afford it. Plus tossing a few dollars into whatever the latest school/church/etc fundraiser is, because contributing to your community is important too.
The other day I saw a comment pointing out that non-necessary items like toys and (most) fancy foods have become cheaper…. but essentials have become more expensive. So politicians’ advice is to stop eating avocado toast or cafe coffee in order to buy a house. But it simply doesn’t add up. Even if you have a wildly expensive $10 coffee every single day of the year, cutting it out completely for a year will barely make a dent in a house deposit. That was an “Aha!” moment for me because I DO buy stupid stuff and feel bad about it. But actually most of my financial choices are quite rational. So thank you, internet.
Twenty years ago, John Scalzi (the sci-fi writer) blogged about Being Poor.
LANGUAGE
I speak English extremely fluently, and Indonesian rather well. English in particular makes me linguistically wealthy. I can travel almost anywhere in the world with ease, and almost all entertainment is available in English. All the rich nations welcome me, and some nations will pay a LOT for my skills.
When I talk to Indonesians in Australia, they’re delighted to meet me.
When I talk to Indonesians in Indonesia, they treat me like a full-on genius superhero. That’s something most people never get to experience, and it’s grand for the self-esteem.
APPEARANCE
I have long hair and I’m white. Those can be very useful, and being white in particular can save my life (studies show that women of colour are the most likely to die from medical gaslighting and neglect). The long hair signals femininity and can be surprisingly useful. I once saw two drunks fighting and broke through the circle of spectators to stop them—which worked immediately, and I literally heard someone say, “There’s a lady present!” Of course presenting as female can also cause huge barriers to my safety, to the respect (or usually lack of it) shown to me and my brain, etc.
I am very lucky to be a cis female, rather than someone who has to fight to have their gender recognised. Ditto sexuality. When it comes to gender and sexuality, I am on ‘easy’ mode. (I’m bi, and that did technically get me fired once, but I was about to leave that job anyway due to my health.)
Being fat is awful, especially when it can alter the medical care I receive. But honestly it has its uses too. I almost never get cold, and almost no woman in the world is threatened by me chatting to their man. Every so often I get a fun fake-flirty interaction out of being fat and middle-aged, which is something I never ever did when I was young and thin. In most apocalyptic scenarios I would die very quickly, but I would at least provide a lot of food (assuming cannibalism has come back into fashion).
RELIGION
Again, easy mode. I’m Christian and other than now feeling the need to explain “I follow Jesus and kindness” rather than simply describing myself as Christian, life is super easy for me faith-wise. I have a huge array of choices for same-faith friendship and fellowship, and when there is religion-based violence in Australia you can almost guarantee that no Christians were harmed or will be harmed as a result (even when the perpetrator is Christian). Of course that only applies to the Western World! There are definitely places where Christians face horrific persecution right now. But in Australia, my religion’s holiest days are all public holidays during which I can celebrate in whatever way I choose (short of streaking through Parliament House). Most of my family is Christian too, which makes life and faith much easier.
I am quite rich in the experience of my faith as well. I’m quite mystical as far as Christians go, and most of the time I find God’s presence perfectly obvious. Fundamentally, I am aware that there is a loving God who is always with me (and doesn’t smite me when I scream at Him, either, which is handy). That’s pretty amazing.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
I live in a safe (and wealthy) country, in a safe city, in a safe house where I won’t get thrown out or have to deal with rental inspections. My kids go to reasonably safe schools and it is safe for me (or them) to walk around during the day. The housing standard is high, with legal rules like, “A landlord must make it possible to heat the house to at least 18 degrees Celsius in Winter”. And various energy and construction standards, plus social expectations that a two-kid family lives in a 3-bedroom home (or larger). I even own my own home (technically a townhouse), which is AMAZING as a Millennial.
Being poor in Australia is very different to being poor in Indonesia. It’s true that I’ve gone hungry in the past, but that was mainly because I was determined to be independent from a fairly young age. When I finally went crawling back home, my parents were able to make space for me and even gave me some weekly money so I could buy my own meals and pretend I was still independent until I was able to work again. If I ever go hungry again, it’s far more likely to be because of Autistic food aversion than having nothing in the cupboard. Although I certainly live paycheck to paycheck, and things do get dire sometimes.
One in ten Canberra households live in poverty. My family’s total income is about 70% of the median income for a family of equivalent size. Which used to be survivable, but with my medical costs + the cost of living it’s looking grim. However I’m pretty skilled at living on less than the average person, and our friends tend to socialise at each others’ houses, not any place we have to pay to enter.
TIME
In one very specific way I’m lucky: my schedule is almost always clear. So I can pick up my kids from school when they’re sick; can answer a phone call at 2:00am; can make doctor appointments willy-nilly; and so on.
But due to my fibromyalgia I only get about four functional hours per day on average.
I work one day per week, looking after a kid (who I happen to adore). I get paid to drive there and back (not the whole way as it’s quite far, but a full hour of paid driving per shift) and driving her to and from the place we usually go (another hour of driving) so for my five hour shift the child is either strapped into a car seat or entirely absent for two of those five hours. That helps a lot, but I also need to be VERY careful not to schedule much of anything on that day, or on the day before or the day after. So technically I get paid for five hours, but it takes me three days. (Driving is a relatively easy activity now that my sleep apnea is rarely at dangerous levels, so I can drive more easily than I can babysit. Other things, like cleaning, are a very difficult activity in which a couple of minutes can wipe me out for days.) Although the kid is a toddler, she’s not the type to run away and she’s used to me being in a wheelchair 90% of the time, so she’s surprisingly easy in terms of physical activity. The wheelchair is extremely helpful as it means I’m not standing around a lot. 80% of wheelchair users are able to walk but need the wheelchair due to balance, pain, or fatigue issues.
This is a handy post about the reality of doing ANYTHING while disabled in a similar way to me:
FAMILY
I get on with most of my family, although there are some I only see once per year. I do enjoy that one get-together per year. I am also married with two kids, which is pretty much perfection. It is an especially unusual perfection for a disabled woman, as around 60% of men will eventually divorce their wife if she has a chronic medical issue.
(Why YES straight white men can be pathetic. I’m sorry but it happens. It’s not an innate male flaw, but a side effect of privilege.)
HEALTH
I’m not dying, which is about the best thing I can say about this junk heap of a body. In fact, people with terminal cancer literally have a better quality of life than those with fibromyalgia (not my claim but it resonants hard). NOT that I want to have cancer! The fear of death is something that I don’t have to deal with at all, and that is a very good thing. I do have operations sometimes, but I don’t have chemo or radiotherapy, which is GREAT.
However, my life does suck monkey balls and that’s just a fact. I’m never not in pain. I can’t spend a whole day without vocalising from the pain at least once, and usually ten or twenty times a day, eg getting up from a chair or picking something up from the floor—stuff like that hurts quite a bit, and standing up for more than about two seconds is awful. My standard pain level is a four, which for a healthy person would be reason enough to see a doctor. There was a time in 2024 when I was bedbound for weeks on end, could not move without yelling in pain, and even when lying still it was as painful as being in active labor. The worst part is knowing that it’s virtually guaranteed to happen again because that’s the deal with fibromyalgia.
Recently, my jaw has become consistently painful (by which I mean 24/7). I saw a specialist who advised me to get a splint in order to slow down the increase in pain ($2000+) and to see a specialised physiotherapist ($250ish per session). I couldn’t realistically do either of those things. It hurts quite a bit to sing, and I know that it will hurt more and more. I’m pretty angry about all of that, but here we are. I was never a good singer, but I love to sing. Loved to sing.
Interestingly, I realised this year that even if I was physically healthy, I would still be unable to do almost all kinds of regular work due to my Autism (Level 2). I’m still processing what that means. For me, it means that about 80% of the time (95% of the time if I’m out of my house or if there are visitors or mess or an important appliance is broken) I feel like I’m wearing a full-length skintight body suit that has been lined with the scratchy side of velcro. Every movement makes it worse, and I can never get used to it. At the same time as the scratchy suit, my face is for some reason something that makes a significant minority of people furiously angry no matter what I say or do. (The face thing is about communication, eg the way I was accused of animal cruelty due to opening a tiny cat cafe; an idea that was inspired mainly by my desire to share the beauty of kittens with others. In fact it was kittens that inspired this post as I think having kittens is a very special sort of wealth, and it is my responsibility to share that wealth as much as I can.)
MEANING/PURPOSE
This is extremely important to me, and family of course helps with this a LOT. When Lizzie was born, I was mentally healthy for almost the first time in my adult life. I was flooded with happy chemicals and loving the fact that my life rotated utterly around her. Sadly, that early ‘baby high’ doesn’t last forever. But the rational parts are still there: Even though I don’t usually feel like a great parent, I know I do some things well, and that I am entirely irreplaceable. All the ickiest cliches are true: Being a mum is the most important thing I’ve ever done.
But. I also have my writing, and the knowledge that people actually like it and will pay for it (I earn about two cents per hour, which is terrible but frankly more than most writers). That’s also something that only I can do.
But… I want more. The world is on fire and I want to help! But as time passes I am slowly learning that my worth doesn’t depend on contributing to society. And, that saving the world is not my personal responsibility. These are extremely helpful and necessary lessons for me to learn, and I’m not done learning them yet.
I also want to do meaningful things just because, if I can. And usually my health says “Nope”. Plus of course my finances. I literally have a list of about twenty people or organisations that I want to give money to, but I can’t. That is frustrating.
My paid job is highly meaningful, because I am looking after a child. That is great and is part of why I’m able to do it at all.
And one of the key reasons I love fostering kittens is that I’m often literally saving them from being euthanised PLUS saving endangered native animals from their murderous natures. Plus, oxytocin again. Although unless I get serious funds these adorable babies will be my last litter (which is devastating, and I have been feeling extremely sorry for myself… which is the other source of inspiration for this post). However, I have applied for a grant and I’m optimistic.
FUN & HOLIDAYS
Yes, kittens are fun. I can also read and listen to music. Kids are fun too, and Chris (husband) is a fine conversationalist, among other enjoyable skills.
I love love love water, which is another classic Autism thing. I especially love the beach. In 2025 my family went to the beach FOUR TIMES because my Mum was working in Bermagui.
It. Was. Amazing.
Tragically, she doesn’t work there any more. Oh well; it was good while it lasted.
I have another fantasy of buying a house in Bermagui. My family would have at least two beach holidays per year, including sometimes having my whole extended family there (yes, all the people in the photo above, and probably more); I’d rent it out most of the time; and run paid retreats for artists and writers there too. Nice fantasy, huh?
We also managed to take the family to Indonesia in 2024, which was a dream that pre-dated my kids actually existing. That was a mix of meaningfulness (I felt it was really important for them to see another country that wasn’t part of the West) and work (our excuse to go was my winning a grant from the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation to teach interactive fiction to Indonesian writers), and of course fun. We all love water, so I planned all our activities around pools and/or the beach.
We also visited the Great Barrier Reef, in 2022 I think, using my minuscule superannuation fund (after using most of it to pay off our worst debt). That was incredibly special too, and of course meaningful because it’s a wonder of the world; intrinsically Australian; and in considerable danger from Climate Change. And it was really good for the kids to get out of their comfort zone in a way that they were reasonably enthusiastic about. Eg. When they went to use the shower they discovered it didn’t have a hose attachment and they literally cried. But they got over it, and adapted.
(In Indonesia, one of our hotels had very unpredictable toasters, so now my kids are extremely casual about scraping off the burnt bits and eating the toast. The traffic there also gives serious perspective on any other traffic. And the kids now have a tiny bit of a sense of the other path my own life could have taken, since for a long time I planned to move to Indonesia as an aid worker.)
We have relatives in London and we owe them a visit SO BAD. They actually paid for Chris to visit this year, which was simply brilliant. I’m not really well enough for such a long journey, so I have lovely fantasies about travelling first-class and/or stopping at several points on the way (Indonesia again maybe, Hong Kong and/or Singapore, India, Egypt, somewhere in Europe). It seems absolutely impossible, but we’ll see what happens in the future.
My family has had loads of visits to the coast (especially recently); an amazing interstate holiday to one of the most spectacular places in the world; and a brilliant international holiday. In terms of travel experience, we are very wealthy. I have no idea how the future will go. It seems impossible that we could ever justify another holiday, but life is frequently surprising. And, we live in Australia, a wealthy country, and surprising amounts do sometimes land in our lap (eg like many other very small businesses I received lockdown payments, which meant we were finally able to fix our AC).
I really love eating at restaurants. I love food as art, whether it’s me cooking it or someone else. Sadly, eating out is not justifiable at the moment except for extremely special occasions. I will probably be able to have a nice dinner to celebrate my wedding anniversary later this month, and my mum just told me she’s taking me out to dinner for my birthday in February. For Lizzie’s birthday, she has asked for a MacDonald’s dinner, which she will get. I’m not a super consistent parent, so I make a huge deal of birthdays (she is also getting pancakes for breakfast and a Percy Jackson themed party).
RESPECT
This is a tricky one. I know some people still believe awful things about me thanks to people lying on the internet (and my Autism). I know some people believe I’m faking being disabled (in fact I still often imply or outright lie that I’m relaxed or lazy in order to smooth social situations eg “What are you going to do this weekend?” “Read books and nap!” —which is technically true and technically delightful, but actually sometimes it would be nice to do something interesting outside of the house). Some people look at my fat body and immediately assume I’m lazy and/or stupid, when of course it’s a side effect of illness + self-medication + medications (rather tragically, insulin makes me gain weight but of course I can’t stop taking it).
But most of the people whose opinions actually matter to me still believe I’m a reasonably intelligent, reasonably responsible, reasonably decent human being.
FREEDOM
I’m free to do so many things that I don’t even think about it. I can get divorced if I want, I can buy stupid things (and then deal with the consequences). I can travel places (health and finances pending). I can move around my city freely, wearing almost anything I like. My country is not at war or on any kind of rationing.
LEGACY
I have two great kids, AND I have my writing—that’s pretty sweet. And even though my reputation is terrible in some places, I’ve never done anything truly bad or shameful. And I’ve done some really cool things here and there, too. I have plenty of regrets, but in the context of my forty-three years I’m doing pretty well.
CONCLUSION
I am rich in location, housing, family (both immediate and extended), language(s), gender, sexuality, life experiences, flexibility of time, leisure time/activities, freedom of movement/choices, and personal and familial legacy. I am poor in terms of cashflow (compared to other Australians) and health.
Because of my privilege, I forget about the many ways I’m wealthy. But actually I’m doing pretty damn well.
What kind of wealthy are you?
What kinds of wealth did I forget to write about?
Beginner’s Interactive Fiction, Part Two: ChoiceScript in Half an Hour
“ChoiceScript” is a tool created by Dan Fabulich, used by the company Choice of Games. I am not associated or affiliated with Choice of Games in any way, but ChoiceScript is my preferred writing tool and I believe it is better suited to long-form stories than any other. It is simple enough for non-coders to use and complex enough to have a great range of clever tricks and features.
STEP ONE: Go to ChoiceOfGames.com, which looks like this (the feature story varies):
Click on “Make Your Own Games” (in the top row of tabs) and the next screen will look like this:
STEP TWO: Download ChoiceScript following their instructions on that page. For me it looks like a folder on my desktop.
STEP THREE: You will also need to have or install a text-only program such as Text. I use a power Mac and the text program I use is called Sublime Text. It is free (although I chose to purchase it after using it for a while).
STEP FOUR: When you download ChoiceScript, it has a small piece of story already set up for you, so you can begin writing by simply replacing their words with your own. To access it, open your ChoiceScript folder, then the “scenes” folder (highlighted in the first image below), then the “startup.txt” file (making sure it opens in your plain-text program). It may just be called “startup”.
Inside, you will see something like this (after scrolling down):
So that you can compare ChoiceScript with Twine, here is the exact scene we started writing in my Twine in Five Minutes entry—as it would appear in a ChoiceScript file. This is what it looks like in ChoiceScript after writing the first paragraph and first set of choices:
Note there are line numbers on the left. They will be extremely useful when you are debugging your story, as the automatic testers tell you what line your mistakes are on.
And this is what it looks like after we’ve added another choice INSIDE the second choice (the same choice we did in the Twine story). Readers only see the second pair of choices if they took the second path.
That’s as far as we got with our Twine story.
As you can see, indents are extremely important in ChoiceScript. So are the symbols “*” and “#”.
Note that the word “choice” is always written in lower case. This is true for all the commands that you will use in ChoiceScript.
Tip: Programs need precision. Commands must always be in the exact same form (no capital letters, ever, and usually no spaces). A tab or space in the wrong place can break your game.
This section of story won’t actually work yet. You need to tell the program where to go after a choice is made. Your options are to go somewhere else in the file (you can even go back to the start if you really really want) or to another file. In ChoiceScript, you have a new file for each chapter. You can even have entire scenes that are only read if certain choices are made. Usually, you end a chapter with “*finish”, and the story automatically goes to the next chapter.
So here’s the same story but with all the loose ends tied up. One choice leads to a unique scene. The other choice will go to the next chapter.
From here, you can test the story if you like. Click on “index.txt” (or “index”) from your original ChoiceScript folder and it will open up your story.
You may have to select the ChoiceScriot folder to run it. The story looks like this for the player:
STEP FIVE: Now might be a good time for a break.
Okay? Okay!
Go to the very first line of your “startup” file and you should see three commands, each marked by an asterisk.
*title
*author
*scene_list
Write in your title and your name, with normal capitalisation, like this:
*title Pirates!
*author Felicity Banks
Your scene list is the list of… well, scenes. You can easily add to it at any time. I tend to use numbers, with some part of the title so they’re different to all my other stories. If I have ‘special’ scenes I’ll give them special names. The scene list tells the program what you want included, and in what order. They have to be lower case, with no spaces, and numbers must be written out in full. The first scene must still be called “startup.txt”. That can never be changed. Here’s an example scene list for a story that has four opening chapters and three final chapters.
STEP SIX:
Now we get to the use of statistics—the mechanism the program uses to keep track of the choices made by the player. THIS is what makes ChoiceScript so useful. Don’t worry—you don’t have to do ANY maths.
In the second set of choices above, both “Get off the ship—NOW!” and “Take a moment to fix a direction while I’m above the waterline.” go directly to the next scene. So, what was the point of that choice?
As writers, we should add some text to the choice to make it more worthwhile. But we can do more than that—we can establish through the text that the player character gains an advantage and/or a disadvantage from this choice.
FIRST we need to invent the stats we want. In startup, after the scene list, we invent our stats and their starting value like this:
*create faster_swim 0
*create punched 0
Writing Tip: You may automatically invent familiar statistics, like Health, or Strength, or Beauty, or Intelligence. But Choice of Games loves unique and interesting stats, like “Disdain” or “Drunkenness” or “Introversion”.
Then, in our choice, we can change the value of those two statistics, like this:
Later (probably in the next chapter but it may not make a difference for several chapters), when we want to show the results of those statistical changes, we do it like this:
The player who chose to look around before jumping overboard gets this text:
The water is shockingly cold and shockingly dark. You get your bearings and face towards that one glimpse you had of land, carefully noting the position of the sun since the ship is not going to remain a convenient marker. It is impossible to see the land, so you’re glad you took that moment to look around before you jumped, even if you can feel your eye swelling shut.
You swim, setting a steady pace since it won’t be a short journey. Your eye is throbbing, so you tell yourself the rhythm is handy.
The sun moves slowly, slowly across the sky, and finally you can actually see land blurring the horizon ahead.
Something brushes against your leg.
The player who didn't look around before jumping overboard gets this text:
The water is shockingly cold and shockingly dark.
You swim, setting a steady pace since it won’t be a short journey.
The sun moves slowly, slowly across the sky, and even when it sets you still can’t see any sign of land. You’ll be spending the night on the open ocean.
Something brushes against your leg.
Note the commands "*goto" and "*label". That pair of commands are extremely useful. Note also the command "*else". If you use an "*if" command, you also need the "*else" command to tell the program "continue here".
These two stats (“faster_swim” and “punched”) are boolean stats, meaning they are merely yes/no. Most stats are much more flexible, which gives your player the ability to build up skills or rapport or even their personality in a series of choices throughout the story.
You create non-boolean stats in the same way; by the “*create” command just under your scene list, and a numerical starting value. Often you have a starting value of zero, but for some statistics you might start with 50 (50%) to indicate a neutral starting position (so you can add OR SUBTRACT from that statistic) or some other value. Here’s an example.
First, you make the statistic.
*create swordfighting 0
Then, you create opportunities for the player to gain that statistic.
Later, you can test them, like this:
You can also vary a test to see if a player is unskilled, slightly skilled (has chosen swordfighting skill at least once), or extremely skilled (has chosen swordfighting skill at least twice), like this:
Note that you cannot use “*if” twice in a row. You need to use “*if” then “*elseif” then “else”.
Let’s imagine that instead of swordfighting, this “skill” was how well the player got on with a character named Agoye. This statistic started at 50%, with Agoye feeling neutral towards the player. Depending on the player choices, Agoye may hate them (due to choices that set the agoye statistic with a – instead of a +), love them, or continue feeling neutral. Here’s how a scene might play out towards the end of the game:
Note the command “*ending” which of course indicates an ending.
Writing Tip: In Choice of Games stories, your player must get about three-quarters of the way through the story before dying. “Bad” endings should also be well-written, so the player who chooses to lose on purpose still has a great story experience.
The brilliant thing about statistics is that seemingly minor choices along the way can slowly build up a statistic so that when tested, the player can win or lose in a dramatic (and earned) fashion. Some choices will branch off into unique scenes, but a lot of them will just have a line or two of unique text and/or a statistic. That means they remain meaningful choices without the writer actually going mad writing 100,000 different scenes in each chapter.
STEP SEVEN:
There is one more kind of stat that is important to Choice of Games, and relatively simple to do in ChoiceScript. This is the set of stats that lets a player choose their name and gender. These are boolean stats that include specific text. They are created in the same place as all the other stats—just below the scene list in the “startup” file.
*create name “”
*create he “he”
*create him “him”
*create his “his”
Here is the choice of name (including giving the player the option to type in literally any name they like), and then how to use it. Even though the name is coded is in lower case, using the exclamation mark means it will be capitalised for the reader.
With pronouns, you usually don’t want them capitalised, so it looks like this:
Note that I’ve used male pronouns as the base code. That’s because they’re more straightforward.
Note also that if you include non-binary pronouns (Choice of Games is very focused on diversity—and it’s a kind thing to do—so I recommend it) the grammar will sometimes not work, so you may have to rephrase some sentences.
Eg. you can say, “I took him to the shops” just fine in the various genders (“I took her to the shops”; “I took them to the shops”) but you can’t get, “That dog is his” to work, because “That dog is their” is incorrect.
The distinctions are subtle, so definitely get a native English speaker to check your work!
It is possible to avoid using pronouns for an entire story (I’ve done it) but it’s not easy and it tends to feel awkward to the reader.
Writing Tip: Speaking of gender, Choice of Games also expects you to have a roughly equal number of male and female characters. They will appreciate characters who are non-binary or otherwise gender diverse, too. And every other kind of diversity (IF it is done well! Harmful stereotypes are not appreciated, and if you’re writing about a minority group you don’t know very well then there will be a lot of stereotypes you don’t even realise you hold). You can get Sensitivity Readers, but it’s harder to get them for interactive fiction than regular fiction, and you can’t rely on Sensitivity Readers to fix everything. Also, if your entire plot is offensive then you can’t fix that.
The type of statistic you used to set the player character’s name can be used for other things too. In my cat breeding game, the player can type in unique names for every single kitten.
Beginner’s Interactive Fiction, Part One: Twine in Five Minutes
Interactive fiction is any story that involves the reader in the story, usually by giving them choices along the way that change the text.
“Twine” is a tool that creates a story map as you write your story. It’s shockingly easy to use (speaking as a person who has major struggles operating her own phone).
STEP ONE: Go to Twinery.org, which looks like this:
If you can, download it as a desktop app. Otherwise, click on “Use it in your browser”. Press skip (or don’t press skip, and go through a quick tutorial that is better than this) and you’ll get to the screen that looks like this (if you are using the desktop app it won’t have the warning):
On the top left, click on “+New”. You can type in a title if you like, or leave it as “Untitled Story”.
Your new story looks like this:
Yay! You are now writing a story in Twine.
STEP TWO: Double click on the box in the middle of the blue space. Then your screen will look like this:
In the white box (aka a bigger version of the little blue box), type the first few sentences of your story.
Writing tip: In interactive fiction, most readers want you to get to a choice as quickly as possible, ideally within 300 words. This applies to every choice!
I am starting with two useful story hooks: An interesting setting, and an interesting problem.
Writing tip: Interactive fiction is usually a game (even when there are no sounds or pictures or animations), so using tropes is a VERY GOOD thing eg. Dirty violent pirates; dangerous nature; femme fatales or mad scientists. Try to think of your story as a game. If you were writing a pirate game, you would definitely want fighting, alcohol, historical weapons, and danger—so make sure those things are present in your story. When I wrote “Scarlet Sails” I started with a list of every pirate trope I could think of: betrayal, rum, ambition, gold, evil mermaids, treasure, sea monster, storms. Then I made a plot that linked them all. That is my most successful story.
STEP THREE: Make at least two choices (you can make as many as you like, but it will get out of control extremely quickly, so I recommend starting with two).
I have chosen:
- Take Redbeard’s sword and challenge his friend to a fight to show how fierce you are.
- Sneak up the other ladder and dive overboard—perhaps you can swim the rest of the way.
In order to tell the computer that I want them to be choices, I type them up like this, with double square brackets at the beginning and end.
[[Take Redbeard’s sword and challenge his friend to a fight to show how fierce you are.]]
[[Sneak up the other ladder and dive overboard—perhaps you can swim the rest of the way.]]
Twine instantly creates two new boxes; one for each choice. You can rearrange the boxes by clicking on them and dragging them around. Here’s the same page after I’ve rearranged them so I can see everything better:
To write the next sections, I double-click on either box and start typing the next bit of the story. Here I’ve written a bit of story and another pair of choices. Because I used [[ and ]] again, Twine has made two more boxes for me.
And the story is up and running!
Let’s stop here and see how it looks for a reader. Click once to highlight the original box (the one with your title or “Untitled Passage”) then go up to the menu and click on “Test from here”. It will automatically open a new window.
The choices are in bright text, and I can click on either of them. I choose the second choice.
If I click on either of these choices I get a blank screen, because I haven’t written them yet.
Note the “back” arrow on the top left of the black screen. If the reader changes their mind about a choice, they can go back.
Aaaand that’s it! That’s how you write a story in Twine! Congratulations! Here’s a kitten picture to celebrate.
BUT if you used your browser, you MUST save after each session, because if you don’t touch your story for seven days it will be deleted.
STEP FOUR: Saving your story.
Close your ‘testing’ browser window so you’re back to your usual blue screen. Click on “Build” in the upper menu, then “Publish to file” on the menu that appears below it.
Your story file will go to your downloads folder, and if you open it, it will look exactly like it does when you test it online (but it will not require an internet connection to open). You can email it to friends to read.
Writing Tip: Did you notice the typo in the very first choice in this story? “chellenge” should be “challenge”. The easiest way to fix it is in the very first box, here, where the choice is written:
It will automatically fix the typo in the title of the next box.
STEP FIVE: When you’re ready to learn more, go back to Twinery.org and pay attention to this section:
There are great articles for beginners on the left.
And, Twine comes in four “flavours”: Chapbook, Harlowe, Snowman, and SugarCube. Once you’re getting better at Twine, you’ll need to pick which one or ones suits you best. Use the “Twine Cookbook” to decide which one you want to try, then use the online guide on the right.
STEP SIX: Time to join the community.
The interactive fiction community is pretty great. It is usually very inclusive (especially of women and LGBTIQA+ people). One of the places people hang out is https://intfiction.org and it is definitely worth signing up and having a look around, then joining in the conversations. (They’re getting a lot of spam at the moment, so it may take a little while to prove you’re human.)
Welcome, and enjoy!
The next lessons will include writing with ChoiceScript (which is better than Twine at book-length stories), the Choice of Games forum (for users of ChoiceScript), and how to keep your many many branches under control.
IF Comp 2024: Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value
I forgot to explain last entry that the IF Comp is a big contest for Interactive Fiction stories that runs each year. I enter it often (ever since 2015), and love it. Partly because I usually do reasonably well, and mostly because the community is just SO GOOD. There are loads of people who gladly test games in the lead-up to the contest due date, and even more who help to judge games (and often write great, thorough reviews as well) during the six-week judging period. There’s even a secret section on the forum (which is here) where only authors who have entered that year can post and see posts.
Yes, I have entered this year. You can see and play all the games here.
Whenever I enter, I try to review five games. This one is the second one I’m trying out. Obviously I adore the title! The blurb is great too:
I’m surprised but pleased by the basic visuals and animation. They’re sweet. I don’t think they’re a custom thing; I think Inform or something can do things like that. But I could be wrong. And they’re not something I’ve played before, so they have novelty value for me. If every game had them, they’d be annoying.
I quickly reached the bad ending, which was just fine by me. The game is very merciful and simple, so it’s easy to explore here and there without feeling any pressure.
I laughed out loud at the line, “I keep forgetting there are only two other people in this village.” A perfect joke for the IF Comp, where a significant number of judges are also authors, who scrambled furiously to meet the deadline and probably had to massively cut down their original grand idea along the way.
And laughing even more at, “Sorry I didn’t hear you knock. I was busy alphabetising my potatoes.”
I’ll stop reporting every single line that makes me laugh, because I suspect now there may be a lot of them. (EDIT: There were.)
Pretty sure the maths question is wrong. But maybe I’m missing something.
I reached a REALLY COOL bad ending (and several that were just funny), and eventually reached the good ending.
This is an adorable, funny game that is simple, well executed, and highly enjoyable. Colour me impressed.
The Great Book Sort (Part 2)
Since one of my three followers is in hospital and needs more book recs, here’s…. some more book recs!
Favourites
“Clean Sweep” (and “Sweet in Peace”, “One Fell Sweep”, “Sweep of the Blade”, “Sweep with Me” and I haven’t read “Sweep of the Heart” yet) by Ilona Andrews (aka the Innkeeper series). Now here’s the interesting part: they’re not all THAT well written. They read like many many many mid-level paranormal romance authors (and, to be fair, a million billion times better than MANY error-riddled published books, especially self-published books). The plot is only more important than the inevitable love triangle (good), and the writing is fine and fundamentally flawless but not astonishing. I’ve read other books by the author and they went to the “Nah” pile—perfectly good books, which I might re-read if I run out of favourites. So why is this series a favourite? The heroine is an Innkeeper, with considerable powers… but she’s fundamentally an inter-species diplomat, and most of the books’ tensions come from two or more very different magical species coming into contact in or near her inn. So it’s all about making different cultures feel safe and comfortable and respected… and I LOVE THAT TO BITS.
Side note: The “Temeraire” series by Naomi Novik is absolutely brilliant but I can only re-read the first of the series (it’s all excellently written) because there are so many cases of cultural clashes where people are just awful at understanding each other. It’s too painful to ‘watch’ a second time.
“The City in the Middle of the Night” by Charlie Jane Anders is scifi that takes place on a planet where only a narrow band between the permanent day and permanent night is mild enough for human habitation. According to wikipedia it’s climate fiction, but I don’t see it that way. It is, amazingly (since I’m doing these reviews in alphabetical order by author, which is effectively random), another cross-cultural story.
“The Bear and the Nightingale”, “The Girl in the Tower”, and “The Winter of the Witch” by Katherine Arden (aka the Winternight Trilogy). If you want to know what I mean by “astonishing” writing—as opposed to Ilana Andrew’s “fundamentally flawless” writing—this is it. This is really, really it. The trilogy takes place in Northern Rus’/Russia. You will feel the deadly cold as you read. You will feel the corrosive hatred and unmet hope in the heart of the beautiful priest. You will feel the wild heart of our heroine, and the weight of an entire society that falls, always, on the shoulders of women. CONTENT WARNING: Women are constantly at risk of rape, and are also subject to arranged marriages against their will, which definitely includes spousal rape (the men are also married without always getting a choice over their partner, but they are clearly in a position of muuuuch more power than any woman). I am not against arranged marriage on the whole. There are several examples of happy arranged marriages in the book (and in real life). But there is at least one arranged marriage in this series that is incredibly awful, and a better man would have made different choices (yes, even in that historical setting—although there is room for interpretation on that score). The sexual violence is never explicitly described, and it is never used to break the spirit of a female character or to justify someone’s evil with a rape backstory. There are much more creative ways to break a person. . .
This series is magical, and it is unbelievably harsh, and it is exhilarating and tragic and more.
You, too, will weep for a nightingale.
Since I’ve already talked about the brilliant Naomi Novik AND I’ve talked about magical stories set in medieval Russia, I can’t stop there.
“Spinning Silver” by Naomi Novik. This is so good you guys. So so good. It is just as good as the Winternight Trilogy, and when I describe them they sound similar, thanks to the rich and bone-chilling selling of a magical medieval Russia. They even both have a female heroine who attracts the interest of an immortal man (for better or worse—but usually much much worse). But although rape is still threatened in this book, it is only a very slight possibility that is quickly and relatively easily fended off. In this story, the heroine is Jewish. So there is a whole other complicated and historical layer. And almost everyone in the story becomes a better person, which I love. That reminds me: another thing this book has in common with the Winternight trilogy is a protagonist who is incredibly honorable. Even when someone treats them incredibly badly, they do what is right. Even when they absolutely deserve a break they refuse to leave people to their fate. I love that.
“Uprooted” also by Naomi Novik. Completely different world. You’ve got a medieval-ish valley with a nasty wizard who takes a girl from the village every ten years. It’s always someone a bit extraordinary, so the heroine has grown up knowing that her best friend (who is beautiful, and kind, and clever) will be the girl taken. Except the wizard takes her instead. Content warning: there is an attempted rape (that ends rather badly for the attacker, which amuses me more the more times I read it). Again, it’s brilliantly written, including delving into the complicated feelings of the characters. How would you feel if your mother had long since accepted that you would be taken against your will as a teenager? How would you feel if, after all that, you weren’t chosen after all? And how would you feel if you were the friend of that girl that everyone knew was so, so special (unlike you)? And how would you feel, knowing your best friend would be taken and not being able to do anything to stop it? And how would you feel when you were taken instead?
And that’s only the start. I don’t want to say too much, but this book is amazing.
“A Deadly Education” (and “The Final Graduate” which ends on a major cliffhanger, and “The Golden Enclaves” once it comes out later this year) by Naomi Novik. All of the above brilliance, but absolutely hilarious too. This is a “magical school” story, but the survival rate of this particular educational institution is incredibly low. Our heroine is prophesied to become an evil sorceress. People dislike her instinctively, and she is severely hampered in her magical school by the fact that the school is basically pushing her to destroy the world and everyone in it (because it will automatically feed you the magic you’re best at—which in her case is all the most destructive killer spells). Worse, she just had her life saved by everyone’s favourite hero RIGHT when she had a conveniently impressive monster to kill. It is so funny, and strangely sweet, and exciting, and surprising. Naomi Novik was an impressive author when she wrote “Temeraire”, but she just keeps getting better and I hope she lives forever so I can keep reading her books.
“Sing the Four Quarters” by Tanya Huff. The heroine is a princess who gave up the throne to follow the call of her magical gifts. Then she did the one thing that an abdicated princess must never, never do: she got pregnant. What is worse, the man she slept with is currently in a dungeon accused of treason. He’s mostly a pretty face to her (she has a healthy and open long-term relationship with another woman, which is beautifully realised) but he’s no traitor.
Nah (aka good books that I might re-read someday, but just not really my thing)
“Fifth Quarter”, “No Quarter” and “The Quartered Sea” by Tanya Huff. Interestingly, the first book in the series is “Sing the Four Quarters” and I love it, and it’s right above this entry in my favourites pile. But in Book 2 we get a pair of new characters: siblings, and an incestuous love that continues to play a part in the rest of the series. They’re still really good books, but I strongly dislike both of the sibling characters and don’t want to spend time with them.
“Over the Woodward Wall” by A. Deborah Baker (aka Seanan Macguire, who will show up on the “Favourites” pile soon enough). This is well written (Macguire is a master writer) and pretty good, but aimed at a younger audience. I just found the two child protagonists mildly annoying.
“The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig. The midnight library is a place where you can go between life and death, and play out alternate possibilities. Sort of cool, but I want sentient books and mysteriously well-read monsters in my library setting, not a story about regret and life choices.
Nope
“The Dragon Lady” by Angelique S. Anderson. Magical steampunk, including dragons. Too many adjectives.
“Red Queen” by Victoria Aveyard. I don’t remember much about the book (apparently a bestseller), but there’s a lot of clumsy exposition in the first two pages.
“The Tangled Lands” by Paolo Bacigalupi (who had a book in the “Nah” section of Part 1) and Tobias S. Buckell. Really well written but too dark for me.
Writing Daze
Today is Friday, roughly halfway through school holidays. While I usually have at least an hour or so of work even in holiday weeks, this week I’ve had nothing. Nada. No-one.
This is sort of good, because it means there’s a lot less in my life to cause daily panic. On the other hand, an entire week of sitting looking at my carpet isn’t good for me either.
So I decided to double my writing quote this week – bringing it to forty hours. It’s been dreamy. On Monday I spent eight hours working on ONE CHAPTER. Is there anything more wonderful?
I’ve been craving some novel-editing work for a while, but knew I didn’t have the headspace for it. As a general rule, the longer I take to edit a small amount of work, the better my writing is going.
I’m running low on steam today, but right now I’m in my 36th hour, so the fact that I have any steam at all is remarkable. Today I’ll finish the chapter I’m on and do one more, then stop – probably until next Wednesday. That way, I’ll have built up plenty of enthusiasm just in time for the climax and end of the book. I have a bit of work on Monday and Tuesday, so I’ll work on short stories those days.
Today I also launched “Daylight” – my twitter tale mocking “Twilight” (and all emos*). I bet it’s more popular than “Worse Things Happen at Sea”, because it’s pure, unadulterated humour.
Altogether, a good week. And I’ve saved up a week’s worth of writing quota for when my husband and I visit China next year.
*An emo is basically a person who is proud of being depressed. It’s a recently-developed and HIGHLY unpopular subgroup.
Which person am I?
In the year 2000, I wrote my first book for children (before that it was all young adults). I was advised that children’s writing should be in third person, so I did that (despite the fact that I’m much, much better at first person). That book is now a trilogy – in fact the second book was originally written in first person, then I changed it to third person.
The second book has been giving me trouble for a while. It has some brilliant bits, but just doesn’t seem to work overall. I looked at the first chapter over the weekend (after realising I needed to write several more ‘training’ scenes into the fart book) and hated it.
So I’ve decided to rewrite the second book – in first person (which I now know children are perfectly fine with). This will not only end up a better book (because first person is something I’ve always done well), but it’ll make it a lot fresher for me to work with. I don’t think anything big will change – I’ll be looking at the original as I go along – but hopefully this will fix it. Of course this also means I’ll most likely have to change the (perfectly adequate) first and third books too.
Best not to think about that.
Staplegunning the plot
Ben pointed out that the fart book I wrote contained (a) farting, and (b) romance – which don’t suit the same age group. After questioning several of my students (between 8 and 14 years of age) it was clear that he was right.
My problem wasn’t that the romance didn’t suit the age group (8-12) that I was going for, but that the farts didn’t suit them (my two eight-year olds laugh uproariously at the word “bum” but my 11-year old thinks the book is dumb). So the romance (second-biggest plot) is gone – the girl in question is entirely deleted. I’m left with a much shorter book (which is necessary for the younger age) and a lot of holes that need to be staplegunned together.
It took me several days to deal with having written a “book” that will be about 7000 words (50,000 is a short book). I’m over that concept now, but struggling to get my head around the “new” book. I sit at my computer with the file open, and my body instinctively twists away so I’m not looking at it (then I go and write a blog entry 🙂 ).
Trash
As is obvious from the last entry, I’m one of those people who gets high on early drafts, and somewhat carried away (“This is brilliant! I’ll make millions!”)
The crit group has given me a little more on “Farting my ABCs”. There are extra words and phrases, some grammar issues, and “more depth would be good”. The extra words and phrases are what the long breaks are for – so I can actually SEE them. But these aren’t major flaws – or difficult to fix, given my usual editing process.
At the moment I’m also editing “The Monster Apprentice” – the first book in my kids’ trilogy. I’m so impressed with myself over “Farting my ABCs” that “The Monster Apprentice” feels dull. I’m thinking about throwing away the whole trilogy. But as I type that, I know it’s silly. Not because of the hundreds of hours I’ve spent working on it, but because of the way publishers react to it. Clearly there’s something worth reading in there, I just can’t see it today.
My super-critical friend has read “Farting” and says he’ll probably send me his notes today. How exciting! (I decided I needed to be brought down, and that should work neatly. I also figured two large non-editing gaps should be enough; one after this round and one when it’s at a professional assessor).
Some years ago, I was delighted to find out Douglas Adams was dead. I knew he was brilliant; way more brilliant than me – and it was depressing how much more brilliant he was. But when I discovered he was dead, I realised he couldn’t ever get any better – and I could.
Right now I am reading Cassandra Clare’s “Mortal Intruments” series (the first book is “City of Bones”). She is everything I was to be as a writer – funny, scary, intriguing, intelligent. I love her characters and hate her guts 🙂
Sweet, sweet vanity
On Friday I finished my eleventh book. (I’ve thrown five away, and most of the rest are set in the same fantasy world – Rahana.)
This book is different. This book isn’t about love, heroism, or even imagination or wonder. It’s about farts.
It’s short – I didn’t think my mojo was up to much – barely over 10,000 words (which is quite normal for the 8-12 age range). It’s humour – which made me a little nervous (humour is usually hard to write, especially consistently over a whole book/whole readership), but I’ve sold several humour short stories, so it wasn’t too big a leap.
I’ve tested chapter one on two eight-year olds I tutor (one reluctant reader and one dyslexic). They both found it funny, and chose to continue reading my book over reading other books (which have pictures). That bodes VERY well. I left chapters two and three with the first eight-year old, and left chapters 1-3 with an eleven-year old (a perfectly-good reader). I’m curious to see whether they actually read them. If they do, I’ll be seriously. . . surprised.
However.
I’ve also sent the first three chapters to an online critique group. The four or five people who commented were overwhelmingly positive. I just posted the rest of it, and a sixth person described the whole thing as “Brilliant, with a few minor grammar issues”. My conclusion is that either it’s a great leap forward in my writing (particularly regarding marketability, which is the main thing), or the critique group is rubbish. I’m fairly sure it’s the latter.
But what if this is it? What if I sell it to a major publisher first go? What if it actually sells well?
I’m so puffed up with the crit group’s flattery that I feel like sending it off quickly. That’s dumb. What I should do is:
1. get comments from the crit group for a week or two
2. make those changes
3. give it a “final” go-through
4. leave it for one or two months
5. edit again
6. get my real-life friends to critique it (one of whom once told me – incredibly apologetically – that a book of mine had no good points whatsoever. It was then nearly published by a really big publisher, who clearly has lower standards).
7. re-edit
8. send it to a pro crit agency
9. edit again, and if I have to make big changes I should leave it for another month or two before another “final” edit
10. THEN send it to a publisher.
But for now, visions of mass publication are dancing in my head.
Felicity Banks 