Assignment 5 - Inklewriter

Inklewriter is a free web-based tool that allows users to create interactive stories. I grew up loving those Choose Your Own Adventure books, so I wanted to give writing my own a try. This type of storytelling allows the reader to be an active participant in the story, having control over the direction in which the story goes. This also seems like a fun tool to use with students, since using this is a good way to mix computer skills with creative writing. I was thinking that perhaps I could assign this to my chemistry students to examine and write about a particular chemistry phenomenon. Or they could write an interactive story involving at least 2 different chemistry phenomena woven into the story. The phenomena don't have to be the point of the story, but their use of the 2 phenomena should be scientifically sound and go along with known laws of chemistry. In other words, the things that happen in their stories should happen in a way that we would expect based on known scientific principles. For example, let's say a student wants to write a story about a person accused of murder. Through a few twists and turns through interactive storytelling, the person can either be found guilty or innocent, depending on which options the reader chooses. One direction may lead the reader to find out that the person is innocent because it would be scientifically impossible for the person to have committed the crime based on the evidence presented. The other direction may lead the reader to find the person guilty. So, the main focus wouldn't necessarily to be an explanation of scientific principles but would be a part of the story.

Screenshot of Inklewriter in "Write" Mode

For this assignment, I decided to write a story about a fictional student taking our INTE 5340 course. Using the website was relatively straightforward. Coming from someone whose computer skills aren't terribly advanced, I found Inklewriter to be extremely user friendly. You begin by creating a login. I read from other users that if you do not do this first, your story cannot be saved and shared. So create a login first!

It is easy to go overboard with all the different directions the story could go. With each section, you can either join it to an existing paragraph, add options or end the story there. Story writing can quickly go out of control and in many different directions if you add too many options at each section. And you can easily lose track of loose ends, meaning that you have an option that doesn't lead to anywhere.

Once you are done creating your story, you click on "share" and receive a link to your story. When you click on the link, it looks like this.

Screenshot of Inklewriter Interactive Story

Want to give my story a shot? Click here.