When I was little, I spent my summers in Richmond, VA with my dad. Our weekdays revolved around the pool, with tennis lessons tucked in between early-morning and late-afternoon swim team practices. Painfully shy, I avoided most other activities by constantly escaping into an ever-present library book. Shocking, I know. Every Saturday, we made the trek to the Henrico County Public Library, where I borrowed books by the armload.
My favorites were the tattered Choose Your Own Adventure paperbacks. If you’re a fellow Gen-X-er, you almost certainly remember these! Written in second person, they let the reader decide which action(s) the protagonist should take… and I thought they were the most incredible stories ever.
At the end of every chapter, the main character faced a major decision.
- Do you use the mysterious key that was delivered to you in an unmarked box to open the secret door in the creepy basement of the house where you’re staying? Turn to page 36.
- Or do you hide the key and instead meet your friend Sylvia behind the zoo’s herpetarium, where she has something incredible to show you? Turn to page 52.
Every choice branched into another path until you reached one of many possible endings. I adored the ability to control the narrative, to control my destiny as the character in the story world. I flagged each choice I made so I could backtrack later, studying what might have happened if I’d chosen differently.
So, What Does This Have to Do with Writing?
Lately, I’ve been circling the climax of my own mystery novel. I’m a planner by nature, and back in 2015 I mapped out the entire book, scene by scene, before shelving it when life took over and I lost the thread. Two years ago, I dusted it off, and the characters came rushing back as if they’d never stopped talking. Don’t you love when that happens?
Since then, my style has evolved. Years of grant writing taught me to ditch filler, trim sentences, and get to the point faster. Of course, a downside to that meant that many of the scene’s I’d already drafted and once loved felt flat (or downright bored me—ugh!)… and worst of all, the character I had originally cast as the killer, I wasn’t sure was actually still the killer.
Talk about throwing a wrench in the works.
So I’ve been working to keep everything from grinding to a halt these last couple of months.
I know I’m not alone here. This is a problem that so many writers have at this stage, across genres, not just mysteries and suspense/thrillers. It can happen in the first draft and in the fourth draft, alike. It just happens. It’s a sign that you care. You want to write the best story possible. The key is not to give up, but to give yourself the space to have fun and play around with the possibilities.
So what do I do?
Build your own Choose Your Own Adventure
I’m in the process of outlining three different endings to my novel now, casting different characters in the role of “killer”, just to see if one is a better fit than my original plan. And yes, it feels as strange as it sounds. It’s also kinda fun. Remember, our characters aren’t real people! They don’t really feel pain. They don’t really hurt others or cause chaos. It’s easy enough to cut a scene, shuffle them, or delete… and that may be just what it takes to uncover gold.
So the next time you feel stuck, try sketching two or three alternate outcomes for your scene or character. And if you do, I’d love to hear what surprised you.
An interesting article about the CYOA series I stumbled across: The Strong National Museum of Play. “YOU and YOU ALONE: The Story of the Choose Your Own Adventure Generation”. https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/you-and-you-alone-the-story-of-the-choose-your-own-adventure-generation/
Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox, along with updates and announcements!
Hi, I’m Rebecca Davis, Author Accelerator certified book coach, mystery lover, and former research administrator. I traded grant proposals for plot twists and now I get to help writers find their way through the maze of story and structure. I live on the South Carolina coast, and believe every story needs both a map and a little mystery. Explore Coaching Services →