Creating IF with Twine in Writing Courses

Twine helps me teach students about storytelling. Twine is a low-code tool for writing interactive fiction (IF) and prototyping video game plots. Twine generates HTML and JavaScript, but users do not need to learn a lot about coding to create a good story in Twine. 

Think of Twine as the tool for interactive “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories. 

When I was young, there were no storylines behind most video games. Remember, we were playing Pong, Combat, and Space Invaders on our Atari VCS 2600 consoles attached to small black and white televisions. The Atari CX40 controllers remain symbols of our youth. 

And then came a different type of game, one that relied on storytelling. Technically, text adventures were created about the same time that the Atari consoles hit the shelves at department stores (1977). These complex story-driven games were coded by college students using minicomputers and mainframes at universities. (Okay, “complex” is being generous.)

The era of 8-bit home computing brought text adventures to the masses. 

Infocom games were popular among the kids fortunate enough to have access to home computers. From 1980 to 1982, we saved up for floppy disks of Zork I, II, and III. Throughout the 1980s, Infocom published dozens of great stories. The genre came to be known as interactive fiction. Among the great authors were Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Steve Meretzky, and Douglas Adams. The IF version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy went beyond the book of the same title.

Forty-five years later, video games feature detailed stories, cinematic graphics, and controllers that require the dexterity of a ring-tailed lemur. 

Thankfully, the IF community continues to exist. 

What does any of this have to do with writing?

Most avid young readers have found books that compel them onward from scene to scene and chapter to chapter. Video games do the same: they compel the player to wonder, “What happens next?” 

Great writers know we’re naturally curious. We want to know how things turn out. We hate cliffhangers! TV shows go to commercial breaks right before a major revelation. Book chapters end without resolution, too.

When students create Twine stories, they naturally discover that the best stories employ that desire for resolution. 

Part of my planning, and a technique used by others, is to use notecards to map out possible paths for characters and the plotline. I still use paper cards, but I also use Scrivener for writing and its virtual corkboard of notecards. Twine’s interface looks like a notecard board. 

In Twine, cards are called “passages,” which are visually connected by lines that illustrate the paths created by the author. This is similar to flowcharts for programming, since that’s what IF is: programming. I tend to view coding as writing… and writing as coding stories. Twine complements my thought process. The resulting mind maps work well for many of my students, too.

What about the images and sound?

A colleague asked me how I view the inclusion of sound, images, and other media within Twine stories. “Is it really writing if students avoid words?”

Books have included pictures long before movable type was created. Wood blocks and engravings included images. The illuminated manuscripts of the early Church are works of art. Books as little more than text is relatively “new” and was propelled more by publishers saving money than anything readers were demanding. 

Include images. Integrate them into the story! Back to the future, time. 

And why shouldn’t books include some sounds or animation? Sure, books rarely made noise, but I’ve seen plenty of old books with pop-up effects, sliders, and other cool enhancements. My daughters loved books that were more than words and motionless pictures. Actually, my wife has several elaborate pop-up/interactive books, including editions of the first three books in the Harry Potter series. (Sadly, that’s apparently all that will be produced by MinaLima.)

Why I Will Keep Using Twine (or Any IF Tool)

Students need to write, but we have made writing boring and disconnected from how students (and all of us) experience stories. Let students experiment. Video games are written. Movies are written. And, even today, audio dramas are written. Why place restrictions on how students can tell stories? (I’m all for printed works being creatively designed, too.)

Twine isn’t modern or fancy, because I’m not trying to teach video game development. Still, for more advanced students, there’s no reason we couldn’t use Ren’Py or Tuesday.js for storytelling. 

If students need to write academic papers, they will learn how to master the formatting. I’d rather they get excited and learn that even nonfiction and reports should tell exciting stories.