'Choose Your Own' workshop

Writing two of the books in the Choose Your Own Ever After series for Hardie Grant was fantastic, but also very difficult. Because of the way they’re written, they require incredible plotting. They are quite unlike anything else I’ve ever written. More like plotting a TV series than a book, 'Choose Your Own' books require forcing characters to make hard decisions that will take them down multiple paths. In both my books there are eight different endings, and the paths continue to split at each decision.

As well as getting students to practically develop a 'Choose Your Own' story, I also get them to start thinking about their own difficult decisions – will I specialize in art or sport? Will I go to the party with one friend and risk hurting the feelings of another? Through a writing workshop, there is great scope to explore all sorts of serious and hard topics. Then by using a worksheet to breakdown the plot of the story, I would guide the students to write their own outline for a 'Choose Your Own' story.

• How to plot a multi-ending story
• What is good plotting?
• Why does plotting matter?
• How to break down the dramatic turning points in a story
• How I plotted and wrote my two Choose Your Own books
• What sorts of decisions do we get our characters to make in order to build alternate story paths?