What's that they say about old dogs and new tricks?

The Guardian Of The Papers! Actually, he usually just sits on them...

With my second gamebook almost ready for publication, I have a big pile of A2 papers which documents its evolution. Floor plans, flow charts and random scribbles that made sense at the time - they're all there! Each person has their own way of working and mine just happens to be the old-fashioned way. Until now...

'Nightshift' is currently being translated for the Bulgarian market and my contact mentioned that it would've been nice to have had a map to work with. Now, I'm pretty sure that he wasn't envisaging my scruffy and indecipherable scrawls but rather something more hi-tech. Which I how I started working with Twine.

Key word there is 'started', so (A) I'm new to it and (B) I'm a total Luddite. This isn't going to be a comprehensive guide to producing a gamebook using this software!

But for others who are considering dipping their toe into Twine, I can share this:

It's free to download, relatively user-friendly and I quite quickly generated a map. Point being, if I can do it, anyone can!

And you can move your boxes around! This was particularly exciting for me!

Looks good, eh? I also added notations to show where 'hidden' passages were and paths that terminate.

Now, I am just scratching the surface with Twine - it can do a lot more. It will test and play the map, which should highlight any orphan or incorrect routes, and if you're so inclined, you can write your entire gamebook within it, then publish it (and I'll stop there before it becomes obvious that I don't know what I'm talking about).

I get how some writers could really click with Twine and use it for the whole kaboodle but I certainly won't be doing that. I need to 'see' what's happening in my story, so I'll be sticking to my floor plans and hand-drawn maps. You know what they say about leopards and spots...