Several people expressed interest in my process for my Choose Your Own Adventure story and so I did this little write-up.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Where Paths Diverge started as a normal story idea. I had been talking to belovedcreation about the fake married trope and why we enjoyed it. That had gotten me thinking about how I could do the trope with Captain Swan but within canon/canon divergence. I toyed with the idea of placing it in S3 in Storybrooke as a variation on Snow's curse but ultimately felt that placing it at the end of S2 made more sense because of where CS was in their relationship at that point. Placing it there gave me the chance to recreate the growth we saw in Neverland while using the fake married trope.
I started working on the story I had some exciting scenes planned (like the corset removal) and knew the basic plot. Then I hit a random follower number and asked for ideas to celebrate. Again belovedcreation jumped in as my evil muse with the idea of a Choose Your Own Adventure story. I thought that was brilliant and started figuring out the details of how it could work.
I thought out different story arcs and decision points plus how to do the voting. I guessed it would be about 6 chapters. Obviously I underestimated how long some scenes would be and failed to account for important character beats that needed to happen. I also added some decision points that weren't originally in my plan and removed others.
With each chapter I watched with glee as people reblogged and explained their vote or flailed about the result of the last vote. I felt like I got so much feedback with every chapter and I learned a lot about audience. I enjoyed seeing if people caught on to the clues I was dropping for where each decision would lead. I would watch the votes come in and sometimes be genuinely surprised at what people weirdest thing about telling this story was the abrupt ending of each chapter. I often found myself wanting to keep writing because they were such cliffhangers! It made for weird but fun pacing.
Below I will go through each chapter, the voting percentage and my ideas for the story if the vote went another way. Hopefully you find it an interesting addition to this crazy writing experiment. I think some might be disappointed that I didn't have a more elaborate plan or a flow chart. I had thought about that but didn't want to get to deep into plotting out things I would never write (because I probably WOULD write them!). I worked instead with general ideas/ plot points I wanted to include with each path and expanded if/when that path was taken. I tried to make each option fun so that no matter what the readers picked I would have a good time with it. Hopefully that makes sense!
Again thanks for being along for the ride! I'll put the rest under the cut to save a dash and in case people haven't read the story and don't want to be spoiled.
Chapter 1
Options: Tell Snow and David about Storybrooke OR Keep it all a secret
94% voted to keep it a secret.
I was not surprised that people chose to have Emma and Killian keep the secret and extend the need for them to continue to be fake married. This was kind of a gimme/trial chapter and I already had Chapter 2 started before the voting closed. If the vote had gone the other way it would have been the first dead end resulting in Killian refusing to tell the truth and Emma being confined for her crazy ramblings.
Options: Go to the tournament OR stay at the castle
57% voted to go to the tournament
This was one of the closest votes and I remember being surprised that so many wanted to stay at the castle. If Emma and Hook had stayed at the castle they would have maintained their married cover. Emma's lack of knowledge of court etiquette would have lead to Hook helping her and giving her etiquette lessons. Emma would have discovered that Rumple was being held prisoner in the castle dungeon and the reader would have had to decide if she told Hook or if she took him away to the tournament to keep him from finding out. Telling Hook would have resulted in him killing Rumple and becoming the Dark One and a dead end. Going to the tournament would have brought the story back in line (with adjustments) with the story that was written.
Options: Hook punches Neal OR Emma drags him away keeping them from fighting.
71% voted to punch Neal.
I felt a little bad about this one. Like I tricked you into getting KIllian killed. I did try in the chapter to emphasis that something was very different and dangerous about Neal in this reality but I don't' think that was enough to deter people who wanted Killian to give him a good wallop. As you know this decision got Killian killed (chapter 4A) so we rewound.
Options: Emma POV or Killian POV
66% opted to switch to Killian's POV
I like switching POV stories and wanted to give the reader another thing to vote on so I added this decision in. If we had stayed in Emma's POV the events would have stayed the same but we would have missed the Captain Cobra bonding and the insights into Killian's thoughts. We would have gained Emma grabbing his hand when he called out for Milah and Bae in his sleep. Plus some mumbled sleepy words from him about the beanstalk and feeling guilty for liking Emma (essentially getting some of his POV through sleeptalking). We also would have had a Daddy Charming moment and Emma finding out Ashley is Cinderella. The decision about Henry having his memory would still have been the next decision but the chapter would have been longer ending with them tracking Henry down after Snow won the tournament.
Options: Henry remembers or Henry has false memories.
63% voted for Henry to remember
I was really nervous about this vote because Henry was supposed to be the one who had brought everyone to this land but if he didn't remember then it would be very difficult to get that across. I would have needed to change how the magic worked and Regina or Ingrid might have been needed to fill in gaps. If Henry had false memories it would have been very angst laden as Emma realized that being his step-sister was not enough for her. Henry would have mentioned Emma and Killian's (false) love story and Killian would have still told it to Emma but without Henry present. All Henry related scenes (the TLK attempt, the interrupting in the library, the sailing, ect) would have been removed making the whole thing much more Captain Swan centric. We would have still had some sweet Captain Cobra moments as Henry would have liked him and looked up to him and it would still have reminded Hook of Bae and pushed him toward giving up his revenge but lots of stuff would have shifted. Looking at it now I probably shouldn't have had this decision point cause I wasn't really prepared for it to go the other way!
Options: Hook fights Neal or Hook forfeits
79% voted for Hook to fight.
This was fun because so many people expressed fear at killing Killian again if he fought Neal and quite a few people seemed excited by the idea.
If Hook had forfeited the tournament then Neal would have won by default and claimed Emma's favor (i.e. kiss). Which would have sucked for all of us. Neal would have pushed the kiss into sexual assault territory and Emma would have kneed him. When he stood up in a rage Killian would have been there with a sword to his neck and then Midas's men would have captured him. There would have been a party that resulted in Emma and Killian being encouraged to kiss (so either way I made sure we got a forced public kiss!) after the kiss they would have been forced to hang on each others arms until Snow would have whisked Emma away. The end of the chapter would have been the same with Henry arriving to try TLK.
Chapter 7Options: TLK breaks the curse or Henry and Emma's kiss does nothing.
91% voted for the TLK not to work.
I was surprised at how overwhelming this vote was. I personally don't like the TLK solution to things and was happy to find others seemed to agree. If the TLK had been successful our heroes would have ended up back in Storybrooke. Everyone would have remembered the AU. David and Hook would have had a serious discussion about intentions and Neal would have been very apologetic. Emma and Hook would have had an awkward conversation about what had happened which would have ended with a sweet promise of a date in the future and the story would have ended. It was a dead end I don't think anyone was interested in exploring even if they did get a rewind.
Options: The answer is with an old man in the woods or a sorceress on an island.
75% voted for the sorceress
I didn't make it clear but this was really a choice between the Apprentice or Ingrid and I failed to consider people's enthusiasm for CS to go sailing! Seeking out the Apprentice would have included riding a horse together (no road where they were going and Emma can't ride), sleeping under the stars and talking about how they are different in the EF. Them huddling together for warmth (because of course) and waking up in each others arms. Henry (or someone else) would have still crashed the party and when they got to the Apprentice he would have asked penetrating questions (no truth ice cream) that would have revealed Henry as the cause of it all. Questions about why Emma and Killian ended up married would have the Apprentice explaining how magic works on the unconscious desires. They would have all boomeranged back to Storybrooke the same way, via wish, and Emma and Hook would have had a conversation under the stars about unconscious desires and kissed (because of course).
Options: Emma arrives alone Emma arrives with family in tow
68% voted for Emma to arrive alone.
I kind of wanted a big family trip on the Jolly Roger and I was surprised more people didn't want to continue with the fake married shenanigans. A vote for Emma's family would have included Snow, David, and Henry coming along for the ride. Their presence on the boat would mean Emma and Hook would need to keep up the charade of being married and share his cabin. Snow and Hook would have had a lovely chat. Emma would have woken up in the middle of he night and realized Hook wasn't there and gone on deck. They would have still had a conversation under the stars about why he was helping them. The next day they would have arrived at the island and the decision would have been who left the ship to approach the sorceress. The events would have been more or less the same from there but would have changed depending on who was on the island.
Options: Henry is the stowaway or Anna is the stowaway
64% voted for Henry to stowaway
This was one of those votes where I thought most would go for Henry so I didn't give a ton of thought to what would happen with Anna. If Anna was there we would have missed all the Swan Believer and Captain Cobra feels! Anna would have created the need for Emma and Hook to pretend to be married again which would have been fun. Anna would have talked a lot about how in love Hook and Emma were and how much she admired their relationship. Anna would have had the necklace instead of Henry because he had given it to her at the tournament and the discovery of the AU being Henry's fault would have happened after they returned to Storybrooke.
Options: Emma eats the ice cream cone or Killian eats the ice cream cone
53% voted for Killian to eat the cone
To be honest the truth ice cream was not planned from the beginning but became a thing when I realized that these two idiots needed an Echo Cave equivalent in this story. I liked that this was a close vote. Personally I wasn't as interested in writing Killian eating the cone as I felt the show and Echo Cave did the best possible job anyone could do with forced confessions! But I did my best to make my version fun and unique. It's probably not clear in the story but I was always working from the idea that Ingrid remembered everything because she wasn't part of the original curse. I had her use Emma's name when nobody had said it and I had her act familiar and make oblique references. Originally I had wanted the last chapter to result in Emma blasting Ingrid with magic in defense of Killian and the pain of the ice cream. But I could never get the scene to work and inkyd00 threw some amazing ideas my way about Emma eating the cone so I changed my mind and gave everyone the dead end. So instead the decision to have Killian eat the cone resulted in Ingrid getting the drop on Emma and giving them all false memories. The story ended with them sailing into the sunset and the story rewound.
Options: Emma eats the ice cream cone or they refuse to eat the ice cream cone
64% voted for Emma to eat the cone
This was one of those times I was pretty sure that I knew where the vote would go so my other idea wasn't well thought out. If they had refused to eat the cone there would have been a confrontation with Ingrid and Emma's magic would have come into play like I had wanted originally. She would have unconsciously shielded Killian and Henry and there would have been talk by Ingrid of how powerful she was. Then, beaten, Ingrid would have explained that she suspected it was all created by wish magic and the truth would have come out.
As it was Emma ate the cone and the chapter ended up being much longer and much more in-depth but ultimately I was very pleased with how it turned out!
So that's it! I hope you liked this peek into the writing process of Where Paths Diverge and if you have any other questions feel free to ask!