How to Write an Interactive Story using Microsoft Word links

Always wanted to write an adventure game or Choose-Your-Own-Adventure but get bogged down with HTML? There's an easy way to make an interactive adventure game that you can email to your friends, just by using Microsoft Word.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer
• Microsoft Word

1. Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure novels? Write a story that gives your readers lots of choices. Part of the fun of interactive stories is that you can use the effective but underappreciated second person voicing. For example:
   
   You're at the store. Do you
   (A) Buy some tomatoes
   (B) Buy some cookies
   (C) Talk to the small green man whose spaceship has just landed in the middle of the floor.

2. Insert several page breaks. On the next pages, write what happens if you choose A, B, and C, and so forth. Thus:
   
   A) You have bought some tomatoes. A small green man comes over and steals them. Do you
   (a) Talk to the alien
   (b) Buy more tomatoes
   (c) Throw some cabbage at the alien.
   
   Then make more page breaks and write what would happen if you gave chose a, b, and c, and so on.

3. As their options multiply with each decision they make, so does your work load. So start killing off options and writing options that loop you back to pages you've already written.

4. To make your story point-and-clickable, first you need to go to every single page and give it a name. With your cursor at the beginning of each page, go to Insert-Bookmark. Name the bookmark something which references the option that leads to it, for example, Aa_TalktoAlien.
   
   Note: Word won't accept spaces in Bookmark names.

5. Highlighting your option choices in your body, like (a) Talk to the alien. Click on Insert-Hyperlink-Bookmark. It will become a light-up link, and when you click on it it will jump you right to your bookmarked page, the next part of the story. (Depending on your version of Word, you may have to hit Control before clicking.)

6. Check it over thoroughly when you're done, because nothing's worse than when your best friend is playing your story and they're about to sign that Peace Treaty for the Whole Universe and they click on a link and nothing happens. Play it in Print Layout View to hide what's coming next.

7. Add graphics! You have a couple of options. You can make drawings in Paint. Just save your image in Paint, and then from Word click Insert-Picture-From File and import it. You can also add real pictures and other images the same way. Don't go overboard, though, because MS Word doesn't handle images very well. Keep images small and save often.

8. You can also use the Drawing toolbar, which lets you make shapes. Bring it up by right-clicking on your toolbar and selecting it. An advantage of this is that your readers will be able to move the shapes around, and with a little thought you can work simple minigames and puzzles into your MS Word story.

Tips & Warnings

• Unlike most games, Microsoft Word documents can be easily emailed around to your friends, so that everyone knows how brilliant you are.
• Your audience will probably want the most interaction for the least amount of text. A good guideline is to keep each part on the story in a couple of paragraphs on top of each page.
• Put in hidden pages, like Easter Eggs, which are in the document but aren't linked to by any page. If someone goes to the trouble to scroll through all the pages, they'll find it.
• Don't be limited by the more traditional forms of this sort of storytelling. MS Word interactive stories can be a great way to work through decisions, consider issues, and play around with what-ifs.
• Make sure you're in Print Layout View.
• Remember not to sit at your computer too long--avoid eye strain, muscle fatigue, etc. by getting up and running around sometime.
• Save frequently to avoid lost work, especially when working with pictures.

[jull14]

on 7/9/2009 Excellent article. To me it is very important to read articles at ehow specially yours, because I learned each day a new idea to make my life easier, thanks for writing this wonderful article. Keep up the good work.

[happyprofessor]

on 6/22/2008 Thanks for the direction. I've been using Word for about two years, but only for short things. You've motivated me to actually go out and get a decent book on the subject instead of relying upon 'Help' or something else. I did not know about many of these features and they were never presented to me. (I have Word as a part of MS Word Perfect 12 Office Suite. I haven't dared touch Word Perfect.