Writing Monstrous Mythology

Uploaded a video about writing Monstrous Mythology

Monstrous mythology was my second adventure gamebook.

I had read a number of fighting fantasy books in the months in-between Publishing monstrous manor and planning this one and I learnt a lot about structure and flow. I also decided I wanted to try to implement a simple scoring system. Letting the player do some of the work makes it easier to plan the book but also increases it's interactivity so it's win win.

And here I have to make a confession. I never played a full gamebook properly using dice or scoring systems and I have frequently used the multiple fingers in pages method of reading just in case I met an untimely end. I was and still am a reader as opposed to a gamer. The mechanics got in the way of the story for me.

I do appreciate that lots of people play gamebooks because they enjoy the mechanics of it which is great and that's why I decided to include a scoring system in this book but I probably made it a bit too easy. I know there are readers that relish the challenge of beating a difficult gamebook, however I wanted everyone to be able to experience the whole adventure rather then getting stuck in one place for little reward.

I decided to use a mythological setting because I wanted to do something different than the standard d&d adventure. Luckily I found some great artwork that helped to influence the planning of the book.

Again it was a great learning experience and hopefully a noticeable improvement over my first book.

Until next time.

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Martyn Cruise, Author

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