Choose Your Own Autobiography!™

Summary:

Choose from 77 possible endings!

Choose Your Own Autobiography!™

ToastGoats 19 Aug 2020 17:38

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Genre: Drama/Emotional, Misc

Elevator Pitch:

• The SCP is a Choose Your Own Adventure book, completely blank until opened by someone opens it, it will then generate an interactive story whose length depends on the age of the user and the choices the user makes.
• Upon activation, the book will begin at between ages 2-5, whenever a first conscious choice can be made.
• Each choice will instruct the reader to flip to a specific page to continue the story.
• Upon reaching one of the endings generated by the SCP, the reader will immediately adopt the traits described in the ending.
• Physical effects do not extend beyond the reader, but the SCP has an effect in which all memories of the pre-ending reader will be forgotten and replaced with artificial memories of the "post ending" reader.
• This affects anyone who knew the reader or was a character in the story.

+ show block

Central Narrative: The story will be told mostly though experiment logs, describing the physical and psychological effects of reading the SCP to the end.

I do not plan on attempting any unique format screws, but I do plan on demonstrating the effects of the SCP through a redacted portion meant to describe a reader of the SCP, with the reader listed as their post-reading counterpart.

Some logs will also describe the psychological effects of having one's identity entirely changed almost instantly, as well as the physical effects of getting a "bad" ending.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: I plan on having a portion of the first experiment log crossed out to demonstrate that the initial experiments had a psychological effect on the researchers, as mentioned before.

Additional Notes: I have yet to write an SCP to completion, but I'm still attempting to find a nice balance between story and concept! Thank you for your time!

Also, importantly, I have yet to see if this concept has been done before. I didn't know what tags to look for so if this has been done before I apologize!

As a courtesy to our readers on mobile devices, please collapse long posts. ~Zyn

Last edited on 29 Aug 2020 22:01 by ToastGoats Show more

Re: Choose Your Own Autobiography!™

KaraKatt 19 Aug 2020 17:54

[Placeholder o' Doom!!! Will crit within 24 hours]

Hmm, you have a well thought out idea here. I like the idea of a CYOA book just completely fucking up someones life, but I think this could be too long? Like, you know what you want to do, but I feel like it can get repetitive and over stay its welcome. Which, this could be done well, it just depends on how you want to spin this. How many bad endings are there? Since you said they didn't span to other people, how do you make them different from one another without including others?

Good luck with this, feel free to PM me to take another look or to crit a draft after greenlights!

Last edited on 19 Aug 2020 20:13 by KaraKatt Show more

Re: Choose Your Own Autobiography!™

Naveil 29 Aug 2020 21:56

[Placeholder from IRC] ^{y'know, I got to this faster than I expected}

So, the core anomaly here is really nice. I feel there's some genuine psychological horror to be sought after, but it ultimately depends on how you play the narrative.

The narrative, although a very obvious continuation from the elevator, feels too… unfocused? for my liking. Like, I don't feel like you're dealing with the butt of the emotion, which a person completely losing themselves, and are instead focusing on a before-and-after scenario, which feels less impactful by comparison.

I plan on having a portion of the first experiment log crossed out to demonstrate that the initial experiments had a psychological effect on the researchers, as mentioned before.

I… don't really get the point of this? Like, I get it, but I can't see this working out as well as you hope in practice.

My advice here would be to cut down on the narrative and create something concise and focused. The reader doesn't need multiple cases to understand the severity and feel the emotion. I think a single case, focusing on a single character that clearly loses themselves throughout the article, would make for far more impactful storytelling. Remember, a narrative is far more than a string of events that just happen. It should make you feel emotion, whatever than emotion that may be. With that in mind, keep developing, and feel free to give me a shout if you want another look.

Last edited on 29 Aug 2020 23:21 by Naveil Show more