How to write a Journey

Created by EX.CO ・ May 11, 2020

Journey is a choose-your-own-adventure style experience which you can use to:

Tell choose your own adventure stories
Provide accurate product recommendations
Deliver a sophisticated personality quiz

The key to this format is planning, but this guide will give you the fundamentals of creating with the product.

Firstly, create a compelling title, and set the scene for your experience.

Add another step, and write the answers for that step

Once you've done that, return to step 1 and make sure you link the answer to the right subsequent step

Now, you've successfully linked steps one and two, so time to add a third step and write decision three and its answers. This third step can reflect the decision that was made previously

Now return to step two and link two with three

Tips

The simplest way to construct a Journey is by building one path at a time
That means, as you go through, you will usually only be linking one of the answers at once
Once you have completed your first path, go back to the beginning and start completing the next.

Of course, not every path has to have many steps. You can introduce a sudden death - or sharp stop - for certain decisions

You do this by toggling to results and filling in the results text and image, before going back to make sure it is linked correctly.

Be careful about how many sharp stops you include - you want your reader to feel like there is a way to successfully navigate their way to the end. Too many dead ends and they'll be too frustrated to finish.

Tips

Not every question has to represent a decision which splits the path further
You can include slides that just move the narrative forward
Or you can ask questions that don't factor into the final result, which frees up the kinds of questions you can ask

Every time you finish a path, go back to the last uncompleted decision and make sure every answer has a subsequent step linked to it.