Build a Branching Story

This page shows how to build a story with choices in Story Map, using the Story Inspector and the canvas. You don’t need to type any markup: FlowBoard writes it into the cards for you. Story Map is available on Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Start from an example

1. Open Story Map.
2. Right-click the column the story should go into (on iPad and iPhone, touch and hold it), and choose Add branching story.

FlowBoard adds seven connected cards: an opening that starts the story, a scene, a Choice (“What do you tell Mara?”) with the options Tell the truth and Lie, a scene for each option, a scene where the two paths meet again, and an ending. Rewrite the texts, or study the example and delete it.

To start with a single scene instead, choose Add scene from the same menu.

Give a card its role

Select a card. The Story Inspector on the left shows what the card does in the story.

1. Under Card type, choose Scene, Choice, Ending or Author note.
2. Turn on Story starts here for the card where the story begins. Only one card can be the start, so marking a new one clears the old one.
3. Select Edit prose in Linear View to write the scene’s text or the choice’s question.

You can also change a card’s type from its context menu on the map. Turning a story card back into a Standard card asks for confirmation, because paths through it may stop working.

Add choices

A Choice offers options, and each option leads to a scene.

1. Select the Choice card.
2. In the Inspector, under Choice options, select Add choice option.
3. Enter the Choice text: the words the reader clicks, such as “Keep the letter”.
4. Under Where this leads, choose one of these:
   • Create a new scene, and type its opening text;
   • Use an existing scene, and search for it by words from its title, board or column.

Two options can lead to the same scene and still have different texts.

On the canvas, you can also drag the + handle of a Choice card onto a scene, or onto empty canvas to create a new one.

An option’s text starts out as the title of the scene it leads to, and follows that title when it changes. Once you edit the option’s text yourself, it stays as you wrote it.

To change the order of the options, select an option’s arrow and drag its end at the Choice card onto another option’s handle on the same card. The two swap places, in the Inspector and in Play Mode.

Connect scenes on the canvas

• Connect two cards by dragging from a card’s outgoing handle onto another card. On iPad and iPhone, select the card first: only a selected card’s handles respond to a finger.
• Create the next card by dropping the connection on empty canvas. In Create connected card, choose Scene, Choice or Ending and type a title. The new card appears where you dropped.
• Change or remove a connection: select an arrow, or right-click it (touch and hold), to get Disconnect, Inspect cards and two grips. Drag a grip onto another card to reconnect, or onto empty canvas to disconnect. Delete also disconnects the selected arrow, and the cards stay.
• Name an arrow on the map with Edit caption…. This only changes the map; what the reader sees stays the same.

The Inspector’s Connections section lists each card’s Previous scenes and Next scenes, with Connect and Disconnect.

Every connection change is one step in the document’s undo history (Cmd+Z).

Bring paths back together

When branches should continue with the same scene:

1. Select the last card of each branch (Shift-click).
2. In the Inspector, select Rejoin selected branches.
3. Under Where the paths meet, pick an existing scene or enter a title for a new one.

A branch that already leads somewhere else has to be disconnected first.

End the story

Set the last card of each path to Ending. An Ending has no next scene. If you create a connection from an Ending, it becomes a Scene.

Turn existing prose into a story

If you’ve already written the scenes as ordinary cards in reading order:

1. Select the column or group, or the cards in the order you want.
2. Choose Arrange → Connect in reading order….
3. Check the preview, then confirm.

The cards become connected Scenes, and the last one becomes an Ending. If the story has no start yet, the first card becomes the start. Connections that already exist are kept. Notes, reference cards and cards excluded from Play are skipped. One Cmd+Z undoes the whole conversion.

Check the story

The Inspector’s Story checks lists problems with the selected cards, such as a Choice without options. Cards with errors show a red × in their header. For the whole story, open Story Health in the Story Map footer.

Next

• Scenes, characters and sound adds backgrounds, characters and audio.
• Play Mode lets you play through both paths.