How to write interactive fiction.

What interactive fiction is

The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, which runs the field's main archive and its yearly competition, calls it "a kind of video game where the player's interactions primarily involve text"^{[Source 1]}. In practice it comes in two main families.

• Parser-based. You type what you want to do (open the door, go north) and the story answers. It is the older family on computers: Adventure, by Will Crowther and Don Woods, dates from 1975^{[Source 1]}, and Zork, Infocom's first release, from 1980^{[Source 2]}.
• Choice-based. You pick from a few options, or tap a link in the text. In the yearly competition it is now the larger family: 48 of the 85 entries in 2025 were tagged choice-based, against 31 parser-based^{[Source 3]}.

Gamebooks are a close relative: printed books that send you to another section, usually numbered, depending on what you decide. The Fighting Fantasy series began in 1982 with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain^{[Source 4]}.

Tellyah sits on the choice side. You write your story bubble by bubble, and when you reach a moment that could go two ways, you add a choice: two answers, each leading to its own path.

How to write one

Five ideas keep coming back. Three come from people who have written a great deal about it: Choice of Games, inkle and Sam Kabo Ashwell. The other two are ours.

Start from a situation, not a map

A premise that asks a question does more than a diagram drawn in advance: someone at a door, a message on the wrong phone, a light that comes back on after eleven days. Write up to the moment your reader has to decide, and stop there.

Make every choice cost something

Dan Fabulich of Choice of Games argues that every option should matter, and that the reader should know enough to choose for a reason^{[Source 5]}. Two doors that lead to the same room teach your reader that choosing is pointless. Telling the truth or protecting someone is worth a whole scene.

Keep the branches from multiplying

Every choice that never joins back doubles what is left to write. Writers tame it with a few standard shapes, described by Sam Kabo Ashwell in 2015^{[Source 6]}:

• Branch and bottleneck. Paths split, then meet again at moments every reader goes through, carrying the memory of what they chose.
• Time cave. Paths split and hardly ever rejoin: many endings, and short playthroughs.
• Gauntlet. One main thread, with side branches that rejoin it quickly or end early.
• Sorting hat. Early choices send the reader down one of a few mostly straight paths.

Jon Ingold of inkle makes a related point: by "interactive" we usually mean "responsive", the story changing with what we do, and that does not have to mean branching^{[Source 7]}. A story that remembers a choice and mentions it later can feel as alive as one that splits in two.

Let the ending answer the choices

Adam Strong-Morse of Choice of Games argues that an ending should reflect what the reader chose. One shape he describes: a common trunk, then one large, late split into distinct final chapters^{[Source 8]}.

Write it straight, split it once

If this is your first one, keep the story straight and plan a single split. Write up to the moment where your character could go either way, then write both. One choice, written well, is already interactive fiction. If you need a starting point, every one of our writing prompts ends on that moment.

The tools, side by side

Checked on 15 October 2026; the sources are listed at the bottom of the page. Most of these tools are built for a computer, and none of the six is a bad choice. Tellyah is in the first column.

Twine is where much of the community starts: the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation names it the most popular free tool for choice-based games^{[Source 1]}, and on 15 October it was the most common platform on the 2026 competition ballot^{[Source 28]}. When the story lives inside a game, ink is what you reach for. ChoiceScript is one road to a published interactive novel. For a first try at branching in a browser, inklewriter is the lightest, and Episode tells its stories with animated characters and camera moves. Tellyah is for the story you want to write where you already are: on your phone, one bubble at a time. How writing works on Tellyah.

Questions

Is interactive fiction a game or a book?

Both. The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation calls it a kind of video game, and also a kind of literature where the reader takes an active role^{[Source 1]}. Either way, the words do the work.

What is the difference between choice-based and parser-based?

In a parser-based story you type what you want to do, and the story answers. In a choice-based one you pick from a few options. Choice-based is now the larger family in the yearly competition^{[Source 3]}.

Can I write interactive fiction on my phone?

Most of the tools above are built for a computer: Twine's reference says it might work on a phone but is designed for a larger screen^{[Source 10]}, and Inky and ChoiceScript run on a computer. Tellyah is built for writing on a phone.

Do I need to know how to code?

It depends on the tool. Twine needs no code for a simple story^{[Source 9]}, inklewriter none at all^{[Source 23]}, and neither does Tellyah. inkle describes ink as a scripting language, markup rather than programming^{[Source 14]}; ChoiceScript is a simple programming language that its introduction calls easy even with no programming experience^{[Source 19]}; and Episode's guide has a directing step for the characters and the camera, which it also calls the coding segment^{[Source 25]}.

Where can I read interactive fiction?

IFDB, the Interactive Fiction Database, catalogues interactive fiction with reviews from players^{[Source 29]}, and the Interactive Fiction Competition publishes a new crop every year^{[Source 3]}. Stories written on Tellyah are read in the app, and you can read an extract here.