Last Friday when The Relic finale was published, the site stats jumped to an all-time high. To say I was surprised doesn’t quite explain it well enough. The stat jump told me that you guys just couldn’t wait to see how the story turned out and… Wow. I really couldn’t ask for more. From an author’s perspective, there’s no greater reward. Screw a six-figure book deal — your excitement for The Relic had me on Cloud Nine for days. I truly hope you guys enjoyed the ride as much as I did.
Now that The Relic is over, I want to debunk any rumors or crazy ideas that there was only one outcome to this story. There wasn’t. And to those of you who were irritated at constantly losing the vote, I have a special treat: The Relic voting tree. Now you’ll know what awaited you down the unchosen path.
Before you look at the tree, I want to warn you that it’s not a huge web of story options. I didn’t have multiple options all planned out before we started. I had the overall scenario in mind (it was a government setup), a few endings to fall back on if I couldn’t think of anything better by the time we reached the end, and everything else was done on the fly. Having to write out every storyline beforehand would have been a massive amount of work and ultimately takes time away from my other writing projects. So this tree hints at what might have happened if you had chosen another path.
The Relic: Voting Tree (PDF)
The next Vote Your Adventure:
I intended to take a week off and then start another story. Unfortunately, that means the next Vote Your Adventure begins on July 1. That weekend houses big holidays in North America (Canada Day & U.S. Independence Day), making it a horrible time to start a new story. Due to the holidays, I’ve decided to wait one more week. We’ll start a new story (tentatively called “The Sigil”) on July 8. It will be in the same world as The Relic, but pulled from a different bag of tricks.
Mark your calendars.
Jen Kirchner 
The tree is awesome. And apparently, I make really bad choices.
Very excited that there is going to be another!!
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Ooooooo, C4! Now that woulda been fun….
Way cool feature for a way cool series.
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What you should to, is at some point, write the rest of the paths out and put it together for a CYOA book, or something.
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Thanks, Brian! I actually plan on doing something very similar. I’d like to take a collection of these stories and release “alternate endings”. Pretty excited about the idea.
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I concur!
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Definitely marking my calanedar!!! I loved The Relic and am so excited about the next series.
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Thank you so much for showing us the tree, Jen. I only made one choice that lost out, but a lot of times I was really torn as to which one I should choose, so it’s really cool to get a glimpse what would have happened if we’d followed another path.
Can’t wait for the new story!
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