So at the moment I have a wip, in it I have a two choices that locks you in to either path.
How soon is two soon for this kind of choice? These are major paths that are extremely different.
I think the only right answer is “it depends”.
From a reader standpoint, too early is if I don’t have enough information to make an informed decision. Not to say that things can’t be revealed later on, just that I should have a decent idea of what my character’s goals and motivations are in each route and a general idea of how they intend to accomplish that. If its choosing between groups of people, I’d like to have had an equal opportunity to interact with each group to get a feel for what they represent and whether my character would logically chose them.
From an author standpoint, too early is whenever it would be too much work to not have a main route. Like in theory, if you wanted, you could have a choice on the first page that picks one out of two paths. But then you’d be writing two entirely separate stories, and you’d wonder whether writing two stories in parallel is worth the effort it would take to do that. You’ll notice that very few choicescript games follow the otome formula of early route splits for each RO, just because it would be an insane amount of work to write a separate 2/3 of the story for five plus different ROs.
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