CYOA: Definition

A CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) is a story where at several points the reader is allowed to make a decision as to what happens next. They are often written in second person, making the reader the protagonist.

Origins
The first CYOAs were paperback novels such as Journey to Atlantis, which would have less than a dozen decision pages. In these novels, certain pages would have decisions, and to choose a decision, you would flip to a particular page. The most decisions you were given at a time was three, and they always had less than fifty endings, with most ending in death/defeat, and sometimes only one path leading to victory.

Electronic Versions
All literature has taken a change in availability since the advance of computers and the internet, but CYOAs have changed far more. Not only have they become more widely available, but they have become, quite simply, better. They are longer, cover larger age groups, have more options per decision pages, more decision pages, more character development, sometimes they have stats, and of course, now you need only click a button rather than having to find the correct page while trying very hard not to read the stories you are flipping past.

However, the new e-CYOAs are also known for trunking, causing much less varied stories than those found in the old books.