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Protagonize

Defunct creative writing website

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated August 31, 2025

Protagonize was an online creative writing community based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It was established in late December 2007. It was owned and operated by Taunt Media. The site catered to both amateur and experienced authors interested in online collaborative creative writing, and in 2016, was home to over 43,800 works (pieces of writing) and 160,800 pages, and over 29,000 members from around the world. On June 3, 2017, Protagonize closed down due to stagnant user growth and declining revenue from advertising and donations. The current domain redirects to a blog page explaining the shutdown.

01History

Protagonize is an online community and self-publishing platform, launched in December, 2007 by creator Nick Bouton as a home for Choose Your Own Adventure-style branching stories. Shortly after launch, the site began to allow for linear narrative as well, and has since expanded to include poetry, screenplays, and other forms of literature.

Following its subsequent growth, there has been an increasing focus on the community aspect of the site, with features such as groups and writing circles being added.

In June 2008 Protagonize was selected as a finalist in the 2008 Canadian New Media Awards for "Excellence in Social Media Websites".

In June 2009 Protagonize was one of seven local BC startups chosen to demo at Launch Party Vancouver 7 as part of the Startup Most Likely to Succeed competition.

At least one published book started out life as a story on Protagonize.

On June 3, 2017, Protagonize closed down due to stagnant user growth and declining revenue from advertising and donations.

Watch videos about ProtagonizeExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Protagonize”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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Addventure

An addventure, also known as a collaborative gamebook, is a type of online interactive fiction that combines aspects of round-robin stories and Choose Your Own Adventure-style tales. Like a round-robin story, an addventure is a form of collaborative fiction in which many authors contribute to a story, each writing discrete segments.

Collaborative fiction

Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story. Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally, many collaboratively written works have been the subject of a large degree of academic research.

Interactive fiction

Interactive fiction is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the form of interactive narratives or interactive narrations.