CHYOA tends to depth versus breadth - you can search and sort by how deep a story gets but not how many chapters it has - and of course, neither depth nor total number of chapters determines whether a story is good or not. But in general, do you prefer chapters that have a lot of branches and options, or those which have fewer branches but deeper?
I'm more ok with short chapters with many branches to be honest. ADHD fucks over my reading comprehension.
Stories with too much depth or too much breadth push me away. How much is too much? Depends on the average chapter, but I'd say 100 it's already a scary number for depth. At least for me. For breadth it depends. If it's the introduction, in most cases 10 is already too much. If there are so many branches they should have been gathered in smaller hubs. I'm digressing. In general, I prefer breadth too. I came here because I liked the possibility to explore different outcomes, not to read the erotic version of In search of lost time.
It is a bit of trade-off for me too. I'm rarely in the mood for War & Peace 2: Tits Out, and while I like that there are different paths, but things like starting chapters with a dozen options tend to leave me cold.
For me, I think it depends on the size of the story. I want to read somewhere between a short story and a novella. So if there's only about 20 chapters I'd like them to be linear, but if it's close to 100, I'd like them spread over some branches.
While I have little concern about a story being too deep or wide, I like using the depth to weed out some very short works. Sometimes I may not want or need more than a couple chapters to get involved or connected to a story, but there are times I want the aforementioned 'War and Peace 2: Tits Out.' While I don't mind linear stories at all, I do like having the ocaisional fork.
imo, I prefer that stories offer a choice. Otherwise, are they really using the format to it's fullest potential? So I prefer breadth over depth.
I don't think I have a preference. As long as it's an enjoyable read, I'm happy with it. Fortunately, as long as you keep putting chapters out, you're almost guaranteed to improve, (even if it doesn't always feel like it.) So far, everything I've personally written is downright linear. I hope to break that streak once I get good at writing. I think I need to get better at planning and revealing character motivations. Once I can reliably write a linear story as well as I currently can write a chapter, I think I'll be in good shape to start worrying about branching those stories. (And, crucially, designing them to *be* branched.) Obviously, I like the concept of interactive fiction-- that's why I'm here, instead of some other fiction site, after all. But so far, I've yet to see it used especially well. The dominant paradigm seems to be, first chapter is "which body do you want to inhabit/which author do you trust to construct a fantasy," chapter 2 is "commit to a kink path," and if you're really lucky, the chapter titles are written such that you can tell what you're choosing before you click on it. Other times, it's like an actual choose-your-own adventure from the olden days, giving you a sort of open-world experience and then punishing your hubris, the main difference being that the elusive Good End you're trying to hunt for is the satisfying smut scene you came here to read in the first place. The strong suits of CHYOA are its inclusive nature, its tendency to attract amateur writers, its systems that reward the kind of update schedules that make amateur writers improve, and the smorgasbord of wish-fulfillment genres on tap. After experimenting with somewhat "deeper" storytelling (deep in terms of theme and concept, as well as structure,) I've seen lower views but higher likes. I consider that a fair trade-off. I will say that, in the distant future, if I do one day try to make a DeepWide story, I would like to pattern the character introductions off of the video game Hunie Pop-- introducing characters two at a time in scenes where their personalities collide in some sort of public confrontation that gives you an inkling of what their personalities are like-- and then proceed with something I haven't really seen implemented yet, which is a "get the girl" phase that focuses more on "chemistry" than the purely transactional "perform kind acts on the NPC until sex comes out" used by many dating sims. (I'm not judging that model of gameplay. I get that it's easy to implement, intuitive to play, and preserves ludo-narrative consonance (up to a point, anyway.) I just want to try something that gives the player space to play around and express themselves, and instead of the love interests being like "beep boop, you passed or failed," have them react emotionally, either throwing sparks or heating up, until some sort of basis for a relationship (deliberately (but non-deceptively) cultivating your image, a display of physical skill, knowing how to make them laugh, the begrudging respect of a rival, being on the same wavelength, "opposites attract," etc. ) emerges from the noise.) All that shit's a tall order when you're still just getting the hang of basic story structure and dialogue, like me, though.
From a reader's perspective, if I really like the characters I tend to prefer lots of branching chapters and seeing alternate realities of the decisions they make. However, if the writer does a decent job of defining the journey with those characters I also don't mind threads with substantial depth and breadth. From a chronically loquacious writer's perspective, if I start branching too much I usually get myself in trouble with letting threads die in favor of the shiny new thing. Slightly off-topic, but do I need to read War and Peace to understand War and Peace 2: Tits Out?
No. The geopolitical metaphors are a bit kludgy, but it's a bit like how you don't need to read the Marquis de Sade's Justine to understand Juliette.
