Branching narratives can take many structures, and I'm interested in talking about them. To start with, I want to list the ones that I've seen before and can remember. Linear: In this structure, the branching aspect is pretty much ignored. Sometimes branches are used to provide non-diegetic exposition in a convenient place. One feature of using a site like chyoa for a linear story is page control, the chapter end question can be used to create a page turning action for the reader and the author has control over exactly where this happens (as opposed to a site that just creates pages at a defined character limit.) Anthology: Anthologies are just collections of short linear stories. Chyoa is very good for this kind of thing because the author can just have a bunch of branches hanging off of the first chapter which acts as a table of contents. Static setting, branching choices: In this type of story, there is a setting that is relatively static. It may change based on direct consequence of the choices of the reader, but otherwise the characters, locations, and time period will be the same in all branches. The MC's wife will always be named Rose and have the same 36DDDDD heaving breasts, unless he convinces her to change her name to Begonia and get a boobjob for those 36FFFFFFFFFFFF pendulous bosoms she's always wanted. Branches establish setting/ accreted setting: In this type of story, the setting details are only established as needed for the chapter they become relevant in. The monogamous main character might wake up in the middle of a nightmare and be consoled by his doting wife Sandra, or he might wake up in the morning being deepthroated by his stripper wife Candi. Build-a-fetish workshop: Build-a-fetish workshop is a story that tries to set up a few core concepts upfront and then enumerate as many choices about particular details as the author(s) can to allow the reader to customize their story. These types of stories tend to be public and open to collaboration. Often there will be many branches with only a subset followed through on. These can often act like anthologies by turning linear when all of the customization is done. Snowball: Snowball stories are basically directories for story requests, where the branch starter creates a prompt or image and then the next person comes along and writes something based on the prompt. Split and merge back: This is less of a story format and more of a trick authors use occasionally. It is when the story branches, but both sides of the branch merge back together eventually. Often, both sides of the branch will be very similar, only differing in a way that is made clear to the reader upfront. Often these are used to allow a reader to censor fetishes that they don't enjoy. I haven't touched on structures that rely on game mode, but I'm not against them being talked about, it just seems harder to identify structures when there's lots of loops and variables going on. Are there any identifiable structures I've missed? Do people have preferences for any of these structures? Does anyone hate certain structures? Are there flaws with any structure and if so is there a fix for those flaws? Are there possible structures that are unexplored or under explored?
Some interesting groupings, I think there are a couple oddballs that don't fit - @Gambio's reviews aren't a typical narrative, but each branch is more-or-less standalone, so it's kinda like an anthology.
Yeah, and there's also things like the Chyoa Guide, which are even harder to categorize. At least the Marcie and Gina reviews take the form of narrative dialogue.
Although you've more or less covered it in Build a Fetish when having this kind of discussion it's worth noting that when a story becomes big enough and especially if public it can end up including multiple structures. For example take Shoubu University : https://chyoa.com/story/Shoubu-University.8934 A magical university with some detailed laws about GAMES (a story term) but more or less anything can happen. The story is built on a Branches established basis. It has multiple starting MCs An early focus on a particular MC and their adventures more or less turned it into a Static setting branching choices with strong elements of Build your fetish. Even though the story was public, a group of authors voluntarily self organised to keep to the rules of the world including NPC locations other authors had established. However some branches veer off and are long and self contained enough that they are more or less Linear stories (whilst also maintaining "canon"). Finally some authors created Chapters that were completely different to the extent they were effectively in a different "canon". I raise the point as I think these classifications are helpful, but paradoxically classifying a particular story under one or more of these headings may not entirely jive with a readers experience. Especially when viewing the story map! Also Shoubu started with a GAME mode but it more or less got dropped by the wayside so that confuses things.
There a bit rare outside of gamemode, but sometimes you'll come across hub chapters. These let you read some or all answers before continuing on, and they're good for world building. Here's an example.
I haven't really seen other people use it, not that I've been looking but at least I have been using split-and-merge for episodic writing, to avoid dead branches. Each episode is allowed to significantly diverge, in my case exploring a spectrum of reluctance vs submissiveness, and then at the end everyone goes home and the paths merge for next week's session. I then use game mode to try to create some continuity (back references to previous choices, and keeping a score so that more submissive protagonists get their boundaries pushed a little more, and vice-versa).
I have used the split and merge to have two incidents happen simultaneously and the branches meet when both POV characters next meet. I just thought it sometimes is neater that way than having a longer linear thread with both incidents one after another. If the branches go to change the story, then meeting up again is weird unless what happened is never mentioned again and has no effect on the characters, and that seems like a waste.
I think there's a tradeoff to be made. With split-and-merge your choices tend have less long-term impact, but it's much easier to give real choices in the first place, since the reader won't be forced to undo their preferred choices in favor of whichever one doesn't lead to a dead end. My solution to this has been to try to put the choices on a one-dimensional spectrum (e.g. is this choice pleasant for the protagonist, or slightly demeaning, or are they submitting to something particularly unpleasant), and use game mode to keep track of whether the reader has been playing a more assertive or a more submissive character. Then, submissive characters don't get the choices that have them assert themselves, and assertive ones don't get asked to demean themselves beyond a certain level. So the choices have an effect, but they're more sustainable in the long term than with a simple branch.
I tend to write in a mix of "Static setting, branching choices" and "Build-a-fetish workshop". Once fetish is selected in the first few branches, it becomes a relatively static setting.
I tried to do a strictly linear story once and it failed, I think because as soon as someone included something that wasn't a very popular topic, no one else wanted to submit (including me). I don't think that was a fluke, either. It seems to me that when reading a bit of erotic fiction, interest in it will quickly plummet as soon as you come across a sexual activity that just rubs you the wrong way. Eventually, a story which doesn't branch and has no rules about what to include is going to have something in it that everyone doesn't like, and at that point no one wants to contribute any further to it. I also once tried to do a "Build a Fembot" story where the reader can choose characteristics like hair color, bust size, race, etc. I ended up with a massive story that had well over 2,000 threads before a single word of the plot had been written; it was a massive, pointless exercise. With clever use of variables and such, one probably could create such a story, but it would still be a lot of work that I certainly don't want to try to do again. What works best for me, I find, is the static-setting-branching-choices format. Since the plot is going in different directions almost by definition, it's helpful to keep SOMETHING consistent, and the easiest thing to have as the anchor for the story is the setting. (Insert shameless plug for a story I created along these lines)
My The Erotic Adventures of Todd: is a case where the setting changes but the character is the consistent anchor for the story. I guess that makes the story a static-character-branching-choices format.
