Hello fellow writes and readers! I noticed that I don't get too much feedback on my story (http://chyoa.com/story/test-30/cover) and while it has almost 60k views I got just one comment and not even one user thread. I wrote this story because the thing that I like about interactive stories is the ability to customize the story characters. I think many writers on this site forget about that and that's especially important for the people like me - who are not native English speakers who doesn't even know any people with the name featured in the story. I know my story is a little naive but I would love to get some feedback on what turns you off in it or sounds riddiculous (as I mentioned - I am not a native English speaker). If you try writing some threads to complement my story that would be even better. It would be great if writers on this site let the reader at least choose character names and not describe them to accurately so the reader can relate that character to the person he/she knows (which I know turns a lot of people on). Do you know about stories like that? What do you think?
Well, looking at your story map, you got some more contributors eventually, but I have to say that I'm kind of disappointed that you only went 13 chapters deep on the "stay" branch...
I've enjoyed the two branches I've read so far but here is my hopefully constructive feedback: 1. Starting off in chapter 1 with the first branch option being (alternative) shouldn't be a big deal but it confused me as a reader. It was the first branch you wrote so, maybe I'm supposed to pick that to start main story branch? Should I check story map, make sure I don't start down something that ends in 2 chapters? I'd recommend asking Friedman to swap chapter positions. 2. As your finding out, if you make lots of branches it becomes really hard to make progress in the larger story overall. I'd recommend in the 'stay' branch to write a single chapter after he finishes that moves the larger story forward. Then, every branch were he finishes all link to that same chapter. That way, no matter if he finishes in Jennifer, Jessica, Eva or anyone else they all lead to same next chapter so you can write what happens at school next without having to write 7 variations, because you know you'll never have that kind of time. 3. I think customizations on names are overkill here. This is opinion, but maybe 4 girls who build some interest would be better for a reader than 9 girls who I cant keep track of showing up and disappearing from the story. Does the story really need 2 different male friends or can you combine into one? The reader doesn't want a large cast of empty characters. I couldn't tell you the difference between Jessica and Jennifer, and I'm probably not going to wait through to rotate through all 9 girl's lap dances, especially if there is not much difference between girl #1, #6, #9. Hope that helps, I am enjoying reading it!
