I was hoping I would get new contributors to John Almighty what with it being the Story of the Week. I wrote a few new threads too to show that the story was still alive. I've always been around, even when I wasn't actively writing, and I am always fast on the thread approval. But so far those new threads I wrote are the only new ones in nearly a year. Aside from the active collaboration I have going with DA and CorssC/MageMasher (his first account stop working randomly), none of my stories or my threads in other stories have gotten any followups.
I get the idea that people prefer to start a new story than add to an existing one. Maybe it's all the reading involved, maybe it's that they have a specific itch they feel the story doesn't scratch and that it can't be made to fit their needs for some reason. Or laziness, or just that we don't have a lot of writers and their particular fetishes don't match the story. I know that very few of my bookmarked stories have seen updates, even ones that used to be pretty regularly updated on the old site.
I know of several good stories that haven't appeared as story of the week yet. (Not counting any of my own in that) These stories see regular updates receive good ratings so I don't know what is entailed with being chosen as story of the week. I kind of agree with bsnick about specific itches needing to be scratched. I've gotten pretty out there with Shadow Hunters and the things I haven't touched, someone else has. Pretty soon I'm going to need a new term for weird with some of the ideas I've got. A lot of the bookmarks I had from the old site don't seem to get updated anymore. I ended up dropping some good stories because they didn't get the attention I felt they deserved and if the creator wasn't working on them, I didn't see any point in adding to them myself. Although I've still got to break my shyness with adding to others anyway.... Note to self, pick a story and add something.... Of the stuff I have bookmarked, I would say only five or six out of twenty actually get regular updates and another five get random updates once a month.
I'm a new writer on this site and I do want to contribute to other stories, but at the moment I'm concentrated on my own. I know it is very easy to get carried away in your own world but I shall be reading other stories and seeing if can't add my own stamp to them. Can't promise anything in the next week but after that I'll definitely be making an effort.
Most of the time I spend writing erotica is spent writing for other people's stories on ChYOA. I have little idea how many others there are like me but I believe there are a few. As time goes on more will come. I feel this thread's topic may be a matter of perception and expectations/doubts. Expecting others to do anything is a sure fire way of being disappointed. They are much more likely to choose to think differently and make different choices. Maybe instead, play/write with those who write similar stories/posts as John Almighty.
On the irony! I have people leaving comments on my threads telling me they don't want to add because they don't want to break up my storyline! I really wish we had messaging like the old site, so I could reply with "if I wanted to write it all myself, I wouldn't be posting here"!
you could write your message at the end of your next threads doesn't look really nice, but it is a way to tell them
I don't HAVE a next thread. I specifically wrote the one they put this comment on to be a branch because my outline had run out.
you also can update the last thread, but that probably won't be really eyecatching. A messaging system on the site would be the best solution. The messaging system of the forum maybe could help out, if the user would get a notification on the site, that they received a message at the forum (maybe a synchronized login to forum and Chyoa would be reasonable then)
I was pretty excited to see Futa Apocalypse as a featured story a while back as well. And I experienced the same thing, I kind of expected it to draw in some contributers. While I saw a lot of hits on my thread that week, it really didnt seem to draw the active participation I had originally anticipated. Like yourself, I try to get things approved quickly when I am able. I expect that its probably hit and miss. It takes the right person, who likes to write, and really loves your story. While I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who loves all of the stories on here, we just havent been lucky enough to net many people who want to make a little part of our story their own.
I don't really get what you are going for with this but let's see where it goes. A little disappointed that it is in a completely new branch instead of an extant one, but glad to have contributions.
Murakami, have you checked out Torg's Living Like Bonobos? It doesn't have the reality transformations/outsider point-of-view character that you have in your stories, but like your stories it details a society where sexuality is normal and routine ("What if we lived in a society where sexuality is as open as with bonobos"). If you like the premise, it might be a place to contribute or trade threads. -Z.
