I have a request for a feature that I think would increase the cohesiveness of stories It would be cool if at the end of a chapter, we could have the option to provide existing chapters as an option, instead of only being able to create a new chapter. This would allow for "detours" in the story to converge into a single storyline. There would be multiple ways of arriving at the same story node, if you like. There would also be fewer "dead ends" to stories as you could make a story path curve back into another path. A short example might help illustrate: Chapter 1: You're looking for your missing friend Amanda. You can choose to A) ask Jack for help, or B) ask Susy for help. In chapter 1A) You go with Jack to interview Amanda's boss. You find a lead to pursue to find Amanda. In chapter 1 B) You go with Susy to interview Amanda's boss. Susy asks the boss very private questions, he gets mad and you get no info. So now you have 2 options A) Continue with Susy or B) ditch Susy and ask Jack for help instead ---> This would link to chapter 1A) ask Jack for help, and you can follow that path. It would allow authors to get creative with putting characters in different situations and making them coherent, allowing readers to get a better feel for the world and the characters. For example, in this story, it might be that the boss was rude to Susy because he hates women and he has something to do with Amanda's disappearence. Or you findone of the questions Susy asks the boss was very important because she's knowledgeable about something important to solve the case, so the reader thinks "Ohh Susy was on to something! I should have stayed with her!", so you link back to the "2A) Continue with Susy" path. And then you could have fun with it, for example Susy and Jack say things about one another that you get to experience for yourself when you read their respective story paths. Or you come to find Amanda so the last chapter is the same but you come to it in very different ways. Or at one point you realise you need both Jack and Susy so you merge all paths and continue from there. The main potential issue I see would be how to represent this schematically on the story map, because the story paths wouldn't be so linear so you would need another dimension to allow the stories to "web" like that. Not sure how to show it as a drop down as there is now. Authors would also have to be careful that the links make sense and that the paths you link aren't incoherent , but I guess that's already the case with stories that get many chapter deep. It could be made so you can only link to chapter's you've written yourself or need approval to link someone else's chapter.
As far as I'm aware, right now you can only create a new chapter ("Add a new chapter" option) you can't give as an option an existing chapter that is already linked to another chapter that would also work as a continuation of the chapter you just wrote. So in the example I gave before, to link back to Jack's storyline "B) ditch Susy and ask Jack for help instead", you'd have to create a new chapter following that one, you couldn't send people to the chapter where you went to Jack in the first place and the options you get after that one. I guess you could copy and paste the chapter and the options that ensue, but that would clutter things after a while.
When on the “Add a New Chapter” page, the sidebar has a “Link Chapter” option to make the new chapter a shortcut to an existing chapter. I think that is what you are describing. My main story uses them extensively to keep all branches returning to the trunk story.
This usually doesn't work out well as you need to create quantities of chapters. (About linking chapters, see Add a Chapter/Edit Chapter.) If you want to remember earlier choices to shape future events, you might want to use Conditional Branches as well. The basics of Conditional Branches allow you to allow/block chapters depending on the reader's score. With Conditional Branches - If-Statements and Conditional Branches - Show Variable Values you can even modify the chapter content depending on the reader's score.
And I'm sure it is explained in the FAQ somewhere, but just in case there are others like me that come here looking for the answer I was looking for: When you link to an existing chapter, simply start typing the exact chapter title, and the site will provide a drop-down to click. I attempted to use a full html link and then a partial page link; both of these were met with errors! Just start typing the exact title, and look for the menu drop down. The site will do the rest.
