Someone is trying to add 5 sequential chapters to one of my stories. I generally don’t have a problem with that and usually encourage it. I feel bad because that’s a lot of effort, but my first instinct is to decline them. They don’t make a lot of sense, based on what my characters were trying to accomplish in the chapter beforehand. More bothersome to me though is they turned one character into an idiot and the other into an asshole which is wholly inconsistent with how they’ve generally behaved beforehand. I’ve never actually declined a chapter before so it sort of makes me feel like a bad guy. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing?
Sometimes you just have to say "No, that won't work" and decline a chapter (or several). It sucks and you might feel bad about it (at least for a short while), but sometimes it is necessary.
This is why I don't do moderated stories lol One solution I could see is to ask them to put their name in the chapter title, that way it's at the very least obvious that the story is from a different author and not the intended path.
I think you're right to decline them if it doesn't fit your story. Maybe adding a style guide would help future authors who want to contribute?
