Ok, because I've loved this site from the first day: 1) The Achronim CHYOA that several people fail to understand or blatantly ignore: we should scan all of the stories maps, take all of those stories (with depth>10) without a single branch, and put them in a new dedicated and supported category ("novels" or what you call the stories without branching). This is not an easy task because it requires adapting story creation and placing limits on the new category, but it's well worth it IMO. 2) I'd like to see more quality over quantity: consider having a minimum number of threads written as a requirement to publish a story. I'm conflicted if to delete old single thread stories or not. If you guys have other ideas to drive authors in the "more quality over quantity" direction feel free to add them below
I don't like any sort of limitation suggestions, why make it harder to write a story for some vague sense of quality? You could write a book with 100 volumes of 10,000 pages each and still have it turn out badly made (yet someone might still like it), quantity doesn't really have a connection to quality. And on top of that "quality" isn't really universal or measurable, you might think anything with spelling errors is automatically bad, while I might think stories where the author felt the need to over describe every detail with a thesaurus in hand is bad and don't really mind the stories with spelling errors.
I think the idea that a story has to branch to be quality is debatable. A tag that the author can choose that would indicate it has one primary path might work if some readers insist that they don’t want to see them I guess? And what if at chapter 30 an author comes to a major decision on a story that had only one path, is the whole thing moved from the ‘novel’ wasteland category? The primary category has to be the actual genre imo. I personally find the worst stories to be the ones with dozens of short chapters leading to many dead end branches. Then you hit the story map and realize the whole damn thing is 50 chapters of nothing that was abandoned 2 years ago when the author realized they spent dozens of hours putting together the framework of a story they couldn’t possibly service properly. Im not sure I understand the second point. Do you mean a new author would have to contribute a certain number of chapters to an open existing story before they would be able to make a brand new story of their own? Not sure how that would work.
Ok let's explain it better then: quality refers to not having one thousand stories with one single thread left there to rot. Branching is another matter, simply linked to what this site is originally dedicated to. If someone want to write a story without a single branch ok, but that's not a "choose your own adventure" contribution
This could work if the category is a) separate from any other system and b) automatically assigned to a story. So it doesn't count as equal to Fantasy or Incest; a story is a 'novel' in addition to whatever else. And it's not something the author decides, but simply another trait a story has as long as it only has one branch (...of depth > 3, perhaps, so extra notes and navigation pages don't break it). I don't believe in trying to hide or purge them. This site might be meant for choose your own adventure stories, but it's still one of the better places on the Internet to post any kind of erotic story, which is why people do. This is an excellent way to scare off many newcomers. Plenty of writers work exclusively alone, so they can plan their story maps perfectly, have a consistent writing style and quality, etc. I know if this were in place when I came across CHYOA, I would certainly never have joined. EDIT: Additionally, this would encourage a lot of spam on other people's stories.
I think you're creating a problem where there isn't one. If CHYOA is treated as more of a suggestion than a rule, that should be okay. After all, the reader comes to the site... and chooses an adventure! Maybe they choose a very linear adventure. In that sense, we are all on an adventure. CHYOA is meta like that.
Is it the fault of the story owner if nobody wants to add another branch to their story? Also, the format is perfect for practicing writing as you can get better from chapter to chapter instead of writing a whole novel and then realize that it is just crap.
While I do like CHYOA to branch, I wouldn't consider it an absolute requirement. Maybe a separate category or tag for essentially linear narratives?
People write these stories in many different ways. Some write just one long thread without any branches but leave it open for others to add more stuff. Some spread out a lot but leave the story short unless others jump in and add more stuff. Some writers just leave their story unfinished as they run out of motivation or simply don't have the time for it. I'm not in favour of setting up a high bar for writers because this is all written by volunteers and enthusiasts. The voting system is for weeding out well liked stories from others.
Some of my favorite stories on this site are well crafted, mostly linear tales. I've dabbled in both styles myself. I do believe though, and I think this has been proposed elsewhere on the forums before, that a total chapter count should be displayed next to chapter depth on the homepage. Chapter depth has it's flaws when it comes to accounting for linking chapters, and the total amount of chapters should be a searchable metric for readers to be able to find larger stories.
I think what is needed more is a search function that lets you filter out stories based on thread structure the way you describe. This will allow everyone to write their CHYOA the way they want to and for you to find the ones you're interested in.
I think maybe a system where you can publish short stories. But that if they have not reached a minimum number of total words it will be deleted after 24 hours. I think it's better to use word count rather than chapter count. Since a lot of stories have a lot of possibilities but no actual content.
Maybe take the suggestion of a viewer with fresh eyes: I agree with the idea of a dedicated branch for stories with more Chapters/threads, but I can literally not recall nor (likely) count the number of stories I found myself able to access my first day that appeared to only have an opening page, as though creators felt they had to add 1 of their own to be assured a lasting membership. (Please cease reading here and inform me if that is, in fact, the case.) Surely, any story starts with a single thread, but I seem to recall now the majority of them appeared to be without even an allusion as to what question the continuing thread(s) might answer.
