Short stories/prompts, yay or nay?

I don't see the irony. What I see is that you clearly have issues in expressing yourself and understanding others with the minumun required level of clarity.

Be well.

 

I kind of like the idea that if I'm reading a story, even one where the author has written it as wholly linear and it take a twist or direction that I wouldn't have chosen, that I can come along at a later date and add in a branch of my own going with my perspective on it, thereby changing the linear to the branching. Future readers then have options and can stay true to the original author's vision or try out alternatives.
The original author doesn't need to add branches, they can come later if the community sees merit in them.

 

That’s why even when I’m tempted to do longer chapters, I try to break them into smaller pieces because you never know when someone might have a different direction and it’s better to allow them the opportunity to expand and have the chapter go through multiple branches than to have a huge chapter that forces the writers and reader into one direction. Obviously depends on the type of story, but generally speaking it’s good to keep the options for branches open even if you have no intention of making them in the moment. It’s also why I prefer CHYOA because even if you intend for a story to be linear, you can always go back and add alternative versions, different paths never explored, have even deleted scenes, outtakes that you never published, and more. actually I never thought about outtakes, but there’s so many times where I have an idea but they never evolve or they evolve differently that it might be cool to include extra branches for those cases so that readers can see the thought process you went through. Kinda like a director’s cut but for authors.