Short stories/prompts, yay or nay?

[MADiS0n]

Just because CHYOA has the feature to choose your own branches, doesn't mean every story ever published into this site has to be, nor should authors/stories be removed because they prefer a more linear storyline.

While the site does have a bare minimum/requirement before being published, you won't be reprimanded because you posted short stories.

I NEVER suggested or expected reprimand, or any kind of punishment...

Simply that readers &/or users of one are potentially & even likely of both, & I find it downright impossible to believe that I am the only one who doesn't go to one site or the other if I am searching for a specific type/thing.

 

[Warden-Yarn15]

Not in the least, and I don't see why he doesn't ban the non-branching,

There are sites for non-branching the way CHYOA is for branching. Everything should be in its place.

 

[insertnamehere]

Regardless, however, I will likely attempt to check back with the same story in a few days (if I can recall it) & add branches so it fits the site the way I knew it to be. (I should be allowed, as I am the only one being incorrectly described as opposed to censorship &/or other things concerning the sites.)

Feel free. CHYOA does not stop you from publishing anything harmless (unless, of course, the story is private).

I NEVER suggested or expected reprimand, or any kind of punishment...

The problem here is that for the site to consist of only branching stories, we would need to ban non-branching stories. In order to do so, we would need to delete stories that do not branch.

 

[MADiS0n]

Warden did nothing but post my saying the same thing 2x, as I understand it.

As for insert, the 2nd statement seems true (albeit again repetitive). Whereas the first is welcoming, but as I recall, the particular story didn't have the option to add branches/Chapters the way most on the site do, hence my telling of my plan rather than simply undertaking it.

 

[haileytraynor]

I’ll give you insight on my own experience. I am Humilatron. I started writing stories on a site called Teen Girls Stripping & Games which did have looser rules than CHYOA in terms of what was permitted and wasn’t. So I started out with a lot of short stories as many authors do. I at some point stumbled on the site called Writing.com as I’m sure some are aware, Writing.com allows for Interactive Stories which peaked my interest and I began writing there, except my biggest problem with Writing.com was its pay wall and its honestly kind of shady practices. I was told about CHYOA through the board and I was hesitant to try it out because I was afraid it would be like Writing.com and that nightmare all over again.

So then the board announces it has about a week left before it gets shut down, so I’m like shit. By that time I had been sort of contributing to CHYOA but not really. But I knew that I could port over a majority of my stories (since I write 18+ victim stories anyways). Obviously by this point I have a pretty big library to port over and I have a very small window to get everything and move it over, so I’m like shit, I guess I’ll just make an Anthology for all my work so I don’t have to spam the website with 20 different short one chaptered stories, so that’s what I do. I make an anthology. And CHYOA has no guidelines saying I can’t do that, so that’s what I did. In terms of practicality, CHYOA has the best way to archive stories quickly.

Imagine I just spammed Literotica with 20+ stories all in the span of a week. That wouldn’t be good for anyone, but I literally had no time because the board was going to be deleted, so I said fuck it, just run it, and here we are now. I see absolutely nothing wrong with someone making a collection of stories on CHYOA because 1) it doesn’t hurt anyone 2) it’s actually a smart idea as there’s no long term commitment to anything and it allows people to share works that would otherwise get swept under the radar because of its length. It’s an easy practical way for people to share their stories elsewhere too. So if I want to share a collection of my work, all I have to do is link my Anthology and say this is where you can find my work. I don’t have to gather 20+ links scattered around 10 different sites.

If CHYOA didn’t allow my works to be published in that manner, I would have lost literally all of my work because again I had a very short window of time, a lot of stories, and a fear of losing all my stories. There’s nothing wrong with people posting a collection of their short stories. What would be wrong is someone going to a site like Literotica and spamming them with 20+ stories all at once because someone decided to gatekeep a site that had no rule that told them they couldn’t do it.

 

[MADiS0n]

I see no harm in adding a ton of stories at once on Literotica.

In fact, I know of one user who seems to add multiple new stories a week, and does so largely despite/because he takes less time to write (or proofread, or anything) each of his own stories than I did to type this post.

In addition to the fact that much of their work is fanfic, that's one author I've occasionally hoped would leave Literotica for CHYOA (though I've seen some that could use editing/correcting assistance there as well).

 

[haileytraynor]

I see no harm in adding a ton of stories at once on Literotica.

In fact, I know of one user who seems to add multiple new stories a week, and does so largely despite/because he takes less time to write (or proofread, or anything) each of his own stories than I did to type this post.

In addition to the fact that much of their work is fanfic, that's one author I've occasionally hoped would leave Literotica for CHYOA (though I've seen some that could use editing/correcting assistance there as well).

You see no harm in someone uploading a bunch of stories to one site… but you do see harm in someone uploading one story with a bunch of individual stories? Make it make sense lol. The point is that CHYOA’s system is much more practical and is easy to move things back and forth. Especially for those who don’t like to keep such stories on a hard drive or have 20 different links to their works. Instead I can link one story where everyone can find all of my works if they so desire.

The point is that it’s not a big deal to CHYOA, so why make it one? Perhaps it would be more ideal to encourage such practices if it means more traffic than dissuade people because they don’t like writing longer stories. Perhaps it would be better to just let people express their creativity however they feel including layout of a story than implement a needless rule that is impractical to enforce and would only dissuade people from contributing.

There’s also a sense of site preference and community preference. I know there’s probably a bunch of sites like CHYOA for various niches, but I don’t want to branch out, I’ve found the site that serves the purpose I need and I like its community and admins. I’ve tried branching out before and it turned into a really bad experience.

Why leave CHYOA’s welcoming community when I feel most comfortable here? People can have varied reasons why they prefer CHYOA over Literotica or any other site. There’s no need to tell them to go to another site if it’s not harming anyone with what they’re doing.

Each site has a different vibe with its community and how the admins handle rule violations and such which will leave people with varied impressions. I shouldn’t nor should anyone have to feel discouraged and feel like they need to move sites if it doesn’t break the rules and doesn’t harm the community just because some random user is trying to play gatekeeper.

 

[haileytraynor]

If you’re wondering what that really bad experience was: I reported a user on a site for being just a blatant troll and one of the mods decided come to the COMMENT SECTION of MY story and tell me that reporting is basically a hassle on their job and I was in the wrong. Literally threw me under the bus for what I thought was an anonymous system. Like wtf kind of modding is that? And then the admin came in and called THEM out and it turned into a mess. Suffice to say I stopped posting there. I’ve never seen a moderator decide to air out the report system and just put users on blast for using a site function. Suffice to say I was pissed off. So yeah, I don’t really like to branch out beyond CHYOA and a couple others I know are trusted sites and work well. As for Literotica I just don’t like its layout personally. But that’s more of a me thing than anything else. But yes, while sites do exist, it’s always hard to gauge the vibe of the community so if someone finds one that is comfortable to them, please don’t discourage them by asking them to find another unless they’re actually violating rules or or causing a real problem.

 

[MADiS0n]

You see no harm in someone uploading a bunch of stories to one site… but you do see harm in someone uploading one story with a bunch of individual stories? Make it make sense lol. The point is that CHYOA’s system is much more practical and is easy to move things back and forth. Especially for those who don’t like to keep such stories on a hard drive or have 20 different links to their works. Instead I can link one story where everyone can find all of my works if they so desire.

The point is that it’s not a big deal to CHYOA, so why make it one? Perhaps it would be more ideal to encourage such practices if it means more traffic than dissuade people because they don’t like writing longer stories. Perhaps it would be better to just let people express their creativity however they feel including layout of a story than implement a needless rule that is impractical to enforce and would only dissuade people from contributing.

There’s also a sense of site preference and community preference. I know there’s probably a bunch of sites like CHYOA for various niches, but I don’t want to branch out, I’ve found the site that serves the purpose I need and I like its community and admins. I’ve tried branching out before and it turned into a really bad experience.

Why leave CHYOA’s welcoming community when I feel most comfortable here? People can have varied reasons why they prefer CHYOA over Literotica or any other site. There’s no need to tell them to go to another site if it’s not harming anyone with what they’re doing.

Each site has a different vibe with its community and how the admins handle rule violations and such which will leave people with varied impressions. I shouldn’t nor should anyone have to feel discouraged and feel like they need to move sites if it doesn’t break the rules and doesn’t harm the community just because some random user is trying to play gatekeeper.

Nobody asked for your old problem. Also, you asked me to make it make sense because you recalled it wrong; I see no harm in either of the things you stated. (Setting aside your reference to "one story with a bunch of individual stories".)

Furthermore, I didn't see anything about CHYOA in the rest of your post about moving things back and forth, etc...

Lastly, it ended with the phrase about 1 story where they can find all your works; finding all of a person's works can be done by clicking on their name when you're on Literotica OR CHYOA, but only on the former [in most cases, as I know there’s a topic(s) on these Forums] would each be a complete story.

 

[Warden-Yarn15]

I believe this thread of me trying to hide my inability/inadequacy to write novels and wondering if people would find that acceptable, has lost its soul or turned into an argument on whether or not CHYOA should be strict on its form of storytelling.

With Mr. MADiSon ironically saying claiming that he is not a fan of censorship, but demands that stories must be branched or be removed from the site. I would say that I find that funny if I hadn't lost all investment I had for this thread.

 

[MADiS0n]

I never made any demands or suggested any censorship.

I have just always thought that CHYOO (& now CHYOA) were for stories with stopping points that allowed one to go in different directions, and to this very second, don't believe that I'm the only one who believed that.

 

[haileytraynor]

I believe this thread of me trying to hide my inability/inadequacy to write novels and wondering if people would find that acceptable, has lost its soul or turned into an argument on whether or not CHYOA should be strict on its form of storytelling.

With Mr. MADiSon ironically saying claiming that he is not a fan of censorship, but demands that stories must be branched or be removed from the site. I would say that I find that funny if I hadn't lost all investment I had for this thread.

I’m honestly unsure why it did have to take this turn. The short answer is there is no rule stopping you from doing so. Obviously the spam rule would probably prevent posting 20 individual stories that are all short in length, but having a collection solves that problem. Regardless if you think that content belongs on CHYOA, it is allowed as far as the mods and admins have said.

There are many stories that benefit from the short lengths. And there are many stories that suffer from being too long. Think of it like a movie. Short films are works of art, but they would not do well as a long drawn out full length movie. They aren’t bad and in fact many are truly beautiful and may even be better than some feature lengths, and while they probably would never win an Oscar outside of their category, they’re still acknowledged as cinema and the craft of filmmaking. They are not invalidated for their short length.

 

[MADiS0n]

The stories that benefit from their short lengths can do so on Literotica, the non-branching site.

CHYOA stories (IIRC) can be cut short by their editors or other overseers.

----

Think of it less like movies and more like life. (Yes, I know that lives include movies.) There are many things that laws allow that most people still don't do because of safety, etc.

Likewise, people should know when branches should or should not be continued, as well as when the possibility of "Add another chapter" (again, IIRC) should at least be an option, & may/may-not hurt the quality.

 

[haileytraynor]

Nobody asked for your old problem.

It’s called adding context to an anecdote I was giving.

I see no harm in either of the things you stated.

Ok, so then people can post non-branching stories on CHYOA, end of discussion.

I never made any demands or suggested any censorship.

Perhaps that wasn’t your intention, but suggesting that any content should be removed or monitored or limited in any fashion is censorship by definition which is what you were advocating previously with your comments.

I have just always thought that CHYOO (& now CHYOA) were for stories with stopping points that allowed one to go in different directions,

and I always thought a hammer was made to smash things, and yet you can use it to remove nails and screw in screws. Imagine that, things can have multiple purposes.

to this very second, don't believe that I'm the only one who believed that.

and I and many other people believed in Santa Claus, but he’s not real either. Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant, the fact is that it’s not true and that’s what we are saying.

The stories that benefit from their short lengths can do so on Literotica, the non-branching site.

what is this obsession with Literotica? Are you some undercover agent sent to promote the living fuck out of Literotica? You are literally advocating for censorship and the segregating of content with those words. If you have no problem with non-branching stories on CHYOA, then there should be no need to continue further with this discussion. But you are advocating for people to move to a different site because you believe their content does not belong on this one. News Flash: Some people just don’t like Literotica and don’t want to use it. Hence why they are on this one. That’s the whole point we’re making.

Likewise, people should know when branches should or should not be continued, as well as when the possibility of "Add another chapter" (again, IIRC) should at least be an option, & may/may-not hurt the quality.

So everyone should know exactly the amount of chapters they’re going to post and everything else they’re going to do in the future or not even bother? What the fuck request is that? News Flash: some people lose interest in their own stories. Some people think they’ll add to it, and then don’t. That doesn’t mean they have to delete the whole thing.

also there IS the ability to add a chapter. But only on moderated or public stories. Private stories are private for a reason. The authors still have the ability to add chapters if they want to, but they don’t have to. Some people like spending months planning and writing and draft and strive for quality linear stories over dumping short branches that may or may not go anywhere. Some may even have alternative versions in mind that they plan to work on later hence why the branches are an option, but they are not required.

There are plenty of cleverly formatted linear stories that don’t require multiple branches, but do require the capabilities that CHYOA does offer in terms of coding and such.

There are many things that laws allow that most people still don't do because of safety, etc.

buddy you are on a porn site where people write about sex with aliens and blowjobs with androids…. Shut the fuck up about laws allowing shit lmao. It’s not that serious. People just don’t want to use Literotica and they don’t have to. The only laws this site is concerned with is the ones that are listed in the CHYOA Guide. None of which mention the inability to publish non-branching stories.

———
and going forward I’m just going to ignore your replies because they apparently serve no purpose other than to promote Literotica lmao. If you have anything more productive to say, then I’ll read it, but as far as I’m concerned this conversation is over at least with you anyways.

 

[MADiS0n]

It's called wasting space, as is your bit-by-bit reply so you can reply to what you want it to say/mean instead of what it did as posted.

I'm not promoting anything; I'm trying to state differences, like between you and an intelligent person, "buddy".

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

I'd like to point out that banning or deleting or burning in righteous fire stories that have no branches because they do not follow the spirit of CHYOA , aside from being silly and short-sighted, could prove technically difficult as almost every single story has the potential to have branches added at some point in the future, by the author himself or someone else.

This is CHYOA 99% of the stories are WIP, so how could you tell?

 

[incestdomination]

I also add that sometimes a linear branch story of one author could be what inspires other authors to make their own story. I don't mean those stories with multiple branches that start all after the introduction without having the same characters.
I am talking about stories where one author makes her branch and then another author makes his/her own branch starting in the middle of the previous author branch, just like it happened to me that started my own branch in the middle of another author branch because I was inspired by his story to make my own version, and in fact, he also started in the middle of the original author branch up to the point that this second author has added more to the story than the original author, but still, he probably did it inspired by the original author's chapters.

 

[MADiS0n]

It appears that people are continuing to reply to my posts, but not what they're actually saying.

Also, I don't know how any members without power could "burn into" any stories that are "righteous fire" (or what that would even mean), but I believe I've stated before that I see the site as meant for stories with branches at the stopping points, & that others have their own place, but this is not the one.

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

It appears that people are continuing to reply to my posts, but not what they're actually saying.

Also, I don't know how any members without power could "burn into" any stories that are "righteous fire" (or what that would even mean), but I believe I've stated before that I see the site as meant for stories with branches at the stopping points, & that others have their own place, but this is not the one.

I probably should refrain from replying but, what the hell, we only live once.

Mate, I wasn't addressing your post specifically. The title of the thread "Short stories/prompts, yay or nay?" is a question worth answering enough.

But since you brought this up...

The right expression was "burn in righteous fire", it was a vague reference to relgious censorship, to the holy inquisition, with a touch of fantasy.
I wrote "into" though, my bad.
Nonetheless, I'm inclined to belive it was still clear enough for anyone with a pinch of common sense, but alas, having you not much else to say, you had to pull the grammar card.

For one so keen and strict about what others write though, your opening sentence leaves much to be desired.

On the matter at hand, I was simply pointing out that even hypotetically, for the sake of argumenting, agreeing with you on the fact that CHYOA is "meant for stories with branches at the stopping points" and that there is no palce for anything else, there would be no easy way to separate those 'bad' single branch stories from the others.
That is other than preemptively deleting stories that if left alone could in time develop a second or even several more additional branches.

Hope to have been clear enough for you to understand.

 

[MADiS0n]

Ironically, I was confused when you referenced me @ the top of this one, but I'm likely having issues because I keep having to change my password due to repeatedly/constantly recalling either my Username but not Password, vice-versa, whatever.