I am seeing a trend where with a few exceptions all we are getting are new stories with a couple threads and no one following up on them. No one seems to be adding to anyone else's stories for the most part; they just start their own and go a few threads, then stop and wait for others to add. New authors aren't joining in on active stories, they are making tons of inactive stories and then leaving when no one joins them instead.
Slut World and At The Cabin are both very active multi-contributor stories, so my experience is quite the contrary to the trend you are observing. -Z.
I think, there is no problem, if a new author creates a new story. I suppose most of them still have one or more unpublished stories and want to get feedback or others to join in. On the other side it seems that most authors are some shy to contribute to other stories and it would be good to take the shyness from them. I also think, that the concept of contributing to other stories isn't self-evident, so most new user have fear of it. ("I don't want to damage your story", and so on)
As for my own stories, I've found that the number of people interested in contributing are affected by two things: 1. How large the story is. The larger the story has become, the more people seem interested in contributing. 2. How active I am. The more pages that are added to the story, the more it seems people want to contribute their own story segments. For Example, "Glory Hole" hasnt seen a submission in a long time, but at the same time, I havent contributed anything to that in a long time, and and there really isnt a lot there. On the flip side, "Futa Apocalypse" gets probably two PMs from people interested in contributing, and one or two actual submissions each week. Early on, it was just me writing for the most part, but over time, its drawn more contributions At the same time, I try to add a little something to it as I'm able, and there's a fair amount of material there for people to read as well. I expect it all boils down to having enough material for people to get swept up in the story, and to update it often enough to keep people thinking about it. Thats my two cents on the subject, and how I interpret what I've seen anyway.
@Mukarami: yeah, I noticed that too and that's the thing I'd have liked to NOT bring back from the old site. I think it's one of the consequences of not having a good system in place when a user wants to add a thread to an existing story (thread takes ages to be approved or isn't approved at all, so he writes totally new stories..) That said, I also think once the site get more complete (Friedman is working on it) we'll have little to worry about..unfortunately this things take time, especially when you're doing them out of your free time.
A lot of concepts in stories seem pretty similar, but may have some silly requirements, such as "No gay content," which might be moot if there was a system to warn about the tags of a chapter, or the ability to blacklist specific tags. (Maybe some day we could even favorite other tags, and our favorites could be used to modify what stories users see on the front page). Another indication is that some people failed at understanding the story they read. That, and writing stories takes effort and attention. On a thread with one hundred, views, it can be unlikely even to have one vote. I've noticed a lot of "stories" as well that seem to follow a structure that isn't inherently narrative per se. For example, I've seen more than a few stories with a "build your own x" motif, stories implying an overt Mary Sue protag, or stories which are little more than railroading around whatever fetish the creator wanted that night. Stories that require a bit more thought than these require more of a commitment. I'm thinking maybe ultimately people want to maintain control over a story. Perhaps they even feel that they won't own their ideas if they show up in a story somebody else is editor over? The whole thing with unlimited branches is actually quite a paradigm shift for how CHYOO/CHYOA works, because contributing to a story is no longer a matter of virtual realty. It's easy to abandon a story when you've written a smorgasbord to start for still receives no other contributors, when a similar story someone started right after you starts racking up loads of hits.
I rather like the idea of the interactive story aspect, because it does become something of a collaborative effort, but sometimes it all depends on the ideas being brought into a story, as it can sometimes change the nature of the original author's intentions, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. i've loved looking over this website's content for years before i decided to throw my hat into the ring by contributing to some threads. of course I had to plan out what i wanted to write before actually posting it, if only to keep the story threads as a logical extension of what came before hand.
If a story grabs attention, people contribute to it. If the concept is fresh and the story gets updated at least once a week (and therefore in people's faces on the front page), the likelihood of contributions goes way up.
I think the mentality behind the loose threads is the hope that someone will fill in the rest. I try to write with a goal in mind on how a scene will conclude and write it in myself. The bonus is when it inspires others to come up with alternative endings.
I won't start a story without an idea of the first 3-6 threads. I'll pound them out over the first week and then move to other things.
Personally, during times where I can't either find time to write a new thread to add to existing stories, or run out of ideas; I wait to see who tries to contribute, and see if that helps me out.
I don't think there really is a good answer to the problem of stories being started with just a thread or two and then being abandoned. I'd be very unlikely to add any threads to such a story myself. We all have our personal turn ons when it comes to stories we would contribute to. I tend to be more interested in sci fi/fantasy and maybe a bit of BDSM so if I am in the mood to write I'd look for recently updated stories in those genres to add to. I would tend to agree with Torg, Artican and DoctorWhat. When I do start to write I usually have a small arc in mind and will then add a thread or two per day to a particular story until I reach the conclusion of the plot arc that I had thought of. Depending on how detailed a story is, this might be two or three threads or a dozen or more. The most fun I've had has been three or four times when through no real planning beforehand I've got into a situation where myself and another author have taken turns in adding threads to a plot arc. This has tended to be in other peoples stories and the collaborations have been with the original author. Never fully knowing what curve or twist might be thrown in with the next thread in these cases is very interesting.
I think therein lies the appeal of interactive stories, the idea that one person starts something and then it goes from one contributor to the next and you all try to make the best of what each person contributes. granted this does have the danger of making the story lose focus or seem directionless, you know the whole 'too many cooks' issue. its all down to how each person thinks about how they think a story can proceed based on what has already been written, either by themselves or by others.
This has also been loads of fun for me. Several instances stick out as some of my favorite contributions to this site.
I believe this 'trend' is nothing new to the site at all actually, but rather a thing that's carried over from way back on the old site. We've always had the occasional writer who starts up a story, but sadly just fails to capture someone else's interest with only those first few threads... It's always good with new contributions I feel, for variety if nothing else, but there will simply always be a whole lot of those stories that just won't ever make it any further than that. (Not to say that any stories that haven't been added to are shit, of course! But they're also really needing that little extra, just to keep any new additions rolling in...!)
So you're of the persuasion that the story's original author is "failing" to "capture someone else's interest" rather than someone else is "failing" to rise to the task of collaborating and understanding the standards of that story? This is such an interesting dichotomy.
