Reasons I Will Not Give Your Story a Chance

Interactive Stories

You claim your story is Choose Your Own Adventure, but there's only one or a few instances where the reader has to choose a fork in the path.

Choose Your Own Adventure is a genre where most of the chapters end with the reader having to choose which page or chapter to go to next. There may be some chapters that only have one choice, which makes the chapter a bridge, and that's perfectly acceptable, but only if it's a few in comparison. If only one or a few chapters in the entire story has the reader choose a path, I personally wouldn't consider it a CYOA.

You claim your story is a CYOA and a Who Would You Fall For/Who Would Fall For You, but it isn't a CYOA.

CYOA is not interchangeable with WWYFF/WWFFY, nor that WWYFF/WWFFY is a subcategory of CYOA. Some WWYFF/WWFFY stories have the reader choose which love interest they would want to be with, which is a fork in the path like CYOA, but if this is only going to happen in the end of the story, I wouldn't consider it a CYOA. Choosing a love interest is just one of the many aspects of WWYFF/WWFFY. It's false advertising if you claim the story is both CYOA and WWYFF/WWFFY but the only plot-path choice there is is to choose a love interest at the end.

Whether choosing a path to the next chapter (CYOA), or choosing a personality answer (WWYFF/WWFFY), there are inputs from the author.

Which color is your favorite?

A. Pink. (QM: EW!)

B. Black. (QM: Awesome!)

C. Brown. (QM: Ugh, boring!)

What do you want to do next?

If you want to go through door a, go to chapter 2. (AN: I wouldn't go there if I were you . . . .)

If you want to go through door b, go to chapter 3.

This is annoying to no end. I came to read a story, not for a person I've never met critique me for my personal choices. It's unneeded, and it makes the story seem like the story is only for the author in question rather for the readers. Don't get me wrong, writers should write firstly for themselves, but that piece of advise is more to get writers to write what they want to write and not to let others or the newest popular trend to dictate what they write. These inputs put the readers like myself off. Also, it makes me feel as though, especially for WWYFF/WWFFY stories, if I choose these "ew" or "boring" answers, I'll get an "ew" or "boring" love interest—as if the author makes one perfect, in depth, love interest for themselves, for the answers that they would choose, and then have some other vapid eye-candy for the rest of us. WWYFF/WWFFY stories are supposed to support various kinds of people with a variety of personality quirks and choices, not just reward only one kind of person.

In WWYFF/WWFFY, the story portion asks the readers which love interest did what (and the answer portion consists of a piece of description from each of the love interests).

Who kidnapped you?

A. The one with tussled blond hair.

B. The one with silky smooth black hair.

C. The one with springy brown hair.

I understand that this was a way to outwit Quizilla's character limit so that at least the love interests were described at all, but asking the readers who did what is like telling me that they're all dolls where their heads can pop off and be put on another doll's body. They're interchangeable. "So it basically doesn't matter who you get, they'll be the same except maybe their hobbies and skills or talents," is what this is telling me. In WWYFF/WWFFY, it should be story and characters first, the reader's choices and results after. The love interests should be different, have different roles with each part they play specifically, and have different motivations and goals.