Managing Your Stories and Chapters

Managing your stories and chapters

Your Library brings together saved reading items and your authoring work. Use it to find drafts, follow review feedback, manage polls, recover deleted work, and return to stories where you hold a role.

Open your authoring lists

On the home page, My Stories and My Latest Chapters appear in the sidebar when you have writing to continue. Select a story or chapter to open it. Select the map icon beside a story to open its Story Map, or the locate icon beside a chapter to find that chapter in its Story Map. When All appears, it opens the full My stories or My chapters Library page.

Open your profile menu and choose a Library page, or move between the tabs at the top of any Library page:

Favorite stories and Bookmarks are reader lists. A favorite saves a whole story, while a bookmark saves one chapter. They do not grant authoring access.

Find a story you work on

My stories includes every story where you have an Owner, Editor, Assistant Editor, Reviewer, or Author role. Use its filters to narrow by role or by publication status:

• Published is available to readers.
• Under review has been submitted and is waiting for approval.
• Not published is still a draft.

Use Map to open the Story Map. Use the story actions to Edit story when you are the Owner. A collaborator who no longer wants their role can choose Leave story; this removes the role but leaves their existing chapters in place.

Investigate a Game Mode report

Open your profile menu and choose Game mode reports, or choose the same tab from another Library page. This list brings together reader reports from every Game Mode story you currently own or edit.

Each report identifies the story and chapter, shows the reader's description, and provides Load Save Game while the reported chapter remains available. Loading the copy lets you inspect its saved values and use recent Back steps without changing the reader's game or one of your own games.

While the temporary copy is open, choose Return to reports to close it and return to that story's report page. If you open that story's report page elsewhere while the copy is still active, choose Resume to continue or Close to discard it. The combined Game mode reports list does not show Resume or Close; open the story-specific report page first. Your own saved games remain unchanged.

When a reader sends a report, CHYOA also sends a site notification to the story's current Owner and Editors. The linked story title opens that story's Game mode reports page.

Assistant Editors, Reviewers, and Authors cannot open these reports or load their Save Games through those roles.

Find a chapter you wrote

My chapters contains your chapters across all stories. Filter by Published, Awaiting approval, or Not published, or sort by update date, creation date, title, likes, or views.

This page follows chapter authorship rather than story-wide editing access. An Editor may be able to edit someone else's chapter without that chapter becoming part of the Editor's personal My chapters list.

Open a chapter to view its publication notice and available actions. Draft and returned chapters provide a route back to the editor.

Save a real draft

Select Save as Draft on a chapter form when the work is not ready for readers or review. The draft is saved to your account, appears under My chapters, and can be opened from another device after you log in.

A new story is always saved as a draft first. It appears under My stories after you finish its first chapter and select Save Story. Additional chapters created while that story remains a draft are published with the story after the complete story is approved.

Use drafts for unfinished prose. Publishing a chapter named “Placeholder,” “Draft,” or “In progress” is unnecessary because a parent chapter may have any number of branches.

Understand the local recovery copy

The new-story, new-chapter, and edit-chapter forms keep a recovery copy while you type. If the page closes or you navigate away unexpectedly, returning to the same form in the same browser may show Local draft restored and the time it was saved.

This browser-only copy is a safety net, not a saved story or chapter draft.

The recovery copy:

• covers prose and supported form settings, but cannot restore an uploaded cover and may not recreate newly added poll rows;
• belongs to the current browser and signed-in account;
• stays with the same form address;
• is kept for up to 14 days;
• is not synchronized to another device;
• does not appear in My stories or My chapters;
• is ignored when the saved chapter has since been changed elsewhere.

Select Discard draft in the notice to remove the recovery copy and reload the saved form. Do not rely on local recovery for planned work: select Save Story or Save as Draft regularly.

Follow an item awaiting approval

After Submit for approval, a story is marked Under review. After Submit Chapter for Approval, a chapter is marked Awaiting approval. You can still open and edit your work while it waits.

If the item is approved, it becomes published. If it is returned, CHYOA marks it Needs Revision and preserves the feedback.

Open Needs revision to see returned stories and chapters together. Read the displayed feedback, edit the item, and review the finished result before publishing or submitting again:

• a returned story has Submit for approval on its story page;
• a returned chapter has Review and publish when you can publish directly, Review and submit when approval is required, or Edit draft when your current access allows only saving.

Saving changes alone does not publish or resubmit the item. Use the available publication action when the revision is ready. If a story has become Private, an author without a current writing role may continue editing and saving an existing chapter draft, but publishing and submission are no longer available.

Review chapters in a story you help manage

Review chapters lists pending contributions in stories where you have review access. In a published story, each contribution is marked Needs your review. Chapters submitted as part of a whole story that is still Under review remain Awaiting approval, because the story and its chapters are approved together. If nothing currently needs a decision, the page shows an empty state. Open each listed chapter in context before approving or declining it.

• Approve publishes the contribution.
• Decline returns it to the author with the feedback you enter.

Assistant Editor and Author roles do not include review access. See Story Modes, Roles, and Review for the full permission table.

Manage your polls

My polls lists the polls you created. Use it to separate active and closed polls, see closing information, and return to the chapter containing a poll.

A poll can also be managed by editing its chapter. Once it has votes, its options, option order, voting type, and maximum selections are locked, and it cannot be removed. You may still close it or update settings that do not rewrite existing votes.

See Polls for poll creation and result choices.

Recover deleted or preserved content

Recently deleted holds the original story or chapter during its 30-day recovery period. Recovered content holds a private, read-only copy after an eligible contributor chapter is permanently removed.

Recently Deleted and Recovered Content explains when Recover is available, the order for restoring connected chapters and Link Chapter targets, Private-story permissions, and how to reuse exact Markdown from a preserved copy.

A practical writing routine

For longer work:

1. open the item from My stories or My chapters;
2. use Save as Draft at meaningful checkpoints;
3. view the saved chapter as a reader;
4. use the Story Map to check branch placement;
5. test polls, links, variables, and game state;
6. submit or publish only when the chapter is ready;
7. watch Needs revision for any returned work.