Story/Story - by David Kolb
Huddling under the tree you find that the dark and rain keeps you from seeing your car clearly. The wind suddenly picks up even more, trying to pull you away into the storm. You can barely stay upright; you see no way you can get back to the house safely.
Afraid for your life, you cling to the tree as firmly as you can.
Seeking a place that will shelter you from the wind, you climb up into the tree branches.
This is one of four branches on its level of the story tree.
Why offer three story options here when the other nodes offer only two story options?
What's wrong with varying the number of options? Another node has only one.
We've set a pattern, so changing it makes this node seem more important than the others. The reader's expectations get upset.
It isn't more important than the other nodes, but it is important to disturb the reader's expectations.
It's not variety when there are only two exceptions in the tree.
Your question points at another meta-story that always accompanies a story-telling. It's the story of the ongoing series of performance or composition choices made by the author as the story is guided to a conclusion.
The reader reconstructs that story.
It's a three way connection: the written or performed story, the meta-story of author's choices, and the meta-story of reader's adventure. At a play or movie there is the same mix of immersion and staging.
Making those meta-stories explicit may distract from immersion in the story.
Not necessarily. They can make for a deeper presence to the act of telling.