How do you write a story with branching choices?

You write a story with branching choices by mapping the structure before the prose: decide where the reader makes decisions, what each option leads to, and where paths can reconnect. Start small, with one central choice and a few outcomes, so you learn the discipline without drowning in branches. Make choices meaningful, so each option feels genuinely different rather than a fake pick that leads to the same place. Watch for dead ends and orphaned sections, and reuse merge points to keep the tree from exploding, since every branch is content you have to write. Test by walking every path start to finish. Building the map visually first, in a node-based builder, makes gaps and broken links obvious before you have written a word too many.