You could break up the files into lots of chapters, but then if someone wants to inject a chapter they'd have to rename the one after it. I don't see a good solution. It's a limitation of git, or any VCS really. How would any VCS know how to handle two different appends to the end of a file? All changes are dependent on the previous change, which means PRs can only be written in serial. Fundamentally version control is a bad choice for this type of project. It would be better as a website or something that put you in a queue for additions. This project looks like it will be unmaintainable.

Or just add [End of file, don't write below this line] or [The end] at the bottom.

I maaassiiivly disagree with this. The larger the project gets the easier individual edits will be. I'm a pessimist by nature but this is going too far.

can... someone explain what is going on here?

projects do suffer less merge conflicts the larger they are, and stevebmark is literally declaring this project as a whole unmaintainable from the word go, and his proof is that the story started with one line, and the pull requests to get the story off the ground are conflicting.

I don't understand what's going on here, I don't understand how anyone can support this position. This is crazy! I am very confused!