[OT]Would you be interested in group writing fiction?

[Spider_Jerusalem]

Word limit?

World setting?

Level?

Number of characters in the group?

Main villains?

etc etc.

Or maybe we don't plan and just go with it. Although if we had three stories in rotation it would be really cool because we all get a hand in three different settings. Anyway. Let the ideas role in...

or maybe the first three (or whatever) writers choose it all.

This is going to be good.

 

[Daniel Knight]

Okay… as I understand it there are twelve of us, with three stories in rotation. Now, with three stories, we can easily take a different approach with each one.

Story One can be the simple building on from what the last person has written. No alterations to previous stuff – just pure improvisation in trying to figure out where the story goes next.

Story Two can be the follow the object story. We each think of an item, suggest it, and hold a vote (either publicly or between us) or even let a third party roll a d12 to decide.

Story Three can be the competition story. We all write up a page worth of text and let the public decide which gets whacked on the end of the story. The beauty of this one is that allows the people who aren’t currently working on the other two to do something. And it’s also one that people can easily forfeit because they don’t have time etc, because at least others will still be submitting.

We can figure the setting, heroes, villains, etc out by thinking up some categories and randomly divide them amongst the participants. This means we all have contributed to the base work, and at least gives us some solid and familiar ground to work with.

Or maybe I’m just being far to complex for something that’s supposed to be fun. Just ideas.

 

[Aeolius]

Where were all of you folks, when I was recruiting for creative writers to participate in my message-based game?

 

[Tonguez]

Whoa this is cool - any room for one more person in the team?

PS I like Jerusalem Spiders idea of the voted story. I once participated in a Star Trek game of this type done with online forms - ie
1the situation would be started and a list of 4 options given (like choose a path)
2 then a call for submissions would be put and everyone would submit
3 the 'judges' (DMs) would choose the 'best' submission and
4 this would become the next part of the story ending with a cliffhanger which would be continued

it was a bit of a bummer however when the NPC yopu set up and imagined as a major villain, was blasted by a Romulan phaser!

Anyway can I play

Story One can be the simple building on from what the last person has written. No alterations to previous stuff – just pure improvisation in trying to figure out where the story goes next.

A quest or a basic treasure hunt (aha Pyrates!) would probably be easiest to handle in this format.

Story Two can be the follow the object story. We each think of an item, suggest it, and hold a vote (either publicly or between us) or even let a third party roll a d12 to decide.

How about we simply make the object something vague perhaps just call it the 'KEY' and then let the story determine what it is.

eg "Finally my love" the Khard Magus breathed "finally I have the Key. Soon, soon you shall be resotred and we shall have our revenge..."


Anyway can I PLEASE join...

 

[uberkitty]

Am I too late? Do you have too many people already? I'd really like to participate.

My advice would be not to start three stories all at once. Even with "too many" people, one story line is easier to keep track of and maintain an investment in. But I think it might be neat if other stories grew organically off the first story, and we could have different structures for these stories once we have some experience with the workings of the first one.

A small number of central characters (3-5) on a defined quest is a good way to begin. We could all submit character descriptions and quest descriptions and vote on the ones we like best--runners-up could be side characters and side quests.

Are we thinking of setting this squarely in the realm of D&D, or having a separately defined world?

(I keep saying "we" even though I may be too late to join. If there are too many people, maybe there could be a bench: folks who can jump in if someone gets booted or decides to give it up?)

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Good Idea Uberkitty!!!

I think we should definitely place the stories in a D&D setting. Perhaps one brewed amongst us or even the Realms or Greyhawk (the two I know well). When my group and I did this we just started a new world and built off each other. I prefer the Underdark so I tried to send the main character there, whereas the next writer took him in another direction; didn't hurt my feelings.

I also like Uberkitty's suggestion of some back up writers like in the Iron DM threads.

By the by, I'll be camping from tomorrow (Friday, 12 July 2002 until Sunday) so this'll probably be my last post for several days.

Can't wait to catch up.

Son of Thunder

 

[Delemental]

Word limit?

World setting?

Level?

Number of characters in the group?

Main villains?

etc etc.

I'd suggest leaving the world generic, and I mean even more generic than Greyhawk. The writers should be able to develop their own kindgoms, cities, etc, just as they develop the characters. This could be subject to the same sort of "understanding" between contributors that the characters have; it's fine to wipe out a village with a bandit raid, but if someone creates "Jazandor, City of a Thousand Colors" and obviously intends it as an important location, then the next person in line should have the courtesy not to flatten it with a comet immediately.

Perhaps before starting, everyone working on a particular storyline should have a pre-story conference, where certain details are set. An example would be something like the following (note that I just made this up. I'm not saying this is how it has to be):

There are three main characters. At least one must be a different gender than the others, and at least one must be a different race. This can be the same person (ie, a female non-human). None of these people can be killed, incapacitated, or removed from the storyline without the consent of all participants in the story. There must also be at least one primary opponent, who is under the same rules as the main characters. The setting is based on basic D&D concepts (highly magical, medieval to Renaissance-level technology and social development, presence of typical fantasy races, etc), but not set in any published world. Any developed settings or locations must be left open enough to allow other participants to add or remove elements as needed. Beyond the main three characters and primary opponent, participants are free to create and/or remove secondary characters as they see fit. Each participant has one week to submit their portion of the story, starting from the post time of the previous portion. If a submission is not received, the story passes to the next person on the list. Three such missed deadlines from a participant will cause the person to be removed from the rotation. Known conflicts (vacations) or unavoidable circumstances (computer crashes), if reported in a timely manner, will not be counted against a participant. Any submission which is deemed grossly incongruous with the storyline (the established "fighter" starts throwing fireballs, for example, or suddenly Star Wars-style Stormtroopers show up), or does not meet the posting standards of the EN World forum, will not be added to the ongoing story and may result in the participant being removed from the project if problems persist. Constructive criticism of writing style or technique is welcomed. Unconstructive criticism ("you suck!") is not welcome. All participants recognize and agree that this is a shared story; the events and characters are "ours," not "yours" and "mine".

Whew! That got a little longer than I intended, and went into more "rules of conduct" than "setting rules". Still, I think hashing out some general details would be a good idea, as well as having set, written standards for participation. The whole "ours" vs. "mine" thing is just so people don't get into arguments over what someone else has written ("but Pelfor the Indomitable wouldn't do that!"), and accept that these are 'public domain' stories subject to the whims of fate and the tastes of a dozen or so different people.

By the way, as if it weren't obvious, I'd like to be involved in this project as well, if there is still room.

 

[uberkitty]

I like the idea of a generally D&D world which we get to define as we go along, rather than an established world. And I really like delemental's idea of each contributing an area.

As well as a central quest, the story will need a larger conflict for context. This could also be something we each suggest and then vote on.

My experience is that serial stories can get kind of plodding and unfocused when the writers don't all share some sense of a larger structure. But I think there are ways to avoid that. A balance of elements help move a story forward, and varying them helps keep a reader's interest. If we identified some of these elements, we could arrange some kind of pre-set formula. Bear with me, here. Let's say we decided that the elements we wanted to focus on were

a. advancement of character
b. advancement of plot
c. plot twist
d. obstacle
e. change of location

We might then decide, for instance, that a chapter (say, 15 submissions per chapter, each submission about 1000 words?) should comprise

3 x a,
6 x b,
2 x c,
3 x d, and
1 x e.

The writers at the beginning of the chapter would be pretty free to choose whichever element they felt like writing. But as the chapter went along, writers would start having to consider which elements hadn't yet been covered. Of course, your place in the line-up would change from chapter to chapter (so long as we chose a number of submissions per chapter that was different from the total number of writers). It would also be a challenge to us as writers. Those of us who are great with character development would be forced to come up with plot twists once in a while, and those of us who are great at cliffhangers would have to sit back and think about what makes a given character tick. And of course your submission wouldn't have to be wholly devoted to its given element--it's easy to imagine a plot-intensive scene which also helps to define a character. As long as you accomplish the primary elemental goal, you're free to write whatever you like.

Defining chapters would help to set a good pace. You'd know that if you're writing the beginning part of a chapter, it has to feel like a beginning; and if you're writing something in the middle, you know you should be building to some kind of climax; and if you're the last, then you're going to need some resolution and a whizz-bang teaser for the next chapter. Each chapter ups the stakes--chapters might even be roughly analagous to character levels.

Shew, I kind of got carried away there. I am only offering this as a possibility to consider. But I think this kind of system might have the benefit of helping us, as writers, learn to manipulate the balance of fiction elements and work with our stories on a structural as well as an imaginative level.

 

[Altmann]

Well, I'm interested, too.

However, I'd prefer a non-generic world. We don't have to build the world before starting to write, but we should decide on a few things (I'd say importance of deities, of magic, tech level, travel mode, lawlessness).

And a suggestion for the modus operandi : divide between aspects of the story.

Say we have 4 groups.

* Group 1 handles the main heroes. They are the main story. That's chapters 1,5,9,...

* Group 2 handles the main villains (or conflicting group, you get the idea). They are the other part of the story. That's chapters 2,6,10,...

* Group 3 handles briefly many of the NPCs that both groups meet, and fleshes them out, even if they are to die soon. That's chapters 3,7,11,...

* Group 4 handles some meta-story and depicts the world itself. Depending on the nature of the world, this may be either extracts of the encyclopaedia, or a bard telling legends, or a prisoner to the Great King witnessing of his own homeland, an old man recounting his memories, ...

What do you think ?

Be reading you,
YA

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

These are all worthwhile ideas, but this is getting too complicated.

Lets keep it simple. The simpler it is, the more space the writer has to expand and add depth. I suggest this, seeing as this is the first collective Story Hour here.

1 group - its about 15 now, yes?
1 story, because it is more than likely one story would dominate if multiple were offered. Writers would resort to desperate measures in the other stories, spectacle over story, for example.
1 addition every 4 days - if a person misses a deadline then it shifts to the next writer.
Non-generic world - its a good idea to be able to add places and names as you see fit. If we set it in Waterdeep or something, then people would start shouting once I made Elaith Craulnober into an umberhulk. Its better to just go with the flow.
Word Limit 1000
No killing main characters. Full stop. Do not kill them.
No killing main villains. Full stop. Do not kill them.

If this goes well then I'm all for adding further stories in. However, if they are then make them branch away from the main story - that adventure group the heroes saw in the Crow & Kobold? Well... thats the knock on story.

I don't think we should attempt more then one story yet because we don't know what sort of hiccups a primary story will hit.

Right. I hope you agree with some of the things said. There is a lot of interest in this and it needs to go right in order to run well. Lets just see if we can walk before we can double move.

I think we need to start discussing heroes. How many? - we could start with 4 and let it become a form of companionship or company as heroes come and go (and die).

Okay. I'll stop now. I'm still happy to write with everyone whatever happens, its just I think we should keep it simple.