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

[uberkitty]

Ok, so, it seems like we have several things to decide before we move on.

1. Are we starting off as one group or more than one?

My vote: one group, for the reasons I stated above.

2. Are we starting off with "the" story, or a trial run of some kind?

My vote: a trial run. I think we should work out all the group dynamics in a brief story, and then use the experience (and possibly some of the characters/items/locations) to build "the" story.

3. What kind of story?

The suggestions so far have been

* one tale: standard fantasy quest, following a small number of core characters
* various tales: pass-the-item
* various tales: centered on location

My vote: Pass-the-Item, with Location as close second. I feel strongly that we should start with a brief, introductory story, and the Various Tales options give us a lot more leeway. The One Tale option means we would probably have to work out a whole lot from scratch before we start, rather than allowing characters, etc., to develop organically.

___________

Also, we haven't really talked about this, but we should be thinking about what kind of governing structure we want. Working together like this means that we're going to be developing rules, and we have to decide how we're going to make them/agree to them. I'm not saying we should start drafting a Constitution quite yet , but we should start thinking about how this group is going to function.

Having discussions and coming to any kind of consensus on debates takes forever in this kind of forum. We might want to try speeding up this beginning process by meeting at some chat site--if we can ever find a time that works for all.

Anyway. Sorry to blather on. Just some thoughts for Monday.

 

[eXodus]

many excellent ideas!

i think coming up with a few guiding rules will help everyone out. are we going to work under a word number limit? as if everyone writes 300 words and one person writes 3,000 it may well throw off the entire feel of the story. also how kong will the person have to get their addition together?

my own choice would be a trial run to see how we all do of now more then 200 words a piece about a item or a location.

after we do that, we can see what else the world brings.

 

[Shadowdancer]

200 words? Do you realize how short a story that is? Someone very early on this thread mentioned 1,000 words, and I thought that was pretty limiting, but workable.

I would be in favor of, say a 1,500-word maximum, and anything less than that would be fine. If someone wanted to write a short, 300-word story, fine. If someone else wanted to write a 1,200-word story, that's fine, too. But I also realize you can't just let someone write a 5,000-word story. It would take up a lot of space, would take a lot of time to write (might miss your deadline) and would take a lot of time to read, which might mean fewer readers.

 

[Enkhidu]

Hi guys!

Got caught at a client site this morning - will update as soon as possible!

 

[Daniel Knight]

How about a pass the item story set in the one location, such as a large city with a nearby forest/graveyard/dungeon/what ever... then people would be able to do their own stories, have reoccurring characters, and even an overall story arch if they so chose. Just an idea.

1,500 words to me sounds fine if we’re doing a pass the object. If it was going to be a continuos ongoing story we could probably survive with less though.

 

[Enkhidu]

Well, I've come to the following decisions, based on the input you all have given:

For our trial run, we will be doing a pass the object story with a single, 17 person, rotation. The object in this case will be a coin, the exact nature of which will be left to the first one or two writers in line (as to denomination, manufacture, etc.). In order to make the coin a simple vehicle of passing the story, rather than an integral part of the story itself, I would ask that this be a non-magical item, or at least an item that is non-magical by the time you pass the coin along to the next person. Ideally, the coin would be unique in some way, without having it's "own story to tell."

Each installment of the story will be, at maximum, 2000 words. I would like to place a minimum of 750 words on the story as well, in order for us to get a good idea of everyone's writing style, but that minimum is not set in stone. The maximum, however, is a hard ceiling.

The guidelines I set forth in my earlier post will get us started on "rules and regs." That means that you will have 1 week to post your installment after the writer preceding you posts theirs. During the trial run, we will hammer out the rest of the rules. Since this has turned into such a group effort, I couldn't justify unilaterally setting rules for the whole thing.

With that said, I think we can get the ball rolling on our trial run. I will start a thread in the Story Hour Forum named [ENWWC] ENWorld Writer's Circle Story Hour. Please use that for all story posts, and for comments directly related to the story.

In addition, there was a request for a mailing list to be started. If no one has any objection, I will begin setting up an email group on one of the free services out there (does anyone know if Yahoo Groups is still free?). If you want to be part of such a list, please email me your address. I'm at this address. If you would, please make the subject of the email ENWWC. That will help me separate the junkmail from the desirable mail.

Once again, here is the order of the trial run story:

Son of Thunder
darklight
dshai527
GWolf
NoOneofConsequence
Spider_Jeruselam
NiTessine
Enkhidu
Shadowdancer
eXodus
Daniel Knight
Aeolius
Tonguez
uberkitty
Delemental
Altmann
fett527


Son of Thunder, take it away!

We'll see you in the [ENWWC] ENWorld Writer's Circle!

 

[eXodus]

perhaps i missed it somewhere up a ways, but what is the concrete timeframe that someone has to work with?

 

[Enkhidu]

You'll have seven (7) days to post your installment from the time the person directly ahead of you posts theirs.

Have fun!

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Just posted the opener

It's over there in the story hour forums.

Read on,

Son of Thunder

 

[Shadowdancer]

Great. Now I have to learn where the Story Hour forum is.

(Wanders off to search for forum.)