Hi Mckk That’s right this is a chain story. We all create a character and once we all know what the stories about, we all first give a starting piece of writing to introduce our characters where I guess we all meet up at the organisation. Unless others have a different idea but I’m not sure exactly what Maggie had in mind and it’s up to her lol And we can also discuss the plot of the story and our different ideas as we go along and where we’ll all eventually end up. I think Maggie was planning for it to be written into the thread rather than emailing in word docs, but if that’s what everyone prefers she may change it It’s just a way for us to improve our writing and have fun especially with character development! lol
So when do we start talking about the plot? And what happens then if new people wanna join - like, once it's started, how would newcomers work? And esp if it's posted on this thread - paragraphs and chapters - the newcomers' posts would interrupt and cause a lot of disruption. Not to say newcomers shouldn't be allowed even at a later stage - but we need some way of organising this. Perhaps once everyone's created their characters, we should create a whole new thread where the story would actually be? Keep one as a character thread and the other as a story thread. How would it work in terms of actually writing? Do we only write what our character will say - eg. does it solely consist of dialogue? Paragraph each, chapter each, or do we write some background too - like proper prose, like it's our own novel - with a word limit and people just have to carry on and play off whatever's been written? And what about order? How would we control who writes the next post? eg. if one user is on the forum more frequently or perhaps there's some trouble due to time-zone differences, then one user will have more input than another, giving them far more control over the direction of the story. Is it all random - like anyone can write the next excerpt - or is there some order to this? (and what happens if 2 people write a follow-up excerpt at the same time - then which excerpt will be counted? Wouldn't be fair to choose one over another) So does anyone have any idea where they want the story to go? (without making it too much like Heroes or Smallville ) And I think sending round a word doc would work much better based on my above questions - at least the amount of contribution each user can make will be limited (like past the parcel) and newbies can come in just fine because the newbie will just be an extra person in the email chain.
whenever you want. unfortunately Maggie cant be on all that often at the moment only usually weekends well anyone can join so if they start while were quite a way into the story then they can just join the plot from there. that would be quite interesting actually as we would be meeting new characters along the way. thats a great idea!!! and we could all come up with a title for the story or something and name the thread that. this character thread could also be used as a discussion thread where we talk about the plot or character interaction yep proper prose like a novel from your characters point of view or you writing about your character. 1st or 3rd etc. im not sure what Maggie wants in terms of word limit but there will probably be a limit of some sort within reason like an A4 page or two or something. and yes it will probably be a case of continue from your characters point of view of whatever’s been written before so that it has some flow but im not entirely sure on that point. its up to Maggie or whatever everyone else prefers. i'v already done my character introduction piece so when Maggie gives me the go ahead ill post it. of course she might set up the separate story thread first like you suggested. i'v written about an A4 page worth, in 3rd person and Aida is making her way to the organization in the city. (i guessed we had a huge compound there for the organization.) where im guessing we will all meet each other in however way you and your character wants and we take it from there plot wise. yes this sort of thing needs to be sorted out and decided. im not sure if Maggie has thought of this in detail yet as she wasn’t sure how many she was going to get joining in the first place but hopefully she will post soon and perhaps have an idea. personally im not sure so this could be a discussion point if anyone has ideas or preferences? maybe if there are a lot more active users than others, then they can still write but they would not be allowed to add to the main plot (or current joint plot) or any such thing; but instead write something only about their own character or their own miniature sub plots which wont take the main plot ahead of itself, and so not allowing the more slower users and they’re characters to loose out or drop behind? as it wouldn’t be fare to make the more frequent users wait nor the less frequent users get left behind. not sure, i mean from the obvious fighting demons hehe but it would also be interesting to see how our characters grow and interact together. another point is that if we feel we want our characters to interact in a certain way together, or talk about something in particular to learn more about them and grow, then before writing a piece we could discuss certain interactions or something.
Mckk - we have a sort of order (see my other post). There is a basic plot (maggies first plot) but it will now doubt be subject to change to some extent. If your unsure the basic plot is: There is an agency called nexus who defend earth from demons/etc. Its not to specific at this point. Think of it like a play or RPG. Sadly we only have on person playing a villain so we'll have to make other villains up. If you want to create a thread to post the story in go ahead, don't use the RPG section though the threads take ages to be approved. Oh and I'm currently writing the intro/first chapter? If you need a basic idea, your character will be coming into nexus for a mission briefing. Mabye we should lock the number of people playing now? Or allow one more if they'll be a villain. hope that helped
AveryWhite and Mr Mr, thanks for all your clarifications! Yup it's a lot clearer to me now Well I could play a villain instead - I've never tried and would love to have a go. I'd go for being an undercover agent though - so I'd come to your briefings Should I drop Olusia and become someone else? Or I could write both? Let me know what you think and if you think it's a good idea that I write a villain, then I'll post again with a character
yeah sure you could probably write both if you want you could even make Olusia into the villain/undercover agent if you wanted as you said she had a bad side or something, unless you have better idea for villain hehe
To muddy the waters a bit, in PMs with Maggie this is the impression I got: We'll start a new thread. The first post will be a list of players. Each player will take a turn (in order) adding to the story. There will be a word limit (we talked about 500 words) and a time limit (we talked about 48 hours) to post. Should you not post, you're just skipped and need to wait for your next turn. Because this is not a role playing thread everyone will be allowed and expected to use everyone else's characters within the current plot needs of the story. This means that initial character concepts, backgrounds, powers, and even personalities will change as the story progresses. The story concept (as she explained it to me) is a group of young, independently wealthy halfbreeds are dedicated to destroying anything evil. They work for a group called Nexus. Nexus -- created in 803 AD -- monitors otherworldly beings passing through Earth. If the beings have peaceful intentions Nexus assists them. If their intentions are violent or otherwise harmful, the invader are fought off or killed. Nexus used to employ mostly humans but has recently switched to halflings because they tend to be more durable than human agents and they can also often go places humans cannot. Nexus's current boss is the mysterious Lord Quasi. Rusty (as posted by Finhorn) owns Daemon Industries, a corporation dedicated to a yet unknown nefarious purpose. Rusty himself has a bad habit of releasing demons into the world in his personal crusade to bind Death. Civo, the vice-president of the company, (as posted by Fullmetal Xeno) is the mastermind of the true threat against Earth. There has been no plot discussion that I'm aware of. I think that Maggie wants to get started and if a plot doesn't' develop by itself, then we can have a discussion on where the story should go. Things of course change and I guess we're waiting on Maggie for a final decision.
Cheers Finhorn for all the background! I think I'm gonna leave Olusia's alignment ambiguous right now. She'll start off as a maybe/neutral - she just wants to see what the assignment is first, really. And if she discovers that Civo has good reason to wanna destroy the earth (or is it some other goal he wants? Conquer the earth?) then she might just choose to side with him. But without knowing the mission, she can't say really And who plays Lord Quasi? Maybe there could be a mysterious group (Civo's minions perhaps) who'd just launched an attack on Neuxus and we're gathering to see what we should do about that?
As I understand it, everyone plays Lord Quasi. Let's say that in the intro Mr Mr is working on all the good guys have assembled for the first time when suddenly a large red telephone begins to flash. Quasi picks it up, listens to some mumbling and divides our heroes into two teams. The first team is going to an under sea research center to stop a madman who's trying to crack the Earth's crust while looking for gold. The second team has been told that there is a lightning wielding demon hiding in the clouds above Bangladesh. Now Mr Mr is done. Lets say my turn is next. I like the idea that Aida Adora (and her leopard) have been assigned to the underwater team. So I write about the travel to the underwater lair and the leopard getting antsy in the submarine. Then I add some dialog between Olusia and Aida where Aida admits that the leopard would be calmer if she herself was. As the submarine touches down on bottom of the ocean the forest half-elf feels a little better but it's no substitute for dry land. Next could be Mckk's turn. Though she likes Olusia (whom she created) she'd rather write about the team who's facing a lightning throwing creature. So she begins "Meanwhile in Bangladesh..." Everyone writes what characters and settings they feel like. The writer AveryWhite may never have intended her character Aida to be nervous if her feet weren't on the ground but it's written so now it's true for that character. Come Avery's turn to add to the story she shouldn't be trying to correct Aida, but instead trying to expand her. Does that makes sense? We all play Lord Quasi and all the villains we create and all the heroes. Its like we're all given the same list of characters and told to write a story with them. No one owns a character per se, and everyone contributes to building the world.
this is great Finhorn!!! i love how its all going to work but i know im being really picky but i cant help myself hehe its a panther, i know you cant technically get white panthers but it was a gift from her grandmother-elf and they are very rare but i definatly want it to be a white panther hehe sorry cause it doesnt have the spots of a leopard. and yep now this definitely all makes sense
Has the new thread been made? Or shall I do it and post the intro at the same time? And I think I've missed something, whos lord Quassi? I've been refering to the nexus leader as the Lord of the halfway because thats what we decided? I'm slightly confused.
i think Maggie's going to do it as soon as she can think she wants to discuss stuff with everyone first. yeah i thought it was Lord of the halfway too but looks like its changed.
Finhorn - thanks for your post, you've made it very clear and it sounds fantastic!!! I'm really looking forward to it now! (and need to find time to re-read this thread for all the characters too!) Mr Mr - I don't think anyone's posted the new thread yet. I'm not used to being much of a leader so I was kinda waiting for someone else to do it, especially as I wasn't sure how it worked before I read Finhorn's post (and also haven't had time to write my own intro yet anyway). It might be a good idea to start it!
on the thread it wil have to be said that only we can post or else the thread/story will be disrupted, so if they have anything they wish to comment or post on then they can be reffered to this thread
Hey - Sorry no internet is making me very grumpy!!!! How is everyone doing ? I've made a thread. Mr Mr you said lor half way I thought was really cool so named him Lord Quasi because it means almost the same thing.
its in the same section as this - word games. below is the actual thread = https://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=44885 Maggie said your posting first and ill go after you aww noo hope it gets fixed! cheer you on
Hey so what's the order of posters? (eg. who goes next, etc?) 1. Mr Mr 2. AveryWhite 3. ??? Oh btw, Mr Mr really liked your into
great prologue mr mr!! but now im confused...do i have to continue from where Mr Mr left off? or can i put my character chapter up, as it wont interfere with any other characters or change the flow of what mr mr has written, otherwise id have to get rid of everything i wrote and start agian. (and i couldnt do that tonight too tired haha) cause its about my character getting to the place and it ends just as shes outside the building, so if anyone else wanted to start (from there charcters perspective) where Mr Mr left off my chapter wouldnt disrupt that, and the next peice i write would just be wherever everyone else is
