26 replies to this topic

[thecursed]

the idea is simple. its a story with several authors. each new author must continue where the last left off.
now how will it work with this story. its set in Athkatla. i will start by posting a story (quite short). it contains two main characters: the main character (of course) and the trade off character. the piece is about the main character, but in the end, he will "bump" into the trade off. the piece will stop there. but the next person in line will use my trade off as his main character.
lost? i'll post my story and hope to get some off you into the group.

[thecursed]

?Hey that child just stole my purse!?
The cry was frequent in the city of Athkatla. Child, Kid, Brat, he knew of no other name for himself. He was one of the city children, many abandoned at an early age by parents who could not afford to keep them. The city magistrates, with the help of the churches, tried to solve the problem, but most of the children preferred their lives of freedom and misery to the strictness of the church life.
But Child had never known his parents. He made it to the streets when the slaver stockades in the slums were raided by a group of self-righteous adventurers. Now he was forced to live of what he could steal or beg in the streets. If at first it had been hard for him, he soon got into one of the bands. He wasn?t the fastest of learners, but the older boys had found uses for him. He would often be used as lookout for the young bandits. Therefore he was rarely caught and he soon developed the ability to recognise potential prey or danger. He soon became quite important in the band, but not enough to earn a name.

It had been a week since the shadow thieves had raided the hideout and scattered the kids, taking some for training, killing others. Child had managed to avoid the intrusion, but had found that without the group, he wasn?t very effective. He had many a narrow escape, only due to his small size and his ability to slip through the crowds. He was hungry. Not having eaten in two days will do that to a growing child, whatever his social status. He wandered in the slums in search of a coin purse to cut. Begging had become quite dangerous as the city guards had had gotten new instructions to arrest all beggars, and the rumours were that children beggars were sold to slavers.
There he was. The perfect target. A tall man hidden under a brown cloak, making too much effort not to be noticed by the guards. The man that would not shout if his purse went missing. All that was needed was to find out if the prize was worth the risk. As the man stopped at a shop and starting to haggle prices with the merchant, Child caught sight of the rich cloth under the cloak. Surely this rich man was worth the trouble? besides, hunger called. No. T?iss too obvious. Surly a trap of some kind. Amish guard? No, too frail. Doesn?t walk like a soldier neither.
The sound of his stomach grumbling ended the child?s internal struggle. It was simple: he needed food. Food needs coin. This man had coin. Soon he would not. The coin spent on food, the hunger relieved. Simple.

The boy crept towards the cloaked figure and started a run. As the man turned the boy ran into him, crashing him to the ground. He snatched the coin pouch and ran in the other direction. A quick look behind him showed the man still slumped on the ground, but trying to get up with the merchants help. Several minutes later he turned into an alley to contemplate the treasure he had in his hands.
The pouch was heavy, made of thick brown leather. It had no visible sign to show its ownership. But the feel of the leather was strange. It was too warm. The feeling reminding more of snake skin more that cow. An other grumble of hunger. Child pulled the strings closing the pouch. And as he put his hand into the purse and pull its content out, he felt it pull back.

A muffled cry from a nearby alley caught the mages attention. He smiled as he recognised his pouch. As he picked it up he could feel that the familiar kept inside was content. [The young thief had in fact saved him quite a sum: slaves were quite expensive ever since the slavers had to change headquarters. Especially if their sole purpose was to fed to the inhabitant of the small bag. And it was always hungry. But here it seems that a young soul was enough satify him. ?I?ll have to remember that? the mage thought, walking back to the dark silhouette of the planar sphere.

Alt ending:

[the young thief had caught the bait. His smiled turned into an evil grin. Those young fools, how dare they touch his person! Even if the creature would take any food, the mage would enjoy these hunts across the slums or the bridge district, waiting to be robbed. Beggars would also be suitable. Their sole purpose was to fed to the inhabitant of the small bag. The grin widened as the mage thought of his pet feeding. The smile tuned into a low chuckle as he walked back to the dark silhouette of the planar sphere.

[thecursed]

please post comments people! i can't take the poll seriously if you don't

[Rusalka]

I really don't think you can make this idea fly. After all, fanfic is pretty new to this site so there may not be enough writers for it.

Also, if the other fanfic authors are like me, we like to hoard our ideas and not use them unless we can really develop them into longer stories. That way we can take all the credit if we come up with something really good.

Just a thought.

[farsal]

I like the idea but I don't have the skill to do it. I struggle through my own stuff. There are examples of multiple authors which worked very well, for instance, Domi and Strange Girl. I would like to see a story like this. By the way, I like what is written so far.

I am not sure I agree with Russalka about the ideas because in this sub-genre, we are all working from the same basic idea and yet there is an incredible diversity of approaches, and it is the authors' skills and point of views that make their work unique, and in many cases, fabulously fun to read. For example, Rusallka.

Does this post help? Probably not. Sorry.

[thecursed]

thanks for posting. i see your point, but the idea of this is more of a game, a kind of relay race between authors. you don't have to spend days on this. it could be interseting to see if you can "improvise" a story. nothing keeps you from using the character in a futur feature.

edit: didn't see your post farsal. and don't imagine you need much talent for this. but thanks for the support

Edited by thecursed, 06 May 2004 - 07:21 AM.

[Seifer]

To all thus far, I appreciate your comments. Considering that 4 people have voted no and only one of them has commented, I'll treat that statistic with the scorn I feel it deserves.

As for me, count me in.

When it comes to modding, many people help each other out and I see why it should be no different here. A little while back there was an issue over people posting the same thing over and over. The quality of some writing has alsop (unfairly I add) been slated. This is the chance for those who want to add, contribute or whatnot to take part in something new. If it does crash and burn, fine.

At least we would have tried. I'm looking forward to VH and MG's comments on this hence my pinning it.

[thecursed]

maybe i wasn't quite clear on this, and i appologise if its the case. but this is not supposed to be a linear story. imagine a movie where the camera would leap from person to person, the only link between these peopl is that they crossed paths at one time.

[thecursed]

Then eliminate the condition of a constant main character all together and allow the next writer to do a POV transfer from the previous main char to the new in the beginning of each episode. This way you eliminate the problems with character voice.

the point of the game is to use the character the previous author leaves you. thats the challenge.
in this case the follow up be a short tale about the mage.

Edited by thecursed, 06 May 2004 - 08:17 AM.

[MorningGlory]

At least we would have tried. I'm looking forward to VH and MG's comments on this hence my pinning it.

VH ran a very, very successful rp on FWP on Gen Rev. But he acted as 'DM', and guided the storyline, but there was collaboration behind the scenes and a sense of continuity was maintained.

A round robin, so to speak, could be fun. I guess when all is said and done, it just depends.

As an aside, anyone wanting any type of assistance with their writing, and that goes for seasoned writers as well as aspiring novices, we do have several different people who have stepped forward to volunteer their expertise and time. As a matter of fact, several here have asked for assistance and have already been paired up with a help-mate already.

In the final analysis, it is like anything else on this board. If people are interested, they will participate, and if the end result is interesting, then people will read it.

[VigaHrolf]

Ahh yes...

Read this and while I don't think its a good idea, I don't necessarily think its a bad idea. It has just generally been my opinion and experience that round robins like this don't work unless you have a set crew and an overarching idea of what this crew wants to do. Otherwise you might go interesting places, but you could also get story yanking and such. Or people jumping in to just disrupt or yell strange things.

What MG is refering to that I ran, a more cooperative story telling system with an established leader or DM, I think would be more successful. Then everyone takes a character and you spin your story that way instead of fighting over how the MainChar will develop. Sure, its more constrained but its more likely to be successful and rewarding.

Just my two cents.

VH

[thecursed]

If you insist, but this way an author creates a character which s/he does not have a chance to develop. It's a bit of a put-off. Anyway, whatever.

maybe. but in an other sense, you don't have to worry about back story, or future of the character. its just a window in the characters life (or unlife). if you want something to happen, or if you just want to do some tourist sightseeing, its up to you. you have the power over everything exept on the choice of character.

i've had several people tell me that they wanted to write the next chapter. now if they were to decide that the mage is a cowled wizard, a rogue necromancer or just an adventurer, its up to them. all i said is that he was a mage. what happens is also up to them. the camera follows him for a while. a day, week, month... well hopefully not that long. kill him off, let him live, leave him standing in life or death situation, it doesn't matter. the only real obligation is to hand off the spotlight to an other character. we can always come back to an earlier character and see what he became. but this won't be too possible in an early stage. an author is not obligated to one character.

..and, as moderator, you could (now) delete the stray postings that occurred.

who are addressing?

[thecursed]

see it finished? i'm still trying to get it started. one bridge at a time please

[Shadowhawke]

Hey. I was one of the people who voted 'Yes'. Count me in, definitely.
In all regards, I think this is a good idea. It is a challenge, as TheCursed said, and because it doesn't actually need a cohesive storyline altogether, it's much more easier to co-ordinate. Also, the main challenge is that you already have the main character. You can do whatever you want with him/her, but the character you need to use has already been defined. It should be an interesting challenge I'd like to take up. Where would you post?