Practice your craft, post once or dive in!

[Bob Whitely]

Hi folks,

For those of you that don't visit the Gaming forums here, I posted an uber-easy, fun Interactive story. It takes no time to learn and only a few minutes to play, since it's like writing a story with several authors and you never know where the story will take you, because everyone takes turns writing a few sentences each! I've run several and they are always a lot of fun!

It's great for practicing your writing, getting your creative juices flowing, and best of all, you can post just once or help guide the story to its conclusion!

Check it out HERE!

Bob
PS, I talked about this sort of writing game on my blog and also gave an example of one in action!

 

[The Judge]

If you want to involve writers, rather than gamers, then it might be an idea to post in the Workshop area of Aspiring Writers, or even the Lounge.

In the meantime, I'll move this to Workshop, anyway.

 

[Bob Whitely]

Oh, thanks. I guess that is the right place for it. I actually wanted to involve both! But I'm set up in the Gamers section, so between the two, hopefully people will see it and join in. It should appeal to both and if it takes off, I'll run others.

Cheers!

 

[martin321]

It looks like a fun game. It'll be interesting to see how the plot develops with lots of people contributing ideas; it could go off in strange directions. On the face of it, it seems as though the zombie apocalypse may just have happened, but perhaps someone will come up with a different explanation of events.

 

[Bob Whitely]

I think it will be lots of fun. All the previous ones I've run have been, except 1 in which a couple players did not follow the rules and it turned silly. Not that it has to be uber serious, but all the ones where people have tried to make a good story, have been a lot of fun. Thanks again for being the first! Hopefully several others will jump in - and yes, I think not knowing where people will take it is half the fun.

That said, in one of the games I hosted, we started nailing a really exciting storyline, and then created a second thread for tracking personalities and story arcs to make it easier on newcomers. Also, it means that this story thread doesn't get interrupted with Out of Character (OOC) chatter. But what we ended up doing was brainstorming where we hoped the story would go for that particular storyline, and then we all wrote in that direction and it went really well!

Let's use this thread as the official chat thread, so there's no chat in the actual story, making it a cleaner read! Sound good?

 

[Bob Whitely]

Thanks for joining in, jastius! Anyone else? Let's have some fun, folks! Get your fast fix or daily therapy with one post or more!

 

[martin321]

I think that the story is going pretty well (considering that I've no idea what is going on), but it would be good to have a couple more writers. So, anyone who isn't tied up with NaNoWriMo this month should stop by, and maybe add a few sentences.

 

[Bob Whitely]

It's hard for me to believe several more haven't jumped on this by now.

Every one I've hosted thus far has been very popular, and they are lots of fun (yeah, even when you aren't sure exactly what's happening). I have many ideas on how the story can go, but those ideas keep being revised a bit every few posts. That's part of the fun, seeing how we can make sense of it all, and it doesn't take long to do, and really is great practice for writers to boot! Hopefully we'll get a few more.

Thanks again for playing!

 

[Bob Whitely]

After a time, there will be 2 things I'll be doing: 1) I'll post a summary of what's gone before, including summarizing characters so that new posters can have an easy reference, (though it would be best if they read all the posts) and 2) I'll start up a new chapter that changes the direction of the storyline and starts off a bit fresh to make it a little easier for new posters as well (and for other reasons I mentioned in the rules). But I think the story is going along quite interesting just now and look forward to seeing how it all plays out!

 

[Bob Whitely]

Anyone else want to dive in? This isn't just for writers, but it's a fun diversion. It's also a good, daily exercise to sharpen your creativity and practice your skills on something other than your "main thing". It's healthy to step back from your own creative endeavors briefly, and then return to it with a fresh mind.

We've had a ton of fun with these stories over the years, but as with anything, you get out what you put in. If you don't take something seriously, or don't give it any effort, you can't expect it to add up to much. That said, I'd love to have you join us even if it's only for a post or two! The link is in the top post.

 

[martin321]

I'm certainly having a lot of fun with it. Having a maximum of four sentences is forcing me to edit out unnecessary rambling and to write tighter dialogue, which I'm sure will help my writing in general. It's also an interesting challenge to write something that is consistent with what has gone before, especially when the other writers send the story veering off in an unexpected direction.

I was thinking about doing NaNoWriMo, but was completely out of ideas; so I'd sort of given up and resigned myself to editing the first chapters of my novel this month. However, this story has given me lots of ideas for an urban fantasy horror story, so I've shelved the novel for a month and am writing the UF/H story instead. It starts off similarly to the collaborative story, with someone jumping out of a helicopter into a scene of destruction, but rapidly diverges after that.

 

[Bob Whitely]

Good for you, martin! I'll look forward to hearing more about how your story is progressing as you move along!

Yeah, I've been having fun too, and it is challenging. I was thrown off-guard when mention of the Hindenberg popped up, and so I snuck a few references in and also tried to play off Jastius' and your curve balls. There's always going to be curve balls with this sort of thing, but yeah, that's half the fun!

I hope we can get a few more involved!

It's such an easy, fun, and useful diversion that doesn't take long. That said, the sooner you get into the story, the better, as otherwise you ought to read what's gone before so you can post coherently. But at some point here, I'll summarize, post a summary of each character (what little we know about each), and start a new chapter, and that will be a good jumping on point for newcomers who don't feel like reading earlier posts prior to a chapter break. But we're not ready for that quite yet, I don't think.

Cheers!
Bob

 

[Bob Whitely]

Please note: I may be sluggish in posting during the month of January as I'm running my Arcane Synthesis: A Blended-Genre Anthology Kickstarter all month and it will demand a lot of my attention! (but that's a good thing actually!)

I have no intention on giving up on this cool Interactive Story game, and hopefully we'll get some more involved! Just sayin' my time will be tight and I'm not sure just how tight, but I suspect that the Kickstarter will do rather well, considering what we've put together! Anyway, have a great rest of the week all, and if you are just finding this thread, check out the story game and let's roll! Things are heating up!

 

[Bob Whitely]

Hi Martin,

I'll try to post on Sunday. Been slammed with Thanksgiving (I live in Las Vegas) and final preparations for my upcoming anthology Kickstarter.

This interactive story game is taking interesting turns. I actually kind of thought we'd be seeing that device fired by Drea, the creature retreating from its injuries and then come after Michael again later. You just never know with these kinds of stories!

 

[martin321]

That's fine, there's no rush. I've plenty of other stories to work on in the meantime. For myself, I don't expect I'll be posting anything during Christmas week.

Every time I think I've got this story figured out someone throws a spanner in the works. They were supposed to go down the stairs; they should have jumped off the roof; they should have activated the device in time etc.

 

[Bob Whitely]

Hi Martin,

I understand. This is a busy time of the year with lots going on (well, it's slowing down for some and good for them). I too will likely not post Christmas week or at least not more than once, unless I get lucky.

I ran out of time today to post. The day was much busier than I expected, but I was pleased at least to finish editing my fiction Kickstarter video. I don't think most people realize how much work goes into doing a Kickstarter campaign (at least if you do your homework and do everything you are supposed to do). I'll try again tomorrow to post!

Btw, if there's a particular direction you would like to see at least a portion of the story head in, I'm more than happy to tag team on it. Sometimes when I've run these story games, we've shared ideas and then pursued a storyline and other times we just let it roll and see what happens. Both ways are fun.

We can also start up a new chapter soon, but first to see about getting Michael out of the frying pan, or at least well on his way!

 

[jastius]

Every time I think I've got this story figured out someone throws a spanner in the works. They were supposed to go down the stairs; they should have jumped off the roof; they should have activated the device in time etc.

sorry.. but its my evil twin..

 

[Bob Whitely]

Heh, yeah. You had me scrambling for words for a moment with that whole Hindenburg guard thing! Alright, I caught a breather and am going to the page now to see what I can post. Cheers!

 

[Bob Whitely]

Hi All, as promised, I've been busy during my blended-genre anthology Kickstarter. A more accurate description would be I've been overwhelming slammed! But that's not really a bad thing as I've met a lot of wonderful people and the campaign is at 46% now!

If you love fiction and especially blended-genre fiction, I'm sure you will love our two books: Arcane Synthesis and Divine Synthesis! And if you are the type that just likes to get ahold of exclusive content, some of our wonderful rewards are exclusive to Kickstarter backers. It's a way of showing our appreciation. Check out our anthology Kickstarter here!

All of our stories take place in the vast, Cosmoverse, a campaign setting I made both for my Cosmothea Blended-Genre Roleplaying Game and as a rich backdrop for all of my stories. Over the years I've created and commissioned a great deal of art to help reveal more about the Cosmoverse.

I'll post a few pieces below. Here's the author lineup:

Arcane Synthesis: A Blended-Genre Anthology
Eight tales blending magic, mystery, advanced technology, superheroes and horror, set within the vast, Blended-Genre RPG Cosmoverse.

Authors:
Darrin Drader (Story TBA - Divine Synthesis)
Robert Duran (Wisdom of the Shell - Arcane Synthesis)
Allen Farr (Spectre of War - Arcane Synthesis)
Ed Greenwood (Bonus story TBA - both anthologies)
Lee Hammock (Down and Out in Magetown - Arcane Synthesis)
Steven Schend (Emeraldeaths - Arcane Synthesis; Emeraldooms - Divine Synthesis)
Joseph Stirling (Found Lost - Arcane Synthesis; TBA - Divine Synthesis)
Bob Whitely (Voices and The Train Less Traveled - Arcane Synthesis; 2 stories TBA - Divine Synthesis)

When the Kickstarter is all behind me, I'll look forward to also getting back to posting in our Interactive Story!

 

[Bob Whitely]

Here's a segment of our huge Cathor ringworld, it is but one of hundreds of worlds within the Cosmoverse. I've made many maps, but it would be impossible to map them all. If only there was more time in the day!