Current and future writing projects

[Ryan_DuBois]

Holy shit -- what, did you just copy and paste together a bunch of rooms from old stories or something? I knew you were prolific, but seventeen rooms already...

[mizal]

I haven't even finished my outline yet.

[End Master]

You guys don't really need to worry since it only has to be at least 20 rooms long (finished or not) and have the whole year to do it.

Just remember to have it taking place in a city setting and have some fantasy elements in it. (demons, vampires, fairies, ghosts, etc)

[mizal]

No you don't understand, I have to write it now or else I'll get distracted and move on to something else and forget about it until December 31st. Which would be embarrassing enough without the complimentary year's supply of SHAME.

e: Speaking of Buffy again, is 'you are the/a Chosen One with mystical magical powers' basically played out as a story element at this point?

I just realized my big idea was basically a rip off of the Dark is Rising series I read as a kid. And my backup big idea might as well be Highlander fanfic. :/ Maybe I should just shelf this for awhile and work on something else...

[JJJ-thebanisher]

You guys don't really need to worry since it only has to be at least 20 rooms long (finished or not) and have the whole year to do it.

Just remember to have it taking place in a city setting and have some fantasy elements in it. (demons, vampires, fairies, ghosts, etc)

Just out of curiosity, what if the story never goes anywhere in a city but a city is the main character or at least a prominent one? I'm not actually planning on writing anything like this, but I'm just wondering.

[Usoki]

JJJ, what in the hell are you talking about? Articles don't work that way...

[JJJ-thebanisher]

JJJ, what in the hell are you talking about? Articles don't work that way...

Hahaha, I forgot the word "in".

Edit: Actually, scratch that question. Pretty sure it HAS to be in an urban environment to qualify.

[Ryan_DuBois]

I still can't figure out what he's saying... Maybe it's because he's Canadian?

Anyway, J3, in the past we've been liberal about what gets accepted and what doesn't (look at the contest you just witnessed if you need proof), but I think it will ultimately be up to End whether or not you're allowed in... So make sure to give him lots of compliments and high ratings on his currently existing stories and you should be fine.

By the way, did you say that you were wondering if the city could BE YOUR MAIN CHARACTER?!

...

Or do you just mean, like, an important part of the story?

Never mind. I will ask no more. If it's the former, then it sounds like a great way to score some points in the creativity department...

[JJJ-thebanisher]

I still can't figure out what he's saying... Maybe it's because he's Canadian?

Anyway, J3, in the past we've been liberal about what gets accepted and what doesn't (look at the contest you just witnessed if you need proof), but I think it will ultimately be up to End whether or not you're allowed in... So make sure to give him lots of compliments and high ratings on his currently existing stories and you should be fine.

By the way, did you say that you were wondering if the city could BE YOUR MAIN CHARACTER?!

...

Or do you just mean, like, an important part of the story?

Never mind. I will ask no more. If it's the former, then it sounds like a great way to score some points in the creativity department...

What I'm wondering is what else you could POSSIBLY CONSTRUE from:

"what if the story never goes anywhere in a city but a city is the main character"

Specifically, see the underlined portion

[Usoki]

One could construe nothing, given that settings and characters are usually entirely different things. Characters need to be intelligent beings; a city is usually a setting, not a character. You can argue semantics over 'alive' and 'has a body', but the bottom line is that settings and objects are not normally considered characters. And given that your previous sentence was just as confusing, it was not a stretch to suppose you were typing even more incoherent jibberish.

[End Master]

Really, if you turn in something that's 20 rooms before dec 31st its going to be enough to get you to avoid SHAME. (Apoth turning in a 20 page mudkip story a couple contests ago, is an example of this) Actually winning on the other hand is different. (He lost spectacularly)

Personally I'm usually an easy rater, but last contest I was marking off if the story was too linear. (I liked Ryan's story last contest for example, but it wasn't really a CYOA). I'd also mark off if the story doesn't really conform to "urban fantasy".

For example DEP writes his knight story. He's got a bit where the captain of the knights hire a minotaur mercenary in the city before the they go off to battle, then a majority of the story takes place on the battlefield.

I'd end up marking off since there's barely a city in there, let alone taking place in one. Someone else might be a little more lenient though and feel it was enough that DEP just stuck a city in there briefly. Now if he has a similar theme involving say a siege of a city, he's safe from getting marked down (from me at least) since all the action/drama is going to be in the city.

You can certainly still have bits of the story in a countryside setting (Someone decided to dump bodies in the wilderness) but it has to be taking place primarily in a city environment.

As for "the city" as a main character, if this is a self-aware city that's discussing its inhabitants and how it interacts with them you'd most likely be safe since your story really doesn't have any choice but to take place in an urban environment and the fantasy element would be a "living city". (D&D's old Planescape setting and the city Sigil comes to mind )

If this is a non-sentient city and you're just telling a kind of history of it and how the surrounding landscape/events affects it, that's sort of getting away from the point of the theme.

This all brings up another question, in the future should we have a fourth rating for structure/theme based on story branching and adherence to contest theme? Or should we just continue to mark down in one or some of the other categories?

[Usoki]

I always assumed 'linearity' was a part of 'enjoyment', since you can't really enjoy a CYOA if it isn't much of a CYOA to begin with.

On the same note, I would argue that 'adherence to theme' is covered under 'originality', since it refers to both the freshness of the idea and how creatively the theme is followed. If you use stock Tolkein to fill your clever and original urban environment, it's not much better than having amazing fantasy characters in a boring city.

[mizal]

For example DEP writes his knight story. He's got a bit where the captain of the knights hire a minotaur mercenary in the city before the they go off to battle, then a majority of the story takes place on the battlefield.

Wait wait wait, but you're talking about a fantasy city there. Are fantasy cities okay or was that just a random example? For some reason I was thinking urban fantasy needed a modern setting...

[End Master]

It doesn't need to be a modern setting. It usually is, but it doesn't have to be.

Here are the short descriptions that I'm going by:

Urban fantasy is a subset of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times or contain supernatural elements. However, this is not the primary definition of urban fantasy. Urban fantasy can be set in historical times, modern times, or futuristic times. The prerequisite is that it must be primarily set in a city, rather than in a suburban or country setting, which have their own genre subsets.

Urban fantasy has to be set primarily in a city and contain a fantasy element. Urban fantasy sometimes features problems with inner city life, such as gangs and city management and can also be set in contemporary times and include paranormal romance. The city may also be fictional and set on another planet, as long as the city becomes a character or a major element in the story itself.

So for example Ryan is doing yet another post-apocalyptic setting, as long as he's focusing on something like the bombed out remnants of Nuke York where humans have been enslaved by sadistic pixies and how they're trying to gain their freedom, his story will satisfy the theme requirements.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

Thanks, End. That was as to-the-point as always.

One could construe nothing, given that settings and characters are usually entirely different things. Characters need to be intelligent beings; a city is usually a setting, not a character. You can argue semantics over 'alive' and 'has a body', but the bottom line is that settings and objects are not normally considered characters. And given that your previous sentence was just as confusing, it was not a stretch to suppose you were typing even more incoherent jibberish.

Character:

"A fictional character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that originated in a work of art."

"the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing."

Why couldn't the city be an intelligent being, why couldn't the city be the main character, why am I taking flak for asking a simple question?

Just out of curiosity, what if the story never goes anywhere in a city but a city is the main character or at least a prominent one? I'm not actually planning on writing anything like this, but I'm just wondering.

Sure, it's not a perfect sentence. But it's not incoherent gibberish. Would it help you if the word in was replaced with near and one was replaced with the word character?