Current and future writing projects

[Ryan_DuBois]

Mizal: I knew it!

End: Yes, but not a frog-looking male. He was very specific about that.

[mizal]

Now that that's all settled, wasn't somebody supposed to give me a writing prompt?

Also, if I'm reading somebody else's story and want to give them semi-detailed feedback, is the usual thing just to PM them? I would have thought that's what the 'Add Comment' thing was for, but nobody seems to use it much, and ratings seem to be just for a quick comment.

[Usoki]

Comments are for insulting people- it gives you the pleasure of knowing your insult is visible for the whole world to see, but you can rest assured* that the person in question will never read it.

Ratings are for feedback- if it seems like they're only for quick quips, it's because most people are too lazy to provide actual, meaningful feedback. A few of us actually do provide worthwhile comments in our ratings- this is known as 'justification', and it's a good thing. People like knowing the reasoning behind your scores. It's good mainly for compliments. The author won't get any notification about it, and so he probably won't even notice the new rating for months. And he can't reply to it, so he usually drops the subject.

Messages are not the norm, but I would not complain if I were to receive one. For one thing, it has a great alert system, so that I can actually discover the new critique. For another, it allows me to reply to the person, and have a brief discourse about the pros and cons of the work. Ves and I exchanged a fair number of these, post contest; they were some of the most meaningful critiques I've ever received. They were positive without being flattery, and they were informative, not negative. Also, they were verbose. I approved.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

Comments are for insulting people- it gives you the pleasure of knowing your insult is visible for the whole world to see, but you can rest assured* that the person in question will never read it.

Ratings are for feedback- if it seems like they're only for quick quips, it's because most people are too lazy to provide actual, meaningful feedback. A few of us actually do provide worthwhile comments in our ratings- this is known as 'justification', and it's a good thing. People like knowing the reasoning behind your scores. It's good mainly for compliments. The author won't get any notification about it, and so he probably won't even notice the new rating for months. And he can't reply to it, so he usually drops the subject.

Messages are not the norm, but I would not complain if I were to receive one. For one thing, it has a great alert system, so that I can actually discover the new critique. For another, it allows me to reply to the person, and have a brief discourse about the pros and cons of the work. Ves and I exchanged a fair number of these, post contest; they were some of the most meaningful critiques I've ever received. They were positive without being flattery, and they were informative, not negative. Also, they were verbose. I approved.

Blah blah blah.

[Ryan_DuBois]

I thought Usoki summed it up pretty well...

[donteatpoop]

Currently working on my fantasy novel. I have rewritten the first chapter three times now, but this time I feel like I have it. I kept fucking up the character perspectives. Got it now though, I made a vow to complete writing a novel this year. If I can get three word doc pages written a day (which i've done for the last two days) I can end up with 900 pages written by the end of the year. Taking out holidays and very very occasional breaks I'm estimating 850 pages. But being realistic and understanding my ability to procrastinate I'm going with 400. Being pessemistic I'm gonna say 80 pages, in which case I will have failed.

[End Master]

Finished "Chapter 1A" of one of the main storylines for Innkeeper. Moving on to Chapter 2A & 2B.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Cat and I are still laying out the history and general information about our city; we aren't very far in actual writing, but man... I never realized how hilarious urban fantasy would be... Especially in a modern setting. That's all I'll say for now.

[Sven Smokevich]

Intriguing!

Is it me just being disorganised or is it a good idea to keep notes on paper where you are on all these branches? My story is expanding like a tree. I now have 12 rooms done on Door Handle, although admittedly some of them are still in very rough draft.

[Ryan_DuBois]

I personally don't, but it's easier for me to work when I'm disorganized; I always just use the "loose end" link to continue after I write a dead end.

I've also never written a story with over 30 rooms, though.

[End Master]

Sheesh, this thing is going to be long. I'm glad I started early on this one, still don't know if I'm going to finish it, but I know I can get one of the main storyline branches completely finished in time. Maybe two out of the three.

So far I'm thinking each of these is going to be very different from each other. The branch I'm working on now is taking a less "longview" approach. Some years are still passing, but it's not like a drastic "five years" stuff. Though perhaps the other main story branches might due to the nature of the protagonist in those.

The fantasy part is there in the form of a few fantasy races either mentioned or making appearances, but nothing excessive really. It's mostly humans so far.

The urban bit is there in the fact that it revolves around an inn that happens to be in a city, but that's about it. The city itself is more of a background, though there are other parts of it visited at times and perhaps the other branches might explore it a bit more, but so far the stuff I've written focuses more on the inn (and more than a few references to the university in the city and a rival inn)

As it stands though I've got more than enough rooms to post it for contest purposes so I'll avoid SHAME at least.

[Locke]

Looking forward to this year's contest; this is at least eight months earlier than people usually seem to start working. I've concrete ideas for an entry of my own, but not sure yet if I'll try to work on that in addition to the co-op. Have you set "Primal" aside for now, End?

[End Master]

Yeah, Primal's side aside for now so I can focus on this one, but I will get back to it someday since I do have the storyline branches planned out for it and know how I want to most end them.

I guess I'll leave it up for now and reset all the ratings when I get around to updating it.

[donteatpoop]

Half way through chapter 3 of my as-of-yet unnamed fantasy novel. I'm excited by the progress I'm making even though I keep fucking up and taking a few days off of writing at a time.

My goal is to finish this by the end of the year.

Anyone bored enough or interested enough to read what I have (and offer feedback) message me with your email address.

[mizal]

Quick question - would it be considered laziness to use the "if you are holding the blah blah turn to page blah" method you see in a lot of the old gamebooks? I can't remember if I've seen any examples of that around here but it really would simplify things and help me avoid a lot of almost-but-not-quite-identical rooms. Though I guess in some cases it would be kind of a spoiler and would tempt readers to cheat. (I know I pretty much could never resist taking a peek at the option that didn't apply...)

Hmm. Maybe I could use the codeword system instead? Though that would require anybody reading to keep track of them in Notepad or something and I'm not sure how willing they'd be to play along...