|
There are some new faces around here, some of which belong to talented short story writers (cough cough deep dish peat moss shiny bird teeth) so let's see if we can get some new people to write chapters for the BYOB book. Here is the original thread, which was archived: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3793914&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 The basic idea is that each person picks a chapter title from a list of chapter titles, and writes just that chapter. When all the chapters are written, we will have a finished novel. "But Blaise," you say, piles of cheetos falling from your mouth and hands, "if each chapter is written by a different person, how will there be any continuity? Will anything make sense?" From the old thread: Arkanoman posted:So the way i think Misty was going to do it was to look at all the stories and then hack together a new plot outline and character list from everyone's stories. I was not part of the first wave of writers, so I can't confirm that this ended up being the final plan, but it makes sense. Personally, if you are thinking of writing a chapter, I wouldn't worry too much about continuity - better to have a chapter written, even if it's ill-fitting, than no chapter at all. Here is a list of the chapters. I bolded the ones that have NOT yet been written. If a chapter is bolded then you are free to lay claim to it. The ones with lines next to them are FRAME STORIES, meaning that they are part of the frame of the novel, and reference plotlines that span multiple chapters. The stories with no lines next to them are STANDALONE STORIES and do not require any special plot setup. An X means the chapter has been completed. quote:X 1. How Two Empires Divided the World Between Them - joke_explainer ------------------- Here are some other relevant parts of the old thread: misty mountaintop posted:FAQ Arkanoman posted:SOME STATS Saint Isaiahs Boner posted:got carried away so it took a while blaise rascal fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jan 10, 2018 |
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 02:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 20:34 |
|
|
I didn't pm anyone before posting this thread. Hopefully it's okay with everyone! Also: The library in my city has a "book espresso machine" that can print and bind paperback books on demand. I think it would be real cool to make physical copies of this book if (when) it gets finished.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 02:28
|
|
|
|
so if i'm reading this right, if i pick one of the frame story chapters, i get free rein with what happens in it, and we decide the plot later? what about characters? because chapter 16 is calling to me |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 03:04
|
|
|
Thingyman posted:so if i'm reading this right, if i pick one of the frame story chapters, i get free rein with what happens in it, and we decide the plot later? what about characters? Here is, at the very minimum, what we know about Miriam: - She is a daughter of the owls - Her best friend is Edith, the girl born with her heart in her hand - Miriam undergoes trials (this is your part) - Her best friend Edith dies - Miriam fights Frog but declines to kill him - She defeats the devil and wraps up the whole dang story
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 03:25
|
|
|
|
oh hey! I was just thinking about making this thread but blaise beat me to it. as sort of a new year project I'd love to get this moving again. and I'm very happy to hear another chapter has been completed! misty has not written anything, as far as I know, last I contacted her (which was a while ago). as a reminder, please know that I contacted her a while back and she was okay with our taking the lead and doing any work on this project in her absence. but maybe she will return . . . in terms of writers interested in taking on a chapter now, it's worth noting that the chapters that misty did not assign at the beginning (and perhaps she intended to write some or all of those) were less "standalone" in nature. there's a lot of work to be done in taking the stuff that people have written on their own, without reference to anyone else's ideas, and trying to integrate them into a story. now I'm prepared, I think, to try to assist with some outlining and figuring out how to reconcile the existing chapters. anyone who wants to help with that is welcome. but if you're interested in writing right now, I would suggest taking on one of the more "standalone" chapters that had been originally assigned to people but not yet completed. (Thingyman, chapter 16 would be perfect for that!) from the old thread: quote:the following assigned chapters have not been completed, as best as I know/can remember: Splatmaster posted:I'm tempted to take a shot at the Tale of the Humble Peacock but I already did 2 and don't want to be greedy (plus who knows if the first two I did are worthy of the endeavor) Splat, any updates on that last one? I am happy to provide access to the integrated current draft to whoever wants to see it. I'll try to figure out the best way to distribute it, maybe by google docs access, maybe just an email attachment. if you are interested pm me or email at manyfisted at gmail dot com and I'll try to get it to you when the logistics are worked out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 03:51
|
|
|
|
I would like to write Chapter 11: What Happened to the Moon Refugees? if it is still available, but I need to know if these are refugees from the moon or if these are refugees who went to the moon. |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 05:48
|
|
|
|
deep dish peat moss posted:I would like to write Chapter 11: What Happened to the Moon Refugees? if it is still available, but I need to know if these are refugees from the moon or if these are refugees who went to the moon. I would say refugees from the moon, given that frog destroyed the moon palace in chapter 3 . . .
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 06:19
|
|
|
|
I was thinking maybe that's what happened to them... |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 07:25
|
|
|
|
My chapter was rushed and terrible. I did really like the setting painted in it though. The two empires were a Roche World, where an ocean connected them and the changing tidal forces caused water to flow back and forth between the two bodies. Totally unstable in real life, but feasible for a fantasy story. The "high empire" had technology and was mostly populated by owl people. The low society was everybody else. Frog was a terrorist who lashed out because of inequality in the way the high society distributed their advanced medical technology, while getting enormous amounts of goods, food, services from the "lower" planet. The Moon Palace was a military station circling a lagrange point around the Ocean, and in the first story Frog's mysterious benefactor that he's communicating with over something like radio helps him with his plot to destroy it and hopefully destabilize the "high" cities strangehold, but he finds himself horrified at what he has done while the violence unfolds. From what I know other people were going in more of a fairy tale sort of route, so it may have seemed really out of place. I've been worried my terrible beginning is what chased Misty off. But I feel like there could be a cool story there. Also, I never specify that Frog is a frog person in any way. Who knows what he looks like, his name is just Frog. |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 08:23
|
|
|
|
He was a sailor on one of the ships that travel from high tide to low tide up the connection in the ocean, a perilous journey each time. He runs a mutiny and purposefully attracts a patrol from the leaders to ambush with technology they assumed it was possible for the lower city to have. The mysterious benefactor is in fact the Devil, who is Miriam's immortal father. He wants Miriam back, but immortal Miriam is partly why the owls run society is so technologically advanced, reverse engineering some of the technology that stranded her there. |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 08:25
|
|
|
Manifisto posted:
Negative. I have not tackled the Humble Peacock. https://i.imgur.com/QKTkerO.mp4 |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 14:38
|
|
|
|
Would it maybe be all right if I tried my hand at The Crab and the Thornbush? Something there is calling to me but I don't know what yet |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 18:36
|
|
|
|
Scroon posted:Would it maybe be all right if I tried my hand at The Crab and the Thornbush? yes! please do! |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 18:48
|
|
|
|
joke_explainer posted:My chapter was rushed and terrible. I did really like the setting painted in it though. The two empires were a Roche World, where an ocean connected them and the changing tidal forces caused water to flow back and forth between the two bodies. Totally unstable in real life, but feasible for a fantasy story. The "high empire" had technology and was mostly populated by owl people. The low society was everybody else. Frog was a terrorist who lashed out because of inequality in the way the high society distributed their advanced medical technology, while getting enormous amounts of goods, food, services from the "lower" planet. The Moon Palace was a military station circling a lagrange point around the Ocean, and in the first story Frog's mysterious benefactor that he's communicating with over something like radio helps him with his plot to destroy it and hopefully destabilize the "high" cities strangehold, but he finds himself horrified at what he has done while the violence unfolds. first of all, that sounds really cool. I know for a fact that nothing anybody did on this project chased misty off, she told me it had to do with crappy life stuff when I reached out to her. I will say that you're right, most people have been going with a fantasy theme rather than something more sci-fi like. but I think there is almost certainly a way to integrate something like this into the work. misty actually envisioned various standalone chapters, "the tale of" etc. ideally these tales would illustrate some point in the larger work, but that may be way too ambitous for a byob project. so why not make this story sort of a standalone chapter set in its own world? it wouldn't have to have the same exact characters but there could be parallels and contrasts. the thing is, to pull this off in a single chapter, which probably shouldn't be overlong, it might have to be told in a high-level way, i.e., without getting into too much detail except where strictly necessary. just an idea, anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 21:06
|
|
|
|
I've been messing with a lot of fantasy writing lately and there's functionally no difference between Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I mean ultimately when you get down to it sci-fi is just fantasy except the magic is powered by machines instead of coming out of thin air and generally the races come from different planets instead of different continents or nations or whatever. I planned to approach the Moon Refugees very agnostically, like Star Wars or Dune: like it's sci-fi but the tech is so ancient and ill-understood that it's virtually magic to everyone involved and it never explicitly defines itself as either. |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 21:29
|
|
|
|
deep dish peat moss posted:I've been messing with a lot of fantasy writing lately and there's functionally no difference between Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I mean ultimately when you get down to it sci-fi is just fantasy except the magic is powered by machines instead of coming out of thin air and generally the races come from different planets instead of different continents or nations or whatever. absolutely! for example, I particularly like how gene wolfe's "book of the new sun" series translates ultra high technology into a mostly fantasy-like milieu. but there are absolutely differences in tone between a story that sweats the details of the tech (and in particular the plausibility) and one that doesn't care much about whether the magic is powered by nuclear fusion or demons. a label like "speculative fiction" might be a good catchall, but there is obviously a lot of diversity within that category. my point was more that the other contributions so far haven't really made any efforts to keep the "fantastic" elements within the bounds of scientific plausibility nor have they been concerned with explanations; if there are talking frogs and people breathing on the moon without spacesuits, it doesn't matter.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 21:59
|
|
|
Yeah manifisto, I never explain how supernatural events occur in my story. My characterization of the moon people, for instance, is not really sci-fi or high fantasy but instead "fanciful." Like, at one point in my story, a moon person ties a string to his finger and launches himself into space with a catapult, using the string to be able to find his way home. I never explain why moon people can survive in space. Also, my moon people are preternaturally good at finding things of value, which is why they have so many treasures. "The Little Prince" crossed with Aesop crossed with ridiculous d&d loot is kinda the mood I was going for. In my story, I list off descriptions of a bunch of interesting moon kingdom treasures and then delve more deeply into the story of one of those treasures, which is a music box that plays music so beautifully, it long ago inspired the despondent moon king to save his kingdom from wasp revolutionaries. It doesn't really bother me if that doesn't line up with the stuff that other people wrote. Joke explainer wrote that the moon is a modern military base but we could instead say something like the moon is an actual moon upon which a military base was built, and my story took place on a different part of the moon. Actually, different time periods would be best, because my moon king long ago went from despondency to being a strong military leader, and that trend could lead the moon palace to become more and more of a military base over time (perhaps even using the past story of military success as a modern justification for hyper militarism) Also don't feel like your story is bad joke explainer! From skimming through that last thread you can see that pretty much everyone thinks his or her story is bad. So uh we collectively lowered to the occasion, or something
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2018 22:17
|
|
|
|
i'm not up for writing any more but i'd love to see this thing get finished it would be pretty awesome!
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2018 05:59
|
|
|
|
i started writing a rough draft that was basically just a satirical fairy tale, but it looks like other frame writers are going for a Vance, Wolfe, etc. vibe and that actually sounds super fun to mix with a more traditional fairy tale, so i might shift the direction. also, how overtly comedic are people going for? because i started going whole hog on goofy satire where the author themselves is an incompetent author. |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2018 06:33
|
|
|
|
The thornbush is an allegory for how man's perception of God influences and shapes the very tenets which we in the same breath declare are unmoving absolute values. Kind of a "God is unknowable and vast and we can't really appreciate that concept by pinning It to dogma." The crab is a crab. |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2018 15:27
|
|
|
|
Thingyman posted:also, how overtly comedic are people going for? because i started going whole hog on goofy satire where the author themselves is an incompetent author. My chapter was not funny at all and kind of serious so I might be alone in that. I hope my chapter won't be the lump of coal in an otherwise shining book of funny stuff 
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2018 20:33
|
|
|
Manifisto posted:gene wolfe's "book of the new sun" series yessss! I want to tell the world about the humble peacock. i demand it! |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2018 14:33
|
|
|
ShinyBirdTeeth posted:yessss! do it! 
https://i.imgur.com/QKTkerO.mp4 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2018 15:13
|
|
|
If you are reading this and thinking of writing a story, I strongly encourage you to do so, even if you have no experience writing fiction (like me)! You can always ask for help in this thread if you get stuck. I updated the OP to show which chapters are still available. Take whichever one strikes your fancy, and don't be scared about your writing style not "fitting in" with everyone else's; the novel being a kludgy mess is half the fun!
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2018 20:49
|
|
|
|
blaise rascal posted:If you are reading this and thinking of writing a story, I strongly encourage you to do so, even if you have no experience writing fiction (like me)! You can always ask for help in this thread if you get stuck. I'm gonna suggest that if people want to do a "non-standalone" chapter, they take a look at what other people have written. maybe it is impossible, but I would love to try to get some sort of unified story, or at least a bit of continuity, going in the non-standalone chapters. meaning that we're all working with more or less the "same" characters and an overall plot structure, even if that is all kinda loose. my suspicion is that this is what misty was going for originally and to me it seems like a good idea. I'm not necessarily trying to push my own ideas, but for reference: in the first chapter I did ("frog's complaint"), we were introduced to frog, an actual frog and a humble denizen of the earthly realm (as opposed to the celestial realm, which occupies the sky). frog mostly occupied himself with mundane things related to the bog he lived in, but one night he had a dream of going up to the celestial realm and seeing what the stars were made of (specifically he wanted to eat them). this dream affected him profoundly, and he became very annoyed that he was banned (by ancient treaty) from actually traveling into the celestial realm. he decided to approach his own emperor, and for reasons the emperor sent a diplomatic mission to the celestial realm with a petition of grievances. the emperor of the celestial realm did not take kindly to this, presumably leading into frog's destroying the moon palace (in chapter 3) and a great deal of overall conflict which is presumably resolved by the remaining cast of characters, especially miriam. to make a unified story, I think we'd need to settle on a basic conflict (which in misty's outline seems very much centered on frog's problems leading to a struggle between the empires) and an arc in which these problems are resolved in one way or another. I'm happy to be involved in this outlining-type process with anyone else who is interested but I certainly am not trying to put myself in charge! that is the role that misty intended to play, I think.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2018 21:33
|
|
|
Manifisto posted:I'm gonna suggest that if people want to do a "non-standalone" chapter, they take a look at what other people have written. maybe it is impossible, but I would love to try to get some sort of unified story, or at least a bit of continuity, going in the non-standalone chapters. meaning that we're all working with more or less the "same" characters and an overall plot structure, even if that is all kinda loose. my suspicion is that this is what misty was going for originally and to me it seems like a good idea. I think that the creation of a simple outline, like you suggest, is a good solution. That way people won't have to read the entire book to get some cues to what should happen in their chapter. I vote we use a google doc to organize these thoughts, as well as to distribute the book's integrated rough drafts.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2018 16:28
|
|
|
hi, there are a lot of words, in this thread, that on a friday night i am in no state to comprehend but i would like to write more if that's a thing that we still need and is being discussed here, idk, op hasn't been updated in a while. a week? three weeks? j**z what day is it. bookmarking either way, i guess. Fredflonston posted:My chapter was not funny at all and kind of serious so I might be alone in that. I hope my chapter won't be the lump of coal in an otherwise shining book of funny stuff as i scrolled down to post this this caught my eye - i...think everything works way better if there's not a singular voice we're shooting for off the bat? maybe i'm way off base here i didn't know there was a new thread but just like a ton if not the majority of comedy involves some archetypal ~straight man~ i think whatever comedy there is in this thingamajig is going to be enhanced by some more straightforward/serious moments. also, like, write what you want for your first draft, that's what everyone is most interested in reading anyway. :kickflips outta here then trips on pebble and skins knee: |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 03:43
|
|
|
food court bailiff posted:hi, there are a lot of words, in this thread, that on a friday night i am in no state to comprehend I haven't updated the OP because there's nothing to update. Several people are (ostensibly) working on chapters at the moment. Although, now might be a good time to check in and see that everything's going well for the people working on their chapters. ALSO, if you are reading this and considering writing a chapter, especially if you haven't written one yet, I invite you to take the plunge.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:49
|
|
|
i'm going to check in mid hangover to-morrow and grab a chapter that looks like it's not being worked on per the thread/op |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:54
|
|
|
I present to you The Humble Peacock. |
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2018 17:58
|
|
|
ShinyBirdTeeth posted:I present to you The Humble Peacock.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 14:34
|
|
|
|
blaise rascal posted:Wonderful. This is a really good feel-good story. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 17:08
|
|
|
|
ShinyBirdTeeth posted:I present to you The Humble Peacock. this is great! thank you! also great was blaise rascal's draft of "The Treasures of the Moon People," which they shared with me a little while ago. both of them have been added to the combined/formatted draft . . . anyone who wants to see it in its current state, contact me by pm or email (manyfisted at gmail dot com). uh sometimes I don't check that email account regularly, feel free to nudge me if you sent me an email and I don't respond.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 18:42
|
|
|
ShinyBirdTeeth posted:I present to you The Humble Peacock. Beautiful! https://i.imgur.com/QKTkerO.mp4 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 19:44
|
|
|
|
bump
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2018 06:15
|
|
|
|
I'd like to take on chapter 19: A Mighty Battle Between Owls and Demons. It calls to me. Since it's a "story" chapter, Manifisto could you send me the completed pages at jaded.burnout69@gmail.com? |
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2018 11:12
|
|
|
|
Jaded Burnout posted:I'd like to take on chapter 19: A Mighty Battle Between Owls and Demons. It calls to me. done! glad to have another contributor to the project!
|
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2018 11:31
|
|
|
|
Manifisto posted:done! glad to have another contributor to the project! Marvellous, thank you. |
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2018 11:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 20:34 |
|
|
|
Jaded Burnout posted:I'd like to take on chapter 19: A Mighty Battle Between Owls and Demons. It calls to me. awesome 
|
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2018 15:48
|
|