Lost Breed - the meeting room

[An8el]

Yes, I figured that hint; isn't the rule of thumb when you use cliche' that you're supposed to jog someone's expectations?
I think that a sci-fi story is much harder to write in a babilion story than fantasy.
It's because what makes a story sci-fi is often an idea... and how it plays out. Can we make the cryogenic time-lag the issue of the story? Or the serious effect that taking on fuel seemed to have for the planet left behind? The stowaways who might present a job for our hero to perform as restitution? Our hero's discovery of his identity? Or some new issue that ties all of these together?

[Erebus]

I waited a while to see how this new story would unfold, especially as I had such an active role in the last one - in fact, my brain still hurts from the hours of editing!

And then of course the world changed, and then I got busy with other committments as well.

But, we certainly have an unusual tale developing and I've finally found the time to add to it, though I still have no real idea of the direction the story will take from here. For me though, it's certainly an enjoyable exercise, especially as it brings its participants just a little bit closer, even though we'r

[Erebus]

Well at least here's part of of this topic! The server crashes this last few days have caused some problems it seems!

[nicba]

At least the story itself is intact. That's the most important thing.

I've written another post. It's a little short and I'm not too satisfied with the way it turned out. For some reason I think it sounds dry, or dull, or something. But it was the best I could do, I hope its OK.

lior, I think maybe it would be a good idea if you let the mysterious lady with the changing hair colour meet up with Kay soon. There's only so much to tell about a lone man in a spaceship drifting through empty space. I honestly think it's about to grow stale.

Oh, and erebus, I just noticed that this topic still has '48 replies' listed in the forum's list of topics. Strange.


[This message has been edited by nicba (edited November 27, 2001).]

[lior]

Yes, some strange things happened here in the last few days. the forum disappeared and came back again, only without the meeting room!
Anyway, thanks Neil for salvaging at least half of it.

nicba, I thought your post was quite intresting. True, it didn't move the story forward in a profound way, but we need some quiet moments from time to time. The hologram thing had to be addresed, and it sure wasn't done in a stale way.
BTW, there's no such thing as a "too short" post. it could consist of only one line, as long as it is good.

[nicba]

Just bringing this one to the top.

Is our story dead? Again?

[lior]

I think I'm about to throw the towel in, nicba, there's no use us two writing this story by ourselves.

[nicba]

Nhaa, your right. It's not much of a babylon story with only two writers.

I wish I knew why the interest was so low, though. Was it because of the genre (science-fiction)? Because of the unintended mix of science-fiction and fantasy (the amulet and the talking birds)? Or something else?

I thought it was fun as long as it worked. Therefore I will probably participate again if anyone cares to try with a new story in the future.

[Erebus]

It is somewhat disappointing to see that our efforts fell a little short this time, and even I myself are guilty of not contributing a great deal to the Lost Breed, for reasons I have mentioned before. However, I am only one, and we have 800+ plus members now. Perhaps it was a reflection of world events and some people are no longer visiting the boards? Or maybe it was too soon after the other story we did, which was also dropping off towards the end. Whatever the reasons, I think with both tales we've uncovered some wonderful talent.

Perhaps between you, Lior and Nicba, you can complete this tale, or part thereof, and submit it for inclusion in our story section. I certainly think it's worth the effort!

As you may recall, I created a PDF e-book version of The Melancholy Imp, our last collective story, and spent many, many hours editing it. Well, even interest in this has died and only one member here requested a copy of it for themselves.

I guess that like myself from time to time, there's just not enough hours in the day for some of us to do all we'd like, and perhaps this is why so few of our members found the time to submit to our stories?

Nevertheless, I'm sure that we can try another one next year!

[lior]

Well said, Neil, I was sorry to see that you hardly participated in this effort, I think that your involvement, besides the superb writing itself, would have brought more interest. Nontheless, I perfectly understand your reasons, hell, I myself sometimes hardly found the time and/or energy to make a contribution that to me will seem good enough to post.
I guess after your immense involvement and hard work on "the melancholy imp", you deserved a rest this time around.
I started the "lost breed" story because I was enthuastic with the first babillon story, and when the board's interest died out, my own interest started to dry out too, but I managed to keep it going along with two other faithful members, nicba and voider,and when voider seemed to vanish too, it was over and done with. I don't know about completing the story, I think in order to appear in the stories section it will have to be rewritten extensively, we have to fix all the inconsistencies in it, I still think the premise, the original idea which started it all, about a man/woman being alone on a large spaceship crusing in space, can become a nice enough tale, but I don't know...

Anyway, it was fun, and thanks to everyone who contributed!

[nicba]

Yeah, erebus, I understands the part about not having hours enough in the day completely. I often feel that way. In fact that was the main reason why I never contributed to the first babylon story (plus, I was new to the board and didn't feel like bursting in on the ongoing tale...)

In regard to the question of adding it to the story section, I'm with lior on that one. I think it would take a little more work to edit it than its worth in its current state. Its also nowhere near a conclusion, I think.

But on the other hand, I too feel that the original idea was good and could have grown to be a great story. Maybe lior would take his first post and the initial idea and write a short story all his own, the way he envisioned it from the beginning?

[Erebus]

Maybe Lior would take his first post and the initial idea and write a short story all his own, the way he envisioned it from the beginning?

Good idea, Nicba! Lior, how about it?

[lior]

That sounded like a challenge, boys.
I'm gonna do it.

[alison]

I printed it out, with the idea of contributing, but I got a bit lost in the story - so many wildly switching voices - which is I guess one of the perils of collaboration. There were some great ideas in it, but I guess the problem is how to develop them.

Anyway, good luck, Lior!

Alison

[nicba]

You are right alison, the story is terribly confusing. And the fact that the meeting room got trashed in that server-chrash awhile back doesn't make things easier. There were some discussions in there which probably could have helped.

It started out as a "straight" science-fiction but then at some point someone introduced a magic amulet and talking birds and the like. People went with it for awhile but it pretty much drowned out the original premise of the story. The story almost died then. It was dormant for a long while, also partly because of the tragic world events in september.

Then lior announced that he wished to give the story another go and try to get it back on science-fiction tracks and get rid of the magic. Lior, voider and I used the next many posts to explain-away the magic by various tricks. I think we succeeded pretty well given what we had to work with. Given time we might even have gotten a half-coherent story out of it

Unfortunately, it still didn't manage to get enough interest for others to join. So it died again

I'm looking forward to see what lior comes up with. Tell us when it's done, will you?