Story Ideas

[e-Morgana]

Here's a thread to use, to bandy about ideas for potential stories. Holbrook has suggested that anyone with some thoughts regarding a story they'd like to start, could put them here, to see if anyone else is interested in joining in. If the idea is taken up, a new thread can be started, and we will put a link to it in here, in the relevant post.

This will save people from having to wade through lots of stories to see if they are interested in contributing.

Have fun!!

[Hereford Eye]

Was thinking about a thread where this pair of mods decide to write a collaborative story about....oh, I don't know....some barnyard animal known for its heroism, being well grounded and such and an evil Enchantress who sticks her keyboard into all sorts of threads..and the two of them live in time zones not compatible with the civlized world...and they start this thread about a bar or a dive or a pub or something....so when they wake up in the morning all their hard work the previous day...in their time zones...has been re-routed, re-configured, and re-directed by folk with warped senses of humor in the civilized time zones...so every time they think have reached a cusp or a turning point or a climactic moment, the people in the civkilized world post another curve..so the thread goes on and on until it hits 100 pages and they try to start over.
Probably too far out there to work in real life, huh?

[e-Morgana]

Nah....don't think anyone would find that at all credible HE. Everyone knows that there's no 'evil' Enchantresses around these parts.

What a cheeky bugger you are.

[Carmichael]

I can vouch for that! I have NEVER met an evil Enchantress anywhere NEAR here!!!

[Zack Ryan]

Yeah, me neither, met a really sexy one once, or twice, or was that, Hmmmmmmmm, lots a times.

Never an evil one, unless they were talking about, no that wasn't evil, that was fun

[e-Morgana]

Evil? ......No!!

Sexy?? (Why thank you, my big golden laddie.) On occasion....yes.

But bad tempered I've heard they can be, when people keep messing up their new threads.

[An8el]

Would it be possible to dredge up some of the old stories that never got finished from the "writer's" section? I went looking for the one I wanted to suggest and it happened last year, so maybe it is in an archive somewhere else that I'm clueless to find.

I think it was called "Tales of Baldur" and I thought it was a pretty good start...have the .txt file areound here somewhere if I could mine the hard drive out of the retired computer in pieces in storage...

Main character was a young guy who's first scene was him going through an agonizing healer's pain trial where he gets his powers to heal. Then there's a magician (who you can't really tell if he's evil or not,) with plans for the empire that you find out when he consults a retired scholar about an omen from the healer's initiation.

Our hero gets sent out to heal up the troups by this political aspirant, to get rid of him, possibly, and to adventures yet to be specified. I remember also an interesting little pet carried next to the body who helped its owner read thoughts or something...

Essentially, it was a pretty fun sword and sorcery story set in a sort of variation on a Minoan-type society. Anyone interested enough for me to go to the trouble of finding it?

[Scarlett O'Hara]

An8el, I like your avatar with the merging of Zhaan and John!!!!

[Eldanuumea]

The Minoan thing piques my curiosity, dear. Yes, please see if you can find it.

[An8el]

Yeah, thanx Scarlett. I love Zhann & Farscape, and often feel as if I am merging inside an author's head when I read, so that's why the image was appropo for me.

OK Eldanuumea, I'll go find this story - it will take until the end of the week before I find it probably, but I'll start the search.

...Guess when I find it, the way I understand this thread to work is I would start a new thread with the story so far in it...and then I would edit my nutshell description above to include a link to the story....right?

This thread is a great idea. We could make it ever so much more useful right away if a bunch of would write a sort of thumbnail description or "abstract" of each of the threads that are already going here - along with their respective links to the abstracts/descriptions...

I'll have some time for this later this week too...

[Sammie]

Originally posted by An8el
This thread is a great idea. We could make it ever so much more useful right away if a bunch of would write a sort of thumbnail description or "abstract" of each of the threads that are already going here - along with their respective links to the abstracts/descriptions...

I think this is a v good idea, if any of the authors wanna go for it.

(PS - Farscape rules )

[Scarlett O'Hara]

Originally posted by An8el
write a sort of thumbnail description or "abstract" of each of the threads that are already going here

Sounds rather like "cliff-notes" that we used in college to avoid reading Shakespeare or the Iliad in its entirety. At the time it seemed like a good idea to me but I have since learned that reading the cliff-notes stole the opportunity from me to read the story in the manner the author wrote it.

In my opinion, either you are interested enough in a story (or stories) to grant the author(s) the respect of reading their work, or not. But don't expect me to prepare "cliff-notes".

[e-Morgana]

Maybe we should clarify just what you mean by "abstract", An8el.

If you are suggesting that the authors should go through and provide a summary (or 'cliff notes' as Scarlett says), then I think that's asking a bit much. I agree with Scarlett in this matter, that if you wish to contribute to the tale, you should acquaint yourself properly with the characters and plot involved to this point. The writers have put a lot of effort into their creations, and I think it would be courteous to at least read the 'whole' tale before jumping in.

The idea of a starting point, or vague plot outline, is different though. You can see that Scarlett has already done this in the Tea Shoppe story - given a brief sketch of who/what was going to be involved. The very nature of these collaborations though, means that any kind of firm plot development, is tenuous at best. It is assumed that anyone coming into the story, will work with what has already been done, and not derail the others' efforts.

[An8el]

I'm thinking - not as a substitute for reading the story, but to know if you want to bother to read it to begin with. A little like the description I offered of the story I'm about to dig up. More like a "teaser," or maybe just a little longer than the little blurbs that you get when you are cruising digital or cableTV to see if you want to watch a movie.

Anyone can write them. For instance, in the Forum, it's the story of what happens when a member of an online community disappears. The story is revealed as if you are reading the documentation of a real-time "chat" - with a fascinating character called the "Admin" and a curious criteria for aquiring new members. There, did I say enough to describe what it is that might make you want to delve into it directly?

Some abstracts outline much more of the specific details of the beginning of the story to hook you - it's just enough to leave you hanging so you have to read it to find out the rest of what happens.

[Zack Ryan]

While watching the new Western series on USA the other night I had an idea. Why not combine the old west with either a fantasy or SciFi theme?

I have the idea, but between RL, the Copani, The dragons and some other commitments, I don't even know if I would be able to participate. I guess that makes me an Idea Person



(in this day and age I would probably have Scarlett, Morgana, Elda and various other of our lovely female members tear various members of my body off if I had said Idea Man)