Authors Co-operate together to produce a short story/stories

First of all we need to decide who is in so we can get a proper discussion started. Limit of members should be? 5 in my opinion. People who have shown interest so far are:
computer
Pirate Jenny
Sidwyn Spider
Se'draay On
kater
me

Think thats it
 
Well time to start thinking...
One idea I just came up with quickly. It's not very detailed, feel free to rubbish it, I won't mind :)
There is group of sailors who are led by a youngish captain (main character), who also has some acquaintances travelling with him. Maybe a mysterious old man or womean character?
The group of sailors would be on the run from a powerful pirate who is out to exact revenge on the main character.
I know this sounds a bit lame but i think it could be done quite well and with ease.
Feel free to add anything or change it a bit.
 
Okay, the pirates idea sounds pretty cool. In fact the more I think about it the better it seems - most high fantasy tends to be based on land adventures so this could really pull things in a new direction.
Although we're going to create a new world, I would suggest that for continuities sake we premise it on exsisting historical fact. For a maritime theme how about the seventeenth century - think, the Spanish armada, Francis Drake and so forth. If I can get some time out of Uni work this weekend I'll maybe do a bit of research and e-mail round my findings.
As a final thought, rather than having some random enemy figure how about making it a countries navy - this could give rise to some really good naval battle scenes. We could of course then personify the enemy and introduce personal enmities by introducing the naval admiral or whatever.
Anyway, seeing as this is your theme Rob how about you kick us off with a first chapter. ;) Then we just have to set up a rotational order for the subsequent chapters and we're rolling.
Editing still kind of a problem though. I'm going to be too busy with studying and probably wouldn't be very good at it anyway - any volunteers?:)
 
An additional suggestion. How about each of us picks a character and develops that one character? We give the person a history within the story. When we’re done we e-mail it to everyone and we can critique it. If something doesn’t fit within the story we say so, give reasons why and then suggestions. This way, I think, the characters will come more to life. Just a suggestion. Feel free to scrape if you want.
 
I, too, like the pirate idea. (How could I not? ;) )

As to the revenge, this is a good thought as well. Plot-wise, it might be interesting if the motivation (revenge) were with held from the reader (and hero) at the beginning. That way, we have the initial Hero-Fleeing-Pirate (plenty exciting), and then the added twist of revenge. Ship after ship is exciting, and personal vendettas more so.
Perhaps the hero does not know that this is a revenge matter until he is captured--or--his recognition of the Revenger (via spyglass, of course--or via eyeballs in a ship-to-ship battle) aids Hero in assessment of the situation (Forsooth! Tis my bastard cousin, Tyron Longbottom!).
 
we need to finalise things now. Are we settled on the seafaring theme. Im not all that keen on it though...
 
im not really too keen on using an existing world. if we base it on the sea sort of thing then i don't want to base it on history. we can make up the sea world for it.

marc
 
The idea of us each creating a character is kind of cool, it should ensure that all of the characters are fairly distinctive. It could however create continuity issues and may produce further problems eg. 'you killed my character off... so now I'll kill yours.' and so forth.
That said, this is an experimental project so my feeling is, in for a penny...
As to the basis of the world I wasn't proposing that we base it singularly and rigidly on history; only that I'm not sure how much sailing experience everyones had (except for PJ of course :) ) Accordingly I felt it was important that it ought to have some relativly credible basis. Then again, if you really are totally against the idea we could always go uber fantasy - ships floating through the sky on winds of magic and the like. This would remove any onus on us to attempt a factual basis and would furthermore obviate Sir Robs new found uncertainty as to the theme...That said I'm only putting that out as a suggestion off the top of my head and really haven't given it any thought as to how workable it would be.
As I've said already I think someone should get the ball rolling and we can all take our cue from the sort of work that it's pointing us toward. Thus even if the incipient chapter takes the form more of a prolugue giving some sort of background detail at least it would give us a framework to take thoughts forward on.
(whew) I'll stop writing now.
 
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I like the idea of floating ships, but maybe we could expand on it. How about their are floating islands on this world, as well as landbound ones. The floating islands are completely disconnected from each other, think of the Greek City-States (one nation, but different ways of living) The only way to communicate or trade, with other islands or landbound countries, is through the air ships. The air ships are powered by powerful mages. The air ships are the most important resource the floating islands have, but they belong to no single island, they are autonomos from anybody or government other than themselves. (If anybody's read any Dune books by Frank Herbert, think of the Spacing Guild.)

We could be either a Courier Ship, or a pirate ship preying on the floating islands and other air ships.

Just an idea, you can keep it or scrap it if you want.

Rob
 
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Hmmm. Good thoughts, Rob. this is definately a more interesting place to start--and it does take care of the need for research into seafaring (believe me: the terminology and names assigned to each knot, peg, sail, and mast is dizzying...I certainly don't understand it all. ;) ). We can adopt the easier concepts (aft, forward, prow, stern, starboard, port), but create our own tech. Is anyone particularly gifted in this area?

Now, as to the islands. I like the idea of floating islands. Some questions we need to address: Why are they floating? What keeps them floating? Who controls an island's direction?

And, of the ships: I like the idea of autonomous ships as it introduces the opportunity for privateering. If the ships are it, then there must be exhorbitant shipping prices. (Fuel + luxury goods + taxes from islands trying to maintain financial stability + good ol' free enterprise. A real recipie for tension and conflict) Islands would try to keep their economies self-contained (so there must be certain trade goods which they cannot live without).

And... Why can't the islands have their own ships? I like the idea that they can't...but we need a good reason. Is this lost technology? Is it because any pilot hired by an island goes rogue in favor of better wages via piracy?

Also...if an island does not have its own flying ships, this would leave them vulnerable to attack. (ships being, after all, vessels with more purpose than simple trade ;) ) Are the islands subdued by their trading partners?

(I could go on and on...a sign of something workable, I think)

Jenn
(Spewing ideas... :D )
 
They could be floating because of a magic rock that has levitating abilities when charged by a Magus. This would give our islands real tension because the people on the island would be dependent on Magus's to survive and they wouldn't like that.

They could be kept in one spot by a huge chain and anchor. The anchor could be buried deep underground to keep an island stationary. Nobody would climb the chain because it's so big and high and the danger is prohibitive.

The islands wouldn't have their own ships because it takes a Mage's magic to float it, and the Magus's and Mages have a millenia long feud between them. The Mages don't float the ship its self, they control the winds which fill and guide the magical wind-gathering sails. The Mages need to dock and replenish their power and energy, but the Magus's can't float an island and any ships at the same time, so they need the goods and services that a Mage floated ship can bring. The two magic factions need each other, but they don't like each other and do everything in their power to disturb the other.

The Mage's are all the Captains of their ships and excellent sailors. They rarely step foot off ship, even when docked.

As for pirateer's, :shrug shoulders: you have criminals and opportunist's everywhere and in any class, even Mage's.

Hope that answers some questions. If you have more just post them. If you don't like any of the ideas, tell me and suggest how to make it better. I just came up with the answers when i saw PJ's post, so feel free to mess around with my idea.:D
 
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I might be interrested in joining, but I am quite busy, so it would have to be when I have time. Could be an idea to make it more floating. Everyone contributes when they want to, and if you make a disposition at first, then anyone who likes can write any part, and the editor or something might post polls for which to use. Just an idea....

Whatever
 
Just looked in on this thread and recognised the floating island thing from a game, "Project Nomads" that is soon to be released. Maybe you should look the game up to make sure you don't accidentally copy it in a major way.
 
I like the idea of floating islands and ships. The idea of having a floating magic rock seems very similair to a childrens fantasy series (The Edge Chronicles). I think it would be best if the ships floated on magical tides. The ships would be made of magical materials that would be shaped so they went through the magical tides better.
 
In that case, what would stop the islands from producing ships of their own? We could modify the Mages so that they didn't float the ships, but controlled the currents and updrafts of the Mage Winds. The sails could be made of a special silk only found in the jungle on the ground. The sails would assist in capturing the Mage Winds to guide the ship.

To introduce the world, floating islands and inner workings of the ships we could have an older Mage who discovers a Wind Mage in a landbound country and trains him as his protoge. This would enable the reader to learn about our world through what the young mage discovers.
 
In reponse to Milamber_Reborn:

Step into a fantastic world - huge, floating islands drifting slowly through the haze of the clouds.

You are a Nomad, a flying Wizard Engineer. Explore the vast and breathtaking realm of the clouds with your flying island. Find and capture glittering magical artifacts of a forgotten technology. Battle against your rivals, enemies and vile monsters in an epic quest to meet your destiny.

Project: Nomads is a third person cross genre game that takes place in a fantastic world of huge, floating islands that drift slowly through the haze of the clouds.

The player controls a Nomad - a human able to fly, mastering the art of magic and the relics of a lost technology. With his arcane powers and glittering, magical artifacts, he can build factories, powerplants and defense facilities on these massive platforms.

Armies of flying machines, biplanes and zeppelins produced by the factories are controlled to gain the upper hand in the battle for rare resources and valuable artifacts. The floating islands are used like battleships to explore the unknown realms in the clouds.

I don't think that we'll be in any danger of copying the game. Thank you for the heads up though, Milamber!
 
Okay, I've had some more time to think through this extremely high fantasy, fantasy concept now. Having read through some of the suggestions already posted I see a lot of what I've been thinking already reflected (which bodes well for us all working together). Here's how I see this going, as ever feel free to castigate this as abusivly as you like it's just some ideas. Please don't panic if this seems to political or ideologically charged, I promise it won't dominate the narrative structure:

The floating islands represent first world, capatilist countries. Like the original US states, they are lifted from territory status, to that of fully fledged states by an over-arching government. This head government is controlled by the magus' who control the magical energies which elevate the islands. In order to cement their own control and prevent the floating states from rising up against this supreme government (to whom they must pay annual tithes in order to maintain their floating status) all of the magical 'tech' related to flying is maintained by the magus'. Thus they control all of the flying ships.
This gives rise to two alternate propostions. Either, the head government simply grants liscences to private individuals to crew these ships, or, the private ship with which we are concerned is one which has gone renegade from the main fleet.
As to the lands below the islands, these are ruled over feudal style by the floating overlords. They represent the third world and whilst producing the raw materials reap none of the benefits as these must be carted up to the floating islands; which in turn pay the monies in tithes to the head government. This necessarily follows from the notion of floating islands given that if they are above the clouds then they will have no natural water and inferentially will be unable to grow their own crops or sustain animals. Accordingly they plunder the natural resources of the world below them.

Okay, these are my ideas so far. As I said feel free to pull them apart. Another suggestion from a technical point of view is that as we start hammering this out in more and more detail our submissions are getting too long (not to mention giving too many of our ideas away). I would suggest that we now draw up a list of those committed to this project and continue such discussions via e-mail.
 
good suggestion. my e-mail is [email protected] If anybody is definately in, just e-mail me saying so. After 3 days, i'll post here the names of the people who e-mailed me for confirmation. After 3 more days the list will be cut off. If your not in by then, you're not in at all.

What does everybody think of this idea?
 
We might want a numerical number of participants fixed instead Se'dray-on. Also, I think we should count Computer (seeing as he started this project) and Pirate Jenn (who has shown a good deal of interest from the outset) as being in already. SirRob originally came up with the sea-faring theme and although he hasn't been around much lately I think we should presume that he's still going to be a part of it. So why don't we say (provisionally) the contributors will be:
Computer,
Pirate Jenn,
Se'dray-on,
Sir Rob,
Sidwynspider.
Although this is already quite a lot, if anyone else wants to take part then e-mail Se-dray-on as above. At the end of the day more writers = more chapters and now that we have a whole new world to work through then I'm up for something on an epic kind of scale.
 
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