What the hell - let's do a chain story...

[TheRedChamber]

Since this is your event, will you be creating the second thread? Just because my idea won, that doesn't mean that I desire to take over the show, and I certainly do not wish to steer things away from your original vision. Therefore, it's probably best if you take the reins, and I can co-lead the process whenever necessary.

New thread is here.

Just wondering, am I the bench?

I'll let @AlinaX or whoever she appoints rule on that. @Comshaw signed up for the event before you, but didn't vote, so -bench- was assigned based on your preferences. So it's ambigious.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

New thread is here.


I'll let @AlinaX or whoever she appoints rule on that. @Comshaw signed up for the event before you, but didn't vote, so -bench- was assigned based on your preferences. So it's ambigious.

I will await AlinaX's decision, then.

 

[AlinaX]

You're welcome to join in, but please don't be a bench!

 

[Tio_Narratore]

You're welcome to join in, but please don't be a bench!

Okay, I'm in and Captcha assures me I'm not a bench; I identified all pictures with a park in them.
When and where do we start?

 

[AlinaX]

Over here: Bathtubs and Broomsticks

 

[Comshaw]

New thread is here.


I'll let @AlinaX or whoever she appoints rule on that. @Comshaw signed up for the event before you, but didn't vote, so -bench- was assigned based on your preferences. So it's ambigious.

Sorry but this has become too much of a game for me. And I have some personal things getting in the way of doing anything like this. I'll unass the bench and hit the showers allowing ya'll to get 'er done.


Comshaw

 

[TheRedChamber]

@Kumquatqueen ‘s published the final chapter of Matchmaking for the Shy over the weekend. That means that now both stories are complete, with our story taking a good few months longer than Lights, Camera, Blood (mostly due to my own issues getting a suitably penultimate chapter out). I kind of posted the original thread on a whim and didn't expect that we'd actually get not just one but two complete and actually pretty awesome stories out of it. Thanks to everyone who took part.

It's probably also a good time for a debrief. I won't start by giving my own deep analysis of exactly how things went. I'll let others express views first. I will quickly say that I do think that my original 6-9k words was a bit too short given how things turned out on MMftS. I do think that limiting it to six chapters worked out quite well (although LCB played fast and lose with some extra prologues/epilogues and spin-offs).

It's also coming up for a year of the original thread, so it might be worth discussing what happens next (if anything). I'm not intending to be the organizer for the next year, but I might be persuaded to take part in a submission. I'm happy for anyone else to decide to do something with it whenever they feel ready.

 

[StillStunned]

I enjoyed it, but I don't think I'll do it again any time soon. A large part of that is that my writing fuel is running low, and I don't want to be held to any schedule for the foreseeable future.

I suppose I had one of the easiest chapters to write (Chapter 2 of Lights, Camera, Blood). I focused entirely on Millarca, with the idea that she'd be an enigmatic non-POV character for the rest of the series. This gave me a lot of freedom and very little to bear in mind for consistency.

I'm still very proud of how it turned out, and Millarca is one of my favourite characters. I'm also very proud that we did what we set out to do and completed the series. So, thanks everyone, it was a joy to work with you all!

 

[AlinaX]

I will say straight away that I'm never publishing in Chain Stories again. We've written these awesome stories and almost no one is reading them. It's painful.

I had a lot of fun with the Bathory story. I had to restrain myself while commenting on the others' drafts, and even in restraints I'm sure I was overly intrusive.

The Bathory chain story had sort of an arc, although not one that was ever clearly specified. Successive authors found themselves caught between threads and characters that others had created and an unclear vision of where the story was actually going. The exceptions were Tio at the start and Omenainen at the end, with many months and a very serpentine plot to connect them.

Still... has already forgotten the name of the beautiful actress he breathed life into and who I had so much fun with later.

 

[StillStunned]

Still... has already forgotten the name of the beautiful actress he breathed life into and who I had so much fun with later.

Dammit. I'm pretty sure I had the same problem when we started, when I was referring to the character from "Carmilla". Mircalla, Mircalla, Mircalla.

 

[Erozetta]

I absolutely ignored the guidelines in favor of Alina's input (and I'm fairly sure unintentional encouragement of adding more each time I sent it to her). I will note that my first draft was around 10k words, I think. It didn't include half of what I wanted to include and I could have absolutely kept going, which is why I didn't send it back to Alina before publishing the version that got published.

And I've since gotten a USB keyboard to fix the half broken keyboard issue I had while writing.

Had fun, though and inadvertently ended up collaborating with another author here through the set up of the chain stories series. That one ended up around 64k words and I was extremely happy to see those characters come to life.

Would participate again, but might need someone more willing to slap my hand to keep me in line. (I do think Alina tried to, but did it so gently and politely that it largely went over my head.)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I am very impressed that both stories actually got completed and were largely coherent and very readable. Of course, I'm only halfway through reading Matchmaking but it has an infinitely simpler plot than Bathory so I'm sure that it reads fine.

I'm not interested in doing this again though. I'm not cut out for this whole group thing. I stepped on too many toes, even though I did everything that I could not to. On top of that, I'm not at all happy with my chapter. It's the worst, most lifeless and least imaginative hunk of junk that I've written in my adult life.

No shade to anyone else, but Erozetta wrote our best chapter, hands down. She had vivid imagination and got the deepest into the characters and their motives of all of us. It was what I tried to do but failed miserably.

I would still love to do a collab some time, just two of us, plotting forming and shaping one story cohesively around (probably) two characters, but I don't want to do the big group thing ever again.

 

[Erozetta]

I am very impressed that both stories actually got completed and were largely coherent and very readable. Of course, I'm only halfway through reading Matchmaking but it has an infinitely simpler plot than Bathory so I'm sure that it reads fine.

I'm not interested in doing this again though. I'm not cut out for this whole group thing. I stepped on too many toes, even though I did everything that I could not to. On top of that, I'm not at all happy with my chapter. It's the worst, most lifeless and least imaginative hunk of junk that I've written in my adult life.

No shade to anyone else, but Erozetta wrote our best chapter, hands down. She had vivid imagination and got the deepest into the characters and their motives of all of us. It was what I tried to do but failed miserably.

I would still love to do a collab some time, just two of us, plotting forming and shaping one story cohesively around (probably) two characters, but I don't want to do the big group thing ever again.

She also wrote way over the limit, which is kinda cheating, lol. But thank you. I quite enjoyed writing it and absolutely got lost in the lore. (Bathory has been a passion subject for me for a long time. I had already written one loosely based on her.)

I was sad when I saw you cut the shaving scene from yours, which is why I asked you if I could revamp the idea into mine. I really liked that idea. It's such an intimate thing and with a *potential* vampire doing the shaving... A little dangerous in such a fun way.

I am still down for collaborating. My schedule should clear up in early September. (I have two writing deadlines for then, and I'll be finished moving. Moving sucks.) My only other things coming up have no set timeline, so I can fuck around and do them whenever.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I was sad when I saw you cut the shaving scene from yours

So was I. And the braiding scene. And the wardrobe scene. And the box for the phones. And the script editing scene. And almost anything that made Mina mischievous and minxy. Whatever.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Interesting seeing the extra bits the other story produced.

If I got involved in a chain story again, I'd like to do more bouncing around ideas before the first segment gets written, so the later authors already know roughly what plot points will fall in their wheelhouse, and the earlier ones have more stuff they can foreshadow, rather than writing in the dark, as it were.

One of the bits of colour in the first two chapters of Shy was the quiet man typing in the corner, so I figured Chekov ruled he had to have more of a role at the end, to tie up an unattached plot point, sorry, character.

I liked the earlier bits with Emma's children, though being a Lit story they had to remain mostly a plot device to scupper their mother's sex life. So I was glad that Laurel had no problem when I put them in a scene - I put a note to Laurel explaining that the 13yo explicitly asks "Are you screwing my mother", Z denies it (he's being doing everything but actual penetrative sex, and he and E had previously joked that at least they could hypothetically tell the kids they weren't having sex), and says it's an inappropriate conversation when the kid says "But you want to, don't you?" Followed by it would be OK if you did screw Mom, but treat her right OR ELSE!

I offered to rewrite if necessary, but clearly no issues, because it isn't a sexualised conversation.

It's probably the most flips I've ever written between different characters - I think there's 13 asterisks marking them, down from 20 in a previous draft. Obviously when I re-read yesterday, I found one place where I messed up the timeline or just worded it badly, but it isn't hugely important.

I probably wouldn't get involved in a chain again, but wouldn't definitely say no to potential collaboration with a few people.

 

[Erozetta]

So was I. And the braiding scene. And the wardrobe scene. And the box for the phones. And the script editing scene. And almost anything that made Mina mischievous and minxy. Whatever.

Yeah, I... Ignored the phone confiscation getting cut. Lol. (I liked that concept and it made sense for the reclusive nature of the set.)

 

[AlinaX]

On top of that, I'm not at all happy with my chapter.

There’s a lot to be said for everyone having access to the same collaborative tools.

I think you (and Tio) were feeling a little too trapped by the idea you were writing the setup rather than the main story, when I would have said: No. Write the story, or a story, at least. Tio, for example, could have explored Charlie’s secret life of sexual perversions - entirely tangential to Bathory, but who cares?

I don’t mean this as criticism. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, sigh.

 

[Omenainen]

@Kumquatqueen ‘s published the final chapter of Matchmaking for the Shy over the weekend. That means that now both stories are complete, with our story taking a good few months longer than Lights, Camera, Blood (mostly due to my own issues getting a suitably penultimate chapter out). I kind of posted the original thread on a whim and didn't expect that we'd actually get not just one but two complete and actually pretty awesome stories out of it. Thanks to everyone who took part.

Thank you for orchestrating this! And a special thanks to @AlinaX for herding our side. I’ve been wanting to try this, if only to get the category off my list, but would’ve been too lazy to try to facilitate it myself. So thank you both for this experience.

Also, I can’t see doing this again. One and done for me

It's probably also a good time for a debrief. I won't start by giving my own deep analysis of exactly how things went. I'll let others express views first. I will quickly say that I do think that my original 6-9k words was a bit too short given how things turned out on MMftS. I do think that limiting it to six chapters worked out quite well (although LCB played fast and lose with some extra prologues/epilogues and spin-offs).

This was much more difficult and way slower than I expected. I was also very passive, compared to how I had imagined myself being. I thought I’d beta read others’ chapters and participate, but eventually I was this lazy ass slob who only read what others had written when it was my time to take the stage. So, I definitely went in a bit too lighthearted and self assured.

Anyway, I am very proud of both our chains to (finally) pulling through. I haven’t read the matchmaking chain but I am intending to.

It's also coming up for a year of the original thread, so it might be worth discussing what happens next (if anything). I'm not intending to be the organizer for the next year, but I might be persuaded to take part in a submission. I'm happy for anyone else to decide to do something with it whenever they feel ready.

Yeah, nah.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I wrote my chapter to introduce my primary protagonist and give a sense of direction to her development, expecting the subsequent authors to follow that route while developing their own central character in ways they wished. It didn't work out quite that way, particularly with the , to me, gratuitous introduction of a murder mystery and werewolves and such, but it was acceptable to me; after all, we were operating as independent authors in a chain. I was, however, seriously disappointed in the conclusion, which I felt was entirely at odds with the story arc and with the characters.

I'd be interested in collaborating with other authors again, but not in the way this work went

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I wrote my chapter to introduce my primary protagonist and give a sense of direction to her development, expecting the subsequent authors to follow that route while developing their own central character in ways they wished.

And that is what I intended to do, and did do to a limited extent, just didn't do enough. My main idea was to continue the Lucy/Mina dynamic of Mina being the adventurous one who would encourage and push Lucy past her inhibitions to achieve her desires, which you had laid groundwork for. There are glimpses of that in my chapter but it's pretty weak. Mina in general turned out to be a disappointingly weak character, mostly because my chapter did not develop her enough for the remaining authors to continue and that is probably my biggest disappointment (among many).

 

[TheRedChamber]

Okay, there's not much enthusiasm for a plain round two. A few people talking about collaborating in different ways. Any thoughts about what that might look like?

If I got involved in a chain story again, I'd like to do more bouncing around ideas before the first segment gets written, so the later authors already know roughly what plot points will fall in their wheelhouse, and the earlier ones have more stuff they can foreshadow, rather than writing in the dark, as it were.

I got the impression that the other group approached it in much more this way. I was worried that simple brainstorming could turn into paralysis and arguments about direction before a word had even been written. I also didn't want people to feel they were lumbered with a chapter structure that wasn't their choice although you can argue that the other approach just lumbered them with a starting point that wasn't their choice. I thought it would be more fun to do it as a more advanced version of that English teacher game where everyone has to write a sentence to follow the previous students sentence. I'm not unhappy with how ours turned out, but you'd obvious get a more organized story if you allow more group plotting.

It's probably the most flips I've ever written between different characters - I think there's 13 asterisks marking them, down from 20 in a previous draft. Obviously when I re-read yesterday, I found one place where I messed up the timeline or just worded it badly, but it isn't hugely important.

You had the hard part in absolutely needing to bring everyone's story to a close (and I didn't maybe make it easy on you) and I think finales in most literature tend to quicken the pace of switching. I had to look up what I'd done. I had five sections (omniscient with everyone, close Heather for the sex scene one, omniscient interlude, close Emma for sex scene two, followed by omniscient with all the ladies)

 

[AlinaX]

I think it’s important that each author feels free to have fun with the characters and write a story they enjoy.

With ours, the characters were never really fixed. As a result, Adamir, about whom the story revolves, is never properly understood. A ruthless director, but is he a romantic innocent or is he complicit in a supernatural evil?

What we did have fixed, more or less, was a time of year and a location, and an agreement to maintain an ambiguity about whether there truly was something supernatural at work - at least until the last chapter(s). Which was frustrating, but ultimately (imo) rewarding.

What we fixed, did work well in the end. The characters and their arcs should have been explored and agreed in advance too - not in fine detail, but as broad brushstrokes. It’s very frustrating for one author to create a character and see another author later write them with a very different nature.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

I enjoyed writing my chapter (although I think I may have had an easy job, going first) and really liked reading what the others had written. If something similar happened again, I'd definitely want to take part.

And I'd like to also say thank you to everyone for participating!

 

[Bamagan]

Smaller groups might be something to try. There was a lot more interest in the concept than I expected, and it quickly ballooned into something that looked too big, and possibly unwieldly, for me to feel comfortable committing to.

 

[Erozetta]

I'd like to see a true chain story. No input from others, no set groups. Just a chunk of story from one author that gets picked up by another and continued. Your section is yours and you step away from anything but reading after you've contributed your part.