Composite Fiction

[hwango]

Every once in a while, I consider the idea of those round-robin stories, where each person adds to an existing story when it's their turn. One of the problems with doing this via email is that the file can get kind of large, or accidentally get deleted, or have something equally horrible happen to it.

I decided it might be fun to try the idea again, but this time make use of Livejournal. I've launched a community, which I called "composite," to use for this purpose. I figure that people can simply post the next part of the story as a new journal entry. Of course, this means that each new piece will appear above the previous one, but I think we can overcome that little flaw.

Rather than take ordered turns, I thought I'd just let people add to the story whenever they feel like it. If someone thinks they are going to spend a lot of time on an entry and doesn't want someone else to take that part of the story, they can just leave a comment saying so.

I've given it closed membership for right now, so if anyone is interested, I'll have to add them myself. I'm moderating! Muh, ha ha ha - such power! Anyway, any of you reading this can let me know if you are interested, or know anyone else who might be interested.

Comments

Sounds interesting

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested but I can't guarantee my writing would be anything wonderful. :) Since people could reply to posts and create threads it would be possible to have a top down reading. New stories can be posted as new posts?

Re: Sounds interesting

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Hm...that could work, I suppose. It would kill the possibility of using comments as actual comments, though. I'll have to consider that, though.

Re: Sounds interesting

[lucasthegray.livejournal.com]

so, what happens when the story forks? i.e. two people see the previous comment, and both decide to reply to it, before the other one has completed their entry?

Re: Sounds interesting

[hwango.livejournal.com]

That was why I thought it would be nice to leave the comments section for actual comments, and put story segments as whole journal entries. You could post a comment saying "I've got the next piece," and not worry about 2 people working from the same part.

If we were going to allow the story to fork, then we could put the title of which fork you're working on as the Subject. That might get confusing, but it could be an interesting experience as well, seeing the different directions things go in.

I'm not making any firm rules at this point - it's all open to discussion right now how this could work. Any other opinions on these issues?

Visual point

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

I think if you have people selecting either "post a new comment" or "reply to this post" it will be easily identified visually. Of course there is the possibility that several people have the story diverge at one point with no conclusion?

Maybe persons A and B will run with the story from the same point but person A might go back and respond to person B's thread?

It's a cool idea in any case even if it starts out buggy. I thought the idea of using replies was a good one because it will decrease story confusion, clutter, and allow you to start more than one at a time. Plus have the older stories continue to mature.

Re: Visual point

[hwango.livejournal.com]

I was talking with kaiwoklaw, and she suggested that people could post a comment saying "I'll take the next bit," and then after they write and post the next part, they could delete that comment to reduce clutter. So then we could have top-down writing.

Everyone has to make sure they reply to the first part, though. Otherwise it will become more and more indented as it goes on.