My little project

[Sleepdance]

So I've been thinking about doing this for quite some time now, but never found the quantaty(and quality) of people. Then I thought to myself why not to ask on my favorite forume if someone is willing to join me.

The basic consept of this is to write a short(1-3 pages per person/chapter) story about anything you could amagine. But the point of this wouldn't be the story(at least not so much) but the presentation. Every chapter would be written by other person(depends on number of people) and most importantly in diffrent language(the one you know the best).

This is just a rough discription of what is cooking in my head right now but before going any further I'd need to know if anyone is interested.

Story so far:

Slovene

So in the first chapter I go for about 3 pages in my notebook describing the protagonist of the story(only his spirit, not the look). His name is Balthazar.

He is walking down some road somewhere in a dessert(the type of the desert like in Full Throttle). He is simply walking ignoring the cars that drive past him. He doesn't know what to do than walk. Not because he is cofused, he just doesn't care. He was a very good detective nearing his promotion, when sudenly he made a mistake in a case(included someone dangereus -isn't explained yet) and now this person is free and trying to get a revenge(not that he is stocking him - just paying bounty hunters to kill him). I finish a chapter with a cafe closing by the road.

Also some more things:

-Balthazer is addicted to solving puzzles/problems/....he hasn't solved anything for quite some time jet so he's little not himself

-this shouldn't be the story of a hero. Baltazhar knows that he will die and he will die. He is just trying to see how long can he make it

-it's night

-the cafe is opened

Some sudgestions:

-the cafe is an exelent oppotunite to describe the look of a character, since outside is dark and in the cafe isn't

English

It starts with Balthazar going into the cafe and ordering a black coffee. Then I describe him physically (good suggestion on using the light of the cafe). He's a goth, but 40 years old, which is why he was ostracized by the police department.

He's doing a crossword PUZZLE when he realises that the waitress is out of place because of her accent and the way she wasn't good at adding up his change.

So a fight starts and it turns out she's a bounty hunter. (She wears a black latex bodysuit under her waitress outfit). He wins and the cafe blows up. He's left with a broken arm and one of the bounty hunter's bullet casings as a clue.

He carries on walking through the night.

It's pretty kick-ass, and it leaves him with a broken arm which could leave him at a disadvantage if any more baddies try to get him.

Edited January 25, 2010 by Sleepdance

[Ben X]

How many words to a page?

[Sleepdance]

Well, how much you are capable of.

[twmac]

Anything I want?

I could probably write it in Portuguese.

What is the point at the end?

[Sleepdance]

That would be nice.

Also, exactly which end?

[toblix]

Although I'm generally for everything, the specifications seem almost too non-specific. Do you have any definite goals for the project other than it being a series of short stories in different languages?

[Sleepdance]

What a timing? A second between each other's post?

Back on topic.

Let's say this is not little, but extremly experimental. My main goal is probably to make an example of cooperation betwen diffrent tipes of people, nations and cultures(man, this sound even better(and crazier) than I thought it would).

Those short stories wouldn't be indipendant stories but chapters in overall story. An here comes the main problem that is probably going to be if this is tried to pull of is to keep story logical(not that in one chapter someone is tall, in other small).

There are probably 2 ways of creating a story in this case. On beeing that one is writing something in his language, than pasting a rough description of a story and possible continuations and that then someone does the same thing until it's finished. I prefer this way, if you take away the risk of the story going totally crazy.

The other way is that the plot is decided at the begining, but in this case you risk that everyone will loose will to the project over time.

About the unspecific specifics. I think that things that should be decided over the hole project should be decide as a team.

[Erkki]

The only ones who'll end up able to read it are polyglots. Or it would have to be translated, but that seems would be missing the point... Or not?

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think there's a lot of interested people here (fantastic) but your brief is too esoteric. If you want people to get involved I think you've got to be very realistic about how much time and energy they're willing to commit, and if you don't set some sort of boundary then the time and energy required looks to be tremendous... meaning nobody will ever actually get around to doing it.

If you can put together a very simple, specific and limited brief, I think that would help tremendously.

[twmac]

My question has sort of been answered, the reason I was asking was because I was wondering if I could just introduce one of my own short stories or whether there would be constraints (constraints are good).

The other end is, well what do you plan to do with it once you are done? Like Erkki said if you can't understand the languages then you won't know what the hell is going on.

Anyways, if you come up with a clearer idea of what you want let me know because I would definitely be up for it. Maybe if you write the first chapter and/or come up with a very loose idea each of the chapters (like improvised writing give us a setting and some characters and then go from there).

Or you could make the whole thing a combination of a pub game and a David Lynch film.

Edited January 11, 2010 by twmac

[Garple]

Were you high when you had this idea? I'm not trying to insult you at all...I'm just wondering. Also...I'd be glad to participate if it gets off the ground (fun fact: Groucho used to be a serious aspiring writer. He's been published in elimae, Thieves Jargon etc...)

[Sleepdance]

@GrouchoClub:I'm always under the influance of my imagination, which makes me......do you remember that red sniper with a bow....no, am......that human that becomes blue cat...no, no, no......that wizard...(okay I'm trying to stop myself[fist punches in my head from my hands])

The other end is, well what do you plan to do with it once you are done? Like Erkki said if you can't understand the languages then you won't know what the hell is going on.

Well, as I said this would be experimental. From all aspects of the human mind, imagination is, if you ask me, most interesting of. Since most people speak at least 2 languages so they could understand at least some of the book and if this parts of the book are done in such way they would keep interest that would make them one of 2 things:

1.:Try to find out what the heck is going on.

2.:Try to think about what they read what is the thing I'm counting on because my philosofy is that a book(or movie, or game,...)is good when you think about it even after you finish reading it. The one that you forget next day isn't good book. For you of course, maybe the same book is good in this way for someone elsebut not for you even if it's Mr Shaking a Spear.

Anyways, if you come up with a clearer idea of what you want let me know because I would definitely be up for it. Maybe if you write the first chapter and/or come up with a very loose idea each of the chapters (like improvised writing give us a setting and some characters and then go from there).

Don't worry. Off course I'll write the first chapter. I'm thinking to put the book in close future, middle age or present and definetly not in space, because of all the crazy names(ex.:Hybrid fuel accelerator) that would made it almost impossible to manage all of the phrases.

I'll write about the character tomorrow since is almost midnight here and I have still a lot to do(like sleeping).

Or you could make the whole thing a combination of a pub game and a David Lynch film.

Are you my identical twin brother....or at least have his brains?

Edit:O, and if ever finish this I'll probably beg someone to make PDF out of it and then ask Amazon to put it on Kindle as one of the free books(I'm living in the clouds) if you will agree and they tell everyone that I can think of about it.

Edited January 11, 2010 by Sleepdance

[Psych]

This concept reminds me of a sort of forum game I used to play with some people on the official Dreamcast forum back when there was such a thing. We called it The Running Saga.

It was an ongoing story with multiple writers in which each writer was a character in the story. It started with the first writer introducing themself as a character and creating the initial conflict, then every subsequent writer introducing themselves and advancing the plot with the other characters.

I don't think anyone would actually want to read the finished product, but it sure was fun to work on.

[Ben X]

Well, I'm totally up for an Idle Thumbs novella where everyone writes a 1-3 page (250 words per page?) chapter, making it up as we go.

[Sleepdance]

Great. I'll try to post 1st chapter over the weekend. The story, if you ask me should be Thumb unrelated, but could include some of the referances(wizard, crying far away, spaceasshole, Remokris being name of the starship, Nick teh Traitor(just joking)....). Sorry for not posting here for last few days, but I had a lot of unplaned work to do.

Also, I agree that about the ''making it up as we go'' idea, but I think(and hope you agree) that there aren't any WTF moments(if story is set in medival times and then someone writes that that is just a vision of an ancient Greece priest, which is in fact robot made by martians....).

I think I'll put story in close future, trying not to make any crazy political opinions. As we'll go on I hope others would keep to that(for being an opinion that they are addresing to readers, not if a person in story is addresing it to another person in story).

@Psych: This is in some ways familiar to the thing you were working on, only that here writers personality is reflected through writing, not only through the character.

Edit:For purely logistical reasons, could anyone that is interested in MLP(look at the title of the thread) send me PM with the language that he would use, and if he is especially good in, lets say writing battle segments, or love segments, or dialog segments, .....

[Ben X]

Can't be arsed to PM. I can only write in British English, and I'm especially good at all types of segment.

[Sleepdance]

On the other hand that would save me some work so forget that what I wrote about PM-ing me.

While I already started to write this post let's say something about the core of a story.

This is a silly example but I can't think of another one:

In Ice age 1 the core of a story is cooperation between elephant, big rat and a tiger, which is under pressure because of the mission, to save that little kid. The movie was well recived mostly because it had the story that kids AND the parents liked(kids liked the funny stuff, parents liked some of the deeper stuff).

And then came the IA2. After the succses the creators decided to add a new twist to the story. Love. That generaly isn't a bad thing, but here it just took the time from other parts that were good in the first movie.

I hope it's not a terrible example of what I'm trying to say(if you want to create a good story, you must focus on one core story in which smaller stories fit as a background-so they not influence the main story, but are still important for the narative)

Sort-a-offtopic:I think this is one off the main reasons we won't see Full Throttle 2. Shafer would have to put a new factor in the the story to keep the 2nd one fresh so some of the subjects of the first one would be reduced to make room for new factor.

[Ben X]

In Ice age 1 the core of a story is cooperation between elephant, big rat and a tiger

That's 'mammoth, sloth and sabre-toothed tiger'. I hope your attention to detail will be sharper in your writing...

[Sleepdance]

I was kinda in a rush when writing it.

Also, any idea on characters name(male, late 30s)?

[toblix]

Balthazar

[Ben X]

Dude, just write the first chapter and post it. Then nominate someone from the pool of volunteers to write the next one, and continue like that. Either stipulate approximately how many chapters we're aiming for, or see how long it can keep going. Don't worry about pre-planning it any more than that, just let it happen.

EDIT: although 'Balthazar' is a brillo suggestion, obv.

[Sleepdance]

Here it is:

So in the first chapter I go for about 3 pages in my notebook describing the protagonist of the story(only his spirit, not the look). His name is Balthazar.

He is walking down some road somewhere in a dessert(the type of the desert like in Full Throttle). He is simply walking ignoring the cars that drive past him. He doesn't know what to do than walk. Not because he is cofused, he just doesn't care. He was a very good detective nearing his promotion, when sudenly he made a mistake in a case(included someone dangereus -isn't explained yet) and now this person is free and trying to get a revenge(not that he is stocking him - just paying bounty hunters to kill him). I finish a chapter with a cafe closing by the road.

Also some more things:

-Balthazer is addicted to solving puzzles/problems/....he hasn't solved anything for quite some time jet so he's little not himself

-this shouldn't be the story of a hero. Baltazhar knows that he will die and he will die. He is just trying to see how long can he make it

-it's night

-the cafe is opened

Some sudgestions:

-the cafe is an exelent oppotunite to describe the look of a character, since outside is dark and in the cafe isn't

Edit:So I read my post once more and..welll..it's not a masterpice, but belive me, the actual story is pretty good.

Edit2: Strange fact. We write Balthazar without ''h''. If the name writes diffrent in any other language it would be a cool feature and add some more personality to the chapters.

[toblix]

Just to be clear: the café -- is it open or closed?

[Sleepdance]

Just to be clear: the café -- is it open or closed?

Open.

[Ben X]

Okay, I wrote the next chapter. It's about two pages long.

It starts with Balthazar going into the cafe and ordering a black coffee. Then I describe him physically (good suggestion on using the light of the cafe). He's a goth, but 40 years old, which is why he was ostracized by the police department.

He's doing a crossword PUZZLE when he realises that the waitress is out of place because of her accent and the way she wasn't good at adding up his change.

So a fight starts and it turns out she's a bounty hunter. (She wears a black latex bodysuit under her waitress outfit). He wins and the cafe blows up. He's left with a broken arm and one of the bounty hunter's bullet casings as a clue.

He carries on walking through the night.

It's pretty kick-ass, and it leaves him with a broken arm which could leave him at a disadvantage if any more baddies try to get him.