The Writer's Block

NOTE:
This team is now dissolved as far as I am concerned because apparently it is just too hard to make a simple decision. I take no responsibility for anything in this thread after my last post, or anything related to "The Writer's Block" from this point forward. Proceed at your own risk.

This will serve as the official thread for the writing team to communicate with each other. This thread should mostly be notices of when we are going to be away from the site or inactive, as well as notifying other team members of projects we are working on, would like help on, or statements of willingness to help on any open projects. This thread is NOT the OOC or roleplayers wanted section and so posts here should at a maximum just refer to the threads in those sections rather than duplicating them. Now that I got that out of the way....


Welcome!


Let me briefly tell you what each team member should expect from one another. This is rough and subject to future updating. While these are not "rules", I think it would be good to consider them operating guidelines. By the way, as soon as a name for the team is established (Im not really big on names) then I will change the name of this thread accordingly. Thanks.


1) Challenge yourself. Where you are as a writer is not good. You should be better, so be better. Gladly receive constructive criticism on how you can be a better writer and look for opportunities that will stretch your abilities.

2) Support the team. Stay in contact with the team, let us know when you aren't going to be around. Be aware of what projects team members are trying to launch and how you can help out. Be willing to offer constructive criticism to other team members if you see improvements that can be made. While this isn't a license to lecture about good writing, it is a liberty to point out specific things that can be improved in tangible, easy to explain ways.

3) Be regular. Dont be off the site for more than a week without saying something to someone. If you have time, read the projects others are working on just to stay in touch with them. Feel free to communicate on a personal level with other team members, just dont clog up this thread with that stuff.

4) Play nice. We are a team of writers. We are together for the common purpose of writing and writing well. Dont let little issues get in the way of that. By presenting yourself in a decent manner to the site, you also represent the team, which lifts us all up and elevates the quality of writing on the site as a whole.

5) Dont recommend any RPs or projects...yet. We are in a "building" phase. Once we get a good number of people we can start thinking, as a group, where to apply our talents. There will be plenty of chance for all of us to start a project or help others build/complete theirs. For now, lets just focus on us and build a team we can all be happy with.

6) Make recommendations on applicants. For now I am still going to use the application thread as the method for new members to join. Watch it, comment to me about it here or by pm (preferred) so that we can make a joint decision about who is in and who is not.

7) Dont be an elitist. We are not better than others. We are just incorporated, sort of. Being in a group doesnt give us the right to look down on anyone, it only gives us the guarantee that we have others we can look to for support. Ultimately we want more people to join the team and be committed to it, but everyone will be expected to follow these guidelines. If they cant, then they shouldn't be accepted as members or shouldnt retain their membership status.

I will update this post regularly with a roll of who is on the team that way there is no question about who is in and who is not.


Thanks


~~~~~~~

Current Roll:
trinadi
Phoenixrisen
Mr D
PerfectlyBroken
NorthernSoul

A quick note about me:

I am in Afghanistan right now and will be here until early 2012. That presets problems of its own (internet is not as reliable over here). Additionally, I have been traveling a bit lately. What this means, practically speaking, is that there are times where i am completely out of the loop due to my comings and goings.

Worst case scenario I will be on the site twice a week at a minimum regardless of my circumstances (which shouldnt be too hard), but I try for at least one check in a day if not more.


Thanks for joining up. Lets get some more dedicated writers so that we can start discussing our first project.


And we still need some kind of name (Zhill's team will not work as a permanent name).


Thanks

Hmmm... A name... I'll forgo the wish that come to mind here to badly slaughter Shakespeare and just go on ahead and throw out a few ideas:

Writers Block (really weak I know, but where nonRP stuff is concerned it's currently very much on my mind, go figure)

Roleplayer's Anonymous (May kinda give people the wrong idea though...)

The Society for Supportive Roleplaying

Literate Roleplayers Society

I don't know, those all kind of suck, but with any luck, they'll spark ideas in someone else and they can come up with something better. Here's hoping for a brainstorming win.

I like "The Writer's Block" because it refers to a frustration to writers as well as possibly referring to a physical location.


Any others have thoughts?



EDIT: I am going with this as the name for now just because I am tired of seeing my name on it. We can change it as a group later.

I feel that Writer's Block is a good name. It's simple and memorable enough, and I am also just amused by the pun.

Just wanted to get this out:

Perfectly Broken is the last team member I am going to solo-approve. From this point forward I think it would be appropriate if any applicant is approved by at least two team members. That way the control of who joins (like many other areas of control in this team) is spread out among us.


This may be my idea, but I want the team to be ours. I will do my part to make it work for everyone, and I hope everyone will do the same.


Thank you all for being willing to launch out and get this going.

Thanks for the quickly reply, I look forward to getting started. =)

Well we have enough people now that we can begin considering the first official "Writers Block Project".

I would like to keep recruiting, so the application thread will stay up for a while (with me bumping it if necessary to keep up close to the top). But if someone has an ongoing RP that could use some people or if one of us has an idea for an RP, lets hear some brief summarizations of them and then we can decide as a group which one we will start with.


The goal is that we launch into the RP as a team, complete the RP, and then move on to another project. I want us to enjoy ourselves, but at the same time, our efforts now represent the team. As we complete RPs or even just take part in them, we are bringing more attention to the team which will hopefully bring more applicants. More applicants means more members, more members mean more projects and more thrust towards actually finishing things. And that will improve this site as a whole.


These are my thoughts on the matter, although I am certainly not in charge. Anyone else care to sound off?

I do have some past RPs that I've actually thought about restarting, but after looking around the site, I have put it off because of the fear I have from the last attempts; lack of dedicated or interested writers.

I'm currently open to other RPs though, especially since I'm only in one at the moment.

Also, maybe a link/promotion in your/our signatures would be a good way to help get word around to recruit more people?

Sounds like a good idea, I am liking the application thread in my sig now.

I have an idea that I was kicking around in my head, and thinking about putting up. It would be set on an island continent, with several countries, and would "start at the end", at a Midsummer Faire. It would be the story of a search for an epic treasure, deep in the depth of the most perilous place on the continent, a swampy land known as Todesfalle. This would be a high fantasy roleplay, and I already have a fairly broad cast of NPCs and am ever working up basic maps in photoshop, which is a lot more tedious than I'd ever realized. Then again, I'm hoping to use this world some day for story writing, so if it never makes it as a RP oh well, they're still going to be useful to me. Now, mentioning that I would like to use this world some day, I will also be sure to mention that I would never use anyone's characters in my own work and call it/them mine. This would be something of a play test of the world, and any characters that I may actually use in any stories are all going to be NPCs if they turn up at all.

I also have a modern intrigue type RP that I tried to restart, but it never got off the ground, if anyone is interested in things of that nature.

A quick clarification about future applications (this is in response to a good question by Phoenix).

The main qualification for membership is literacy, but that can be subjective. So how do two team members make that decision? Dont be too strict. Again, we want more members, not less, and presenting ourselves as some kind of literate elitists will just drive people away.

I am confident in the writing abilities of everyone on this team so far. So then if two members see an applicant with writing skill that is somewhat close to their own or better, then thats good. I think its obvious what we dont want: habitual 1 - 3 line posters, people who only write about themselves and cant write decent interactions with other characters, and people who tend to write superpowered characters or "mary sues". If you think someone who has applied is deserving of membership, either let me know by pm or just post in the applicant thread very briefly stating your approval. While the decision of who is in is not up to me solely, obviously I am the only one who can edit the first post of this thread which reflects the current roll. When i see that someone has been duly recommended, I will add them.

The biggest disqualification will come from activity (and I am expecting people to join up only to be removed at some point in the future). At this point, I am going to say removal works the same way. If two members see that another member has been inactive on the site, and especially with the team for an extended period (more than two weeks) without giving notification, then they will be removed from the team. Again, the goal is us working together and you cant work with someone who wont work with you. If there is any dispute about someone's removal, it can be discussed here before it becomes official.

Got to say again, I am not the policy maker of this team. I am just trying to get things going in a good direction so that we can properly govern ourselves. I hope this clears things up a bit.

Thanks

Just dropping in to say 'hi' and thanks for accepting me onto the team. I've got a whole host of ideas/settings/vague inklings of plots floating around my head but I'm not entirely sure if we're supposed to be brainstorming at the moment or if we're just waiting on more team members.

Anyway, feel free to PM if anyone wants me to help out with anything or with any RPs they'd like me to check out.

I think we should sound off on Phoenix's two ideas first. If we decide corporately not to take one of those on, then we can look at other projects to consider.


We still have room to grow, but I think we could start an RP if the whole team got involved. And, again, to me it seemed like having an RP that we take on and finish would bring a little positive attention to the team as well.

The Writer's Block: Where RP's go to get finished!


Anyway, I think the island idea sounds kind of decent because it seems somewhat limited in its scope (its basically an RP that is a quest to get the treasure), so completing it is definitely possible. I would think a "shorter" RP would be ideal for our first one so that we can get one complete RP under our belt.

I am not necessarily driven to complete as many RP's as we can, I just think that as we complete them we will be able to more fully convey a sense of how seriously we take our writing and how committed we are to seeing things through.

Also, just a note, if you want help developing the island RP, so that you can run it with non-team members, dont hestitate to ask Phoenix. Remember, we are here to help eachother out. That is the whole point of the team.

Any help, ideas, or questions that anyone has would be greatly appreciated. As for it being limited, that was kind of the point, to start it limited to get a group of players that were dedicated to the end of it so that I could go on with other plots, and maybe whole world exploration with established characters. I have a zillion ideas with this world, including an epic war between demons and everyone else (especially the Fae), it just seemed like a good idea to start with, in D&D terms, a low level campaign. This is a world I've been working with for years off and on. If anyone wants more details, just ask questions. I always welcome them. : )

I tend to find it's difficult to shake off cliche and the 'monomyth' plot formula with high fantasy RPs but I'd be willing to give one a go if it's got some kind of original twist to it.

Otherwise, I've got a general interest check thread with a few vague ideas on it here if anyone is interested in helping me develop any of them.

I'm willing to go with the high fantasy idea, so long as we have it fleshed out into something rather original. That being said, if it falls under the events of what we would be roleplaying, I don't like the idea of demons against everyone else. War, yes. That particular set up, no. I would rather something more concrete than the idea of races fighting for reasons such as one being inherently evil in nature.

Oh, no, that's not the reason for the war at all. That's just a very vague generalization of some of the larger ideas involved with this particular world. The whole reason there's a war is actually because the demons were wronged, and a whole lot of other bad things happened while peace negotiations were occurring between the Demons and the High Fae.... I try not to do black and white for anything. It doesn't exist in the real world, so outside of kiddie stories (and even then) it doesn't hold much place. Beyond that, the whole war thing would actually be the fall out afterward, and them trying to get back what should have been theirs more than an all out war. That's over and done with for the most part.

As I should have made clear, I was being general and vague on purpose. I prefer not to go into detail just randomly. It can be a waste of time if people aren't interested. On top of that it would be a later roleplay, and I'd like to focus on the less politically complex lead up at the moment. I do have a basic lore for the world, including what can actually be found in Todesfalle, and the beginnings of the above mentioned war. I would hope that I manage to put in original spins and concepts, I haven't gotten complaints about lack of originality before, I hope not to start now. There are several things that the average everyday character wouldn't know though. I try not to confuse people with a whole lot of information their character wouldn't have.

Since I'm going more indepth:

This is a multifaceted world with more than one dimension, by that I literally mean more than one dimension. Mythology, especially Celtic and Norse were inspirations, and some things, like Faerie(the realm of the "High Fae", think beings such as Oberon, Titania, etc...) are going to be recognizable as such. Place names are a work in progress, and most come from history, there's actually a reason for that. Going back to the creation of Sakura. When the original physical realm (Earth) became too dangerous to inhabit for those that were not human and had no wish to hide themselves as such, a powerful being, The Lady, devised a way to use Faerie as an escape route of sorts. She used her power to create a world in an image that she designed, essentially she became their god. This world took in the refugees, and what humans were friendly to them and did not wish to live in a world where they were nothing more than myths. This story focuses on the island where the planets anchor point to Faerie is located, there are two other much larger land masses, but they're very hard to get to. Still, some races didn't like the confinement of an island even if it was rather large, and so they made ships, and learned to navigate the dangerous waters, traveling to far off lands and never coming back. Those that stayed were primarily human, and other more frail races, or those that wished to stay near the entrance to Faerie, or within Faerie itself.

Forever tied to Faerie, is another dimension, the dimension that demons inhabit (there are no devils here, this is NOT Hell). Thus it was also taken, and tied off from the human world. At first all everyone could do was become accustomed to their new world. The wonders it held, and the differences from the old one. As time wore on however, all the races began to see again their differences. Knowing that they would need to work together, and learn to live with one another, the Fae and the Demons began their peace negotiations. I'll note here that the demons and the High Fae tend to stick to their own realms, but with them interconnecting things like borders can become hazy, especially when a realm that reflects the more physical one it's tied to has changed so drastically. To the table was brought the youngest of The Lady's Seconds, they were Her peace keepers, a race bred to be the ultimate negotiators. Aendra had volunteered herself to be united in matrimony with Herelzon, the Overlord of the Demons, to seal the alliances once and for all. This was also The Lady's way of showing that she approved of their decisions, that she would remain impartial. Being young, and ruled by her heart for all her breeding and training, Aendra fell for someone else. Even then, things could well have been salvaged, but Tristan, the High Prince of Faerie, rash and wrathful, slew a whole contingent of envoys without giving them a chance to identify themselves as such. The war began.

This war was not seen or felt by the people of the island (Atlantis for now for lack of a better name). It was if it was in a different world, which in reality it was, but there were effects on the season, and nature itself. The worlds were reflections of each other, and in the bloodbath that was the worst of the battles, Todesfalle came into being. Out of the nightmare that was that final pitched battle, a link to the dream realm was formed, and vicious beasts that had never before held physical forms became very solid, and inhabited the murky swamps that are said to smell of blood in their deepest depths. The once tropical dream became a land of moldering trees, and flowers that even bees avoid. There were other, smaller, indications that all was not as it should have been, but that was by far the most pronounced. Finally, both sides having grown tired of the fighting, they called a halt to all out war, then two children were born. Aendra's children, and Herelzon came to a new goal, to claim what should have been his.

In his own way he had grown to love the shining, carefree Aendra, and all he could wish for was a part of her for himself. He would have the children that should have been his. He sent agents to retrieve them, and a breach of their ceasefire was called, the fighting started again, and one of those children was lost. Hidden in a human form by a mother that would not see it perverted. Determined to have what he believed to be his, Herelzon began to search for the lost child, raising Kellen,the other child, as his own. When searching failed, he made a pact with Brigid, the High Queen, that should the child be returned to him, he would over look what had happened in the past, and she would have her peace.

But that's not the tale that we will be telling now is it?

Todesfalle, the name strikes fear into the hearts of any who have heard the tales. No one is said to ever return, yet still people try. For deep in it's depth is the greatest of treasures. A wealth of knowledge that could give one power over the whole world, a fortune beyond your wildest dreams. The tie to the dream realm is still very much there, and if you can enter through it's gate, anything that you dream can be yours. But finding it isn't easy, and there's always a price to pay. Everyone has something they want, Rain, a young bard, isn't an exception to that rule, and she goes to the Midsummer Faire in Dalos, in search of like minded adventurers. Whatever you seek, whatever cause you would champion, with a little luck and a great deal of bravery, anything you seek could be yours. Or so the tales go.


So, any questions?

In a word; interesting.

I'm going to assume that we are going to use this, in which case I suppose things would need to be laid out. Information such as flora and fauna, geography, and the different races are probably some of the more important elements we need to determine. You said you had been working on maps, so that's good. I don't think there should be too many different races in existence, and that their general appearances would need to be agreed on, as there are so many different opinions from various myths and stories.

The only question I can think of is what is Rain? A human?

I'm going to say yes for now. Given that she's mostly there because she's the Storyteller, and because she's good at patching people up, I wouldn't worry about her too much. She's not that important at the moment.

As for the other things that need to be laid out:
The sky is lavender.
Flora and fauna are similar to that found on earth, but we can brainstorm some entirely new stuff too if people want to do that. It can be more fun that way. The biggest difference in the similar stuff is coloration. The Lady liked color a lot.
As for geography, I'm probably going to need a little help with that as far as making it show on maps without them looking ridiculous. I could post up what I've already got maps wise if anyone is interested. Mostly it's just a whole island political map, and a map of Alexandria, divided into it's dukedoms.

As far as races, the two most prevalent would be human and elven. I'm thinking of having several different varieties of each though, and having that account for a lot of the differences as far as tales go. Operating under the idea that all tales have a basis in something that actually was. All ideas, in put and thoughts are fully welcomed. I've been doing a lot of reading today, and my brain is a little frizzled, so I think I'm going to cut this post off here for now.