Chain Story - Bathtubs and Broomsticks

[pink_silk_glove]

Or poor clarity, poor vision. I like stuff like that but I'm sure that not one single reader will pick up on that. : P

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Or poor clarity, poor vision. I like stuff like that but I'm sure that not one single reader will pick up on that. : P

I wouldn't expect so, even if we included it. Just discussing the whole question of it. I'll have to read the original Le Fanu; I suspect he was intending that with the anagrams, and 19th century readers were more in tune with such word play than are our current crop of readers.

 

[StillStunned]

After a quick glance through the story, Mircalla it is.

Time to add some subtle moon symbology, I guess.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

The moon is female, it is yang, la lune, la luna, it takes, absorbs. It collects the light of the sun. The womb takes the seed.

The sun is male, it is yin, el sol, le soleil, it gives, emits. It shines light on the moon. The seed plants the womb.

Just some ideas. Perhaps it sparks something. If not, never mind.

 

[StillStunned]

The moon is female, it is yang, la lune, la luna, it takes, absorbs. It collects the light of the sun. The womb takes the seed.

The sun is male, it is yin, el sol, le soleil, it gives, emits. It shines light on the moon. The seed plants the womb.

Just some ideas. Perhaps it sparks something. If not, never mind.

So far, all I have is a crescent moon rising over the castle. Mircalla interprets it as a new beginning for herself.

What's the status of chapter 1, by the way? @Tio_Narratore have you submitted it for publication?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I'm not sure of what the process is for this co-op story. If we're publishing as we write, I'll need to see what we do with Alina's proposed prologue before I publish.

Perhaps someone will remind we of how we planned to publish.

 

[AlinaX]

I'm hoping to add a few paragraphs to the Prologue that tease your Mircalla chapter. Once you and Tio are happy with the Prologue, that can either be published as a short standalone to introduce the whole chain story, or it can be added at the start of Tio's chapter.

What's written is not set in stone, but given the nature of this story, I do think a Prologue will help set mood and expectations.

 

[StillStunned]

I'll add what I have so far to Google Docs, to avoid clashing in the backstory.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I'm just back from a bit of day surgery and still a bit slow. I'll try to finish going over the prologue and make a final read/edit of my chapter today. Then, are we waiting for the story to be finished, or publishing serially?

 

[StillStunned]

Publish it serially, I'd say. But it might be nice if we could get the first couple of chapters up this month, to tie in with the Halloween crowd.

I've just added the first part of my chapter in Google Docs. It's about 2k words.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I'll give it a read tonight (I'm GMT -4 right now).

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I was under the impression that RedChamber expected that we would publish serially, one chapter roughly every 30 days. Coordination for continuity between the parts is all well and good, but there has to be some element of sandboxing and free will in plotting the story.

 

[AlinaX]

I don't think any of us would enjoy writing to a predefined plot, and I have no idea what Erozetta is going to hand me.

But Tio and StillStunned have two mostly independent beginnings, and that's a challenge - and you have the fun task of bringing those threads together...

 

[StillStunned]

I agree about "continuity, but everything else is up to the author."

 

[StillStunned]

I don't think any of us would enjoy writing to a predefined plot, and I have no idea what Erozetta is going to hand me.

But Tio and StillStunned have two mostly independent beginnings, and that's a challenge - and you have the fun task of bringing those threads together...

The rest of my chapter will involve Mircalla meeting Adamir, before Lucy and Mina arrive. The focus will be on Adamir's obsession with Elizabeth and Mircalla's growing awareness of Elizabeth's presence. Possibly some dream sequences.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I don't think any of us would enjoy writing to a predefined plot, and I have no idea what Erozetta is going to hand me.

But Tio and StillStunned have two mostly independent beginnings, and that's a challenge - and you have the fun task of bringing those threads together...

Absolutely. That is what separates a chain story from a straight-up collab. You have to pick it up where it is when it's your turn and you have to let it go when you're done. In a collab we could plot out everything and agree on all of the cahracters and storyboard plot and the ending and all of that before we start filling in our own bits. But this is a chain, and while we can coordinate to make sure that we have continuity and plausibility and a general sense of who the characters are and the situations that they're in, but when it's my turn I have to take what Stunned hands me, and if there's anything in the first two chapters that I would have preferred done differently, then the challenge is to deal with that, pick it up and keep it moving along. Then after I'm done, I have to let it all go. Whatever love and care I put into my chapter and however I set up for the next person, whichever of my darlings that Rosie Alina and Omen kill/slaughter, I just have to let them do it, because that is the point of the chain. The bulk of each chapter goes the way that that writer wants it to go. That's the whole point and the fun of it. To let go, open up the box and see the surprise of what each person does with our characters and plot.

 

[AlinaX]

If there is blood in the soil of Slovakia, so too there is a thread of darkness in the blood of one particular family. Like a bat it flies from daughter to daughter, down through the centuries.

Today the curse can be found in the blood of a Hungarian maid, one entirely ignorant of the illustrious names that preceded her, but innocence and beauty are no protection against the coiling hunger she has inherited.

If sometimes she awakens in the morning in a sweat of feverish terror, these moments are swiftly forgotten, in the way the memory of a scream is forgotten beneath a lover's soft kiss.

 

[AlinaX]

... which would work, perhaps, as the preface to the film script.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Does the story have a title?

 

[AlinaX]

For The Blood Is The Life
From The Dark
Written In The Blood
Carpathian Dreams

 

[StillStunned]

Whatever title we choose, I hope the movie version is a 1970s soft core German production.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

In Carpathia
By the Dark of the Moon

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Images in Blood

It's a little vague but it does hint at the movie aspect.

Bloody Pictures
Lights, Camera, Blood

By the way, if anyone wants help with description blurbs, feel free to ask. I'm sure that we'll all have some pretty good ideas.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I was under the impression that RedChamber expected that we would publish serially, one chapter roughly every 30 days. Coordination for continuity between the parts is all well and good, but there has to be some element of sandboxing and free will in plotting the story.

To some extent what I expected is no longer particularly relevant - I have no more idea how to do this well than anyone else, so decide as a group what works for you.

For the other story, we've basically gone with complete freedom for each writer in turn and we're now up to 2 chapters out there and the 3rd being beta-read. It's working well but our story is a whole lot less ambitious than yours - devinter's pitch was basically one line.

 

[StillStunned]

Born to Blood
The Countess's Castle