Chain Story Discussion

[Alex De Kok]

I’ve had to change my plot a little (again!) as otherwise it was too close to Karmadog’s. Actually, being forced to rethink it has given me what I think might be a better story for my style. Anyway…

Emma is 25, single and virgin. She is also penniless and homeless, having nursed her late father through a lingering terminal illness, after which the house had to be sold to pay off her father’s debts.

She takes a position as housekeeper to Major Faulkner, who has retired from the army following the battle of Waterloo in which he was wounded and almost killed. He is an army veteran, having joined as an ensign and served with Wellington throughout the Peninsular campaign.

Emma is attracted to Richard Faulkner but believes her attraction hopeless.

Enter Lucy, a second cousin of Richard Faulkner, fleeing a scandal of some sort. Lucy has the Talisman, so we can guess why the scandal. Lucy is to stay with her cousin for a while, until the fuss dies down.

Cue more fuss. Before Lucy takes ship for the New World with yet another conquest she will have seduced Richard, seduced Emma, and - well, let me think about this for a little longer. I thought having the talisman in the possession of a third party might add a twist, although the main protagonist will be Emma.

Location will be southern Northumberland, near Hadrian’s Wall, with some scenes set in Newcastle.

Alex

 

[KillerMuffin]

Guys, a bit of a heads up here.

Protagonist: A protagonist is the central character of a story or play. Plot is created when this character faces a conflict.

Antagonist: The primary character in a story or novel with whom the hero or heroine is in conflict.

Supporting characters: Everyone who has a purpose, but is not the primary character or catalyst for a change.

Non-essential characters: People who are props.

Generally, you can have as many protagonists as you like. However, conventional wisdom dictates that you have one. It's very difficult to keep a reader interested or other than confused when you have a plot that deals with two distinct character changes.

It's like in a movie, you have one central character, an antagonist (at times) and everyone else is a supporting actor. Next time you watch a movie, figure out who the protagonist is and who simply looks like one but is only a main character.

Here's a little heads up on character change from the Writer's Encylclopedia:

"Every short story or novel necessarily involves a change in the central character. Just as real-life people do, fictional characters undergo change as a result of their experiences. At the end of a story, the writer may show that a character is in a different situation or has a different attitude, but the alteration within the fictional person is always brought about as the logical result of his experiences.

http://www.writersmarket.com/encyc/index.asp

 

[Quint]

Now that I've thought of a story...

I want to add more than my paragraph summary to everyone's. BTW, they sound fantastic, and terribly unique. I'm so relieved and excited!

I have also decided to change decades marginally; I will now be in the early 70s. Location in the south US, but it doesn't matter much. My main character is a half-black girl, ironically named Ivory. Even though the crux of the Civil Rights Movement is behind her, she has long-unresolved mental issues; she believes that she is inferior (but strangely, doesn't know which side of her parentage she hates more). She is totally (and unconsciously) confident in her sexuality, but she associates sex more with her race (i.e. dirty) than with gender. If I do this well, it'll be great.

The talisman exerts "equal but opposite" forces on two men: Shiva the Destroyer acts on one, a white male, to break down Ivory's misconceptions of sex and race, and Shakti the Nurturer acts on a black male who teaches Ivory healthy tenents to replace the ones she lost. I'm not intending to "split" them in any way, merely to represent their aspects at different times. Balance maintained. In the end she is reconciled with her past.

 

[GoddessKaren]

I'm Back!

Have returned unscathed from the beautiful Pacific Nothwest. You have all been working incredibly hard on this! I am SO looking forward to it!

Judo - the locale I was thinking of is the steppes in what we now know as Russia. Same place, essentially.

As far as general plot, I posted mine in one of my first posts - but I'd be happy to recap.

Minor Mongol warrior gains talisman from a village chief's house when they raid the village. The other warriors do not seem to notice the talisman even though it is very beautiful, so he takes it. He is facially scarred from an earlier battle, and as a result he is shunned by the women of his tribe. He wears the talisman and suddenly becomes irresistable to all of the women around him, and he sleeps with all of them. (But there is one woman that truly loves him, and has loved him since they were children. He did not believe in himself enough to believe she loved him.) So, after making for himself what amounts to a harem of the tribe's women, he is called into battle again. One of the women who is in his harem is a very beautiful, haughty woman who realizes that she has willingly and joyfully slept with the Mongol warrior and begins to hate herself for it, and of course she blames him. So, she resolves to poison the warrior because he has "defiled" her somehow. She does poison him, but it is a slow poison, takes him a couple of days to die. In the process, he is visited by the woman who loves him (and who is now carrying his child, as is the haughty woman, thanks to Shakti). He learns that he could have had true happiness and love had he not been so enamored with making the women of his tribe pay for shunning him, and when he dies his love takes the talisman and flees the tribe's territory with it.

That's my basic idea so far. I am going to start writing the first draft today. Judging from what I have seen so far, my final draft will be due on June 22, correct?

karen

 

[JUDO]

Re: I'm Back!

Judging from what I have seen so far, my final draft will be due on June 22, correct?

Great to have you back, GK.

I will not be posting a final schedule until after May 10th. May 10th is the cutoff date for adding any additional authors.

So, June 22nd will have to be verified then. Ok?


- Judo

 

[GoddessKaren]

Works for me! Thanks Judo!

 

[JUDO]

A Reminder

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Chain Story Authorship Will Close!
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After, tomorrow, Friday, May 10th, 2002, the Chain Story Authorship will be closed. Only those authors who have contacted Judo through this thread (or by other means) between now and then will be included in Literotica's 2002 Chain Story!

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I will be posting the final schedule for delivery after tomorrow. If you have any changes to your location or time you wish to try and make, get in touch with me now. This will be your only notice.

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FYI.
- Judo

 

[JUDO]

Current List of Authors

Currently, we have twelve authors for the chain.

The first story will be sent to Laurel on June 7th (a reminder). Each subsequent chapter will be sent each week after that. Here is the current order of authors.

KillerMuffin - 150-200AD (Roman occupation of Brittania, Hadrian's Wall, Newcastle)
GoddessKaren - 1250 - 1300AD (Mongols, Russia)
Jon.hayworth - 1593 ( Newcastle, England)
Mlyn - 1800 - 1810 (Northumberland, England)
Alex de Kok - 1815 to 1835 (After Waterloo - Southern Northumberland
Johnny_Boy - 1840 to 1878 (Location? State? City?)
Judo - 1883 to 1908 (Egypt, outside Cairo)
Karmadog - 1917- 1918 (France, near Paris)
Todd O'Vision - 1922-1932 (location?)
RisiaSkye - 1940's (In and near a cannery in California)
Quint - early 1970's (Some southern US state)
Whispersecret - a future time (location?)

Delivery schedule to be posted after May 10th, 2002.

 

[jon.hayworth]

Maybe I am being a little bit thick or pernicity; but can I check out that the idea is Whispersecret will bring the story to some sort of closure.

I ask this because otherwise there will be a risk that with the ending left hanging in the air, it will give to the reader a sense that the total product is unfinished.

Oh yes and the location of my part is in LONDON, ENGLAND.

jon

 

[penguindance]

 

[Johnny_Boy]

Location of my story; Arizona, made up town of Drifts.

 

[JUDO]

You have a LOT to do!

Count me in sweetie Sounds like great fun!

PLS -

It will be great to have you join us. I need some information from you right away! First, I reccomend that you take some time and carefully read this entire thread, then...

When is the your story going to be set? Have you looked at the rules and limitations for the story set earlier in this thread? Where will your story be set and do you have a brief (one paragraph) outline of your story.

WHEN WHERE and WHAT HAPPENS?

Example:
1506 (Carribean slave colony)
Woman slave finds the talisman washed up on the beach from a shipwreck and seduces all her captors.

Your story cannot be within five years of any existing story. From year 205 to 1245 AD it's open. The 14th century is open as is most of the 15th. 1598 to 1805 is open as is the 1950s and 60s. The rest is getting a little tight.

I need all three of these from you today or tomorrow.

Thanks.
- Judo

 

[Whispersecret]

Keep in mind, I'm still very iffy on whether I can actually come through or not. Everything depends upon my own offline writing, which must take precedence over anything I write for this chain. (Sorry, but that's the truth.) I've now taken a job teaching summer school, and so my writing time is even more curtailed than it was.

Some ideas that are floating in my subconscious are:

setting-- the present perhaps the Smithsonian or a private antiquities collector's home.

A professional thief has become aware of the powers of the talisman somehow. Perhaps he (or she?) stumbled upon an anecdotal record of one of the previous owners and put the pieces together. He/she steals the talisman (a la Mission Impossible kind of style) and intends to sell it, but becomes embroiled in his/her own sexual adventure.

Or perhaps it's the far future and the AIDS virus mutated and wiped out so much of the population that mankind has undergone a vast cultural change back toward puritanism. The talisman comes into the hands of one of the religious/medical leaders and does its thing to him, initiating a new sexual revolution.

As for bringing the story to a close: if this was a "regular" chain story, I'd know how to wrap it up, but this is more like a series, only connected by the talisman. Are you talking about the type of thing where, the talisman is destroyed or locked up somewhere forever or lost in a bottomless pit, something like that?

 

[jon.hayworth]

Whispersecret,

As I was the person who posted about closure, I suppose I ought to reply, although of course I will defer to the groups opinions or JUDO's as "Generalisimo".

I agree it is difficult to close a story which is essentially a series of individual stories. But I think either the Talisman has to either end up locked away in the bottomless pit - in a way that makes it unreachable - say inside a container of radioactive waste. - Or somehow it gets sealed into a space probe. I think your thief could stash his loot in one of those places. Alternatively your thief or whoever you opt for ends up in India - loosing / hiding the Talisman in the place where it was created.

I just feel that even a diverse story cannot be left with the appearance that someone forgot to contribute the final section.

jon

 

[KillerMuffin]

I think that this will be an open ended chain no matter what. There's no way to close this story without destroying the talisman or having Shiva repossess it.

If we want to close the talisman story we need to have an opening where it comes into being and a closing where it goes out of being.

Beyond that, as long as everyone has a sense of finality in their stories, it'll be okay without worrying about having closure.

 

[JUDO]

I agree with KM. Closure doesn't seem necessary. Although a slam-bang finishing episode is always nice.

After all, your name is... "Secret. Whispersecret."

(Our secret weapon).


- Judo

 

[JUDO]

pretty_lil_stranger

PLS -

I have posted a request for you on this thread and PM'd you.

If I do not get the information I require before today ends (Friday, May 10th, 2002), you will not be included as an author in the Chain story.

Thanks.
- Judo

(*tick...tick...tick...*)

 

[Whispersecret]

God, now I feel this pressure to produce, and I just don't need that now. I hope that KM and Judo are right, that the chain doesn't necessarily need an Ending with a capital E. because my offline life is crazy right now. I keep telling myself it'll be August before I have to do anything about this.

However, if I can indeed add a story of my own, I'll do my best to give it the air of finality.

 

[JUDO]

The Delivery Schedule

Tick…tick…tick…BONG! Time's up!

The authors are set. We are off to the races!

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Literotica's 2002 Chain Story has begun!
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We have twelve authors for the chain.

KillerMuffin - 150-200AD (Roman occupation of Brittania, Hadrian's Wall, Newcastle)
GoddessKaren - 1250 - 1300AD (Mongols, Russia)
Jon.hayworth - 1593 (London, England)
Mlyn - 1800 - 1810 (Northumberland, England)
Alex de Kok - 1815 to 1835 (After Waterloo - Southern Northumberland
Johnny_Boy - 1840 to 1878 (Drifts, Arizona)
Judo - 1883 to 1908 (Egypt, outside Cairo)
Karmadog - 1917- 1918 (France, near Paris)
Todd O'Vision - 1922-1932 (location?)
RisiaSkye - 1940's (In and near a cannery in California)
Quint - early 1970's (Some southern US state)
Whispersecret - a present or future time

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Final Delivery Schedule
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KillerMuffin - Friday, June 7th, 2002
GoddessKaren - Friday, June 14th, 2002
Jon.Hayworth - Friday, June 21st, 2002
Mlyn - Friday, June 28th, 2002
Alex de Kok - Friday, July 5th, 2002
Johnny_Boy - Friday, July12th, 2002
Judo - Friday, July 19th, 2002
Karmadog - Friday, July 26th, 2002
Todd O'Vision - Friday, August 2nd, 2002
RisiaSkye - Friday, August 9th, 2002
Quint - Friday, August 16th, 2002
Whispersecret - Friday, August 23rd, 2002

NOTE: As each chapter is delivered, Laurel will have one week to look the work over and post it. Therefore, the first chapter should be posted on or about June 14th, 2002.
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Authors: Please print and keep this post handy as it may get buried in this thread eventually.
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I want to thank you all very much for dedicating yourself to this year's chain story. So far, everyone has been really sane and helpful. Let's see what we can do to keep it that way.


- Judo

 

[KillerMuffin]

Hey, JUDO, me darlin, you could edit your first post on this thread and c'n p that information to it.

You know us skeezeballs. Urgent PMs to Judo "When is it my turn I can't find the post!!!!"



Or you could not and just reply:

"You could try the search function."

 

[JUDO]

Reminders

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Commitments
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Since each author has committed to write a chapter for the chain story, I must remind you to plan ahead. The time for review and delivery will be upon you before you know it. Below is a suggested schedule to follow. (This is similar to the one I posted earlier in this thread).

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Approximate Writing Schedule:

Week one - start writing
Week two - finish first words and edit.
Week Three - edit some more
Week Four - Send your chapter out to two or three trusted individuals to read, give you corrections and feedback on your story.
Week Five (or Six) - Get the review back from the friend and incorporate the suggested corrections.
Week Six (or Seven) - finish rewrite and get it to Laurel
Week Seven (or Eight) - It goes online at Lit.

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Example: Since my delivery date is July 19th, that means that approximately six weeks before it's due (or about June 7th), I need to get started.

I've started earlier than that though because of all the historical reference I want to get right. And anyone who wants to help me in that regard is duly invited to do so.

FYI.
- Judo

 

[JUDO]

Good idea. Consider it done.


- Judo

 

[jon.hayworth]

Just thought I'd stop the thread dropping off the bottom of the page.

My part of the story is progressing fine 5000 plus words to date - hope to be sending it to my editors by the weekend after next at the latest.

jon

 

[JUDO]

Updates

Jon -

Thanks. I really appreciate the voluntary update (hint, hint).


- Judo

 

[Alex De Kok]

I have to say it, I haven't properly started yet! I'm thinking about it all the time, though, and that's often how I work. A long time pondering and then the creative urges get to my fingers and the keyboard gets a pounding.

Anyway, I have marking still to do - but next week it should be first draft time, honest!

Alex