[Issitheus]

DO NOT GET OFF-TOPIC HERE

We've decided that we are going to write an actual book here, online. A solid plot and characters. Do not make irrelevant posts, and try to use your best grammar. First off, we need to come up with a plot and characters. Any ideas?

[Useful]

Guess I'll delete my topic, eh?

Well, plot I was thinking was... I was thinking a non-fiction about the pros and cons of hanging out on forums a lot. Even if it's non-fiction, it can still be fun, so wanna go with that?

[Issitheus]

Well I was thinking of making a sci-fi book, actually...

[Ionzorg]

Eh...I can see a non-fiction about hanging out on forums succumbing to a few things:
1. The fact that it's about us, and our lives and all that, makes us more likely to go off-topic.
2. We might run out of material kind of quickly.
3. There are probably more. *shrug*

Well, I'm all for a sci-fi novel, or any novel for that matter. But nothing with roots in anime, please. I don't have the knowledge and experience.

[Issitheus]

All for a fiction novel, preferably of the Science Fiction genre, please say "Aye". Aye.

[Useful]

Sorry, nay. I think it's far more likely that we'll end up with something interesting if we stick to the idea we came up with. I think we're all serious about this, so I don't see any danger of getting off topic. And the other thing is, it doesn't have to be very long. It's not like this forum has a very long attention span.

[Issitheus]

How about you have your own story? That'd work. They can be running concurrently and not intertwine, of course.

[Ionzorg]

Well, I guess I'd go with whatever we land up choosing, to avoid complications. But I think I might have to go soon...which sucks, this could be the most important thing we've ever done! Which isn't saying much, but you get it!

You think I should stay up, and entertain small children on several cups of coffee tomorrow?

[Useful]

Idea! Since this is a conglomerate novel, want to each do a different thing but make them somehow interconnected? They could all be from different forum-goers and it would really make for an interesting read.

[Issitheus]

Let's try to stay on-topic here. This isn't the person under me.

And Useful, that's an interesting idea, but it would be difficult. we'd be retconning left and right.

[Ionzorg]

It would be very cool, we could have our own little fictional story universe, but it might get a little complicated. I'm staying up by the way, I have to have my input on this.

So, the idea is that we have a few different threads, but keep the storied in all of them interconnected?

[Issitheus]

That's what Useful's throwing out there. My original idea's being diluted quite a bit here. Maybe we could write the big story and then have our own stories in the same universe that links to the big one in some way.

[Filleraol]

This sounds like an interesting project, it could turn out really cool.
Unfortunately I suck at these kinda things, but I could can try to contribute a little ^^"

I'll probably fail, I'm already lost at what you're talking about

[Useful]

You're still thinking of it as a fiction, right Iss? I mean, it's going to end up like a "based on a true story" no matter how we do it, but I think we should decide on the level of reality we're working from here.

[Issitheus]

Fiction, but it can be realistic fiction. Maybe we can be like The Dark Tower and have it connect to real life (or at least the real world) in some ways.

[Ionzorg]

Okay, so what we need to do now is determine exactly what the limits are on outlandishness and how unrealistic we could make it, and decide things like whether it would be purely science-fiction, or incorporate fantasy elements as well...

[Useful]

Okay, that works. I was thinking more Blackjack but I get the idea.

So... plot? I think we've made it too complicated now.

[Issitheus]

That'd be good, realistic to an extent, but it contains some fantastical elements.

[Ionzorg]

This is getting really complicated, but I digress. And I think I would understand more if I knew what Blackjack was exactly, but another thing is that we should go with something that everyone is comfortable with, because some people might get frustrated.

Alright, now, we could decide on a main character, figure out what he or she would be like, so we can build off of him/her. Gender might be a good idea too.

[Useful]

Okay, I think it should kind of be divided up into chapters according to the person writing them. If we do that, we can create a sort of montage of the forum, and people who want to go fantasy can.

Should be have an anonymous main character as a background kind of thing? You know, to bounce all of our story elements off of? We could even make him a kind of reference to the classic harem-anime main character stereotype.

[Issitheus]

Male main character, but the second most important character needs to be female. Objections? Names?

And I love the idea of us just writing the story in posts, just writing all we can think of for a section, not necessarily a chapter, but a section of the book. Hell, we could leave something mid-sentence and the next person picks up and finishes the sentence and makes their post. That was my plan, at least.

[Useful]

You really have to think about the reader, though. It would be hard to follow and kind of strange.

If we do it in person-by-person sections, we don't really need a second character. This will also create the least frustration about ideas not getting used. Thoughts?

[Ionzorg]

Okay, so basically this is what I gather (if we were to do a purely fictional novel):

Anyone who wanted to continue the story would write a chapter (or a "section" of some sort), but there would be a main story or plot, aaaaaand...anything to add?

[abyssion1337]

I came in late can I get a summary so far

[Issitheus]

abys, just read the posts. Ionzorg has it right, we write as much as we want in 1 post and the next poster picks it up where we left off.

[Useful]

Right, the title. It&#39;s kind of funny, though it is a reference to you (in a way) you weren&#39;t there. It doesn&#39;t really matter, but it came from the ^<v thread if you must know.

So far... we have nothing defined.


abys, just read the posts. Ionzorg has it right, we write as much as we want in 1 post and the next poster picks it up where we left off.

We&#39;re NOT going to end up with something publishable or even readable if we do that. I&#39;m sorry, it&#39;s going to sound too much like a forum thread and too little like a book.

[Issitheus]

Does the title have to mean anything, really?

[Useful]

Well, I think it should be touched upon in passing but actually have something to do with the book. Think FLCL.

Oh, idea! We have the main character be basically a made-up anonymous character and have the second character be Abyss! I think it&#39;s fitting since she&#39;s the #1 poster here and kind of representative of the people who post here.

Edit: Guys, for crap&#39;s sake. The more we focus on this thread, the more we get done. It&#39;s simple!

[Ionzorg]

^ I like that idea, she is a girl after all, so it&#39;s a good choice for secondary character. And she ties into the title and everything! Well, we don&#39;t necessarily have to keep the title. "A Forgiving Abyss" could just be a codename for the project until we&#39;re able to formulate a more suiting one.



We&#39;re NOT going to end up with something publishable or even readable if we do that. I&#39;m sorry, it&#39;s going to sound too much like a forum thread and too little like a book.


I actually agree with you on this one, but I&#39;m not sure of a better way to do it...ideas?

[Issitheus]

That can be our tie to reality? If nobody cares if I spoil it, in one of the Dark Tower books (some background information: Stephen King was once hit by a truck, but survived, of course), Roland, the main character, goes to our world and stops Stephen King, the author of the Dark Tower series, from being hit by the truck. That ties Roland&#39;s tale to real life.

And It won&#39;t sound like a forum thread, it would flow from one person to the next so that the reader can hardly tell that it&#39;s a different author. We&#39;ll have nothing in the final, released product to indicate a change of author. Have you read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn Among the Indians?

[Useful]

As stated before, keeping each forum-goer&#39;s writing contained to a chapter will help keep it readable and basically give everyone an equal share of writing.

Also, I like the idea of using Abys because we&#39;re still not sure what gender she is (Though I&#39;m pretty sure). It&#39;s kind of fitting to have it be someone we know relatively little about.

[abyssion1337]

wouldn&#39;t our different writing styles reveal the change in author?

[Issitheus]

How about... a galaxy on the verge of war, and the only person who can save it is abys, the war would tear apart the galaxy and virtually destroy it, and nobody knows who or where abys is or even if she really exists. like she has some kind of power or something to prevent the war.

And the reader would know it was by multiple people. We&#39;ll just try not to make it seem like it is.

[Useful]

I&#39;ve read Good Omens which does exactly that.

And that was exactly the kind of thing I was thinking with the two characters, Iss. This could actually start to work.

[Issitheus]

What, you were thinking of the plot too? or abys is a major character in it?

[Ionzorg]

We could do that, it would be more epic, but I&#39;ll post my idea later, which is sort of more low-key and psychological. But epic is definitely better. :)

And I think that keeping them contained to chapters is a good idea, because of the fact that we might all have different writing styles. What we&#39;d have to do is decide beforehand who is going to write the next chapter, what could happen within it, etc. Unless no one cares what happens and they just want to let each forum-goer freestyle. And then, afterwards, we could have just one person (who we&#39;d decide is the most capable) to edit it and make it so the writing style, vocabulary, and everything else flows smoothly throughout.

[Useful]

How about... a galaxy on the verge of war, and the only person who can save it is abys, the war would tear apart the galaxy and virtually destroy it, and nobody knows who or where abys is or even if she really exists. like she has some kind of power or something to prevent the war.

And the reader would know it was by multiple people. We&#39;ll just try not to make it seem like it is.

No no no no no. I&#39;m sorry, that&#39;s not even vaguely connected to the real world, except through Abyss. We have to make it more like The Dark Tower

Edit: The second paragraph of your post sounds good, Zorg.

Also, I want to hear your idea.

[Ionzorg]

I&#39;ve never read it, but if you&#39;d care to briefly explain?

[abyssion1337]

so would that make our main character a person searching for abys?

[Useful]

That can be our tie to reality? If nobody cares if I spoil it, in one of the Dark Tower books (some background information: Stephen King was once hit by a truck, but survived, of course), Roland, the main character, goes to our world and stops Stephen King, the author of the Dark Tower series, from being hit by the truck. That ties Roland&#39;s tale to real life.

There. I&#39;ve never read it either, but that level of reality seems right for this book.

Edit: interesting idea Abyss... that might even work. But we don&#39;t want to stick to the plot of the Dark Tower, that would be fatal.

[Issitheus]

And then, afterwards, we could have just one person (who we&#39;d decide is the most capable) to edit it and make it so the writing style, vocabulary, and everything else flows smoothly throughout.

But wouldn&#39;t that make it lose it&#39;s charm? The idea of a collective novel it that the reader experiences many different writing styles, right?



We have to make it more like The Dark Tower

What, we set it in a world that has moved on? Wait... did I get that right? I&#39;ve only finished Book 1...



so would that make our main character a person searching for abys?

yes!

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m for everyone writing a different chapter but I think we should collaborate on the first one, so we can all create our character

[Ionzorg]

^ Agreed, it&#39;s only fitting.

I&#39;d be happy to post my idea at some time, but later, because it would take a while and we&#39;re having a bit of a conversation.

Yeah, we can&#39;t make it akin to any other work of fiction, never mind plagiarism, but it would cause us to think less creatively I wager. I like the "searching for abys" thing too, let&#39;s build on it.

[Issitheus]

WHOA just got a cool idea. kinda fantasy-like, but...

if we go with my idea or smething similar, near the end we could have abys DIE!!! then the main character and his group can&#39;t use her power to save the universe, but since she has become so attached to the group, her power has been distributed between them.

And abys, the Blitzers are doing like a "Blitzburry Tales" thing, and it&#39;s like a fanstasy story in which the Blitzers are the main characters, we don&#39;t want to go for something like that, do we?

[Useful]

I see what you mean about the communal feeling being lost, Iss. We could make it so the editor just does basic edits and not stylistic edits. But then we&#39;d have to break it up into chapters or something or else the style change would be too jarring. See, we can&#39;t have the best of both worlds, Iss.

I&#39;ve not read much of The Dark Tower, I was just liking the way it sounded like a modified reality book. We don&#39;t want sci-fi or fantasy, it would make it too inaccessible to the reader.

Edit: Iss, is THAT where you got this idea from? Oh well, I&#39;m convinced that if that&#39;s what they&#39;re doing they&#39;re not getting published. Or even read.

[Issitheus]

Well, just from the tentative title, "A Forgiving Abyss", it screams, "I&#39;M A SCI-FI NOVEL!!! READ ME, YOU NERD!!!"

[abyssion1337]

do you think we should get zarx in on it?

[Issitheus]

I doubt he&#39;d be constant on it, but he might leave little comments or something.

[Useful]

Well, just from the tentative title, "A Forgiving Abyss", it screams, "I&#39;M A SCI-FI NOVEL!!! READ ME, YOU NERD!!!"

Well it&#39;s a great title. I think we should keep it. I just don&#39;t think it should be what it appears to be.



do you think we should get zarx in on it?

Excellent idea. Should you PM him or me?

And also, I&#39;m rather taken with the idea of putting a good bit of satire in it. I think it will make it entertaining without having to go too far into the fiction realm.

[Ionzorg]

^ Yeah, Zarx, that could happen. ::)

But yeah, not actually changing the basic writings of the chapters, but enough so that it feels like it&#39;s all the same book, so that it would be enjoyable to the reader all the way through. Different styles appeal to different people, after all.

Hm, and I just thought that my idea could make for a good side-story, but I&#39;ll save it.



WHOA just got a cool idea. kinda fantasy-like, but...

if we go with my idea or smething similar, near the end we could have abys DIE!!! then the main character and his group can&#39;t use her power to save the universe, but since she has become so attached to the group, her power has been distributed between them.

And abys, the Blitzers are doing like a "Blitzburry Tales" thing, and it&#39;s like a fanstasy story in which the Blitzers are the main characters, we don&#39;t want to go for something like that, do we?


We could have her die, but maybe we should decide when we get there. That&#39;s another thing, do we want to plan it all out beforehand, or just write it as we think? Those don&#39;t always come out the best, there&#39;s no foreshadowing or anything.

And we could do something like that too, but we should use our given names of course. IF we were to publish it and all.

Edit: Entertaining is always a good idea. But a serious premise, of course.

[abyssion1337]

1. we should use psudonyms
2. I was just asking if you think zarx would be a good idea pm him
3. we can decide about the killing thing while we&#39;re writing
4. if it&#39;s about war we should use satire

[Useful]

Yeah, that&#39;s a point. Wait, should Abyss avoid contributing to it? Wait, that&#39;s a copyright issue, we can deal with it later

^ Don&#39;t bother trying to understand that, I think very quickly.

Alright, I think we should really avoid a sci-fi/fantasy premise because it&#39;ll turn into a total mess, I&#39;m sure. If it&#39;s going to be communal, we&#39;re going to need people to be writing about something they agree on. If there&#39;s one thing that we can all agree on, it&#39;s reality.

Edit: I see where you&#39;re going with the "if it&#39;s a war, use satire" thing Abyss, but I think we can do it without all that. We can satire internet and anime culture, we&#39;ll get a strong audience that way.

[Ionzorg]

Satire as in connecting it with other war stories, actual wars in real life (our connection to reality)?

Ooh, a war story might work.

[Issitheus]

Well we&#39;d publish it with the author&#39;s name being "The Hellmates" or something representing all of us, rather than having all of our names. Maybe we could have a special section listing the authors&#39; real names. And my original idea was just winging it with each post, but we should probably plan it all out first, with each person adding their own elements and such.

[Useful]

Satire as in connecting it with other war stories, actual wars in real life (our connection to reality)?

Ooh, a war story might work.

Please read my edit on the last post. And I don&#39;t think a war story&#39;s going to work, it&#39;s (again) too far from reality for us to all work on without the story dissolving.

[Ionzorg]

< "It&#39;s over 900" haha funny. ANYWAYS.

Yes, we should plan it out first, not every aspect, but the major plot points should be made clear.

[Issitheus]

Yes, we should plan it out first, not every aspect, but the major plot points should be made clear.

That&#39;s what we all agree on, I think.

[Ionzorg]

Ah, yes, I see what you mean in your edit, Useful. I think we could probably all agree on a science fiction premise, because it&#39;s been the main subject for a while, but that remains to be seen.

[abyssion1337]

then we can use war as an idea? I think we could fake a few war scenes though

[Issitheus]

Now that I think about it, "A forgiving Abyss" sounds more like a short story than a novel, but who cares, we&#39;re probably gonna change it eventually

[Ionzorg]

I actually wrote a short play concerning war, and it had some scenes in it that, from the feedback I got, were fairly accurate, but I&#39;m not sure if everyone thinks it&#39;s a great idea. I&#39;m neutral.

[Issitheus]

Okay, minor edit on my idea, the war is already going, but if it isn&#39;t stopped soon, the galaxy will be left in anguish or whatever and Abyss is the only one who can end the war. basically the same premise.

[Ionzorg]

Yes, let&#39;s just jump back a few posts and remember that other galactic idea that was voiced earlier. We can&#39;t throw out too many different things, we&#39;ll get too confused.

Yes, it&#39;s more concise that way, rather than figuring out a reason why Abyss can actually save the galaxy from destruction. Could it have something to do with love, perhaps? Bit of romance?

[abyssion1337]

maybe, what if we started with our character having found abys and most of the book is a flashback?

[Ionzorg]

Aha, that might actually make some things easier, because we&#39;d have a definite ending to work towards.

[Useful]

I&#39;m sorry, I just can&#39;t see the sci-fi/fantasy idea ending well. I&#39;ve listed at LEAST three reasons why it won&#39;t work, so I&#39;ve decided that if that&#39;s not going to convince everyone, I should just start writing. Here&#39;s a first paragraph:

"There was this guy, you see? The guy?s name was X. Or at least he thought it was. Now that he thought about it, it seemed like a really strange name. He?d pissed off this person he knew, but didn?t really know how or why. Or even who the person was, if that was to be believed. All he really knew was that he had to apologize to that person, or he?d be doomed? or something like that. With his head full of questions, all he really wanted to do was find some answers."

Edit: if you want me to put all me reasons not to do a sci-fi/fantasy, I can do that. Also, the frame story idea might work, I can write an opening for that as well.

[Ionzorg]

Interesting. It&#39;s a good opening paragraph, to be sure. Now we need to figure out where it&#39;s going.

[Ionzorg]

And if you think about it, "A Forgiving Abyss" could work just as well as a story involving real characters, going through struggle and psychological riff-raff.

[Issitheus]

Wow... that&#39;s good. A lot like my writing style, too. If you&#39;ve read the Pendragon series by D. J. MacHale, His writing style is incredibly close to mine.

[abyssion1337]

"No" her voice was clear and loud. &#39;X&#39; could hardly belive his ears, he&#39;d come all this way to prevent a disaster and the one person that could help had just refused...

that&#39;s one way we could do it

[Useful]

I realized I&#39;m going to have to remind everyone to read my edits. I&#39;ve made them on almost every single thing I&#39;ve posted on this thread.

Read my edit on the last one.

Back to the present tense: yeah, I found myself unable to choose a setting. I felt like I&#39;d be putting words in the group&#39;s mouth. Ideas? And I&#39;m sorry, we really can&#39;t do a sci-fi/fantasy and have it work. Or a war story for that matter.

[Issitheus]

So far, I think abys has the first sentence down.

[Useful]

Okay guys, we have a basic plot: anonymous character looks for Abyss, possible frame story.

If we do the frame story idea and keep the first paragraph, we could do some sort of time warp thing. Has anyone here seen "Rosencranse and Gildensteen Are Dead"? I&#39;m thinking like that.



Wow... that&#39;s good. A lot like my writing style, too. If you&#39;ve read the Pendragon series by D. J. MacHale, His writing style is incredibly close to mine.

Let&#39;s not get off topic now.

Edit: So now we need a setting. That&#39;s what I was going to say int he first place.

[Issitheus]

Yeah. And I don&#39;t really care for having the main character be anonymous, but actually having a name.

[abyssion1337]

Rosencranse and Gildensteen Are Dead
good movie

actually I was thinking that after the sentence I wrote we&#39;d then go to the start of our characters journey in several chapters of flashback

[Ionzorg]

Okay, just because I&#39;m in a writing mood, I made an addition on the first paragraph. Nothing final, but I&#39;ll post it anyway.

He knew a few things: He could speak and he could write, and his vocabulary was superb, which he determined meant that he either grew up in a very loving, or a very strict home. He could not put a face on his parents, his relatives, his friends or his teachers, anyone or anything from his past life. But when he saw the sky, it&#39;s rich blue tones and soaring clouds, a smile always grew wide on his lips.

Now, we could either continue with this sort of thing, or we could go with Abys&#39; idea, which although might not hit close to home with the people on the forums, is more exciting and has very diverse possiblities. Either way, I&#39;d be happy.

[Useful]

Rosencranse and Gildensteen Are Dead
good movie

actually I was thinking that after the sentence I wrote we&#39;d then go to the start of our characters journey in several chapters of flashback

Thanks for the spelling. And yes, that might be a good idea. We need to plan out the actual storyline before we start shifting it around, though.



Yeah. And I don&#39;t really care for having the main character be anonymous, but actually having a name.

You mean, not like X?

[abyssion1337]

Yeah. And I don&#39;t really care for having the main character be anonymous, but actually having a name.

I was only saying "X" cause we didn&#39;t come up with a name yet

[Issitheus]

Yeah, I like that concept. The first half or so of the story would be the flashback to the point we were at at the very beginning, then the rest is, well, the rest.

And I for one enjoy Abys&#39;s idea more, probably because that&#39;s closer to my idea of where we should go with this.

And yes, I don&#39;t like having a one-letter name, I want an actual name.

EDIT: Oh, okay.

[Ionzorg]

Unless the one-letter name was somehow a plot device, always an option.

[Issitheus]

... No.

[Useful]

This is all fine, guys, but we need a setting! I&#39;m thinking modern-day, I just want a country. I was thinking the U.S. not for "my Homeland" reasons but because it&#39;s where Abyss lives.

agree/disagree?

Edit: I kind of liked the idea of using X. It was going to be an intentionally personality-free character, so I&#39;m kind of shying away from Ionzorg&#39;s paragraph, but we can do whatever we want.

[abyssion1337]

I was a fan of the sci-fi thing, it could be intergalactic and this has to be the fastest growing thread in site history

[Issitheus]

I like the idea of a space setting in the future, just so it could conform to the galactic war idea hat&#39;s being tossed around. and if we&#39;re searching for a person, it seems fitting that they&#39;re on some planet, not in some country. it seems more like it would be in space.

[Useful]

General notice: Read my edit please.



I was a fan of the sci-fi thing, it could be intergalactic and this has to be the fastest growing thread in site history

I&#39;d like to do something like that in a way, but it would be so hard to keep coherent. Also, it would be close to unreadable to people outside of the forums and would stand almost no chance of being published.

Edit: Iss, I know you&#39;re really attached to the sci-fi idea, but I&#39;ve already listed the reasons why it won&#39;t work. Also, do you really want it to be that similar to the Blitzers&#39; story?

[Ionzorg]

this has to be the fastest growing thread in site history


With only four contributors, at that.

I agree with the US, it could work other places too, but I think there&#39;s more diversity and potential there, and abyss lives there.

I would want to do sci-fi and everything, if everyone was on board...I just don&#39;t want a lot of disagreements, because that&#39;s what would make this thing fall apart.

[Issitheus]

How do you think it would alienate readers? If we generate a complete story, anyone could read it.

[abyssion1337]

I disagree, our character could go from plannet to plannet looking for clues, and pulishability is the last thing on my mind

[Useful]

Okay, we have a problem here: there&#39;s four people contributing to this story:

1 is strongly connected to the idea of a sci-fi realistic fiction (Me) and another supports it to a lesser extent (Zorg).

1 is strongly connected to the idea of a sci-fi (Iss) and another supports it to a lesser extent (Abys).

We need to resolve this.

[Issitheus]

pulishability?

Wait!!!

A good portion of the story takes place on Earth and is very realistic, until we ("we" here referring to the main group looking for Abyss, but I don&#39;t want us to be characters in it, only abys.) find that Abyss is on another planet, we just don&#39;t know which. Would that please the court?

[abyssion1337]

pulishability?

sorry, publishability

the reason for using the intergalactic thing is that it gives us much more room for adventure

[Ionzorg]

Issi&#39;s idea could definitely work as a compromise. We do need to resolve this discrepancy, though. Can we reach this compromise, or should we start from scratch, and MAKE SURE that everyone agrees before we start going nuts with ideas?

[Useful]

If someone picks up a book about a bunch of people who know each other zooming around as improved versions of themselves making references only they will understand, they&#39;re not going to read it, and moreover will be convinced that the offending party is a bunch of self-important pricks.

Edit: the world isn&#39;t big enough for adventure, Abyss? I think we can solve any lust for writing random fiction by having a lot of it take place online.

[Issitheus]

I like it not only for that, but also the Sci-Fi theme that we all agree on (to an extent) usually brings to mind Outer Space. It&#39;s hard to imagine a Sci-Fi novel taking place on modern-day Earth alone.

And I don&#39;t want all of us to be characters in the book, just a group of 6-10 people looking for Abyss, none of them represents any of us. Abyss is a loose representation of abyssion.

[abyssion1337]

right I doubt we&#39;re going to make that many references

[Issitheus]

Same here.

Okay, my mind is starting to work weird, so I&#39;m just gonna go to bed now. Sort this out on your own, I still support the outer space sci-fi concept.

[Ionzorg]

^ Agreed, I think we know what competent writing consists of to an extent. We may be the Hell forums, but we have common sense enough for that.

I&#39;m not picky, so I&#39;m going to let everyone else duke it out, and I&#39;ll put in my opinions on the ideas you come up with. Sounds good.

[Useful]

Okay, I didn&#39;t think we&#39;d end up making references in all honesty, I was trying to push my point. Regardless,

Issitheus, you weren&#39;t planning on making this representational of us in any way? That seems a little strange.

[Issitheus]

No, it would sort of alienate the reader. Some authors base characters on themselves, and we can do that to a certain extent, but we&#39;re not going to have exact replicas of ourselves in the story, are we?

[Useful]

No, I guess I wasn&#39;t really thinking of doing that either. I was thinking of making it be mostly a non-fiction, but I&#39;m pretty sure the elements I was thinking of wouldn&#39;t fit too well any more. Now I&#39;m not really sure WHAT I want to do...

[Ionzorg]

I think if we do make them somewhat like us, it would be easier to write their lines, figure out their decisions and just generally character development might be easier. Or, there might be no character development at all in that instance, which I just realized. Because if they were like us the entire way, how would they change?

Again, I think we should start from scratch when it comes to the plot, genre, everything. A fresh start is what we need.

[abyssion1337]

I can write characters that are nothing like me fairly well, and this group; are they all main characters or is it one main character and a few more peripheral characters?

[Ionzorg]

One main and a few peripheral characters would help us keep the plot focused better, I think...

[Useful]

Here was my thought when I heard that it would be a realistic fiction: There&#39;s a main character who starts out faceless but who slowly grows to become a full individual. Each chapter is written by a forum member and has that forum member act as a guide to the main character until the end of the story.

Now that we have a plot (Abyss is slighted in some way and needs an apology), we can go from there.

Edit: on writing characters dissimilar to myself, I once wrote an entire essay from the point of view of a girl from California with a bit of a drinking problem. No problems there.

[abyssion1337]

there&#39;s still the issue of why our character starts his journey

[Ionzorg]

Let&#39;s go step-by-step here for a minute, and make sure everyone is on board.

Genre: Realistic fiction (No fantasy elements at all?)
Setting: Modern day
One main character, starts out faceless (Amnesic?), develops over time.

Sounds good so far?

[Useful]

That doesn&#39;t need to be an issue: we can have the first guide character appear in the first chapter.

AWESOME IDEA. We can have it be kind of a self-realization thing, where the character slowly becomes a part of our group and becomes a person at the same time. We could even make it a commentary on the anonymous nature of the internet.

Edit: we can add fantasy elements, probably related to the true identity of the main character.

[abyssion1337]

both good but we can have a futuristic thing and still have it realistic

[Ionzorg]

That doesn&#39;t need to be an issue: we can have the first guide character appear in the first chapter.

AWESOME IDEA. We can have it be kind of a self-realization thing, where the character slowly becomes a part of our group and becomes a person at the same time. We could even make it a commentary on the anonymous nature of the internet.


YES, THAT&#39;S A FAIRLY SOLID IDEA, DOES EVERYONE LIKE IT?

I want something we can work with, and this seems VERY feasible.

[Useful]

General notice: please read my edit.

I don&#39;t see the necessity for a future thing... it could be near future, like the character is actually someone we meet...

Alright, we can make it sci-fi: lets make the forum here in the real world and time and all, but make the main character some kind of time traveler or construct.

[Ionzorg]

I just thought of a very good reason why futuristic might not be a good idea: The issue with technological advances, we&#39;d have to invent a bunch of things that might be invented in the future, and we would have to think too much.

[Useful]

I think I just came up with something pretty good. I really want Iss to come back over here, he&#39;s the one we need to convince. But I think that adding the sci-fi nature of the main character will appeal to him. Should we go with this for now?



I just thought of a very good reason why futuristic might not be a good idea: The issue with technological advances, we&#39;d have to invent a bunch of things that might be invented in the future, and we would have to think too much.

Alright, then let&#39;s go with my first iteration. He can still be something invented, like a representation of anon or the internet as a whole though. I think that would be really cool.

[abyssion1337]

like Dr. Who he travels through space and time. I&#39;m not a fan I like the futuristic space thing cause it makes everything bigger. also if abys is hiding for some reason it would make the journey that much more fantastic (does anyone else see the abys character in a secluded, lonley but glorious place?)

[Useful]

Hahaha, I like your description of Abyss&#39; hiding place. Wistful muchly? Not that I care, I like it. There has to be a good reason that you&#39;re hiding.

Okay, here it comes (my brain finally got hooked on the idea): we are all trying to lead this traveler/avatar to find you. We always hint at who you are and stuff, but we never tell you how to find you. We end up leading him to the forums (or maybe it could be a different place, like a secret web site) where he finally finds you. His last task is to discover who you are, and when he finally does, you tell him who he is. At the same time, you reveal the identities of everyone else in the forum, and he discovers that it&#39;s all the people that helped him up until then.

Edit: this is of course up to debate, it&#39;s just coming out really well right now.

[Ionzorg]

This has become between you two, but here are my pros to both of those previous ideas (before the last post) off the top of my head:

Useful&#39;s idea: It would be simpler, more rooted in reality and real concepts, therefore more relatable (considering that if anyone is going to read this, it will be other internet users) and is something we&#39;re all very familiar with.

Abys&#39; idea: Is definitely a lot more fantastical, and can touch upon more abstract concepts.

(does anyone else see the abys character in a secluded, lonley but glorious place?)

Now that you mention it, yes, and I like the mental image that it summons.

As for what Useful just posted...I hope that it appeals to everyone else. That&#39;s all I&#39;ll say about that.

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m not so sure about that, we could do cyberpunk but I think we could do the futuristic thing, it can be done if you focus on story and not on the technology

[Useful]

I&#39;m not so sure about that, we could do cyberpunk but I think we could do the futuristic thing, it can be done if you focus on story and not on the technology

Alright... what kind of thing are we talking about? You and Iss are eager to talk about a sci-fi setting, but what are you actually thinking about? By the way, go as far as you want, I want one person to come up with the setting so it&#39;s completely coherent.

[Ionzorg]

Is there a genre other than sci-fi or realistic fiction that you two both like?

[abyssion1337]

the point of the setting being space is that it changes from plannet to plannet... that&#39;s what I think at least but I think our character operates on the fringes of society; as far as the governing system for the planets I think we should borrow a bit from firefly

[Useful]

Is there a genre other than sci-fi or realistic fiction that you two both like?

Don&#39;t get me wrong, I love sci-fi. It&#39;s basically the only genre I read. I just realize that it will be very, very hard to write. I actually like what Abys is saying about focusing on the story aspect and having a kind of cyberpunk setting, but it&#39;s her idea so I want her to work it out. If it sounds workable, I&#39;ll go for it in a second.

Edit: I&#39;m sorry Abys, but I saw that coming. If you have nothing more defined than that, I want a new idea or more flesh on the one you have.

[Ionzorg]

Now that&#39;s my kind of thinking! If it&#39;s workable, work with it! ;D

Go ahead, abys, the floor is yours.

[abyssion1337]

as long as we avoid the cyber part, I love cyberpunk but I don&#39;t really want to write one.

ok I wrote an opening sentence and put out my ideas about how the space thing would work; so now we&#39;d need to come up with where our character starts from and maybe a bit more on the characters in his group

[Useful]

Abys, I have the feeling you don&#39;t really like the idea of using the internet for a good part of the story. Could you give me a definite opinion on this?

[Ionzorg]

Soon, we should work on the main character, ask questions about him: What is his reason for being in the story? What is he trying to accomplish?

[abyssion1337]

Abys, I have the feeling you don&#39;t really like the idea of using the internet for a good part of the story. Could you give me a definite opinion on this?

no not really, the internet is good for a metaphor of life but i think we can get away with life as a metaphor for the internet; more seriously though there would be a better adventure aspect without it.

[Useful]

So you really like the adventure aspect of it. You know, that&#39;s perfectly doable if we stay on earth. If we get Vilius in on this (He&#39;ll like it for sure, you know him) and maybe the Polish guy (I forget his name) we have at least four countries represented. If the character visits them all in person, we could make quite an adventure out of it.

[abyssion1337]

I suppose so, I&#39;m just a fan of the space idea

[Useful]

Okay, I guess I&#39;m fine with that too, I just want someone else to do the planning in that case because it&#39;s not my idea and I don&#39;t want to screw it up. Can you do that for me Abys? Don&#39;t make it like Firefly and don&#39;t make it too complex either: remember, we&#39;re focusing on the story, not the setting.

Edit: after you post Abys, I&#39;m going to bed. It&#39;s been a very productive day and I&#39;ll be sure to be back on this in the morning. What time are you getting up?

[abyssion1337]

ok I&#39;ll need a collaborator, and since useful is the only one on right now(strange since he&#39;s in my time zone and it&#39;s freakin late) he&#39;s good. I think a good way to do it is to give more of a rough idea of how the plannets are united/ruled over rather than really explaining; the most important thing to keep in mind is that there&#39;s a war (or going to be a war) so there need to be at least 2 big factions with power

[Useful]

General notice: please read my edit.

I&#39;m unsure why we need the war. But whatever, if you can think of a good reason for it, I don&#39;t see why not.

But now I realize the major drawback of doing a sci-fi story. Any sci-fi novel necessarily must have a good amount of setup and explanation for the technology, even if it&#39;s down and dirty. Even if we could find some way to avoid this affecting the story a great deal, I don&#39;t see how we could keep everybody on the right track.

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m likely getting up at around 9 or 10 then going back to sleep till about 12 lol, I think we can keep people on track but I still think we should talk about it more especially if more people are on to contribute

[Useful]

Yeah, I&#39;m especially looking at Vilius. He&#39;s going to need some work on his English, though. Alright, I guess I&#39;m off. Hope to resolve the last of the setting issues tomorrow.

[abyssion1337]

I should get to bed too, also Vilius is good at English but I think he said he wouldn&#39;t be back tomarrow

[Ionzorg]

Vilius? I should probably know who that is, but it&#39;s very late. ::)

Sorry about earlier, I was here but I was dealing with something...And I&#39;ll be working tomorrow, until tomorrow evening I would think, but I&#39;ll come straight home afterwards, and hopefully everyone will be back again. We&#39;ll do some recruiting if more people come on. :)

Anyways, goodnight everyone.

[Issitheus]

(does anyone else see the abys character in a secluded, lonley but glorious place?)

I do

So, we&#39;ve settled on it taking place in space, then?




Any sci-fi novel necessarily must have a good amount of setup and explanation for the technology, even if it&#39;s down and dirty.

Not necessarily. If we simply set it in the future, we&#39;d need only to describe things as they came up. People know the science fiction genre quite well.


And I&#39;m not sure I care for having the internet a part of this. Why can&#39;t it just be a sci-fi/adventure novel? Perhaps it could be a sidestory, written separately, that tells of one character and the internet can be a major part of that, but why do we need it as a major part of this?

I know that we&#39;re not talking about having the internet as an object in the story, but having it represent something/be represented by something.

[1337uvis]

I&#39;m available for contributing if someone can give me a short summary on what in the hell we are doing. Reading 9 pages... i just don&#39;t have it in me at this time. I know this is a sci-fi set in the future, whioch is fortunate since i like that :) my first anime ever watched was Outlaw Star and currently my favorite tv show is Stargate Atlantis (but don&#39;t tell anyone :D )

[Issitheus]

Well I think it should be set in space as to allow for a larger, more epic adventure, but I don&#39;t know if we&#39;ve decided whether or not it should.

[1337uvis]

In the year 2567, in the outer reaches of The Milky Way galaxy...

[Issitheus]

Well, we&#39;re not starting it yet... We&#39;re working out the story and characters, not to mention plot, now.

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m available for contributing if someone can give me a short summary on what in the hell we are doing. Reading 9 pages... i just don&#39;t have it in me at this time. I know this is a sci-fi set in the future, whioch is fortunate since i like that :) my first anime ever watched was Outlaw Star and currently my favorite tv show is Stargate Atlantis (but don&#39;t tell anyone :D )

I didn&#39;t like the first season of stargate alantis, I thought SG-1 was better but they really picked things up in the 3rd and 4th seasons (sorry I&#39;ll try to stay on topic)

[1337uvis]

So then what? are the characters well-equipped by the government and have staff 100+ or is it a small one, with lesser supplies and ffewer people. Or maybe renegades that work in groups of <10 and equip by whatever they can find. Three options ;)

[abyssion1337]

so far we have one main character whom we don&#39;t even have a name for from unkown origins and a group of < 10

[Pink_Nipple]

It&#39;s enough. The true personality of characters is newer written in the beggining. :)

[1337uvis]

Robson Baltvilks early past not known, formed a renegade band of removed from duty special agents and army men. Managed to steal a small ship from one of the docks on Earth and set off to the far reaches of the galaxy where the human expansion was facing problems from extra-terrestrial races that resist the human expansion for they see it as a threat. They get their supplies by fighting as mercenaries or doing favors for some of the powerful people of the planets that are inhabited by humans... and not only.

That&#39;s a start for your plot. Also, abbyss, have you seen the seal i made for you? if not, check page 2 of Seals! thread

[Pink_Nipple]

It reminds me Mass Effect. :)
But thats even better i already can feel that open-space atmosphere. :D
What if main character is modified by serial experiments?

[abyssion1337]

It reminds me Mass Effect. :)
But thats even better i already can feel that open-space atmosphere. :D
What if main character is modified by serial experiments?

probably not; I wish useful was here; he&#39;d be better at explaining what we&#39;ve got so far

[1337uvis]

that would be TOO Mass Effect ;) although we can add to the backstory "Rumors are that his homeland was destroyed in a war and he joined the special forces to secretly find a way for revenge, and now, whilst in space, some say that still might be his ultimate goal". But that should be revealed somewhere in chapter 3

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m going to make a bunch of quotes to show our general idea; everyone hold on

[abyssion1337]

All for a fiction novel, preferably of the Science Fiction genre, please say "Aye". Aye.

we decided on scifi



How about... a galaxy on the verge of war, and the only person who can save it is abys, the war would tear apart the galaxy and virtually destroy it, and nobody knows who or where abys is or even if she really exists. like she has some kind of power or something to prevent the war.

that&#39;s mostly what our main character is doing; though I don&#39;t think that should be the main theme till after our main character gets a plausable purpose for it. Although we did decide on anything definate this was the most developed idea we&#39;ve had



maybe, what if we started with our character having found abys and most of the book is a flashback?

my idea



"No" her voice was clear and loud. &#39;X&#39; could hardly belive his ears, he&#39;d come all this way to prevent a disaster and the one person that could help had just refused...

my take on a first sentence, it was well recieved

that should bring you up to page 8 where we decided to see if we can give this space thing a shot.



Then you have to double-post. I won&#39;t let you. :D

don&#39;t spam or get off topic

[1337uvis]

How about... a galaxy on the verge of war, and the only person who can save it is abys, the war would tear apart the galaxy and virtually destroy it, and nobody knows who or where abys is or even if she really exists. like she has some kind of power or something to prevent the war.



I&#39;m sorry, but this is where i get off this spaceship. Good bye.

[abyssion1337]

How about... a galaxy on the verge of war, and the only person who can save it is abys, the war would tear apart the galaxy and virtually destroy it, and nobody knows who or where abys is or even if she really exists. like she has some kind of power or something to prevent the war.



I&#39;m sorry, but this is where i get off this spaceship. Good bye.

ok, what would you rather see as a premise?

[1337uvis]

for all i care you can make him a guy trying to spread communist ideals through the galaxy, as long as it&#39;s not as cliche as that... war that can rip apart a galaxy... is that even physically possible? i doubt that. And no one knows where/who/and what power has... thats gona make the story a heck of a pain to write and a boring piece of ass to read.

[abyssion1337]

ok fine, our main character can go from plannet to plannet distributing copies of the communist manifesto

[Pink_Nipple]

And he might look like Stalin and speak Georgian.

[Issitheus]

I really hope you&#39;re being sarcastic, &#39;cuz it&#39;s near impossible to make out sarcasm from text.

[1337uvis]

Yes I was being sarcastic, just something a teeny bit more original

[Issitheus]

Actaully, I&#39;m more concerned about abys...

[abyssion1337]

lol, I tend to forget that sarcasm can be hard to notice

[Issitheus]

So... that&#39;s a "Yes, Caleb, that was sarcasm"?

[abyssion1337]

lol, yes it is

[Ionzorg]

I also wish that Useful was here...only for the reason that when he gets back, he might not like what he sees. ::)

So, my theory is that an outer-space adventure story would be cool, but the above idea (about galactic wars and destruction and all that) is a bit too all-encompassing, if you see what I mean. It would take too much work to plan, it&#39;s a bit ambitious considering that this is a completely new idea and likely all of us have never written a novel of such considerable length.

So my thoughts are that we can have sci-fi and adventure and outer-space, but let&#39;s keep it to a few characters and their struggles and achievements. Not the rise and fall of entire galaxies.

Also, this is an awesome quote by Vladimir Nabokov that I remembered about earlier today, we could put it in the pretext or something. It feels very sci-fi, in my opinion:

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour.)"

[Useful]

I&#39;m back! Okay, what are we talking about? Give me a few minutes to read the last 3 pages.

[Ionzorg]

Yes, that may take a little while. ::) The thing about this thread is that posts seem to rarely run under 2 or 3 sentences, and often several paragraphs. (In my and Useful&#39;s case particularly, but you get the idea. :D)

[Issitheus]

Just goes to show that we&#39;re serious about this.

[Useful]

AAAAAAAAAAARGH

NO! FAIL! THIS WILL NOT WORK. I know a lot of people want an adventure, and something galaxy-spanning at that. But have any of you ever TRIED to write something like that? I have! It&#39;s damn near impossible to keep coherent and that&#39;s with one person. We need something we can keep a handle on or this project is doomed. I&#39;ll tell you how:

If we start to make a sci-fi universe, the main thing that will be absoarbing our time will NOT be making the actual story, which is what we want to do, but making sure the story and the setting reconcile. I&#39;ve only ever seen ONE series that puts a political intrigue story in a galaxy-sized skin, and that&#39;s Issac Asimov&#39;s Foundation series. If none of you know Asimov, he was arguably the greatest and most successful sci-fi writer to ever live, writing over 500 books throughout his life. When I read it, I became inspired and tried to write a short story in that vein. I gave up after 2 pages. It&#39;s simply not possible to subordinate a sci-fi setting to a story without doing obscene amounts of planning. Now I know that everyone wants a relatively free-form feel to this, and that&#39;s great. But it won&#39;t be possible if we actually do the required amount of planning to make it cohesive and interesting. We&#39;d necessarily constrict the leeway of our authors to the point where it would constrict creativity.

Basically, we have a choice: Make it free form and sci-fi. This will make it an interesting story, but probably contain too many coherence flaws to be publishable.

Make it sci-fi and regulated. Will result in something publishable, but will also require continual checking and rechecking of each section being written by a dedicated editor/story manager, limiting the freedom of the authors.

Make it realistic fiction and free form. Stands a chance, just like the first option, of generating something that&#39;s unpublishable, but stands far less of a chance of being incoherent. With a small number of created elements, the world sticks together nicely and will (hopefully) be a more interesting and meaningful read.

[Issitheus]

Something sci-fi, yet realistic, and sci-fi yet the action never leaves one planet. Can you see your flaws?

Look, we&#39;re not trying to make the world&#39;s best story, we&#39;re just doing this for fun. So what if it doesn&#39;t work like we planned? We&#39;ll somehow fix it so that we like it and it works.

[Useful]

Okay, that&#39;s fine, I just want to know for sure that we&#39;re ditching the goal of being possibly publishable.

Also, why can&#39;t people think of sci-fi stories that don&#39;t leave earth? I Robot, Planet of the Apes, Solient Green... it&#39;s been done dozens of times.

[Ionzorg]

Okay, I&#39;m siding with Useful all the way now. Only because if I do, two people will actually have agreed entirely on something, and not absolutely everyone is divided. I too see no problem with a sci-fi story not leaving Earth, but it could lose elements of adventure. Also fine with me.

[Issitheus]

Okay, how about we go to a previous idea and we each write our own stories pertaining to the same universe, then we take characters and experiences and incorporate them into the novel. If we have any questions while writing our story, like "Are there teleporters?", ask them and we will agree on an answer. That way, we needn&#39;t worry about planning this whole thing out, we define characters and settings in the stories, which pertaiin to the novel. What do you say?

[Useful]

Okay, Zorg is with me. I kind of saw that coming, but now we need to convince the others.

Also, the loss of adventure aspect can easily be replicated by making it based on the internet to a certain extent. Start thinking the Matrix in the beginning, where the actual existence of something unexplainable out there is only just being discovered. We don&#39;t want it to be much like the matrix, but maybe Abyss is someone special, trapped somewhere or maybe running everything.

[Issitheus]

I&#39;d like to ask you to read my post, now extended.

[Useful]

Alright, that&#39;s great Iss. In fact that&#39;s kind of what I was thinking would happen with the entire "everybody pitches in" aspect of the novel.

But we can&#39;t just do this straight up. I know see two options, both equally plausible about how we&#39;ll write it:

1. The structured method. We keep going with communal brainstorm until basic plot points are constructed. We then have one person start writing. That person posts their part online and whoever feels like they can write about the next few plot points picks up from there.

2. The loose method. We choose a starting point and an ending point and a definite setting, but then allow everyone free reign. One person starts writing, the next person keeps going with no constraints except the setting and the eventual completion of the story.

[Ionzorg]

Either one of those would work for me. But, and this is just my opinion, I think I&#39;m leaning a bit more towards option number 1, mostly because option number 2 would entail a lot more writing, hence a lot more work.

[Useful]

Wait, why would it be more work? I&#39;m actually preferring it because I think it gives more freedom to the plot within each section, allowing everyone to do basically what they wanted out of the story in the first place. It will actually allow you to write less if that&#39;s what you want to do.

I&#39;m not expecting this thing to even hit 40 pages, btw. Unless we get A LOT more people in on it.

[Issitheus]

Ooh, I like the loose method. Allows for more freedom so the plot isn&#39;t so rigid that we hardly have any freedom. I mean, I know that that won&#39;t happen even with the structured method, but... yeah. You see what I mean?

[Ionzorg]

^ Sounds great when you put it like that, actually. I&#39;m in.



I&#39;m not expecting this thing to even hit 40 pages, btw. Unless we get A LOT more people in on it.


I don&#39;t know, I can do a lot of writing...Let&#39;s say if there&#39;s 5 of us max doing this project: each person&#39;s first donation to the story is 5 pages, that&#39;s a good 25 right at the beginning. But, then again, it depends on if everyone likes it enough to write more after the first round...

But it is true that we need more people. But we should get them after we&#39;ve decided on a few key things, like genre and writing style, just so we don&#39;t get a barrage of new ideas. We can just PM everyone with the details once we&#39;re finished brainstorming, and see what comes back.

[Useful]

Of course. I favor it because I know that you yourself will want the freedom to do some more things. Plot is going to be interesting though...

I like the artificial amnesia idea with the main character. Agree/disagree?

Edit: I&#39;m absolutely positive that Vilius (Lietuvis) will enjoy the new version. Just like me and Zorg, it lost favor with him when it became too fantasy/sci-fi heavy. He&#39;ll be back, I&#39;m sure.

[Ionzorg]

Next time he logs in, we&#39;ll accost him and give him the score.

I also like the artificial amnesia idea with the main character, because it leads to good character development, and after that we can decide things about plot, like why he&#39;s amnesic, all that. And yes, sci-fi and fantasy is good to an extent, but in all honestly, we don&#39;t have the experience for anything too spectacular.

[S.ifr]

I like the artificial amnesia idea with the main character. Agree/disagree?

I disagree, I think that that idea is a bit clich?, or is it just me ?

[Useful]

I like the artificial amnesia idea with the main character. Agree/disagree?

I disagree, I think that that idea is a bit clich?, or is it just me ?

Well, give me examples then. The thing is, there&#39;s nothing new under the sun, it&#39;s how you combine the ideas that makes the difference. Anyway, I wasn&#39;t thinking a robot, I was thinking an avatar of a sort, a being that has been created by the collective consciousness of all internet-goers worldwide. I think THAT&#39;S a new idea, unless I&#39;m horribly mistaken.

[Ionzorg]

I disagree, I think that that idea is a bit clich?, or is it just me ?


Perhaps a bit, but it seems to work even to this day. It&#39;s just a good starting point, and that&#39;s what we need right now. Just look at the Bourne series, for a decent modern example.



Well, give me examples then. The thing is, there&#39;s nothing new under the sun, it&#39;s how you combine the ideas that makes the difference. Anyway, I wasn&#39;t thinking a robot, I was thinking an avatar of a sort, a being that has been created by the collective consciousness of all internet-goers worldwide. I think THAT&#39;S a new idea, unless I&#39;m horribly mistaken.


I&#39;ve never heard of an idea like that in the past, for one. So it must be either a rarely used or completely new idea.

Edit: Sorry, but this was post 969. Which, for the first 9, is a terrible sexual position.

[S.ifr]

I like the artificial amnesia idea with the main character. Agree/disagree?

I disagree, I think that that idea is a bit clich?, or is it just me ?

Well, give me examples then. The thing is, there&#39;s nothing new under the sun, it&#39;s how you combine the ideas that makes the difference. Anyway, I wasn&#39;t thinking a robot, I was thinking an avatar of a sort, a being that has been created by the collective consciousness of all internet-goers worldwide. I think THAT&#39;S a new idea, unless I&#39;m horribly mistaken.

Do I really need examples ? I just said that it was a bit clich?, I never said we shouldn&#39;t do it.

[Ionzorg]

^ Fair enough. It&#39;s just that when you dedicate an entire post to it, it seems more important than you may have intended.

[Useful]

Yeah... I think the "avatar character" has been done before, but the "avatar of the people" idea is new, as far as I know. So long as we keep the plot original, I don&#39;t think there will be a problem with cliche-ness.

Iss, Abys, where did you guys go?

[S.ifr]

^ Fair enough. It&#39;s just that when you dedicate an entire post to it, it seems more important than you may have intended.

You&#39;re right as well, we&#39;re crazy enough for it to be something original.

[Ionzorg]

I try to think of us as "eccentric" rather than "crazy". :P We&#39;ll make it work, as long as no one gives up, we&#39;ll make it work.

Which means we can&#39;t have any quitters in the middle of the project unless we all decide to abandon it. This is essential. >:(

[Issitheus]

I&#39;m here, just a bit busy.

[Useful]

I try to think of us as "eccentric" rather than "crazy". :P We&#39;ll make it work, as long as no one gives up, we&#39;ll make it work.

Which means we can&#39;t have any quitters in the middle of the project unless we all decide to abandon it. This is essential. >:(

This is of course true. I plan to do much of the editing. I&#39;ve done it for a friend of mine who was writing a story of his own. And if my abilities fail, my mother was an editor for a Congressman way back when.

[S.ifr]

I try to think of us as "eccentric" rather than "crazy". :P We&#39;ll make it work, as long as no one gives up, we&#39;ll make it work.

Which means we can&#39;t have any quitters in the middle of the project unless we all decide to abandon it. This is essential. >:(

haha alright then, we&#39;re all eccentric enough for it. :D
And that&#39;s one of the problems when working on a project; there&#39;s always that 1 person that decides to leave during the middle of it and screws everyone over.
But I highly doubt that&#39;ll happen here.

[Ionzorg]

I&#39;m just thinking of Livius...He was pretty quick to get out of here when things starting not to go his way. But yes, for the most part, I doubt that it will be much of a problem here. However, I&#39;ve had more than my fair share of projects go awry due to this phenomenon, it would be a shame if this succumbed as well.

[Useful]

I&#39;m just thinking of Livius...He was pretty quick to get out of here when things starting not to go his way. But yes, for the most part, I doubt that it will be much of a problem here. However, I&#39;ve had more than my fair share of projects go awry due to this phenomenon, it would be a shame if this succumbed as well.


Yeah... everyone seen what deterred the person who could turn out to be one of our best three writers? TOO MUCH FANTASY. There&#39;s a guy with his head on straight, he saw the dangers of doing another "Summoning Dragenix" thread as a novel.

[Issitheus]

WAIT...

How about it does have multiple planets, but only a few, like a limited galaxy? Then it would conform to all of our ideas, right?

[Useful]

:-\

Maybe. But only if the mode of interstellar transportation is very low profile and there&#39;s still something an outside reader could see related to the real world.

The problem is, people expect certain things from an interstellar novel, and I&#39;m not sure we could give to them.

[abyssion1337]

ok I&#39;ve caught up, here&#39;s what I think AMNESIA BAD: instead we could do something like having our main characters life before this adventure fairly uneventful. Second; I&#39;m still for intergelatic, yes I&#39;ve read many scifi novels with complicated planitary systems but we can remedy this by saying there is no uniting rule of any kind and making things up as we go from plannet to plannet(a ver successful approach)

[Ionzorg]

Well, I&#39;m at least glad to see that we&#39;re all sort of conforming to a general formula. Low-profile, realistic, possibly planet to planet travel, but nothing too complex.

[Useful]

Okay. Looks I&#39;m going to start quoting some of my previous posts because this entire thread appears to have amnesia.

We&#39;ll loose Vilius, who would be an invaluable addition to our team. We&#39;ll also loose much of our hope of making a coherent novel.

Lastly, if we&#39;re going to do a sci-fi, the sheer amount of plainning we&#39;re going to have to do will make this thread lose the interest of the forums. This I am sure of I&#39;ve tried to this before it&#39;s almost impossible.

[Issitheus]

But Earth is the central planet, of course.

And Useful, who cares? As long as we&#39;re dedicated to this novel, it&#39;ll work.

[S.ifr]

Lastly, if we&#39;re going to do a sci-fi, the sheer amount of plainning we&#39;re going to have to do will make this thread lose the interest of the forums. This I am sure of I&#39;ve tried to this before it&#39;s almost impossible.

Have you done this before with us though ?

[abyssion1337]

ok let me rephraise this, it&#39;s an adventure novel with scifi themes

[Useful]

I have not done this with someone else. The thing is, if ONE person couldn&#39;t keep it coherent, how on earth can you expect FIVE OR SIX people to keep a coherent story. It&#39;s simply not reasonable.

Okay, I have a question: why do we need other planets? I don&#39;t see a need for it, we can just make it in the near future with some kind of... interesting aspect that has evolved about the internet.

[Issitheus]

Yeah, like abys said. but it can be an interplanetary adventure.

[Ionzorg]

Okay. Looks I&#39;m going to start quoting some of my previous posts because this entire thread appears to have amnesia.

We&#39;ll loose Vilius, who would be an invaluable addition to our team. We&#39;ll also loose much of our hope of making a coherent novel.

Lastly, if we&#39;re going to do a sci-fi, the sheer amount of plainning we&#39;re going to have to do will make this thread lose the interest of the forums. This I am sure of I&#39;ve tried to this before it&#39;s almost impossible.


Yes, that&#39;s why I said possibly planet-to-planet travel.

I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve ever outright failed in an attempt to write a novel (or rather, novels that weren&#39;t completed due to me not having time or losing interest), but then again, I&#39;ve never written a sci-fi before...so I&#39;m playing it safe and sticking with Useful. Also, I think intergalactic travel would add something to the novel, but not enough to justify the excess work for coherence that it would entail.

[S.ifr]

I have not done this with someone else. The thing is, if ONE person couldn&#39;t keep it coherent, how on earth can you expect FIVE OR SIX people to keep a coherent story. It&#39;s simply not reasonable.

Did you forget who you&#39;re talking to ?
It&#39;s us, something like that will most likely not happen because that&#39;s how eccentric we are. You shouldn&#39;t be so negative about this.

And I also agree with Theus and Abyss

[Useful]

People are forgetting something: we also have to describe the worlds and still have it not take up much time. We need an explanation for why colonization occurs, what the mode of transportation is, and how cultures differ between Earthers and colonists.

Edit: This is simply not work that we need to do. We&#39;re dooming this project before it really starts by making it too complex. Sam, please read my previous posts on why doing a sci-fi is pretty much guaranteed destruction.

[Issitheus]

Okay, let&#39;s have it take place entirely on Earth at first, but in a future where interplanetary travel is possible and logical. If we have the story under control enough, we might be able to take it to a few other planets.

[abyssion1337]

but we don&#39;t, you seem to forget that if we make it an adventure novel we don&#39;t have to explain how the scifi parts work

I should get my girlfriend in on this, she&#39;s a great writter (better than me and I take pride in my writting)

[Useful]

General notice: please read my edit.



Okay, let&#39;s have it take place entirely on Earth, but in a future where interplanetary travel is possible and logical. If we have the story under control enough, we might be able to take it to a few other planets.

But now why do we need that? At that point, simply mentioning it will take up extra space that we don&#39;t need to sacrifice to unnecessary exposition.

Abyss, I want to know what you mean by an adventure novel.

[Issitheus]

Okay, let&#39;s just go with an adventure novel with no interplanetary travel. But if we do, we&#39;ll need a new title. "A Forgiving Abyss" doesn&#39;t much sound like an adventure novel. How about we write it, then when we&#39;re done, we name it?

[abyssion1337]

that&#39;s a bit more difficult to answer; I have to go after this post so I&#39;ll just try to explain: we focus on the character and his adventure; while it has a scifi setting we keep it story oriented by leaving complex scifi explanations out

[Issitheus]

Yes!

[S.ifr]

Seconded, I was going to say that things were getting more difficult than they needed to be.

[Useful]

that&#39;s a bit more difficult to answer; I have to go after this post so I&#39;ll just try to explain: we focus on the character and his adventure; while it has a scifi setting we keep it story oriented by leaving complex scifi explanations out

Problem: that&#39;s not a sci-fi novel. Without explanation, the entire purpose of having sci-fi elements disappears. Sci-fi novels are designed to contain stories that could not be contemplated within the real world. We&#39;re not thinking of a plot that will necessitate such a setting, so there&#39;s no need for a sci-fi setting.

[Ionzorg]

I&#39;ll be back soon, I have to go for about ten minutes or so. Which in this thread is a surprisingly long time.

[Issitheus]

How about it&#39;s just set in the future, but it&#39;s just an adventure novel. the future gives some elements of science fiction, but it&#39;s in no way a sci-fi novel. the sci-fi elements put an interesting twist on your standard adventure novel.

[Useful]

How about it&#39;s just set in the future, but it&#39;s just an adventure novel. the future gives some elements of science fiction, but it&#39;s in no way a sci-fi novel. the sci-fi elements put an interesting twist on your standard adventure novel.

Hahahaha! *imagine Light laugh*. That is my idea. Well, I&#39;m sorry everybody, but I managed to warp everybody except Abys into agreeing with me. I&#39;m not sure if that falls under evil or just manipulative. Oh well, I&#39;m happy. But I want you all to look at the decisions I&#39;ve led you to make, so please think about that.

I&#39;m sorry, I&#39;m very good at this, It&#39;s one of my more twisted talents.

[Issitheus]

No, you&#39;re just too attached to your idea and won&#39;t budge. We&#39;re conforming to you so you&#39;ll help.

[Useful]

I&#39;m sorry. Really, I am. You&#39;re right, I&#39;m very attached to my idea. But I&#39;m also convinced that it&#39;s by far the most plausible for us to write. So please ignore everything I&#39;ve said up to this point. I&#39;ve wanted to write my own book and I subconsciously decided that I could convince the forum to help me write it in a way. I release all my hold on my previous ideas as of now, I&#39;m willing to help on whatever we come up with.

[Issitheus]

Yeah, I was the same way at first. We forgive you. We&#39;ll go with whatever idea we all agree on, then maybe if we write a second novel, we could do a sci-fi, since we&#39;ll have more experience.

[Ionzorg]

Right then. So does anyone want to let the forums know what the final result of all of this bickering is? I&#39;d like to make sure everyone understands what everyone else is thinking.

[Useful]

Yes. I&#39;m going to send out a PM to Vilius, Sam, Abys, and Nipple.

It will include everything we have up until this point.

Question: we&#39;re going to do a light sci-fi novel, right? We can do something more complex next time, I just don&#39;t think we&#39;re ready for it. I know I&#39;m not and I&#39;m a pretty accomplished writer.

[Ionzorg]

I was kind of thinking me too...because although I understand the ideas we&#39;ve had, it would be nice to see them nicely and logically compiled. So I&#39;d like that PM too, when you get to making it.

Edit: Yes, I&#39;m totally up for that.

[Useful]

General notice: please read my edits.

Can do Zorg. I just want confirmation on the genre from everybody that&#39;s on right now so we don&#39;t alienate Abyss and Sam.

[Ionzorg]

I don&#39;t think we&#39;re ready either, so I&#39;m glad we&#39;ve reached a compromise. :) I also like the idea of a "next time", if this turns out to be a success.

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m not sure how I feel about nipple on this, he&#39;s new and his english isn&#39;t that good; if everyone else think he&#39;s fine then I&#39;ll shut up

[Ionzorg]

I say we give him a chance, it&#39;s always worth a shot. He might be just the sort of abstract and creative thinker we&#39;d like, just without superior writing skills.

[Useful]

I&#39;m sure he&#39;s intelligent, but the n00b I REALLY want in on this is DaMetzger. He&#39;s fluent in English and highly intelligent.

Well, I&#39;ll send it to him too. You&#39;re okay with the light sci-fi genre Abyss? I don&#39;t want to just steamroll you because you&#39;re the minority now.

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m on board with scifi and fair enough about nipple, but I&#39;m not a huge fan of metzger (I may not have demonstrated it but I&#39;m a decent enough writter and my girlfriend is an english major so we have that base covered, again I can&#39;t prevent anyone from joining I&#39;m just giving my opinion)

[Ionzorg]

I didn&#39;t think about that, but you&#39;re right, DaMetzger would be a good addition, as far as I can tell. I&#39;d say it&#39;s worth giving anyone a chance, and if we figure that they&#39;re not good enough, or are too self-absorbed, or anything like that, we&#39;ll veto them. I haven&#39;t really psychologically evaluated the n00bs on the forum yet, so I&#39;m not sure who else we should conscript...Suggestions?

[abyssion1337]

I always liked masterage

[Issitheus]

I believe we&#39;ve chosen adventure with light sci-fi tones,takes place entirely on Earth, and has a character named Abyss. I say now we work on plot. Once we have plot, or as we make the plot, we do the characters. Then we simplify to plot points, if we haven&#39;t done that already, and then we start writing.

[Issitheus]

I always liked masterage

You know, he&#39;s really busy with Blitz! 1 right now... I&#39;ll see if he wants to join in, though.

[Ionzorg]

I always liked masterage

You know, he&#39;s really busy with Blitz! 1 right now... I&#39;ll see if he wants to join in, though.

Good idea, he seemed quite competent and intelligent, from what I&#39;ve seen of him.

Are we going to have the main character be amnesic or not? Something we haven&#39;t yet determined.

[abyssion1337]

I already gave my opinion of that and I want to know what everyone else thinks

[Issitheus]

You know, I don&#39;t really care for it, but if I&#39;m overruled, I&#39;m fine with it.

[Useful]

I second the Masterage idea, he&#39;s one of the smartest people on the forum.

He&#39;s also (as far as I know) older than the rest of us.

About that: I&#39;m not sure. I liked him as being a representation of the psyche of the internet. And though it&#39;s also a really cool idea and we wouldn&#39;t have to worry at all bout his characterization, I&#39;m not sure if everybody thinks that it&#39;s a good idea as well.

[Issitheus]

I&#39;ve already voiced my opinion, I hate that idea, but again, I&#39;ll be accepting under the circumstances. Though, I&#39;d rather not have it.

[Ionzorg]

Hey, I wasn&#39;t for or against the idea, I was just seeing if we all agreed on an answer. And as it appears, it&#39;s been denied, so there you have it. No amnesia.

Now what?

[Issitheus]

I&#39;ve already laid it out.


I believe we&#39;ve chosen adventure with light sci-fi tones,takes place entirely on Earth, and has a character named Abyss. I say now we work on plot. Once we have plot, or as we make the plot, we do the characters. Then we simplify to plot points, if we haven&#39;t done that already, and then we start writing.

[Ionzorg]

Yes, but now we have to expand, and get into a little bit of detail.

Edit: Maybe we should start with figuring out what will occur near the end so we can work towards that. So, who is Abyss, and what is her purpose for being in the story?
Edit: 1000th post! 8)

[abyssion1337]

hmm, I&#39;d like to hear everyone&#39;s ideas

EDIT: beriorgar&#39;s online let&#39;s get him too

[Issitheus]

I was gonna say let&#39;s let Abyss himself decide.

[abyssion1337]

that&#39;s a poor way to do it, when don&#39;t even know what we&#39;re doing yet

[Ionzorg]

Yes, Useful, you might want to send beriorgar a PM when you get to it.

Alright, an idea is that Abyss is a screen name for someone, a very important anonymous person on the internet, that the main character is trying to locate for whatever reason. Good start?

[beriorgar]

ah, so here we got our book, i&#39;m curious to see what we have got so far, and i am willing to help out any way i can

[abyssion1337]

ok zorg, that&#39;s a very interesting idea, can you elaborate

[masterage]

I&#39;ve no idea how much help (if any) I can give. College is starting soon and I&#39;ll need to find out my workload before I can figure this out.

[Issitheus]

I don&#39;t care for the idea of involving the internet in any way. Abyss should be an actual name, or at least a nickname, and they are somehow incredibly important, possibly to the fate of the world.

[masterage]

I don&#39;t care for the idea of involving the internet in any way. Abyss should be an actual name, or at least a nickname, and they are somehow incredibly important, possibly to the fate of the world.

Make it a title. Abyss is the codename held by...[fill in the blank here]

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;ve no idea how much help (if any) I can give. College is starting soon and I&#39;ll need to find out my workload before I can figure this out.
same here but I&#39;m still giving it a shot

[Useful]

Alright, an idea is that Abyss is a screen name for someone, a very important anonymous person on the internet, that the main character is trying to locate for whatever reason. Good start?

Yup, that&#39;s basically the idea I had. I was thinking Abyss has something important to tell him. The other forum members meet the main character along the way, and guide him towards Abyss without telling him what they&#39;re doing.

Oh yeah, I already PM&#39;d Beri, that&#39;s why he&#39;s here. We&#39;re just looking for definite plot elements right now, toss in whatever you want.

[Ionzorg]

Okay, creative thinking here. Let&#39;s see...Our main character could actually be a criminal, or a hacker of some kind, but we&#39;d write the book as if the reader is meant to be on his side. (Like Ocean&#39;s 11-13.) So he&#39;s trying to get some essential information from Abyss that only she knows, but she&#39;s almost completely anonymous and untraceable. The main character would have accomplices, and they would be the other forum members who guide him along.

[abyssion1337]

I was hoping to avoid a cyberpunk novel but I&#39;m interested so go on

[Useful]

Hmmm... cool idea Zorg, but then it&#39;s hard to put in any sci-fi elements. On top of that, I still like a character who kind of gets thrown into events, that seems to have gone over well with everyone so far.

[Issitheus]

We could have the worst plot ever and have Abyss say that she has a picture of the main character kissing someone of the same sex, then it turns out at the end she doesn&#39;t.

[beriorgar]

We could have the worst plot ever and have Abyss say that she has a picture of the main character kissing someone of the same sex, then it turns out at the end she doesn&#39;t.

dunno, sounds a bit lame

[abyssion1337]

that seem a bit pointless, I was hoping for something heavyer

[Ionzorg]

^ Yeah, but no. :P

Yes, you&#39;re right about that, Useful...What if the main character was an average person, but a person with an interesting past that we could tie in? Abyss somehow contacts him, and gives him an important task, one that would ultimately and greatly affect his future, that he decided to try and accomplish?

[Useful]

Iss... please be serious.

I want a consensus: do we want to involve the internet? I think we could end up with some really cool stuff if we did, but I hear that some people want to avoid it. I just don&#39;t see how we&#39;re going to do a whole bunch of cool adventure-y type stuff without throwing in the forum somehow.

Edit: Okay, but I still like the idea of the character not knowing who Abyss really is. That shouldn&#39;t be hard. Also, no "Fate of the world" crap. If there&#39;s one thing that&#39;s been cliche&#39;d into oblivion, it&#39;s that.

[masterage]

^ Yeah, but no. :P

Yes, you&#39;re right about that, Useful...What if the main character was an average person, but a person with an interesting past that we could tie in? Abyss somehow contacts him, and gives him an important task, one that would ultimately and greatly affect his future, that he decided to try and accomplish?

So it turns into .hack and Aura? -_-

Abyss has to mean something...symbolic.

[Issitheus]

Wake up, (insert character name here). Our story has you.

I&#39;d prefer we don&#39;t use the internet, but...

[Ionzorg]

Alright then, if that&#39;s the consensus, then we&#39;ll start from scratch. I also agree that we need to determine what significance the Abyss character will have, as she&#39;s apparently going to be the main driving force for the plot and will be occupying the title.

Edit:


I want a consensus: do we want to involve the internet?

[Useful]

General notice: please read my edit.

Yes, that&#39;s what I saw coming Sage. It&#39;s the reason I want the main character in the dark as much as possible. It&#39;s a great way to create suspense and keep the reader hooked. Also, it allows each writer to make up elements about Abyss&#39; personality as we go along, requiring little actual characterization. I think the result will be very realistic.

[Issitheus]

Okay, no fate of the world, main character doesn&#39;t know who Abyss is, and no Internet playing a major part.

[abyssion1337]

so does this mean we&#39;re not doing the interplannitary thing?

[Useful]

Okay, I still don&#39;t here anything on the "Internet a major theme" yet, so I&#39;m making a poll. Please vote.

And Abyss is definitely going to be a girl, right?

Edit:


so does this mean we&#39;re not doing the interplanetary thing?

That&#39;s correct, it would require far too much background, and as it is, we don&#39;t really need it to keep the story going. If necessary, we can reinstate it, but it all depends on the plot.

[beriorgar]

a girl is fine with me

[Issitheus]

Maybe next time, abys.

And yes, Abyss is going to be a girl, unlike irl.

[Ionzorg]

And yes, Abyss is going to be a girl, unlike irl.


Oooooh snap.

I will be sure to vote. As of right now, because of disagreements, we don&#39;t have anything solid yet, except for the genre and format. Would it be alright if everyone just "agreed to disagree" for a while so we can get started?

[Issitheus]

Internet shouldn&#39;t be a major plot thing, but used once or twice, perhaps.

[abyssion1337]

useful, did you send out those pm&#39;s cause I got nothing

[Useful]

Nah, I just posted the poll. I have to eat dinner now, so by the time I&#39;m done I expect voting to be done. NO INFLUENCING PEOPLE BEFORE THEY VOTE.

No, I haven&#39;t sent the PMs out yet, only to Beri and Sage.

[masterage]

Alright then, if that&#39;s the consensus, then we&#39;ll start from scratch. I also agree that we need to determine what significance the Abyss character will have, as she&#39;s apparently going to be the main driving force for the plot and will be occupying the title.

For using the internet, I&#39;m for it, but in a different form. Sci-fi future peoples have to find info, too :D

For the significance of Abyss...

Abyss IS the internet-form...thus an endless abyss of info. Gained sentience after not an incident or an accident, but the natural progress of itself. Cannot ever be truly human, but is quite close...want to see existence from outside dataspace and creates a body...
Abyss is the codename given to the girl in each generation that is in charge of something extremely important. Like the keys of war...she has to be protected from any outside source, and even herself, lest humanity ends on a girl&#39;s whim...

[abyssion1337]

good ideas

let&#39;s all take a break till he gets back

[Ionzorg]

It would just be a good idea if no one even posted in that thread. Vote, but don&#39;t post, because it may just complicate matters.



For the significance of Abyss...

Abyss IS the internet-form...thus an endless abyss of info. Gained sentience after not an incident or an accident, but the natural progress of itself. Cannot ever be truly human, but is quite close...want to see existence from outside dataspace and creates a body...
Abyss is the codename given to the girl in each generation that is in charge of something extremely important. Like the keys of war...she has to be protected from any outside source, and even herself, lest humanity ends on a girl&#39;s whim...



Sounding REALLY good there, I&#39;m glad someone decided to generate a good applicable metaphor for the internet, should we want to use it. ;D

Edit: But I think we&#39;ve already sort of vetoed the concept of adding war elements in there...Everything else is great, but war might be a bit too intricate.

[beriorgar]

using the internet does sound like a nice idea, however, we should be carefull not to make it look like LAIN

[masterage]

It would just be a good idea if no one even posted in that thread. Vote, but don&#39;t post, because it may just complicate matters.



For the significance of Abyss...

Abyss IS the internet-form...thus an endless abyss of info. Gained sentience after not an incident or an accident, but the natural progress of itself. Cannot ever be truly human, but is quite close...want to see existence from outside dataspace and creates a body...
Abyss is the codename given to the girl in each generation that is in charge of something extremely important. Like the keys of war...she has to be protected from any outside source, and even herself, lest humanity ends on a girl&#39;s whim...



Sounding REALLY good there, I&#39;m glad someone decided to generate a good applicable metaphor for the internet, should we want to use it. ;D

Edit: But I think we&#39;ve already sort of vetoed the concept of adding war in there...everything else is good, but war might be a bit too intricate.

well, destruction, end of humanity, etc...can replace war :D
And why it has to be a girl...

[Issitheus]

Abyss is the codename given to the girl in each generation that is in charge of something extremely important. Like the keys of war...she has to be protected from any outside source, and even herself, lest humanity ends on a girl&#39;s whim...


That&#39;s a REALLY good idea. I think we should do it.

and abys, who Abyss is based on, is supposedly a girl.

[abyssion1337]

I can find a way to do internet things with that

[Useful]

Crap, not the end of the world stuff again :-\. Anyway, the second idea that everybody&#39;s liking sounds a whole lot like Buffy. No offense, Sage.

Meanwhile, the first idea sounds a lot like the one I&#39;d come up with before, with Abyss as the "Avatar of the people" instead of the main character. I much prefer that one, it&#39;s more original... but I don&#39;t want a "sentient supercomputer gone wrong" gig.

[Issitheus]

I&#39;m not really in a thinking/arguing mood right now, I just support Age&#39;s second idea, no major internet, and the end of the world seems like good motivation.

[Useful]

Can we please remember how many times the "end of the world" thing has been done? And I just remembered something else a lot like that idea: Saikano.

[Ionzorg]

I just like the fact that it&#39;s a great metaphor, we don&#39;t necessarily have to incorporate the internet in it&#39;s real form, per se. But it&#39;s up to the majority vote. And I don&#39;t see a problem with it being a girl, seems like it just sort of ended up that way.

So, in other words, I support Age&#39;s idea if everyone else does. If so, than what is Abyss "in charge of", so to speak?

Also, would you care to explain more fully your "Avatar of the people" concept, Useful?

[Useful]

Here&#39;s how it goes: the number of people online has grown to the point that it has created other beings in it&#39;s midst that act just like normal humans. They take on screen names and supposed personalities. They represent the thoughts of the billions of people around them, except that they are willing to say whatever they want because they are not (in the physical sense) real. One has taken on the name Abyss referring to the depths of humanity&#39;s mind that is never looked at. She knows the ultimate outcome of this strange phenomenon of the phantom only entities and needs the main character to help her.

[Issitheus]

That&#39;s a pretty good idea... maybe late in the story Abyss can manifest herself physically...

[masterage]

Abyss is the codename given to the girl in each generation that is in charge of something extremely important. Like the keys of war...she has to be protected from any outside source, and even herself, lest humanity ends on a girl&#39;s whim...


That&#39;s a REALLY good idea. I think we should do it.

and abys, who Abyss is based on, is supposedly a girl.


Crap, not the end of the world stuff again :-\. Anyway, the second idea that everybody&#39;s liking sounds a whole lot like Buffy. No offense, Sage.

Then let&#39;s deBuffy it.

To the world governments, her name is Abyss. Her second X chromosome has mutated a slight bit (like all the other Abyssi before her) to where her brain is wired just a bit differently. The Abyssi can store incredible amounts of information, but cannot recall it themselves. It is always the most critical info for the time (and is always placed by the government of which she was born), and thus she must be protected without her ever finding out who she really is.

[Insert science data that could change the world, like instructions to an artificial virus that will kill 50% of humanity but then render the remaining nearly immortal or something]

Going off the above theory, enter two factions, one of which wants to perfect the killing side (to hold the world hostage) and one that wants to perfect the immortal side (A misguided attempt to save humanity from itself) of the virus. Then enter main character, who is crushing on the girl rather hard.

Goal is simple: keep the girl safe and without her finding out who she is while escaping/fighting two factions off at once.

Technology has advanced to the point where everyday clothing can augment a person specific physical strengths, for use in emergency situations and to defend ones self. Society has moved beyond the current violence...

[abyssion1337]

another interesting take, it sounds like we might end up writing an entire series based on all of our ideas lol, or maybe we should have a contest to see who can write the best one, lol

[abyssion1337]

I like it, but we need it grittier

[Issitheus]

Abyss is the codename given to the girl in each generation that is in charge of something extremely important. Like the keys of war...she has to be protected from any outside source, and even herself, lest humanity ends on a girl&#39;s whim...


That&#39;s a REALLY good idea. I think we should do it.

and abys, who Abyss is based on, is supposedly a girl.


Crap, not the end of the world stuff again :-\. Anyway, the second idea that everybody&#39;s liking sounds a whole lot like Buffy. No offense, Sage.

Then let&#39;s deBuffy it.

To the world governments, her name is Abyss. Her second X chromosome has mutated a slight bit (like all the other Abyssi before her) to where her brain is wired just a bit differently. The Abyssi can store incredible amounts of information, but cannot recall it themselves. It is always the most critical info for the time (and is always placed by the government of which she was born), and thus she must be protected without her ever finding out who she really is.

[Insert science data that could change the world, like instructions to an artificial virus that will kill 50% of humanity but then render the remaining nearly immortal or something]

Going off the above theory, enter two factions, one of which wants to perfect the killing side (to hold the world hostage) and one that wants to perfect the immortal side (A misguided attempt to save humanity from itself) of the virus. Then enter main character, who is crushing on the girl rather hard.

Goal is simple: keep the girl safe and without her finding out who she is while escaping/fighting two factions off at once.

Technology has advanced to the point where everyday clothing can augment a person specific physical strengths, for use in emergency situations and to defend ones self. Society has moved beyond the current violence...

That&#39;s epic. And quite the win. I vote for it.

[Ionzorg]

Yeah, but I think the forum&#39;s collaboration is what will make this the most fun. Let&#39;s keep it that way. :)

I like both ideas, let&#39;s hear your opinion.
Edit: I think if these become our highest rated ideas, we might need a poll to determine which one is the forum&#39;s favourite.

V ?

[Issitheus]

You know mine.

[masterage]

Abyss is the codename given to the girl in each generation that is in charge of something extremely important. Like the keys of war...she has to be protected from any outside source, and even herself, lest humanity ends on a girl&#39;s whim...


That&#39;s a REALLY good idea. I think we should do it.

and abys, who Abyss is based on, is supposedly a girl.


Crap, not the end of the world stuff again :-\. Anyway, the second idea that everybody&#39;s liking sounds a whole lot like Buffy. No offense, Sage.

Then let&#39;s deBuffy it.

To the world governments, her name is Abyss. Her second X chromosome has mutated a slight bit (like all the other Abyssi before her) to where her brain is wired just a bit differently. The Abyssi can store incredible amounts of information, but cannot recall it themselves. It is always the most critical info for the time (and is always placed by the government of which she was born), and thus she must be protected without her ever finding out who she really is.

[Insert science data that could change the world, like instructions to an artificial virus that will kill 50% of humanity but then render the remaining nearly immortal or something]

Going off the above theory, enter two factions, one of which wants to perfect the killing side (to hold the world hostage) and one that wants to perfect the immortal side (A misguided attempt to save humanity from itself) of the virus. Then enter main character, who is crushing on the girl rather hard.

Goal is simple: keep the girl safe and without her finding out who she is while escaping/fighting two factions off at once.

Technology has advanced to the point where everyday clothing can augment a person specific physical strengths, for use in emergency situations and to defend ones self. Society has moved beyond the current violence...

The people of the time wear collar-like devices (of which there are uncountable fashions and versions, but all basically do the same thing). The clothes react to the verbal instructions heard by the collar.

The reason why the girl must never know is that not only will it make her a bigger target than she already is, but then she can enter the world politics herself. The Abyssi were to promore peace by locking all the secrets of humanity away, and they die when the Abyss dies.

[abyssion1337]

I knew there was a reason I like sage

[Issitheus]

I&#39;m not sure I understand the last sentence there

[Useful]

Hmm. I see that Sage&#39;s idea is very well defined. In all honesty I could have written a lot more about the "avatar" idea, but I decided against it to avoid locking people too much into a set plot when they write.

This is the thing that I forgot to mention to Beri and Sage: we&#39;re trying to make it so that everyone can contribute in a kind of "pick it up and run with it" way. There will be a beginning, some plot points and an ending, but we don&#39;t want to make it too well defined or people will lose their freedom. Also, I had the feeling that people might want to include versions of themselves or at least other characters, and I&#39;m not sure of a way to do that with the current plot.

Agree/disagree?

[masterage]

That&#39;s just something I cooked up very quickly...and that story doesn&#39;t have all the details, but is a respectable base to work off of.

My character is easy to fit in, since he literally just pops in :D

[Issitheus]

Umm... Age? Clarification?

The Abyssi were to promore peace by locking all the secrets of humanity away, and they die when the Abyss dies.

[Ionzorg]

*currently bystanding*

[abyssion1337]

actually I think the idea leaves lots of room

[masterage]

Umm... Age? Clarification?

The Abyssi were to promore peace by locking all the secrets of humanity away, and they die when the Abyss dies.


The governments know of all the &#39;mad scientist&#39; experiments going on, but instead of halting them (due to a massive decision of freedom of action), they instead lock them away as a gesture of goodwill. The secrets aren&#39;t ever supposed to be taken out, and thus die when the host (Abyssi) dies.

The Abyssi are nothing but an urban legend to everyone but the higher-ups of the world governments.

[Issitheus]

Okay, I love that idea.