Book or Story? - What's your approach?

[SirArtemis]

Here's a question for all you writers out there. How would you describe your approach to writing threads on Althanas? Would you say your stories are generally chapters of a larger book/story? Or are each of your threads approached as independent stories? Or perhaps something else entirely?

[Silence Sei]

I like to view Sei's escapades as a comic book of sorts. He has the primary story, but dozens of tie-ins that may or may not affect continuity depending on the time. He even has one shots that aren't canonical, and seemingly different writing here and there.

So yeah, there ya go.

[Zook Murnig]

I take the stance that I have one long storyline, with a few points along it where threads can take place. All in all, though, I take a "series of short stories" approach. If I ever write a book, I might take that approach there, too.

[Sagequeen]

I take the stance that I have one long storyline, with a few points along it where threads can take place. All in all, though, I take a "series of short stories" approach. If I ever write a book, I might take that approach there, too.

Yes, same here. I tend to miss out on the richness I can incorporate into a character if it's one I haven't developed. I love to watch them grow, see how they react to things, and find out where they end up. Often, I don't know until it happens. So the threads are short stories in a single timeline; I couldn't have put it better myself.

[Elrundir]

I'm not sure I'd call it either, really... perhaps in Elrundir's case, it's more a book than anything else. He hasn't often been the type to engage in "side stories." But for Christina, I'd say it's been more like a series of short... books? A series of novellas? Something like that. It's just tended to be that something happens to her, and then next thing you know, it's turning into a whole storyline that adds to her growth as a person.

[Letho]

I think that when you're new and you're only starting out, you generally write stuff like a book, because you're not in too much stories at one time and it's easy to catalog them. But after a few levels and a few dozen quests there's so much stuff, and some happened before, and some happened after, and some happened before some other stuff, though technically it happened after, and it gets rather complicated. Unless a quest is a direct followup in some longer arc, I don't necessarily have the events all lined up on the time line for Letho. I reference a lot of them, but I don't need them in any specific order most of the time. The main issue that comes up is when the people you write with advance the age of their character and you don't or when you do it and they do not. And then it becomes questionable in which timeline is the story occurring, or do you just ignore it and sort of blur that inconsistency a bit when you write.

So long story short, some of the quests of mine are done in a specific sequence, but a good number of them could've happened at any point and I prefer to leave it like that, because it gives me more freedom regarding where my character is and what he's doing.

EDIT: Also, it depends on the character. With Jared, another account of mine, I wrote only with The Valkyrie/Slavegirl and we had a rather complex story that spanned some four or so quests. So those were done like a book. But with Victor it's mostly short stories stuff, with each one generally not connected to the previous one. So Victor was a pirate, and a pimp's bodyguard, and a carriage driver and a whole lot of other things. Both ways are fun, though, so just stick with what you're comfortable with.

[Wynken]

I tend to write chronologically as though each of Wynken's adventures are part of a single story. As Letho said, this may not always be possible, and I've taken the opportunity to digress on occasion. For the most part though, I've thus far written as though my threads are chapters in a book. It seems more accurate or truthful to me that way - like it adds to my experience here.

I've always been one to write within unnecessarily rigid structures. Even poetically, I have to force myself beyond familiar rhyme schemes and meters. Here, I tend to get hung up on cannon and I second guess a great deal of my content, which is limiting and partially due to how new I am. So, perhaps it would enable me to grow as a writer if I were to abandon the book format and focus more on individual, free-style stories.

[SirArtemis]

When I write my solos, I tend to have the goal in mind before I start writing and then just find my way to the finish line. When I start, I never really know how I plan to get to the end. I have a general story line for my character but it transforms as I go.

However, when I write with others, that sort of goes out the window and I just try to make a good story out of it.

[orphans]

I have a horrible grasp of liquid time so I try to have my threads as linear as possible. As Letho mentioned, I'm starting to run into the block of having my character advance in age (since I started her off at 12, now 14) and... not really sure how it's going to be explained (a wizard did it maybe~).

My approach is book-like. Everything (or most things...) that I do has some sort of relevance or canon to Azza. Imagine a single point at the end with many lines flowing to it... yeah...

That's the fun of the challenge for me I suppose. Trying to weave everything together.

[Amen]

I consider all my threads fairly linear, falling somewhere on a timeline with the exception of some battles, and Marcus is getting older/changing. Generally I do that by leaving it vague how long he's been away when he runs into a character he's met before (and I love it when that happens).

I don't really consider his story book material, at least not what I've written so far. A book ought to have steadily rising action (not continually rising and falling action) and a larger point than "he lived, he did awesome things, he died." I guess I flat out consider them short stories. I'd be full of shit if I didn't admit that my writing and Marcus himself extend in part from Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian short stories.

[The International]

I'm of the individual story mindset myself. If I go for a book then I'm doing myself a disservice because I'm not going to finish it.

[Jack Frost]

I kinda do a loose plot of threads that if put on a graph could form a fairly general story line. With new Jack I plan to be looser perhaps, but still keep a basic plot and have Jack run circles trying to do whatever the hell I want him to do long term...

[Elthas_Belthasar]

I've always had more of a book-writing approach.

Since as far back as I could remember, I enjoyed writing in a more descriptive writing style. I enjoy writers like Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth series) and R.A. Salvatore. (Lot's of AD&D books) I admire those writing styles a lot. I'm also a fan of Anne Rice (Hence my darker writing style) and I tend to look up to a lot of other writers. Anyway that's my two cents. I hope that it helps somebody out.