Thanks for bringing it to my attention! Having an interest in visual novels, interactive fiction and generally all forms of experimenting with good ol’ prose that just might end up advancing ‘state of the art’ of fiction (I suppose I should call that ambition ‘upgrading the prose’ - have you seen this or that?) I was immediately attracted by your term ‘a story-like object’: I am interested in exactly the kind of stuff that might be hard to put a label on.
I decided to take a peek, and read through it all. Didn’t expect to enjoy it like I did. You know, something like this might lie at the beginning of a novel or game, but us common readers do not get to read it.
You know, there’s a peculiar game studio from London called Failbetter Games, makers of Escapist’s 2009 “Browser Game of the Year” called Fallen London. That’s a kind of game studio that, when deciding to make an expansion to their game, starts with hiring writers; Fallen London is over 1.5 million words. When asked how they keep track of their established canon and avoid overwriting other plots, they say:
Q.: When it came to designing the plot lines for islands, how did you make sure to keep them from overwriting other plots or established canon? What methods did you use to keep it in check?
A.: Things we use: (i) a house style document (ii) a giant Google spreadsheet of info ranked in rows by subject and in columns from ‘public’ to ‘unrevealable secret’
I presume you are not sure what it is you’re writing? If you were to ask me, this story-like object of yours is not a story. Rather it has the trappings of just such a guideline for writing a novel or a series, maybe even written collaboratively by several authors. It has (i) and maybe (ii), too: these individual FAQ paragraphs could as well be made those spreadsheet cells, ranked from ‘public’ to ‘unrevealable secret’ and from that you would start picking and choosing details and making that into a story, game or whatever you call it; short story or novella won’t even have place for all of the detail; whatever gets shown would be decided as much by the laws of narrative as by the inner logic you present here.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention! Having an interest in visual novels, interactive fiction and generally all forms of experimenting with good ol’ prose that just might end up advancing ‘state of the art’ of fiction (I suppose I should call that ambition ‘upgrading the prose’ - have you seen this or that?) I was immediately attracted by your term ‘a story-like object’: I am interested in exactly the kind of stuff that might be hard to put a label on.
I decided to take a peek, and read through it all. Didn’t expect to enjoy it like I did. You know, something like this might lie at the beginning of a novel or game, but us common readers do not get to read it.
You know, there’s a peculiar game studio from London called Failbetter Games, makers of Escapist’s 2009 “Browser Game of the Year” called Fallen London. That’s a kind of game studio that, when deciding to make an expansion to their game, starts with hiring writers; Fallen London is over 1.5 million words. When asked how they keep track of their established canon and avoid overwriting other plots, they say:
I presume you are not sure what it is you’re writing? If you were to ask me, this story-like object of yours is not a story. Rather it has the trappings of just such a guideline for writing a novel or a series, maybe even written collaboratively by several authors. It has (i) and maybe (ii), too: these individual FAQ paragraphs could as well be made those spreadsheet cells, ranked from ‘public’ to ‘unrevealable secret’ and from that you would start picking and choosing details and making that into a story, game or whatever you call it; short story or novella won’t even have place for all of the detail; whatever gets shown would be decided as much by the laws of narrative as by the inner logic you present here.