Need Your Help Coming Up with Polls for Our Story

[Jeff Gerke]

All right, sportsfans. March has been so fun and cool with you guys mixing it up with all your ideas.

However, it's time now to close out the what-ifs and lock down what we're going to be doing in the following months.

As you know, April will be when we write Act I, May will be when we write Act II, and June will be when we write Act III.

So now we have to figure out what the group wants to happen in those acts.

In trying to be as open to everyone's suggestion as possible, I'd like to think about not having us vote on which characters we use, who is the main protagonist, etc. I want everyone to be able to write about the characters he or she likes best, no matter what plot path we choose to follow.

However, we can't be that open when it comes to plot and 3-act structure. We have to decide on one.

Me, I'm ready to just say let's go with dulci's as written in Synopsis 2.0. But there are still some cool things that some of us have liked that didn't make their way into dulci's awesome synopsis.

So I need you to help me figure out how we should even construct the polls. Do we just put dulci's synopsis up against mine and Lletherial's?

We're running out of time for discussion, but I'd like us to find the basic story that we all like. Maybe someone can reply to this thread with an amended version of dulci's synopsis, bringing in the things that were left out that you liked.

Or maybe someone can help me figure out what we should be voting on, or if we even need to vote.

Also, what else do we need to vote on as we close the window on Month #1?

Jeff

P.S. I will be out of town from March 29 through April 3. I'd like to get these polls up before I leave, then have us vote until I return, and then on April 4 or thereabouts we'd institute what the group decided and begin thinking about writing Act I.

[mongoose]

Proposed Topics for votes (the actual nominees I'll let someone else gather from the relevant posts.)

1. Who is the true Divine, or God Head, in our story?
Host?
Hidden God?
The One?
Something I missed?

2. What organizations serve said Divine?
Alliance of Faith?
Arch Mages?
Others I missed?

3. What title should our story have?

4. In the plot, do various contingents of SciFi characters make it to the Fantasy world at different times, or do they all arrive at once?

5. (this one is important to me, but might already have been decided) In what way does Divine reveal itself to people?
Through use of magic and teaching of arch-mages?
Big vision in sky?
Preaching of a few prophets who saw little visions in sky?
Unexplained phenomenon that temporarily stops the fighting, but must be searched out?
Prophets instigate phenomenon that temporarily stops fighting, but then everyone else has to search it out?
Other I might have missed?

6. Which way has the battle gone by the end of Act I? (I suggest we not nail down details yet on Act 2 & 3, but that's my style of writing. Incidentally, it's almost a structured train of consciousness.)
The space marines are winning?
The templars & mages are winning?
Stalemate?
Truce?

7. (maybe we work this one out as we go along?) Who's allied with whom?


Again, these are merely what came to my mind, but there's a myriad of other possibilities.

I double checked Dulci's revised plot synthesis, and realized that I liked it as it was, with only one modification. The entire SF society should not be driven by the same religious convictions, e.g. the search for the orb of power. Rather, political and economic elements would be the primary forces behind the search, with smaller religious groups getting in on it for their own reasons. Most of society, however, I think ought to be atheistic or agnostic at best.

[dulci]

Wow, this is a hard thing to nail down, because I love elements from all three of the synopses and many other stray strands across the boards.

One thing I think DOES need to be polled on and nailed down right away is the point of view we're going to be writing in. I'm assuming it will be third person, but what kind? It might be really confusing for some of us to be writing in third-omniscient and others in third-restrictive.

I don't know how well we could vote on MC's, though, as the proposed synopses are pretty wedded (with the exception of Lltherial's) to the proposed characters in them.

Maybe this: we first vote and lock down the overall storyframe we would most like to see, and then that triffers more votes on more specific aspects of that storyframe like what kind of governments rule both sides, what contexts of macic and tech and any number of mongooses' questions above?

[Jeff Gerke]

Good thinking, dulci (and mongoose). I like the idea of slowly narrowing things down through polls.

As for point of view, whether or not we restrict it may depend on what we're hoping to achieve for the finished product. If we want it to look like a more-or-less unified story that just happened to be written by a group of writers, then we need to all decide upon and agree to use specified POVs.

If, however, we just want as many people as possible to participate and we don't mind that it looks a little like a hodgepodge, then we can let people write as they may.

Maybe we should vote on that, too! I'm not really joking, as that's kind of a philosophical foundation for the project.

But as for omniscient POV in ANY form, I think it should die. I wouldn't want to see it chosen for our novel. However, having said that, if someone wants to contribute and doesn't understand the different POVs and ends up using omniscient, I don't want to chastise that person. I want everyone to feel he or she can contribute, whether they know the terms and skills or not.

Thoughts?

Jeff

[dulci]

So, maybe we should vote on 2 things to start with:

1) Do we want a tight or sprawling story

2) What story-frame do we want to work with

I agree with no omniscient if we can help it! I've only ever seen it work a few times, in the hands of writers at the peak of their craft. Are there any tips on the main site addressing POV? That might be helpful to keep us on track.

[Jeff Gerke]

Dulci,

Both your questions sound new to me.

What do you mean "tight or sprawling"? I think I'd like it to follow a main storyline (tight) but be open enough that folks can write whatever bits they like, even off of the main storyline. So maybe my answer is "mostly tight with the freedom to sprawl a little."

On the second question, are you meaning do we want to stick with the SF people or the fantasy people only? Or are you referring to a time-travel issue?

I don't have any POV articles on the site yet, except for Tip #10 in the tip of the week column, in which I strenuously send people to Self-Editing for the Fiction Writers by Browne and King.

I am going to go ahead and put up a poll about synopses, I think.

Jeff

[dulci]

Ah, sorry I wasn't too clear, I was writing quickly. What I meant was to basically repeat back the hashings about 1) voting on the overall feel of the story, which you'd mentioned in the last post and 2) a synopses vote, which I guess is what I meant about "storyframe"!

So, no, nothing new! Sorry for the mix-up!

I do know that Jeffrey Carver has a good primer on POV and viewpoint at www.writesf.com under Chapter 7, Language and Style, which might be useful in a pinch!

[tk1912]

One poll we probably need to address is which fantasy world is going to be invaded. Is it going to be Lythia or will it be dulci's three-named world?

[terry]

Whenever the starship Enterprise re-enters Earth orbit, the culture aboard suddenly, majically goes from one of near constant conflict to one where secular humanism has triumphed and there are no wars, racism, no bigotry etc. Come on! This is not the way fallen mankind will ever behave.
Withen the main culture there should be a rebel sub-culture with a strong proseltyzing mandate. They should not be the main culture but they should be a strong element of the SiFi group. Perhaps a "Peter denying Jesus three times" incident that would be (with a great commision parallel) he factor to share their faith. Thank you, and have a blessed, insight filled Easter everybody. He is risen; he is risen indeed!