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 |  A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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The Interactives "The Book of Masks"  : A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises."The Wandering Stars" : Sequel to "The Book of Masks.""Student Bodies" : A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.For non-WdC Members "The Book of Masks: Archives" : Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!"The Book of Masks (Abridged)" : Introductory storylines for new readers.Community "BoM/TWS Message Forum" : Community for readers of the interactives."BoM/TWS/SB Wiki" : Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!Current Polls None The Latest 7/1: Interactive: "Solving Other People's Problems" 7/1: Public: "Solving Other People's Problems"
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| Well, October and November didn't work out the way I wanted them to. Let's hope December goes better. Let's all hope so, because it's supposed to be a BoM-specific month. The first chapter of the month is now up—"The Girls From Different Worlds" —which continues from the last chapter I posted back in October ("The World Smashers" ). Will is working with Keith and his YouTuber friends, and they've decided to do some "Freaky Friday" type body-swapping mischief on some of their classmates. In this storyline they decide to swap the rich, snooty Kelsey Blankenship with the wrong-side-of-the-railroad-tracks punk rocker Sienna Goldman.This will be a seven-chapter arc. |
| I wrote some more "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" , and added them to the item. This time I made sure to include something that might appeal to fans of BoM. |
| I still need to tackle those next few chapters. But I made the mistake of buying and starting to read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, so instead yesterday I tried making up stories like the ones in that collection. In the interest of transparency, here they are: "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" . |
| I don't think it's spoiler-y to say that this story is emerging in 5- to 7-chapter chunks. That's the usual way I write in BoM for instance: I get an idea for where the story needs to be in 5 to 7 to 10 chapters, and write my way toward that destination. The difference between BoM and the UYAN is these chunks aren't just a destination, but conform to a particular "act" structure. You might be able to guess what that act structure is, but to confirm or deny it would be spoiler-y. So I didn't write anything yesterday, but spent it noodling around with ideas for where the next chunk is supposed to go and how long it is supposed to take to get there. I think I figured out a plan. Now I just have to work up the nerve to step over the edge by starting to write it. |
| I posted "Invalid Entry" yesterday, but I forgot to put up a post announcing it. That's okay. I didn't have anything to say about it, and it's probably best read in conjunction with "Invalid Entry" , which I hope is the chapter that lets you know that this is not going to be the kind of story that you probably thought that it was going to be. I'm not going to say anything more, though. I don't want to spoil myself, because I don't know what's going on either. Okay, that's not strictly true. I do know what's going on, generally speaking, and I've a fair idea of the bases to be touched as I run around the field. But how I get from one base to the next, I'm not sure. Like, I'm not sure what's going to go into Chapter 7. Which means I'd probably better get cracking on it. |
| I'm always nervous when I return from a hiatus, even a short one. Not that I think anyone will have burned the place down in my absence. I just worry a little about what might have accumulated while I was gone. Then I worry that nothing will have accumulated. Anyhow ... I promise I have not been playing Minecraft. I can't promise that I haven't been playing Civilization IV, though. Well, I could, sort of. I've been playing a mod of the game, not the actual game itself. It's one that gives the player lots of small challenges and puzzles, and I've been having fun trying one game challenge after another. It was more fun that dealing with the book. Okay, so about that Untitled Young Adult Novel. Oh, that Chapter 3 turned out to be a bitch! I still don't know if it's in anything like its final form. I spent a lot of time banging my forehead against it, which is one reason I kept going back to play Civilization instead. I tried revising the original version, but couldn't come up with an angle. Then I realized it was because the chapter just wasn't going to work in that setting with those characters (Charlie and Derek on the bus to the game), so I threw it out. But it took me awhile to come up with something new, and then to find a new angle into the new thing, and then I wasn't real happy with the results. I've fussed around with it some, and I think it will work for now. But I won't know for sure until I'm deeper into the book and can see if some of the stuff planted there is going to ripen. But, the new "Invalid Entry" is now up, and so is a tweaked version of "Invalid Entry" Tomorrow I will post Chapter 5, which was written a few weeks ago and has been waiting ever since. |
| I posted "Invalid Entry" in the [Untitled YA Novel] yesterday, but I didn't link to it. I was sure it was going to get heavily edited, and I saw no reason to advertise it. You can look at it if you want to get an idea of the "before" for when the "after" shows up, but that's the only reason. I wasn't thrilled with it when I wrote it—it was too much of an actionless "life vignette," and the story already had two of those—but I didn't know how to revise it. I suspected, though, that I would learn how to revise it after writing a few more chapters, so instead of worrying about it, I just pressed on. That's why you can read "Invalid Entry" now.I don't know that that did the trick, but I've an idea now for how to revise it, so that will be my project for today. Tomorrow you might get Chapter Five (but it will need some revisions in light of the revisions to Chapter Three) and then on Saturday, if my plans hold, I'll post the revised Chapter Three. In other words, you're not just getting a chapter at a time, like you get in BoM. You're seeing the crafting in action, only two days behind. Kind of like the Monty Python Novel Writing sketch on tape delay. |
| A great while back I opened up the floor to suggested locations in Saratoga Falls: business names, park names, street names, anything. I took almost all of them, I think, and incorporated them into the lore and onto a map that I made of the town. So now it's time for something similar. If you're the kind of person who thinks up names for bands—any kind of band, any kind of pop music—and want to see it make a cameo in BoM, suggest here in the comments. I can't guarantee that I'll use them, but I will incorporate them into the notes and when I need to introduce or at least mention a band that's playing at the Warehouse, I will draw from the list that you guys provide. EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions so far, both public and private! |
| So, "Invalid Entry" of [Untitled Young Adult Novel] is now up, for whatever it's worth. Now I have to go write Chapter Four, because so far there's only three chapters. And I've been putting off writing Chapter Four because in it and Chapter Five I will be having to write a football game, which is a little beyond my area of expertise. |
| So, I think the only way I'm going to write this month's project— which was slated to start in October, but which kind of fell by the wayside as I did some more thinking about it —is by gritting my teeth and putting it up a chapter at a time, regardless of whether I feel like it's ready to start going up. So with that in mind: "Invalid Entry" Yes, that's a very generic chapter heading. But at present the book is called "[Untitled YA Novel]", and if you think that's uninformative you should check out the description. Anyway, I'm not going to say anything about it, even though I've got ideas, I'm just going to set it out a bit at a time and let people see it as it comes. And I'll try not to torture myself by watching an initial view count in the low double-digits dwindle to view counts in the single digits ... |
| "The World Smashers" (public) + "The World Smashers" (interactive) Today's chapter is a one-off, and except for a non-canonical extra that should be coming soon, will be the last until I resume publishing and writing in December. I'll admit that not much happens in it. It's only there to set up a commission. That commission will start appearing in December when I return to BoM, but while I am publishing those I will want something else BoM-related to work on. We've had a lot of polls recently, as I've asked which branches should get continued. So let's have another poll to tell me which of those choices you want me to prioritize. Depending on which choice gets voted on, there may be further polls. [Poll completed and deleted]: "Will Plus Jenny" wins with 50%. I'm going to let this poll run through the end of the month, so it will be open awhile. |
| So, today brings the last of the alternate timeline: "The Wrong Guy for the Wrong Girl" (public) + "The Wrong Guy for the Wrong Girl" (interactive)There are seven more chapters after this one, but I don't know when they'll appear. This marks the third time that someone who can plausibly answer to the name "Chelsea Cooper" has gotten mixed up with someone who can plausibly answer to the name "Gary Chen." Why so many times? Hypothesis #1: I'm just not very imaginative and keep returning to characters and relationships I've played with in the past. Hypothesis #2: I know these two characters inside and out, and I know that in certain very special circumstances they will fly at and into each other. I'll leave it to you guys to decide which is the superior hypothesis. I'll also leave it to you guys (and the one who commissioned it) to decide if you prefer this evolution to the official one. |
| So, many moons ago I was commissioned to write the story arc that would begin with "Operation Freaky Friday" and proceed through "Anne and the Air Head" I had to take a break in the middle of it when I ran out of days for writing BoM chapters, and when I came back to it I rather foolishly resumed writing (at "Double Dealing and Double Dates" ) without studying the original commission description too carefully. As a result, I wholly forgot that it was supposed to end in one particular way, and by following my instincts I ended it in quite a different fashion. Fortunately, I did look at the commission contract before publishing, and when I realized what I'd done, I put aside the ending I'd first composed and wrote up another, one more in line with the original commission. That's the branch that ends with "Anne and the Air Head" .Today, though, I return to the point of divergence to give you the three chapters that I originally ended the commission with. It takes off at the end of "Trading Confidences" : Chelsea and Yumi have been successfully switched. As the next morning dawns, Will wants to go check up on the new Yumi, but his friends need his help. Today's chapter—"The Misplaced Girlfriend" (public) + "The Misplaced Girlfriend" (interactive)—shows what happens when he goes off to find the new Yumi. |
| Today's chapter— "Gemini Falls" (public) + "Gemini Falls" (interactive)—brings an end to the branch that details the infiltration and piecemeal conversion of the Brown family. I've been wanting to write something like that for a long time, and a long time ago someone wrote me to say he was surprised that more hadn't been done with a MILF. Well, I guess we can scratch that off BoM's bucket list. Originally, I ended yesterday's chapter ("Strategery" ) with Sydney proposing the five plans that now end "Gemini Falls" . That's the best place to suspend the branch, but it left the plan inside the house still unfinished. So at the last minute I did a quick rewrite so as to push that choice a little further back. It does mean that the sequels to the other choices at the end of "Strategery" will probably be almost exact reprints of "Gemini Falls." It also means that "Gemini Falls" might not be the chapter that launches sequels. But if/when I do return here, I do like the idea of Will and Sydney having for a day or two to pretend to be brothers. |
| I thought today's chapter—"Strategery" (public) + "Strategery" (interactive)—would be the last in the branch. But I wound up doing a revision that would let me push on ahead by one more chapter, so we're not done here yet. You'll get the last one tomorrow. After that, to anticipate: I'll be publishing a three-chapter stub in an earlier storyline, so that the commissioner of that story can see an untaken path that I wrote before revising to send it somewhere else. Then there will be a one-chapter one-off to set up another commission that I'm supposed to be writing but won't publish until December. |
| Again, it was a short round of Plot Plinko, with "Show the book to Jenny" being the winner. I will add that one to the list of branches to work on when I resume writing for BoM. Thanks to everyone who participated. |
| The tie-breaking GPs in Wednesday's poll went to "The Search for Support" , so that's the one the new poll is for: [Completed and deleted]. It sends us down a storyline that rugal composed. EDIT: Wow, there were just all kinds of problems with the poll link. Well, I was in a hurry. |
| Yesterday's poll is still open because there's a tie: [Poll completed and deleted]. Sudden death will resolve it on it being broken by someone, either with a free vote or some GPs. Meanwhile, I have written the last chapter for this branch, and it will come on Sunday. EDIT: ... And finally a tie breaker came in with GPs. But I'll until tomorrow to put up a new poll. |
| New poll: [Poll completed and deleted] New chapter: "Sunday Dress Up" (public) + "Sunday Dress Up" (interactive) |
| Well, that didn't go the way I expected. I was expecting to get a nice, long series of polls out of this. Something to keep us interested and occupied during the 45-day hiatus. I wasn't expecting you all to vote instantly for the one unwritten choice at the end of the first chapter. I promise I will honor your choice—I was intending to do something with it anyway—but I still want to find an undeveloped branch deeper in the interactive to work on. So let's start over again: [Poll completed and deleted] |
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