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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."Student Bodies: Transfer Students" : Reboot of "Student Bodies."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/Contests None The Latest 6/30: Interactive: "Golems Three-ish" 6/30: Public: "Golems Three-ish"
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| I guess you all noticed that there was no chapter last night, either in sequence or as a one-off. Well, sometimes these things happen. It was a confusing weekend on this end of things. I had previously finished the revisions I needed to do to set up the commission I'm working on. But there were details to the commission that hadn't been settled yet, so I had to miss two days of writing while waiting for them to be finalized. They are still not completely settled, but enough got nailed down that I could resume writing, and the sequel to "Schools of Fishiness" is now written and sitting on the launching pad.Today, though, brings part one of a two-part one-off (so to speak): "Guilty Consciences All Around" That link goes to the interactive, and there is no equivalent public page, because even though I wrote it, I wrote it for someone else. By sheerest coincidence, you see, a reader/author slid into my Inbox yesterday with technical questions for a storyline he wanted to write. It turned out that his idea wouldn't work, but after a quick back-and-forth I offered to launch a spin-off chapter that would let him publish a reworked version of his original idea. That is today's publication. And because it sets up a branch that I will not be writing, I've not included it in the public pages. The background to bring you up to speed: Will has been trying to get rid of the Libra, but it keeps yo-yo-ing back into his possession. First, he lost it in a scrum with some bullies; then after telling a teacher about it and getting it back, he tried burying it in the school time capsule. (That involved sneaking onto school grounds at night, digging up the already buried capsule, and putting the book into it.) But then the time capsule gets dug up by perpetrators unknown, and its contents scattered. Will has gone to Mr. Walberg to ask if a book had been recovered from the capsule, and learns that the perpetrators left a piece of evidence behind—a piece of evidence linking the theft to those same bullies who had taken the book from him in the first place. As today's chapter opens, Will has decided not to tell Mr. Walberg what he knows, and to again try putting the whole business behind him. I have to write one more sequel to finish setting things up for the other author, and then I'll resume with the commission on Wednesday. |
| Oh boy, has it really been two months since I've thanked people for gift points and tips? Well, one thing drives out another, as old Barliman liked to say. So, my thanks to * Clockworange * Easy * That One Guy * Tal * smitch * HayateZero * Chelsea Woodard * thatdude * Ero for the GPs that they've sent me recently. I don't care about the size of the donation. Just getting a tip really does lift the spirits! * * * In other news, today's chapters: Interactive: "Schools of Fishiness" Public: "Schools of Fishiness" finally polish off the rewrites. It puts the story on a parallel track to the original version (with Will and Chelsea hidden in Dana Pak and Yumi Saito, respectively, rather than in Sarah Pak and Dana), and the choices at the end are a little different. Originally, it was Adam Karter and Alyssa Randal as choices. But I dropped Alyssa because I got the feeling it wouldn't lead anyplace very interesting. But she might be a victim of a mask in an upcoming chapter! Or at least a choice of victim! What comes tomorrow? Supposedly the start of the new commission, but I might end up skipping the day or putting up a one-shot of some kind. I don't have the commission started, and today wound up being a bookkeeping kind of day. My WdC Inbox was getting overstuffed, and I cleaned it out and reorganized it. I'm not sure how much writing time I will have this afternoon/evening. |
| I am still composing and posting one chapter at a time as I rework the branch that I deleted. Today's chapter heavily recycles some of that material: Interactive: "Dramas, Public and Private" Public: "Dramas, Private and Public" But it's stretching out, and the branch will be two chapters longer by the time I reach the point where the last branch ended. Part of that is just trying to break up some of the text-heavy parts. Today's chapter, for instance, originally ended farther in the process, but that left the entire chapter as an exercise in spell-solving. So I moved part of the spell stuff to tomorrow's chapter, and inserted a small character scene, to give it a little relief. The other reason is that the pacing feels better being slowed down a little. It was one of the thing that bothered me almost as much as the continuity stuff when I reread this branch: It just moved too fast. Anyway, tomorrow will bring a couple of hundred words to wrap up the spell-casting, with the balance of the chapter given over to character stuff. Then a chapter that will be almost entirely character stuff in order to set up the concluding choices. Then we'll get into the commission, and something genuinely new. |
| So as I think I warned you, I had to nuke a bunch of chapters today. Fifteen in total, spread across two branches. As my revisions accumulated, they reached the point where the new plot was starting to diverge from the old. In place of the original chapter, "Put on the brakes," there is a new one, now published in both the interactive and the public document: Interactive: "A Hairpin Change in Plans" Public: "A Hairpin Change in Plans" All by itself it doesn't alter the plot. It just arrives at a similar destination at a slightly more sedate place. But Will isn't going to wake up tomorrow where he woke up yesterday (so to speak). Because everything from here on out is going to follow a new plot line, I am going to have compose new chapters, so I will be returning to a one-chapter-a-day publishing schedule. Just to be clear: Yes, this is a new plot line, but it is going to run next to the vaporized plot line along a parallel track. And then it's going to go further into actually new territory. |
| Okay, here's what I've got for people. It's both a whole lot and not very much at all. If you are someone who reads the public pages only, I've got a new-to-you six-chapter run, branching off of "The Return of Gordon Black" [public version]. Will has sold the grimoire to his friend Caleb, but it is Will who is summoned up to the school by Chelsea Cooper when her boyfriend uses the grimoire to accidentally petrify himself. Will is trying to help her fix Gordon; at the same time, he is starting to research the book that he had tried getting rid of. As the new branch commences with "The Increasingly Complicated Life of Will Prescott" , Will has uncovered a new spell, and has decided to prepare it in her presence.If you are a WdC member, you likely know the chapters in question, which are practically ancient. That is why I am revising this branch--to align it more closely with the story as it has evolved. The same chapters are now revised in the BoM interactive--starting with "The Increasingly Complicated Life of Will Prescott" [interactive version]--but the changes to these six chapters are mostly stylistic, and only substantive in only a couple of places. (Yes, those substantive changes will cause continuity issues in some of the other branches that come off them, but I'm not going to worry about them unless it comes time to add new chapters to them.)That's all I had time to do yesterday, so I don't have anything really new for you. Today I will be making revisions to more chapters, and will be posting them tomorrow, so that will also be a day of new things only for readers of the Archived version of BoM. |
| That "Student Bodies" chapter is now up. I'm also now at work on revising the branch that leads up to "Invalid Chapter" . Part of that branch is going to get sawn off and completed replaced; some of the branches that lead off that sawn-off part will disappear, at least temporarily, until I upload the back-up copies again. So tomorrow is unlikely to bring a brand-new chapter. More likely, it will bring a much revised version of something that is already up. I'll give more details tomorrow when something gets published. |
| So, at the start of the week, I said this would be a six-chapter run. Change of plans: It's going to be a five-chapter run, because I got stuck for a sequel to today's chapter. Fortunately, the guy who commissioned this branch also commissioned those "Student Body" chapters from me, so we made a deal whereby I'd write an extra SB chapter to make up for cutting one from this branch. So you'll get an SB chapter tomorrow. And after that? Oh, it's a mess. That's what I've got to figure out today. I have two more commissions to fulfill. The next one is supposed to be a sequel to "Invalid Chapter" . But that's an old branch that is now out of continuity with BoM as it has since evolved, and the discrepancies bother me. I'm extremely tempted to do a thorough rewrite before continuing with the commission. It's already the case that I'd have to make very large changes to "The Princess and the Pauper"; and, as an added excuse, I'd have to post a bunch of those chapters to the public Archives edition before pushing on. So I would have a good excuse for doing clean up that I want to do anyway. But it's extra work and would delay getting to the new stuff.I could let plans there sit for awhile, and skip ahead to the second commission. But that's going to be a long one—fourteen chapters, I'm thinking. But I'm not sure I'll have a better idea in two weeks about how to handle the first commission than I'll have now. |
| So here's the first chapter in the next branch: Interactive: "The Invisible Boyfriend" Public: "The Invisible Boyfriend" Spoiler: It's the track team they're going to infiltrate. There will be five more after that, and then we'll switch over to a new commission. |
| Yeah, I'm late posting today. I got a new PC game and it took forever to copy it over, download updates, etc. And then I had to goof around with it a little. Anyway, last chapter in this run of "Student Bodies" is up. New stuff starts up tomorrow; see "Branch's End" to get up to speed on where and what it will be. |
| Okay, now we're going to suspend this branch and go on to something new. But I am pleased that people liked it enough to gently press it to go on a little further. Interactive: "An Exercise in Substitution" Public: "An Exercise in Substitution" It does end with another "Continue" even though a choice gets set up, because I figure that Will (and the reader) need a little more time and experience before deciding what to do with Dana. Tomorrow, the last "Student Bodies" chapter. |
| So I got one puckish (?) complaint about where I left the last branch dangling. And after writing today’s Student Bodies chapter, I found that I hadn’t taken it as far as the commissioner had requested. So, change of plans: There’s going to be one more of each after today’s posting. Something new will start on Monday. |
| Today's chapter, a little late, because I had an errand to run: Interactive: "A New Kind of Carjacking" Public "A New Kind of Carjacking" That's the end of this branch for now. The next storyline is written for a commission, and is set in the same general area: Will and Sydney using masks to make a Brotherhood of Baphomet. This branch ignores Blake O'Brien and the other troublemakers as they concentrate simply on making the Brotherhood. Will has suggested that instead of a "brotherhood," they make it a coven, using girls drawn from various sports teams. In "Three by Three" Will has to decide which teams to draw from.That will start on Saturday. Tomorrow I'll complete the "Student Bodies" commission. |
| To no one's very great surprise, I'm sure, the "Madison's friends" option won yesterday's poll. I will write it today and post it tomorrow, which will conclude this branch for now. Meanwhile, go check out "Student Bodies" for another chapter. |
| Latest BoM chapters are now up: Interactive: "Two Virgins Walk Into the Warehouse" Public: "Two Virgins Walk Into the Warehouse" Poll: Completed and deleted Meanwhile, I am really enjoying my new computer. The hassle of setting it up (and even the continuing hassle with the Bluetooth mouse) was really worth it. |
| New chapter of "Student Bodies" is up. For the record, the choice "Madison Crawford" won the poll yesterday. I'll get right on that. |
| So here we are, back to where we were a week ago. I thank you all for your patience: Interactive: "Bridges to a Brotherhood" Public: "Bridges to a Brotherhood" Poll: [Completed and deleted] To recap, what’s the plan going forward? In this branch, there is today’s chapter, and then there will be two more. They will be interspersed with three more “Student Body” chapters. After that, I have three more commissions to fulfill. Assuming no other problems, and assuming I’ve counted out the number of chapters correctly, I will have chapters to publish through February 15. So we’re not going to run out any time soon. |
| So I hope this is the last of the computer updates. Where things stand: 1. Mac side of the new machine is completely updated and backed up. Windows side is installed and all new and replacement games downloaded. As I was typing in this update I got a reply to a forum post I had made, informing me that there was no fix for the last item on my checklist, so that closes the last ticket on the updates. 2. The mouse is still being finicky, but I think I have found a way to manage it. Basically, every time I boot up, I have to delete the mouse from the Bluetooth control panel, and let it and the computer find and re-pair each other. Bleh, but that's the worst that can be said. 3. There is no third item in this update. 4. I still have to rewrite the one chapter that I lost in the game crash. I made a start on it yesterday, but it will be this afternoon before I get back to it. Look for regular posting, writing, publishing, etc., to resume tomorrow. |
| So a couple of days ago Tal asked: "[What were the] creative origins of your writing the BoM all those years ago. What gave you the idea to create this world and it’s magic? What were some of your inspirations? I know you’ve mentioned in the past you use it as a writing tool to explore different characters, but I think it could be interesting to hear how you came up with it all." I meant to answer it earlier, but my computer exploded. Now, with nothing else to do while waiting for some downloads to finish, I can answer. Not that there's a whole lot to say, I think. It developed in dribs and drabs. * * I found WdC a long time ago--longer than I'd care to think--and found one of the body-swap interactives; I forget the name, but it was already a big one. I'll confess to liking body-swap stories and their variants, and I also liked interactive stories, so I registered at WdC and started adding chapters to … whatever it was called. [EDIT: CCRFan1 identifies it as "Body swap etc. collection" No, don't go looking for my chapters in there.]I really liked the consequence-free liberty of adding chapters to interactives--I could just make stuff up without worrying that it was going in any particular direction or toward any kind of climax. But what started as a larf quickly got more ambitious and complicated. I found I liked writing chapters with the heft and detail of actual fiction. I liked making up characters, and immersing myself in their situations. I liked motivating the shenanigans and not just reporting on them. I eventually found a similar interactive, the "The Body Possession Powers" interactive, which had a more ambitious hook and richer setting, so I started writing for it. Eventually I decided that I wanted to write my own interactive, my own version of BPP using the mechanics and setting and characters, so with the original author's permission I launched "Student Bodies."~ ~ I had fun with "Student Bodies," but I soon ran into the problem that David was just too overpowered, and though I had some fun inventing some challenges for him, I soon got worn out by it. I decided to start a new interactive, from scratch, where I could set up the mechanics. I intentionally wanted them to be limited, as that would give the "hero" more of a challenge. I also wanted a structure that would allow for more variation. The trick I hit on: to go modular. That's why the "Libra" has the structure that it does, of bits and pieces that must be made, and used, then assembled into more complex pieces. Instead of a hero instantly armed with some powerful magic tech, he starts with limited powers that are a challenge to deploy. A mask may give a perfect disguise, but it bestows no memories or personality traits. A memory-band can confer memories and traits, but not the body. A full mask can create a perfect impersonation, but how do you get the original out of the way? And so on. I mentioned that first interactive (whatever its name was) up above because that's where I found the setting and characters for BoM. It was set at a "Westside High" (though I think I came up with "Saratoga Falls" myself) and Chelsea Cooper, Gordon Black, Jason Lynch, Steve Patterson, Jenny Ashton, Yumi Saito, Paul Davis, and Carson Ioeger were characters either established in it or which I added to it myself. (James Lamont was the protagonist.) There were probably some others that I'm forgetting. I also brought over the Eastman characters from "Student Bodies" so that I'd have a large cast to work with. Will Prescott and Caleb and Keith were IIRC original-to-BoM additions. Some of the characters are based on people I know. Carson and Caleb are a thinly disguised version of someone I knew in high school who was exactly the kind of science-fascinated asshole who would have used the BoM masks to get in lots of trouble. Kelsey Blankenship is a girl I knew in college. Several other people are composed of traits of people I've known, in some cases shuffled and recombined. Most of them, in truth, are stereotypes inspired by selfies found online, and some (like Chelsea) are based on stereotypes, period. ~ ~ Frank and Joe Durras deserve special mention, even though I know those killjoys are not the most popular with readers. I think I've said it before, probably lots of times, but they just burst into the story. As their names attest, they were inspired by the Hardy Boys. I never liked the Hardy Boys books when I was a kid--they were far too tame, too boring--but I was reading one for research while writing BoM and wondering how to make it [the Hardy Boys story] better. Meanwhile, I was also trying to come up with an antagonist for Will, someone who could come find him instead of being (like Blackwell) someone who he would have to find. I got the idea of adding some Hardy Boys clones to BoM--it seemed like a fun, silly idea--and I also got the idea of turning the Technicolor way up on them so that they had some personality. Does this make it sound like I planned them? One might as well try to plan a Bandersnatch … I had no idea who they were, but I liked them, and at least one other reader liked them--I got an email demanding to know who they were and when they were going to come back. But I held off on it. They felt special and I didn't want to screw them up. I knew I needed a story for them. At first I had the idea that they'd just be affiliated with the Church, like the Inquisition, but that didn't make them enough of a challenge. I decided they needed to be "magical" themselves somehow. But I felt like they needed a "system" behind them, otherwise they would develop too arbitrarily. I found the system, by happenstance, in "Planet Narnia," which is a scholarly interpretation of the Narnia books. It argues that C. S. Lewis wrote them according to a pattern: each book reflects the spirit of one of the astrological planets, which in classical philosophy had their own virtues and personalities. Jupiter, for instance, was the kingly planet; Mars was the martial planet; the Sun was the planet of science and knowledge and exploration; etc. So that's where I got the idea of keying Frank and Joe to the planets. I had to sweat out some theory after the fact, but just knowing which planets each one had was enough to give me a non-arbitrary way of developing their personalities and powers. ~ ~ There's lots more "magical science" that has shown up than just the Libra and the astrology, but it's just a bastardization of pre-modern science, particularly Aristotle and alchemy. The various distinctions of anima and essentia and the rest, which show up in some of the really advanced chapters, are just variations on Aristotelean notions like substance, form, essence, and so on. The science of taking these apart is just a thinly disguised alchemical theory, which promised to do the same sort of thing with the Aristotelean categories. (An alchemist is not trying to "turn" lead into gold. He's trying to separate the "leaden" qualities from the underlying substance and replace them with "golden" qualities, in much the way you might strip and replace wallpaper.) If it looks complicated, it is, but that's not because I'm ingenious at inventing it. It's because Aristotle and his followers were ingenious. I'm just tracking them. * * I'm not sure what else to say. To repeat, it's all just a lot of dribs and drabs that I improvised as needed while making stuff up. EDIT: WordSmitty points out that BoM actually launched before Student Bodies. Now I do have a vague memory of that. I remember writing the first chapter (and maybe the first few) and then getting stuck because I had no characters except Will and Caleb and The Molester. So I guess I had the idea for a piece-by-piece mechanic early on, but then dropped it for a BPP remake (aka Student Bodies) because there was an established universe to play with. I would hazard (and this is just a hypothesis) that after I got frustrated with SB I decided to return to BoM and import the Body Swap Etc. characters in order to jump start it. |
| While I'm waiting for Windows 10 to download** I've nothing else to do, so for the record and for whatever it's worth, the short version of my computer travails: My old machine is a MacBook Pro that was cutting edge when it was brand-new ... 10 years ago. It's given me great service in all that time, even as it has gradually devolved from a very sharp knife to a very starchy potato. I first realized it had to be replaced when I found that it had fallen four operating systems out of date, and that its architecture was incompatible with all of them. I second realized it had to be replaced when the keys started falling off it. So I saved up money, and last week put in an order for a new MacBook Pro—the latest and sharpest knife in the drawer. I was waiting for it to be delivered when my old computer had a nervous breakdown. Never mind the details, except to say that I had to force-quit when the machine froze, and it started spewing code like it was pea-green vomit when it restarted. Technically and literally, I have no idea what happened or why it chose this moment to happen. Figuratively, I don't know if my old machine realized it was being replaced and spitefully killed itself early, or whether it joyfully relaxed it grip on the material plane when to its relief it saw that I no longer needed it. I am going to take the old machine to the Mac doctor to see if it can be salvaged. There is nothing wrong with the machine itself (aside from age, a busted DVD drive, and loose keys), because it was only the Mac installation that exploded; the Windows installation works fine. If the expense isn't too great, I will keep the old machine around as a spare. My thanks to all who expressed sympathy with my computer problems. ** Yes, I'm downloading Windows onto a Mac. I'm using Bootcamp to put in a parallel Windows installation for gaming. |
| New computer arrived a day early (though late in the day) and I am currently setting it up with the back up from my old machine. I will have some other setting up tomorrow but I hope to resume on Saturday everything that I left off. EDIT: Update to update. The backup transferred everything over okay (it appears) and I'm typing this from the new computer. So now it's just a matter of updating various programs and finishing the set up, which will be my project for tomorrow. EDITx2, UPDATEx3: The bad news is that Microsoft wants $70 a year to let me use MS Word on my new computer. The good news is that Apple's Pages program will let me open up my old Word documents, so I think I'll be able to give Bill Gates the finger he so richly deserves. |
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