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I'll be drawing some stuff soon that you people can write plots or scenarios from/ about /whatever.

100th Post

I just wanted to point out that we've reached the 100th post on Scribblepit - woo!

Also, I've finally finished reading and commenting on everything. This is an exciting place to be.

Procrastinating from the main plot and opinion Poll

Ok, so I'm 5 chapters in now in my story and I realise I'm still about 10 years off the start of my main plot. Not to mention adding in random extra bits of subplot that never existed before.

How frustrating.

Out of interest- which narrative voice is people's favourite? The choices that I've used at least once can be summarised as:

1. 3rd person (mostly) impartial narrator
2. Letters/ Diaries
3. Formal journals etc.
4. Encyclopaedic Dictionaries/ Identification Records.
5. Newspaper Articles
6. Prophetic Scripture

Also, Favourite/ Least Favourite Chapter for those lucky souls who've read them all.

Personally, don't really have a favourite at the moment, but I'm quite fond of Chapter 1 because I know what the creepy evil presence is and no-one else finds out for what will probably be 100 chapters at my current rate of procrastination. Least favourite is chapter 3 at the moment.

ASBO-Boy - Predictions

Right, I'd like to know where people think the story is going. Be as brief or as in-depth as you want.

Doing it this way means I wont give away any irritating knowing looks that I find myself incapable of stopping without the aid of a pillow.

This is also a good way of letting me know what you think is important re: character/plot resolutions. If you would like to see something addressed, make a point of it and I'll probably accommodate it somewhere.

Cheers me dears.

Aliens Have Landed: Part 1

Oh, dear, another post to talk about a story. I'm such an attention whore. Anyway, I do dislike the "Exposed" tag, but I can't think of anything better. Now I see why Doctor Who Confidential and Torchwood Declassified have such crap names - there's no word that means "behind the scenes" and is anything approaching cool.

Anyway, I'd originally started writing far more for Laoren and Trenavass, but then realised that the school actually housed the interesting part of the story. Since Trenavass's revelation is such a standard plot twist that it's barely more than a plot device, there was only so much "I can't believe it!", "soz Loz" dialogue to write before the aliens themselves needed to start marching.

Deleted scenes: There was a line that Jeremy was asleep upstairs. I took it out, because I like to leave characters unmentioned unless they're directly relevant. Rest assured, Jeremy still exists, and will no doubt hear the news soon enough.

I've been interested in the "person close to you is actually royalty" storyline for a long time, possibly because of my own tenuous link to royal blood. I pretty much stole the whole storyline of royal-alien-sheltering-on-Earth-from-other-aliens from everyone's favourite Classic Who writers, Pip and Jane Baker. It was largely the premise of Watt on Earth. And it had a character named Zoe, and I nicked her name too. I'm such a farce.

In retrospect, I think I made a big mistake in the lies he told Laoren. I'd prefer it if he'd merely lied by omission, rather than flatly fibbing. I mean, that's sort-of there - he never said he wasn't a prince, and indeed, he admitted that royalty were one of the most likely types of his species to speak English. But I think I should have made it clearer that he actually wasn't expecting the police to turn up at all, let alone so soon. And he shouldn't have told her he'd be meeting governmental types. Silly alien.

Anyway, I hope I've done Ffion justice in this story. Always hard to build up unseen characters. Incidentally, although I created it mostly so that Stephanie's story would make more sense, the Apathy Dart Gun is my new favourite sci-fi gadget. Imagine it - you get mugged on the street, so you take a shot, and the mugger just becomes absolutely bored and wanders off to watch Any Dream Will Do. Or you see one of those awful "GOD WILL JUDGE AND KILL US ALL" people on a street corner, and he just thinks "bugger it" and treats himself to a McDonald's Happy Meal.

Connections

Thought I'd talk a bit about the connections between my posts, since they tend to crop up a lot in comments and such.

I find the joining-the-dots method of writing to be incredibly satisfying, which is why the last two stories - Ambition and Therapy - aren't directly connected to any existing characters or storylines. Eventually, they'll no-doubt cross over with some other characters, but for the time being, I like that they're new and fresh.

So, for the record, Trenavass and Laoren and Lunar Mist and Sunset have no set ending - they're largely exploring the world. I have resolutions in mind for all the other stories, although that's not to say that I won't be coming back to those characters again (Arthur and Mr Spencer have already been resolved, but the latter in particular has more to share).

But the big question is - how effective is this method? Is there too much crossing over? Too little? Is it not clear enough that these stories exist in the same universe? Would it matter if certain stories were read out of order?

The Trenavass stories are in a direct series, which is why they have an umbrella title, but should Lunar Mist and Sunset have one too? Since Jom went back to re-label his ASBO-Boy stories, I've been tempted to do something similar.

Ambition

Note before I start: I've labelled this post with the word "Exposed", which I intend to do for any post of mine where I want to discuss a specific story. It'd be cool if other people did the same, so that writers talking about their individual stories can be easily found. I feel that I want to discuss certain things I write, but know that they're probably not going to raise the necessary questions, so I'll post them here. I assume that this is true of many other people's posts too, and I'd love to know the things I couldn't guess.

But anyway!

"Ambition" is both standalone and the first in a series. It's standalone, because for the time being, I don't intend to further Arthur's story. He's come full circle, which was partly the point of the exercise. It exists in the same universe as everything else I write, and indeed, the first draught had a reference to Mr Spencer. But I decided it was self-indulgent, and Mr Spencer became Dennis Freeman.

In a way, it's an evolution of an earlier idea, which I never wrote, because it was basically just a joke. The idea was, this young child has had an awful early life and, at the age of five, everything goes right for him at the same time. So much good stuff happens to him, that inevitably, the story seems to be leading to his downfall. And then it doesn't - a punchline, and the child gets to live happily ever after.

This takes it a step further - an ominous tone depicting something that is, in theory, nice and lovely. And anonymous organisations are always creepy.

I think this is also the first story I've written here that truly keeps the characters at arm's length. No inner thoughts, only a few clues as to their motivation, that sort of thing.