Community Event / Creation Writers forums

[Darren Grey]

I don't want to derail synchromesh's thread any further, so it's best if we move this discussion to its own thread.

We will set up and area for the writer's to discuss their projects, things are a bit crazy at the moment, but as we set things up I'll let the relevant people know.

I think as has already been mentioned there are two areas, the first is a private place for just the authors and the other a wider area that is about general fiction discussion. I'm considering making this part of the backer's forum, but I need to think about it.

Good to know you have this in mind, Michael. And sorry us Anthology lot are such a mess to cater for

For those not clear, here are the different levels of access that need to be catered for:

1. DDF members. Should they be able to see general writing discussion? May be helpful for overall world-building stuff, though I respect Frontier's final say on this more. There are concerns about people getting spoilers ahead of time, but it's a smallish group.
2. Authors. Most are in the DDF anyway.
3. Anthology short story writers. A fair few of us didn't pledge for DDF access, and clearly shouldn't be given the same access as those who paid for it. We do have at least 1 representative in the form of Chris, whose name is on our overall pledge.
4. Anthology backers. On top of our writers we have 27 people (inc illustrators) who backed at our Authors Forum level or higher, who we've promised access to our writing / editing discussion. It may be inappropriate to give them access to an overall forum with other writers.

So in terms of organisation, I see three options:

A. DDF forum + writers forum on the side, with groups 2-4 above given access to the writer's side of things.
B. DDF forum + writers forum + Anthology forum. The Anthology forum would be for our backers, but anthology writers would still be allowed into the writers forum for discussion of universe continuity etc.
C. DDF forum with a writer's subforum for official backers only, with us fussy Anthology lot told to go off and sort out our own things.

Option B would be optimal as I see it, but Option C is still perfectly acceptable in my eyes. Frontier didn't ask for this sort of mess and shouldn't have to deal with it. We can set up our own forum privately, which Michael and the other authors would be very welcome to join if they wish. Chris is the named backer and can act as an intermediary for any specific information we need. Others may find fault with this, but I don't see that we have the right to request anything more. Still, something more integrated would be really nice, in particular with giving Anthology authors access to overall writing discussion with all authors, as this helps with continuity across all of the books.

 

[Susimetsa]

Your option B would of course be the best for us Anthology writers, but - like you - I'm also prepared to deal with option C. It would be great to have Michael himself responding to all our questions on our forum, of course, but it is entirely up to Frontier how they want to handle this.

 

[Michael Brookes]

My preference is to have the writer's all together, but I have a lot of details to sort out. Bear with me for a week or so while I get things arranged.

In the meantime what would be useful is for writer's to start preparing lists of questions they need to know for their stories. Don't post them yet, but when the writer's forum is available we can star going through them.

Michael

 

[Susimetsa]

I'm guessing that many questions will arise only when we start writing. Well, I've already done a fair bit of writing and that's why I have all sorts of questions - but in the long run when we want to add tiny bits of Elite colour to our stories we'll need to know all kinds of small tidbits that we can drop into the text without making too big a point of it.

But, yes, let's start collating a list of questions.

 

[Darren Grey]

A big thing for me will be tying bits of the writing to the gameplay, so I may ends up reforming chunks when I get beta access

I have my big initial list of questions anyway, and doubtless will add to it in time. But we'll be patient whilst you sort things out, Michael - I'm sure everyone at Frontier is rather busy right now!

 

[Michael Brookes]

I'm going to be doing the same, writing the basic story and then changing to fit the game and final ship designs.

Michael

 

[Susimetsa]

Hehe, I did one story already and now I'll have to rewrite a scene since we learned that there's no artificial gravity...

And the dogfights I wrote in accordance to some mix of original Elite and FFE - will have to tweak them a bit for sure when we know more about how the game plays.

Still, as I consider game always an abstraction of reality, I'm not afraid of making something work in a slightly more complex way in a story than it does in a game.

 

[Bladesteel]

As a potential reader of the stories I hope you can all get together and make a timeline of any major events in the stories. It wouldn't fit very well if one of the stories has a peaceful trade run through a system at the same time as another has a major fleet battle happening in it. The same way any really huge events (like a star going nova) would likely be a major news story and talking topic in the bars even on the other side of the galaxy, and should get a mention in passing if the stories happen at the same time.

Also if there are questions and discussions in the DDF about how world/gameplay fits into the story (such as antigravity mentioned above, or ship details and other tech) please mark the topics clearly if they will contain story spolers.

 

[drew]

My preference is to have the writer's all together, but I have a lot of details to sort out. Bear with me for a week or so while I get things arranged.

In the meantime what would be useful is for writer's to start preparing lists of questions they need to know for their stories. Don't post them yet, but when the writer's forum is available we can star going through them.

Michael

Plenty of questions already. I'll try to categorise them a bit over the next few days.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Kate Russell]

Hey Michael,

How about rough story arcs.. is it worth letting you guys have those (privately) as soon as we have them prepared so that you can give us feedback about whether they would fit the game's main story arcs and maybe see if there are any ways to intersect?

Kate

 

[Flowswithdrek]

Hehe, I did one story already and now I'll have to rewrite a scene since we learned that there's no artificial gravity...

Yeah, my story idea has been given a setback with learning that there is no artificial gravity. So, now I have to think around the problem.

 

[Nvmb3rth30ry]

Rather than bombarding Michael with a plethora of scattered questions, I'm thinking Kate's idea of each writer submitting story arcs or detailed outlines might be a good strategy. They can all be scanned and compared for obvious inconsistencies with each other and with Frontier canon, and from this an internally-consistent knowledge base could then be built up?

 

[Michael Brookes]

Hey Michael,

How about rough story arcs.. is it worth letting you guys have those (privately) as soon as we have them prepared so that you can give us feedback about whether they would fit the game's main story arcs and maybe see if there are any ways to intersect?

Kate

Yes that makes sense.

Michael

 

[Susimetsa]

Story synopsis will only help with the question of "will such and such story fit in the universe". It will not help with the actual writing of the story when you want to be able to drop in little tidbits of info to bind your story with the universe.

But, yes, the synopsis is a good start nevertheless - unless Michael wants to read the draft of my entire short story already?

 

[Michael Brookes]

I can if you like?

Michael

 

[Susimetsa]

Whoa! Didn't expect that.

Yes, I would like. But I'll have to change it a bit before (the artificial gravity bit at least) - will take a few days.

 

[Darren Grey]

For some of us short story writers I imagine writing a basic first draft isn't that much more effort than a descriptive outline

 

[Captain N]

Remember that even if there is no "real" artificial gravity, it's quite possible for spacecraft to simulate gravity just by maintaining constant 1G acceleration. It looks like Elite ships would have no problem doing that while idling in deep space. And if staying close to a "stationary" object is important then just flying in a circle to simulate the rotation of a wheel station would do the trick.

 

[Susimetsa]

Remember that even if there is no "real" artificial gravity, it's quite possible for spacecraft to simulate gravity just by maintaining constant 1G acceleration. It looks like Elite ships would have no problem doing that while idling in deep space. And if staying close to a "stationary" object is important then just flying in a circle to simulate the rotation of a wheel station would do the trick.

I had that idea in mind, actually, when I thought about how ships might have artificial gravity without actually having it. But then we were told that the ship cockpits have windows and that means that I cannot just say that the living quarters are rotated within the ship in order to achieve "gravity" while it is travelling from one place to another. You still could, of course, with fixed cockpits, but your ship would have to fly in a funny attitude.

 

[Captain N]

Well yes, rotating compartments wouldn't work, because the ships just aren't large enough for that.

And yes, using 1G acceleration during travel would either mean the ship has to fly "upwards" using the ventral hover thrusters, or either the interiors are layered along the longitudal axis like a skyscraper and the ships are made to be tailsitters (which is not how they seem to be in current concepts)

Then again, most travel seems to be achieved by (near) instantaneous hyperjumps, so people wouldn't spend that much time in travel anyway - I was more thinking of situations where a ship is simply waiting around in deep space. Such as a pirate waiting for a cargo ship to ambush. Then you could have them just keeping the engines on for the comfort and then turn it off and use hyperjump to get near the enemy when they appear. During combat there would be crazy accelerations in every direction (well, up and down, assuming Elite controls), so the crew would probably be strapped down in place for that.