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1. Mechanics of the Poddington Project 2. The Poddington Project and Story-telling 3. Interaction in the Poddington Project 4. The Poddington Project and Quality
1. Mechanics of the Poddington Project The Poddington Project mail list community is at the URL: Finally, bring your imagination!
E. Will my privacy be protected? Only members of the Poddington Project will, on our ONElist community web page, be able to view the membership roster and its associated email addresses. If you wish to preserve your anonymity, sign up to ONElist with your character's name, or use an anonymous email services such as Hotmail or Yahoo! mail. We will be giving credit where credit is due on submitted
stories. If you don't want your real name associated with a story,
be sure to specify how you wish to be credited. 2. The Poddington Project and Story-telling A. What types of formats are viable for the Poddington Project? When writing about your characters, most writers will most likely wish to write in short story format about a single incident. Several stories could be strung together to describe a chain of events. Stories may be in third-person or first-person format. You may also wish to consider the personal diary for your character; a number of journal entries could be story-like in nature. In general, poetry would not be the best format to relay a story, unless your character is a professional poet. However, your character may write poems on occasion that illuminate his or her motivations and desires. Feel free to explore this area as well.
B. In what time period am I supposed to write? The world of Poddington is set in the early to mid 1920s. No stories will be set in Poddington's future. Keep an eye to anachronisms, when writing your stories. You may wish to write about Poddington's past. We fully encourage you to do so. If you had a character on Poddington-on-Slossip MUSH, feel free to take old logs and write them as stories (it may be a good first project for you!). If you wish to write about the most distant past, bring up your ideas on the Poddington list and your moderators will attempt to provide you with enough relevant information in order to make your story relevant to Poddington's contemporary time.
C. Where do I get story ideas? Try using old logs and writing a story from that. Bring up ideas on the mailing list and ask for help. Hold meetings and RP sessions on Online Gaming Resources MUSH. Ask a moderator, if you're shy. The purpose of the mailing list, however, is to brainstorm and collaborate on stories, so don't feel awkward about asking for help.
D. Do I have to write the story by myself? It would be optimistic to come up with a story idea and expect that someone else would be glad to write it for you. However, if players wish to collaborate on a story together, that's great. You are encouraged, but not required, to write stories in order to participate in the Poddington Project. If you wish just to brainstorm with others, you may.
E. What supernatural elements can I incorporate in my stories? In order to preserve the secrets of the world of Poddington, we do not hand out a manual to the writers of the Poddington Project. You will find glimmerings of the world's mysteries in the stories that our players write. There are indeed characters and events from Poddington-on-Slossip
who are not from the humdrum world of the ordinary. It is certainly
true that Cornwall has more than its share of eerie, supernatural
legends. It would be untrue to our setting to ask writers to
ignore the potential of incorporating these elements into their
stories. Within the bounds of theme, setting and reason, your
characters can be occultists, witches or warlocks, believe in
sprites and knockers, and hold long, heated monologues with ghosts.
However that doesn't mean Poddington actually includes any of
the things your characters profess to believe." When you contemplate writing a story with supernatural elements that evolve from belief to event (for example, if your character believed in the existence of ghosts, that would be a mere belief, but if she happened to encounter one, that would be an event), talk to your Poddington Project moderators. They will let you know if the supernatural elements are within the purview of the Project. Your Moderators will be glad to give you, on occasion, various 'clues' to include in your stories, should the tone of the story merit it. You might wish, for example, to write the Moderators and tell them that your character intends to spend a solitary night camping near the deserted Tin Mine on the plains of the moors--what would your character see and hear that night? Your Moderators might have a few insights.
F. What are multiple-perspective stories? From time to time the moderators or other writers of the project will suggest a theme for a multiple-perspective series of stories. Someone will provide a skeleton of an event, and those interested in participating will flesh out the skeleton of the story with their own character's perspectives of it. When appropriate, the Moderators will provide to those participating, secrets to use in their stories. For example, the moderators might suggest a multiple-perspective story of an secret outing to the DeWinter estate grounds late one wintry night. During the course of the evening, one of the party becomes lost and is later found on the Poddington village green, while another becomes hysterical, forcing the party to leave. The member of the party who becomes lost might receive a clue that he heard voices leading him away from the rest of the party, while the member who becomes hysterical might receive the instruction that she felt a clammy hand on her neck. Other members of the party might see a light moving in the DeWinter estate, or hear the famed footsteps of the demented Christine DeWinter, who killed herself in the hedge maze.
G. How do I submit my stories? You should submit your stories by emailing it to the Moderators, not to the entire list. The Moderators will distribute it to the mailing list and archive it on the web site. Stories sent directly to the list will not be archived, and the list member who transgressed will be covered with syrup and red ants. We really really mean this.
The Moderators will look over the story to ensure that nothing blatantly inconsistent with the world of Poddington exists in the story, and perhaps correct small errors. Stories with serious problems will not be distributed to the list, but due to the collaborative nature of the project, it's easy to avoid problems by discussing your ideas with the Moderators and other writers early in composition.
3. Interaction in the Poddington Project At the Poddington Project web site will be a list of 'free characters' you may use without permission in your stories. These characters will have descriptions, brief backgrounds, and (if they have been characters on Poddington-on-Slossip MUSH) links to representative logs so that writers may obtain a sense of their style of talk and of interaction. Feel free to populate your stories with these 'free characters'. Additionally, you may create whatever characters you wish to populate your stories. If you have need of a neighbor named Mrs. Claggett, bring her to life. You may wish to seek guidance when creating characters of a singular nature. For example, if one writer referred to the landlord of the Languishing Apple as Mr Jones, while another called him Mr Mapower, it could lead to some serious inconsistencies. If you have need of such a singular character in your stories, contact the Moderators and they will help resolve the issue. Also at the Poddington Project web site will be a list of the characters of other participants. If you wish to involve these characters in your stories, contact them either via email or through the Poddington mail list. Perhaps the two of you could collaborate on a dual-perspective story!
B. How do I contact other writers? If you are looking generally for collaborators, but have no one particular in mind, post to the Project mail list and let people know what sort of project you'd like to write, and what sorts of interactions you'd like to have. If you wish to contact a particular writer in the Project, use either the mail list or their direct email. Participants in the Project are able to view a list of members on the mail list community web site. You may also wish to hold an online meeting at our embassy on Online Gaming Resources MUSH. Don't forget that your Moderators will be participants in the Project as well. They might want to collaborate with you!
C. What is Online Gaming Resources MUSH? The staff of Online Gaming Resources MUSH has been kind enough to offer us, for an indefinite period of time, a spot where our writers can meet to brainstorm, chat, and perhaps even RP scenes for proposed stories. Thanks, Gaming Resources MUSH (eccles.tzo.net 670) !
D. How do I set up online meetings? Any member of the Poddington community can post to the calendar section of our ONElist community. Make an appointment on the calendar, notify the mail list, and have a meeting about a project!
4. The Poddington Project and Quality A. I've never written stories before. How do I know if I'm good enough for the Project? Your Moderators are always looking for good prose. We like complete sentences and spell-checked documents with a gripping storyline. However, we recognize that many of our writers have never penned formal stories about the characters they imagine. Don't worry. If you can role-play compellingly, you can write a story. The type of role-playing that took place on Poddington-on-Slossip MUSH is easily translatable into traditional fiction. Your characters talk, think, and react physically to the events that happen around them. It's that simple! Everyone in the Poddington Project is here for the same reason--a love for the world of Poddington, and a desire to keep it active for the imaginary people with which we've populated it. Don't be afraid to ask for tips and help from other writers in the project. We're not competing with each other. We're collaborating! |