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12/07/08 -:- Heaven forbid the notion of the thought! But over Thanksgiving I took a big step off the deep end of my computer and dove straight into an idea I've had for a very long time - character driven tales for talesofadventure.net.
Let's face it. And I've studied this for years, so I think I know what I'm talking about when I say short fiction sucks. Personally, I'd rather read a novel than a ten page story. But why is that? As anyone who has taken some writing courses knows - all the best writing in the world comes in the form of short fiction. So why the hesitation? Why the gut sucking resistance to choking down that first paragraph?
I think the answer lies in construction cost. For every story we encounter we mentally have to dust off the imagination and ask it to build a stage setting in our mind, to think up character's faces and traits and backgrounds. And for what? With a novel you at least get a few hundred more pages of enjoyment out of your dream theater. With a short story it's over almost as soon as it began.
On top of this you also don't know what it is you're getting into. You don't know the author, you don't know the characters, you don't know what other people have thought about it. Before you start reading you are just a title and an author's name away from a completely blank slate.
Do you really want to read Robert Howard? Who the hell is Robert Howard? Or do you want to read about Conan the Barbarian. And do you want to read any old Conan tale, or the best Conan the Barbarian tale ever written? (it's Red Nails by the way) We need something to tell us what to expect without giving away too much, to tantalize us into wanting to read a story.
Well. Now we have it.
Hopefully, unlike any other place on the web, when you post a story on talesofadventure.net, you also are given the option to attach characters to it. Their icons will follow the story around, telling readers who are the main stars of the story and giving them a quick way of clicking to learn more about them (of course, you will need to use the character creator to give your characters a presence on the web, that's a bit of a given).
But wait, there's more....
This also isn't some shoddy looking slap a scroll up on the screen affair either. I've ported in the reader from digitalpulp which breaks up a scroll of text into pages and allows you to plant your mouse in one spot and flip through it like a book. If you find that the boss is coming and you need to close out the site but don't want to lose your place quickly click the Bookmark button. When you return to talesofadventure.net, you will find a link for it under your userid in the menu. This will take you back not just to the story you were reading but also the page you were on (let's see a scroll do that!)
So how do I publish on your site?
It's done in the same way as everything else. Go to Create in the menu and click on Tale. Free members of the site may publish up to five per month. Players and Game Masters can publish stories whenever they want. We have no editor, but each story comes with a colored ratings bar that a reader can slide up and down to quickly rate it, giving other people the heads up on whether or not a tale is worth reading.
Unfortunately, it might be a while before I get to post anything up there. I'm still hammering away at the Herculean task of trying to bring the few thousand or so ToAd system records up to date. But once I get the chance you know I will.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
-JDM
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