Community narrative project? participate and help?
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:43 pmA couple of pointers to introduce the argument
1 several years ago I remember finding a HILARIOUS story on the World of Warcraft forums. it must have been 30 pages, written brilliantly by a fan (it was something about illiadan and the god of wow,,)
2 anyway, apparently Roberts used to write his own fan fiction stories before working for IDW.
3 Does it ever bug you how in movies/comics, there seems to be a written law that the characters of the movie/comic live in an exact copy of our world, BUT without comics. its complicated. But people in spider man movies or tf, or whatever, never recognise said characters for what they are (hey look its sara connors from, or whatever). So the 1st tf movie was set in a world, exactly like ours, but a different president of the USA (thats another hollwood unwritten rule..) AND without transformers comics, so nobody knows who they are when they get on earth at first..
SO: here's an idea.
A starting plot, that,
rather than seeing transformers as giant alien robots, see's them like living toys;
something like toys story or small soldiers (details to be developped). living in our world, with all its implications (and most importantly evolving future, so we don't have to invent a 'parallel' universe that diverges from the moment the story begins (as the discovery of other sentient beings would affect our world).
People Interested can participate in forms of short stories, that by adhering to a set of general rules that we can here later agree to, may attempt a collection of short stories linked by the same characters but not necessarily tied by the same narrative/plot. In other words, rather than attempting worldbuilding in its more en vogue implications, we would rather be doing something on the lines of what Lovecraft and Howard did. Basically use some predetermined shared elements the story.
Implications. Making the transformers "living toys" that lets say for now come alive at night would carry certain implications (an example of what a set of rules for the narrative could be and what the above implies in terms of narrative)
1- Robots can be doubles, clones or whatever, and still have a distinct personality. they are after all toys representing invented characters, and not the characters themselves. So for example a story could have 10 bumblebees (same or different toy versions <it makes no diff.>) and still be consistent.
2 - Robots can or cannot be aware of the story of their inspiring characters. a la toy story. We can assume that wherever these 'robots' live, it most probably is the house of a collector/geek, and it would be easy to assume there is transformers material (dvds, comics etc) that the toys can watch (or not)
3 Robots adventuring outside collectors home premises MUST NOT BRAKE COVER. maybe collectors can be aware of their living status, but it is important for the collective narrative that it seems plausible that there is a hidden world.
4 Factions no longer matter (if u want). Characters may or may not follow their original factions, but it would seem reasonable that toys living in the same room end up socializing. .. or not. whatever u like goes. but there would be no incongruence if a con and an autobot were to team up for a short story is what im saying.
5 enemies can be other toys (i think i'll go with rocklords)
assuming u want the narrative to go along that line, the choice of villains can range from other toys (from other toys in the room to entire class of toys for one reason or another) to the cat, or generally anything real. However if you want it to be sentient and a monster it would still have to be a toy of whatever it represents.
I'll see if i get inspired, feel free to post stories (or rules) if you do, if it picks up we can tidy it up into something that is easily readable and organized/tidy on a successive post
ciao
1 several years ago I remember finding a HILARIOUS story on the World of Warcraft forums. it must have been 30 pages, written brilliantly by a fan (it was something about illiadan and the god of wow,,)
2 anyway, apparently Roberts used to write his own fan fiction stories before working for IDW.
3 Does it ever bug you how in movies/comics, there seems to be a written law that the characters of the movie/comic live in an exact copy of our world, BUT without comics. its complicated. But people in spider man movies or tf, or whatever, never recognise said characters for what they are (hey look its sara connors from, or whatever). So the 1st tf movie was set in a world, exactly like ours, but a different president of the USA (thats another hollwood unwritten rule..) AND without transformers comics, so nobody knows who they are when they get on earth at first..
SO: here's an idea.
A starting plot, that,
rather than seeing transformers as giant alien robots, see's them like living toys;
something like toys story or small soldiers (details to be developped). living in our world, with all its implications (and most importantly evolving future, so we don't have to invent a 'parallel' universe that diverges from the moment the story begins (as the discovery of other sentient beings would affect our world).
People Interested can participate in forms of short stories, that by adhering to a set of general rules that we can here later agree to, may attempt a collection of short stories linked by the same characters but not necessarily tied by the same narrative/plot. In other words, rather than attempting worldbuilding in its more en vogue implications, we would rather be doing something on the lines of what Lovecraft and Howard did. Basically use some predetermined shared elements the story.
Implications. Making the transformers "living toys" that lets say for now come alive at night would carry certain implications (an example of what a set of rules for the narrative could be and what the above implies in terms of narrative)
1- Robots can be doubles, clones or whatever, and still have a distinct personality. they are after all toys representing invented characters, and not the characters themselves. So for example a story could have 10 bumblebees (same or different toy versions <it makes no diff.>) and still be consistent.
2 - Robots can or cannot be aware of the story of their inspiring characters. a la toy story. We can assume that wherever these 'robots' live, it most probably is the house of a collector/geek, and it would be easy to assume there is transformers material (dvds, comics etc) that the toys can watch (or not)
3 Robots adventuring outside collectors home premises MUST NOT BRAKE COVER. maybe collectors can be aware of their living status, but it is important for the collective narrative that it seems plausible that there is a hidden world.
4 Factions no longer matter (if u want). Characters may or may not follow their original factions, but it would seem reasonable that toys living in the same room end up socializing. .. or not. whatever u like goes. but there would be no incongruence if a con and an autobot were to team up for a short story is what im saying.
5 enemies can be other toys (i think i'll go with rocklords)
assuming u want the narrative to go along that line, the choice of villains can range from other toys (from other toys in the room to entire class of toys for one reason or another) to the cat, or generally anything real. However if you want it to be sentient and a monster it would still have to be a toy of whatever it represents.
I'll see if i get inspired, feel free to post stories (or rules) if you do, if it picks up we can tidy it up into something that is easily readable and organized/tidy on a successive post
ciao
