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[GlyphGryph]

Divergent Threads: The Storyline Project

I'm currently working on a website that will, in essence, allow people to write additional chapters in response to other peoples stories. There will be a few major features:

• Users can create "stories", or collections of chapters. Chapters can be, but do not need to be, in any particular order, and can have been created by any user.
• Chapters can have preceeding chapters, following chapters, and adjacent chapters. While in the context of a given story, "official" chapters will be set apart, but you can view chapters in each of those roles created by any user for the chapter you are currently reading.
• The owner of a story can canonize these new chapters if he likes them, or the owner of the chapter can roll all the original chapters (plus his new one) into his own story and create his own "official" version of events.
• You can upvote chapters and stories that you like. Popularity is tracked.

This can be used to:
Write stories together (obviously)
Play games (players can submit turns as chapters, at least, but there are some other interesting possibilities here)
Interactive/Choose your own Adventure stuff - the natural branching structure is good for this.
Moderated storywriting - A player can view "submissions' for the next chapter in the story and pick his favorite, or the one with the most votes, etc. and so on, to include in the official 'canon' storyline.

It's currently in Alpha, meaning stuff /works/, though it isn't feature complete. Everything I listed above already works - more or less. I don't want a general release right now, but I wouldn't mind if people use it and tell me what they want or think I should change or what doesn't work for them. Note that it is VERY unfinished right now. Check the "bugs" story before reporting bugs.
If you are interested, send me a PM, and I'll probably give you the link to the site.

[freeformschooler]

Hey, I've always liked stuff like this! Writing.com does this too. I'll be following your project here.

[GlyphGryph]

Actually, pointing out other people that have done similar stuff will likely be pretty useful. I originally started this because I didn't find anyone who did, so if they exist I should check them out and make sure I can take it a bit above and beyond somehow.

[NobodyPro]

I remember something like this being done to spoof Vanity Publishing on a professional level. It was horrible

[freeformschooler]

Hmmm...

I think it could be improved by adding the ability to put HTML in chapter bodies.

Also, I got a kick out of "make non-canonical".

[GlyphGryph]

Hmm... that's a good point at least, some level of more direct control over structure will really be needed, won't it?

Do you think bbcode level stuff would be enough, or is there some strict html requirement you had in mind?

[freeformschooler]

bbcode would definitely work. The only thing I had in mind was <img> tags to spice a story up with pictures. That's one thing a lot of sites like this don't support for whatever reason.

[GlyphGryph]

Ah, yeah, don't worry about that - we'll have both ways to insert images, links and files into a chapter, as well as basic bbcode styling, it's just not implemented yet.

We'll also have an image focused variant of chapters as a way to make submissions that are an image in their entirety, attach them to a given story or chapter, which we imagine as the primary way for people to submit fan art or do any sort of graphical adventure game.

What's writing without pictures? It's boring shit, most of the time. So yeah, that's definitely something we have every intent on supporting.

[freeformschooler]

Ah, cool. Logistics question: in the Bugtracker story, it lists all subchapters of ::BUGTRACKER:: on the main page. Does that mean all subpages of everything in the story will appear as links on the main story page? That could get pretty confusing.

E: Apparently not, based on "Once Upon a Time".

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm interested. I like the idea, and in seeing how different people would continue various stories.

I remember something like this being done to spoof Vanity Publishing on a professional level. It was horrible

Oh yes, Atlanta Nights. And it got published, even though just a cursory glance would've revealed things like an entire chapter written by a computer program and all sorts of fun! Gotta love vanity publishing.

[GlyphGryph]

Ah, cool. Logistics question: in the Bugtracker story, it lists all subchapters of ::BUGTRACKER:: on the main page. Does that mean all subpages of everything in the story will appear as links on the main story page? That could get pretty confusing.

Once we get stuff in, that will look better than the jumble it is now. It's going to be a nice approximation of a table of contents for canon stories, and children that aren't canon will be insivible to all but the Story owner (who will seen them in a seperate container).

The view stuff definitely needs a lot of work.

[scriver]

It's also a bit strange to me that the newest entries appear at the bottom of, say, the "Recently Updated" lists. It does not compute!

Also it's a cool idea.

[Darvi]

Doesn't seem too difficult to use.

Also, sorry scriver. I accidentally formed chappter.

[scriver]

I WILL DOOM IT TO UNCANONICALICITY!

[GlyphGryph]

Current Goals:
Fix noted bugs
Vastly Improve Display
Add basic bbcode support
Hook in the comment system.

Anyone want to suggest variations to those priorities feel free.