Jwolf,
I remember the PrisonAAR and his struggles with Orleans. Enjoyable, I agree, but I think the author tired of the format and abandoned it. I just checked the librAARy - it was abandoned in game year 1610.
Judge,
No difference of opinion? You spoil all my fun!
Thanks for the info on your characters - I'll have to look them up.
Anibal,
Not sure what you mean about the poetry. Do you mean including poetry written by others or poetry written by yourself in a period style? You're right that neither is common. Research of any kind is hard work, and writing poetry is tough.
Sharing thoughts is the purpose of the SolAARium and is very valuable for me. This forum is a great place to experiment... the quality of the constructive criticism is high, I think.
Originally posted by Storey
About the Bremen AAR. Does it make sense to say I admired and enjoyed it with admired coming before enjoyed? ... Is part of the problem with the short stories going to be why that particular subject is being written about? Can you choose anything you want to write about and succeed, as in keep the readers interest? Is it always going to be about a pivotal point in the AAR?
Storey,
Ouch. Well, I admit I had more fun with some essays than others. Mozart, Frankenstein and the Heart, Hand and Eye spring to mind. The Colonial Corporation (did I get that right? I forget) for another. Did I say Anne Rice needed an editor? Maybe I wasn't ready to move boldly into a new format - I kept giving in to that urge to tell the whole story.
What I really enjoyed was a freedom to write about any point that interested me, without regard to chronology or the overall flow of the game. And I took a lot of pleasure in thinking up unusual ways to explain what was going on... the bell, Mozart and that Colonial Corporation are examples.
So yes, I think each short story should
ideally both illustrate an interesting episode in the game AND be related from an unusual point of view AND tell something interesting. Um, that's one more than a 'both', isn't it.
And yes, I think I can choose anything I want to write about and succeed, as in keep the readers interest.
Or at least develop some hefty authorial muscles in the process.
Heck, everybody slows down to look at a bad wreck!
One of the surprises for me in my AAR is the complete freedom in what I can write about.
Yes, but... Joe, you are the main character. See? The AAR is about you and your experience. It's autobiography in game form. I just think it's great that you can turn the spotlight on yourself with such zest and flair. I'd love to meet you, I'll bet you're a heckuva fella. probably hard to hold a conversation with that clanking noise, but whattheheck.
Several months ago I thought about doing an AAR in the manner of my current one and sprinkling a number of short stories in it. I even had a title for it "Snapshots" or something equally silly.
Oddly enough I've been assembling notes for 'A Portrait Gallery'. My problem is finding a game that I enjoy playing. Lost Poland in a computer restore.
Currently playing Songhai, which is a new brand of snooze-enhancing sleep aids. Great, fecal brown blob spreading from Fez to Fernando Po with no money and .4% inflation from gold... inflation over 65% by 1500's and rising. Impossible to get much done, and now the Portuguese are knockin' on the door. Blecchhhh.
First I was worried about the time commitment. Second I felt that the short stories were going to have to be very good maybe even special for it to work... However there is still the time commitment to consider. It took me a little over a week to write the story. So take a dozen stories and you’re up to three months work and I haven’t even started doing the narrative much less playing the game. Yikes!
Um. Huh? Play the game, write some stories on points that interest you - more than four, less than thirteen - and post them as you get them ready. I have no doubt you can write a great short story, but if you ever wanted a place to fail gloriously in a grand attempt to thunderous applause, this forum is that place.
Tell you what. You wanna split a game and write half the stories? Any way, any style, any thing you wanna do. Or maybe a group of us could pick a country and 'round-robin' the game file - each author plays a generation and writes ONE short segment about his turn at the controls.
Oooops. Sounds like a mass collaboration - call for Lord Durham and let me sit here quietly until the fit passes.