Month: August 2006

I've been thinking about round robins for a while now... not really so much how to start one as who might be interested in participating and what kind of market might exist for it. It strikes me as an excellent idea for an anthology - start up a world, invite people to contribute stories about that world, edit meticulously, then publish. Continuity is a must, and constant collaboration is a given. But what are the odds that an idea like this could take off? This rant was brought to you by a stray advertisement in a certain Filipino message board about a forum-based roleplay. The roleplay is based on a popular MMORPG, the name of which i forget right now (it's not Ragnarok, I'm sure of that), and to all intents and purposes it's just a fun thing to do. It resembles a round robin at least in that it follows a moderator-imposed storyline, but the installments are done from different points of view. There's no final output to be compiled, no "project" to be accomplished - people with similar interests just get together and have fun. But what if you could put it together into something. What if you could create a round robin that could be patched together into something publishable, much like Robert Lynn Asprin's Thieves' World, and the Myth and Phule series? Say you could assign authors to specific delivery dates, and they could come up with stories based on a world you all could build together? Wouldn't it be both fun and challenging for all concerned? Well, more challenging than fun, I suppose, but I still think it's worth looking into. A couple of questions go with this... (more…)