1. What’s this all about?

The Story was born on February 26, 2007 at 3:20 AM.

The Story unfolds at an arbitrary pace. It may take many different, unpredictable threads. It is constantly in the making. RM is the Prime Mover, and is responsible of the Story as he gave birth to it and gave it its genetic code. Development proceeds by so-called states of suspension (the posts). Each state is like a node (or “crossline”) and it develops by external input (the comments). Inputs may come in many forms:

• Suggested actions. Like good old text adventures and interactive fiction, a commenter can enter a “command”, but since there is no artificial intelligence here to parse such command(s), they can be anything from simple and direct (GO NORTH) to very complex sentences and series of actions (RUN OUT OF THE STUDY, TAKE THE STAIRS TO THE LIVING ROOM AND TURN OFF THE LIGHT. WAIT IN THE DARKNESS UNTIL SOMEONE TRIES THE MAIN DOOR).
• Addition of details. It’s a story. It’s not just about some empty character moving in a fixed environment like a puppet or robot. Commenters can propose descriptions of the characters involved, flashbacks, memories, anything they feel may contribute to the Story’s setting and direction. The Prime Mover will be free to coordinate the various contributions, interact with them, stimulate a particularly interesting one, expand on it, reject it, challenge it.
• Direct questions to the Prime Mover. Especially in the first stages of development, commenters will surely be confused about the lack of information provided in the posts. They can help shape characters and situations by “brainstorming” with the Prime Mover, asking questions, giving plot suggestions and the like. (Examples: “Is person X good at repairing vehicles?”, “How about person Y’s education?”, “I think we should create an episode in person Z’s past to justify his/her claustrophobia”, and so on).
• Role-playing interaction. If the Story proceeds in a satisfactory way, and a good team of commenters forms around it, it could be possible to “enter” it as characters, and start interacting. This will be feasible only at more developed stages of the Story, of course, and only if there are favourable conditions. Interaction can involve talking, giving or asking for objects, providing descriptions of the character’s clothes, moods, etc. Everything will be supervised by the Prime Mover.

If the project attracts many willing participants, it’s easy to imagine that, for each post, the comments section could grow as lengthy as an apparatus criticus. The Prime Mover will organise the various pieces of input by creating different pages for easier reading. This way, as the main characters and situations emerge, it won’t be necessary to hunt for crucial bits of information in the comment section of each post. Each character, each place, the general background, in other words the basic coordinates of the Story will be accessible from the main page. The main course of the Story will be followed by reading the posts (the main nodes or “crosslines”), and everything else (small details, parts of dialogue, digressions, etc.) will remain in the comments. Each post will be accurately tagged to facilitate reading and searches. This, at least, is the intent. It all really depends on what – and who – is going to happen.

Important points

1. The journey is the reward.

2. No haste. The Story doesn’t have to be created in a weekend. There is no expiration date.

3. Anyone can help. Feel creative? Write as much as you like. Feel down to earth and not the creative type? Ask questions. More a reader than a writer? Suggest plot ramifications and twists.

4. Potentially, this might be a very chaotic and entropic project. And that might as well be what makes the Story beautifully unique.