Miscellaneous Chatter > Writing

Viramsata: Battle of the Authors

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Madness ---"Across the plains surrounding the city of Invishi, the ruling caste-nobles are very remote, very effete. The narcotics they cultivate assure them of the obedience of their populations. Over the centuries, they have elaborated jnan to the point where it has eclipsed their old faiths. Entire lives are spent in what we would call gossip. But viramsata is far different from the rumours of the court or the clucking of harem-eunuchs - far more. The players of viramsata have made games of truth. They tell lies about who said what to whom, about who makes love to whomever, and so on. They do this continually, and what is more, they are at pains to act out the lies told my others, especially when they are elegant, so they might make them true. And so it goes from tongue to lip to tongue, until no distinction remains between what is a lie and what is true.

In the end, at a great ceremony, it is the most compelling tale that is declared Pirvirsut, a word that means 'this beathe is ground' in ancient Vaparsi. The weak, the inelegant, have died, while others grow strong, yielding only to the Pirvitsut, the Breath-that-is-Ground.

Do you see? The viramsata, they become living things, and we are their battle plain" (TTT, p451).

Original italics. Group writing has come up a couple times in the forum so far and an idea has come to me in reviewing my writing stuffs - class related and otherwise.

Not only is the above simply an apt and beautiful metaphor for the emerging study of memetics but it gives us an interesting starting place for another skill-building opportunity.

I'm not big on roleplaying and have little interest in dice roles but I do have an interest in furthering my writing technique by helping to write the most elegant and compelling narratives. The weak, the inelegant, will die, while others will grow strong, yielding only to the Narrative-that-is-Ground.

I'm suggesting a no holds barred viramsata, with, perhaps, a simple maximum of two perspectives per player.

Thoughts?
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Swense ---Well, this drew me out of lurking and reading other people's theories about Bakker's work. :D

What exactly is this proposal? A story contest? A collaborative story with some sort of competitive element? A Second Apocalpyse-themed collaborative story? What would the setting/theme be, or is that effectively determined by whatever the first post is?

Or something entirely different? I don't consider myself an effete caste noble, would I still be able to compete/participate?
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Callan S. ---I think if you had a structue where people have seperate stories, but each person in their own story can write about the characters someone else raises in their story and propose what happened to those characters or what they did, by making it happen in their own story. Then the other writer might take those events and include them, or twist them further and include them.

Otherwise I'm not sure about compelling - I think it requires secrets and many authors writing one story requires co-operation and without some sort of RPG like ruleset in between, either cooperation cancels out secrets, or secrets cancels out cooperation.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Swense ---As long as there is no true competitive aspect, then I think a cooperative story would be very doable - basically narrating the same events from a multitude of perspectives. Not necessarily a game of lies, but a game of wildly different interpretations of the same event, perhaps so much so that the other perspectives would consider each other liars.

Edit: the difference between this and roleplaying is that roleplaying is invested in the victory of the characters and their achievements, this is invested in the success of the story and the achievements of the writers.

But I may be interpreting Madness entire wrong.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Madness ---
--- Quote from: Swense ---A collaborative story with some sort of competitive element?

...

is that effectively determined by whatever the first post is?

...

I think a cooperative story would be very doable - basically narrating the same events from a multitude of perspectives. Not necessarily a game of lies, but a game of wildly different interpretations of the same event, perhaps so much so that the other perspectives would consider each other liars.

Edit: the difference between this and roleplaying is that roleplaying is invested in the victory of the characters and their achievements, this is invested in the success of the story and the achievements of the writers.
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--- Quote from: Callan S. ---Then the other writer might take those events and include them, or twist them further and include them.
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You two are onto it. I'm not sure about a competitive element but it will appear of its own nature: "They do this continually, and what is more, they are at pains to act out the lies told my others, especially when they are elegant, so they might make them true."

Say Callan begins with a perspective that includes something as incidental as a rose in his description. But that is the idea that holds me so I use my character perspectives to explore the rose. However, then Swense liked something else within my own or Callan's perspectives, and he decides to focus on that. So the ideas that are more elegant, more captivating, become our Narrative-that-is-Ground, our Pirvirsut.

It even reflects benjuka ;).

We're limited only by say a maximum of perspectives, or not at all, and by the ideas that take collective hold of our imaginations as we practice our craft.

We must only concede embellish the ideas of others - even if it tests our usual loci of writing.
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