Mystery Chain Story - Official Thread

[Stupot]

Welcome to the Mystery Chain story.  Thanks to all those who signed up.

This is how things are going to work:

Each author will be placed into one of two teams of 6 or 7 people â€" Team A and Team B.
There are two phases.  Phase 1 is the ‘chain’ phase and phase 2 is the ‘endings’ phase.  Each author will take part in both phases.

Phase 1 â€" The Chain
Each team will create a chain story in the usual way.  I will supply the first author in each team with a selection of starting sentences taken from a range of well-known novels.  He or she must write 200-250 words on top of that and each subsequent author must write 200-250 words on top of what has already been written.  There is, however, one requirement â€" in your entry you must introduce one prominent new question or mystery, without attempting to answer any of the previous authors’ mysteries.  Use your imagination.  The final author will also be asked to leave the story unfinished and pose one final mystery to be solved...

On your turn I will send you the story so far and you have 48 hours to send me your entry.  Please acknowledge your receipt of this email within 24 hours to help me keep track of things.

Phase 2 â€" The Endings
Once all entries of Phase 1 are returned to me, I will send Team A’s story to each member of Team B and I’ll send Team B’s story to each member of team A.  Each author’s task is to come up with an ending to the story (anything up to 1000 words) which solves all of the mysteries (or as many as you can) posed by the previous authors in Phase 1.

You will have one week to get your entries back to me.

Voting
Once all of the entries are in, the stories will be made public and voting will commence.
Prizes of bronze, silver and gold will be given to the three entries voted ‘best mystery’ for each story in Phase 1.
Prizes of bronze, silver and gold will be given to the three entries voted ‘best ending’ for each story in Phase 2.

Thanks again for participating.
Enjoy the game :-)

-Stu


Progress

Phase 1
Team A - 6/6
Team B - 7/7

Phase 2
Team B (Story A) - 0/7
Team A (Story B) - 0/6

[Stupot]

Hey All.
We're about 1/3 of the way through phase 1.
Team B is a bit behind, so what I might do is put their extra 7th man at the end of Team A so that both teams might finish at a more similar time.

Keep up the good work.

[Stupot]

Man, the buzz surrounding this game is incredible!  :o

We've had our first dropper-outer, which isn't bad going, but it means I've put the original 7th man of Team B back into Team B and he is now the 6th (but still final) man.  So there are now 6 authors per team, which is nice and tidy, but I'm a bit concerned about DanielHs lack of activity since June 9th, so if anyone happens to know him outside of AGS, give him a wake-up call for me.

Phase 2 is nearly upon us.

[Privateer Puddin']

I'm looking forward to reading and ending the stories!

[Blobby 101]

These look really fun, can i sign up for the next one?

[Vince Twelve]

When it comes 'round, please do!

Man, it's so much more frustrating to be a participant than a host and not get to see each story at each stage.  I can't wait to see them.

[Stupot]

We've had another dropper-outer (or in this case a complete lack of response), so Story A is now ready to be wrapped up.  Story B is very nearly there, so Phase 2 should begin in the next 36 hours.

There are some great mysteries to be solved.  I'm thinking of having a go myself.  One author so far has thrown a particularly nasty spanner in the works - exactly what I was looking for - and I can't wait to see how people manage to explain that off... Mwahahahaaa 

[Vince Twelve]

If you want to bring group A up to six, you could just have a go yourself.  I always inserted myself the first time someone vanished in the interest of time, but you could do it here to round the story out. 

Not that you would need to since these are meant to be open ended.  But just to really stick it to the people who will attempt finishing A... you could really nail them!

[Igor Hardy]

Personally, I think we shouldn't cut the stories short at this point (even if works for open-ended stories). It would be sad somehow. Better have someone replace the late drop-out.

[Vince Twelve]

Yeah, you could get blobby 101 from a few posts ago to jump in there!

[Stupot]

Yeah, good plan.  You want in Blobby? I'll PM you.

[straydogstrut]

If Blobby can't do it, i'd be more than happy to have a go since I was also waiting for this to come round again. Otherwise, no worries, looking forward to the end result=)

[Blobby 101]

great, PM'd back

[Stupot]

If Blobby can't do it, i'd be more than happy to have a go since I was also waiting for this to come round again. Otherwise, no worries, looking forward to the end result=)

@Straydog.
Do you want in on the Chain Story?  I don't mind putting you at the end of one of the teams.  We're now on the 6th man in each story, so whoever get's back to me first, I can make you the 7th (and then I might make myself the 7th man of the other story :-)

PM me your email addy.

[straydogstrut]

I'd love to take part if it's no inconvenience!=)

I've PM'd you Stupot, but my email addy is on my profile for anyone who needs it.

Cheers

[straydogstrut]

Stupot was kind enough to let me have a go so i've emailed him my part just now.

Interesting stuff so far people;-)

[Stupot]

Right-o!

Phase 2 is underway!
Anyone who has taken part in Phase 1 sould now have an email from me with an attachment of the their opposing team's chain story.

If you haven't worked it out by now, your job is to write an ending to that story (up to 1000 words), trying to solve all of the mysteries that have been posed over the past couple of weeks.

If you don't have such an email and think you should, please let me know.

I'm also gonna open Phase 2 up to anyone who who missed out on phase 1.
If you're interested, PM me with or email Address.  I will then send you either Story A or Story B, to decided by a complex algorthm involving a coin.  But the deadline still applies to everyone, so the sooner you show your interest, the more time you've got.

You have one week.. starting... froooooom...

NOW!

[Vince Twelve]

Hokay... first draft: WAY over the word limit...  Anyone else having trouble wrapping these things up in 1000 words?  There are a lot of strings to tie together. 

[Stupot]

The word limit is just a guideline.  If you want to write a bit more you won't be penalised.  Let your creative juices gush... but remember, voters are busy people.

[discordance]

Hokay... first draft: WAY over the word limit...  Anyone else having trouble wrapping these things up in 1000 words?  There are a lot of strings to tie together. 

Heh, I ended up with 762 words and felt like I should try to pad it out a bit I have a feeling you got the other story.