The Book of Masks Homepage

I Take a Hiatus; Masktrix Picks up a Baton

So today brings the eleventh chapter in a ten-chapter commission.

Interactive: "Maria's Crush" 
Public: "Maria's Crush" 

It was fun, even if I found that writing for Maria was a bit like digging clay out of the ground with my fingernails. Some characters write themselves; some respond well to be written; but for others you write and write and dig and dig, and when you're done you feel like you've written 10,000 words and have said 10 words worth of meaning.

But people seemed to like it. My thanks to ThePrussian55, Chelsea Woodward, Easy, Wordsmitty, Centre, Achillesredux, and HayateZero for Gift Points and some very nice words.

* * *

Okay, now what?

These last few branches have been commissions, and I'm all caught up with them. So now I'm off to work on a non-BoM project for a little while: my silly "Spider-Man" project: "Commissions and Projects" .

I've been at work on it already for the past week or so, and I've got some new treatments that I will start publishing tomorrow. To see the project results thus far, check here: "Marvel Spider-Man: The Alternate Series" .

I'll be posting one treatment a day, until I run out of completed treatments. I'll also be publishing short commentaries for each one, here on the blog. This project has been more successful as a learning exercise than anything else, and I might as well share some of the things I've learned.

* * *

But BoM readers won't be completely abandoned in the meantime. Tomorrow, Masktrix will start publishing a new 15-chapter storyline. And this one is pretty radical.

For a start, it's a branch that I commissioned, which is a switch. It's an idea I've wanted to see done for a long time, but never bothered to work out myself. So I asked Mastrix to work on it for me.

It takes off of these chapters, which are buried deep in an obscure corner of "The Book of Masks": "A Prank Present" ; "Of Pranks and Punks" ; "Punks and Persecutions" . Will has been working for Blackwell, but after his mentor gets eaten by a supernatural creature, Will searches the house and finds a peculiar book full of occult-themed stories. As he reads deeper into the book, he comes across an interactive story about a student at Westside High School who finds a grimoire that teaches how to make magical disguises. The story seems familiar, but Will can't quite put his finger on why this interactive story gives him such a strong sense of deja vu ...

The idea (obviously, I hope) is to use these chapters as a way of telling BoM all over again but with a different protagonist. It would be the same universe, with the same characters, in the same setting, with the same rules. But it would be someone else, not Will Prescott, having the adventure. I wrote three chapters with three different protagonists but never developed any of them.

So I've commissioned Mastrix to play with the idea. Tomorrow he will introduce a fourth character who finds the Libra, and launches it into a fifteen-chapter storyline. It's entirely his creation, by the way. Though I commissioned it, I only asked for two things: that it run for 15 chapters, and that Will Prescott at least put in an appearance. Otherwise, every creative choice has been Masktrix's.

He's been showing me the chapters ahead of time (he's up to Chapter 10 as I post this), and I think it's really good. I think you guys will enjoy it too.

EDIT: I will be publishing Masktrix's chapters in the Archives as well. The chapters leading up to where his storyline will appear begin with "The Path Through the Protective Maze" .