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 |  A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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The Interactives "The Book of Masks"  : A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises."The Wandering Stars" : Sequel to "The Book of Masks.""Student Bodies" : A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.For non-WdC Members "The Book of Masks: Archives" : Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!"The Book of Masks (Abridged)" : Introductory storylines for new readers.Community "BoM/TWS Message Forum" : Community for readers of the interactives."BoM/TWS/SB Wiki" : Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!Current Polls None The Latest 7/1: Interactive: "Solving Other People's Problems" 7/1: Public: "Solving Other People's Problems"
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| Wow, that was dramatic. The poll was neck and neck all day yesterday, and then it spent all morning in a tie. Then, 24 hours and 10 minutes after I posted it, another vote broke the tie. So that is the chapter I posted: "Invalid Item" (public) and "The Taming of a Shrew" (interactive).Then as soon as I published it, another vote tied the poll back up. But the tiebreaker stands. Still, don’t feel mad if you voted for “Be Lindsay.” I wrote that chapter too and will post it eventually. I’ve got some other strong second-place winners written and archived as well. You’ll have a chance at them when the current storyline hits a stopping place. |
| The vote was actually kind of close, but "Pick Lindsay" had an early lead so I gambled that it would be the winner and wrote it yesterday. So here it is: "Invalid Item" (public) and "When Second Thoughts Come Too Late" (interactive). Yes, the story stretches out a little more without reaching that climactic moment. Well, that's they way it emerged. It's one of the things that's been rubbing at the back of mind over the last few chapters: How does Caleb feel about all this, and why is he going along with it? It all came boiling in the above chapter, and after it was out it felt to me like it needed to. But I tried turning the delay to profit elsewhere. If Lindsay only winds up as a golem, that will set up more and different choices for Will. Don't take that as implying a preference on my part. The only preference I have is ... that Will have lots of choices. |
| So, "Stay close to the sophomore girls" took a strong early lead yesterday, giving me time to compose a sequel for today. Here you are: "Invalid Item" (public) and "The Boys' Choices" (interactive). I cautioned earlier that it would probably be two more chapters before I reached a point where individual names would appear as choices, but after thinking about it hard I decided I could cut out a step. So things are now primed to start moving. One last, important note. You'll see that the interactive presents four possible choices (Lucy Gibbon, Bradley White, Melanie Heath, and Lindsay Cho) but that the poll only includes three. That's because Lucy is one of rugal's creations, and I think it should be up to him to compose that choice. So if you want to see that chapter written, pester him. I am only volunteering for one of the other three choices. * * * * * Oh, and speaking of rugal, there's an extra chapter on tap today, in a very different section of the interactive: "The Someone Else" . He asked me to set something up there, challenging me to challenge him with some hitherto little-used choices. So let's see if he can do anything with the girls I've chosen for him to write Will into. (No pressure, man!)And I'm sorry, but it's not really part of one of my storylines, and it's not part of the current storyline, so there's no separate publication for it. Besides, very little happens in it so you're not missing much if you can't get into the interactives. But the short version is this: Chelsea, who is working with Will on the grimoire, has asked him to body-swap with either Yumi Saito or Cindy Vredenburg. But Will counters with another name. In "The Someone Else," Will goes over to Chelsea's house with new masks, but wants to know why Chelsea is okay with him bodyswapping with _____. Chelsea says that even _____ will be useful; Will, though, can't answer her when she asks why he wants to be her. Will then goes into the bedroom to find _____ waiting for him. Who is it? Pick one: Danielle Davis, Samantha Carpenter, Kelly Rinaldi, Olivia Byrne. |
| So, after some delays I didn't expect (and didn't want) there's a new chapter up: "Invalid Item" (public) and "The Copyist" (interactive). I'm in new territory now. The just-published chapter was extensively rewritten (2/3rds of it thrown out and totally new words inserted), but it had been written. Now we're entering ground where I've written nothing, and only dimly sketched out where things might go. You will notice that the story continues to "progress" (if that's the right word) by narrowing choices down rather than actually making a change. I warned you some days ago that this would be the pattern. The next chapter (whichever choice gets made) will end with Will choosing between some character types, and then there will be a chapter that finally presents some individuals. So there's a bit more to go. At the same time, I am trying to solve certain story problems as I work my way slowly through. Will has returned to Saratoga Falls to find a real mess: His own "life" upended by the new Will Prescott; a very pushy girl demanding that everything be put back to normal; a middle-aged woman who wants her son back even as she herself wants a new identity; and his own ambivalent intentions. So I'm also using these chapters to finesse these issues. * * * * * One caution on the choices presented at the end of today's chapter: It is easy to read a choice like "Stay close to the sophomore boys" and assume that it would imply a male identity at the end of it; similarly, "Stay close to the girls" would seem to imply a female identity. Don't assume this is the case. I know my readership well enough to know that it is biased toward gender-shifting, but the "gender choice" won't show up until the next chapter, when it comes time to pick a character type for Will to be. When choosing a preference, think in terms of where you think Will should be standing, not in terms of the kind of person he should become. |
| I feel like I keep apologizing for what I've written. We're done with the expository bits, but that doesn't mean that shenanigans are on their way. This is one of those places where the story could go off in dozens of radically different directions, and I think quite a bit of time is going to be consumed by setting up different possibilities. Today sees one of them getting established even as an earlier choice is finally being acted upon. And it has to be put in even though I think I know you guys well enough to guess which choice is going to get made. Parenthetically, today's chapter was a little late going up because it needed a bit of revision. In its first form it was very ambiguous about which of the preceding choices Will was going to make, and I had to add, cut, revise, and do some other close stitching in order to foreshadow (without stating) that Gordon is going to be left exactly where he is and how he is. |
| Maybe I should have warned you yesterday that the next few days were going to be exposition-heavy. To help us get through it, I've posted two chapters today: "Invalid Item" (public) and "People and Possibilities, Part 1" and "People and Possibilities, Part 2" (interactive). I'm not sure the final choice is very interesting. But things are such a mess for Will that it's an important question. Oh, and the favorite choice from yesterday's poll? That's the one I had written. Not that it looks like it made much of a difference. The choice made yesterday will only have distant ramifications in later chapters -- things that won't happen rather than things that will. It will probably be the same thing with today's choice -- it might not make an immediate difference to the plot what gets chosen. I already have a chapter written for tomorrow, but most of the choices on offer today would still probably lead into it. I will have to see what people vote for before deciding if I can use the inventoried chapter tomorrow or if I'll have to write a new one. |
| Well, yesterday's vote was a little more decisive than I thought it would be, and the choice is a surprise too. So let's get on it: "Invalid Item" (public) and "The Fate of Dwayne Macaulay" (interactive). You can get a summary of what's come before through the "Invalid Item" .TBH, the poll at the end is decorative only, and I put it up only so as to gauge relative interest in the choices. I know which choice is going to be published tomorrow (but I'm not going to tell you which one it will be), but if there's strong interest in the other one, I'll give some thought to composing a storyline for it. |
| Hrm. I do not detect a lot of enthusiasm in the last poll. Only 17 votes. It was a narrow plurality that voted to backtrack to a previous choice, so here is the poll for that: "Invalid Item" . I've kept the choices limited, but also tried to make them diverse. Two of the choices are in the current storyline, just a few chapters back. A third backs way up and takes a detour but is still related to the current storyline. The final choice is completely unrelated to it, in case people want to chuck this group and go somewhere else completely.In the meantime, so that you have something to read while the polls are open, I quickly wrote and posted a sequel chapter to yesterday's chapter -- the choice that up until an hour ago (as I write this) had a very narrow lead for second place: "Invalid Item" (public) / "The Invalid and Her Bodyguards" (interactive). |
| So it was pretty clear on Thursday what your choice would be for continuing the story, but I still took an additional 24 hours to write it -- I needed to come up with some vague ideas about where things might go. And at the moment it is still pretty vague. I have ideas for ... complications ... whichever way you guys choose to continue "Invalid Item" (public) / "Turkish Delight (Not)" (interactive). But I've also included "Return to earlier chapter; take another choice" path. Regarding comments yesterday about how I should write whatever I want: I will be doing that at some point, probably by returning to the "right" choice earlier in this storyline which you guys didn't pick. But right now I'm more interested in the challenge of composing to reader dictates. It's a way of stretching my muscles, and if I sometimes sound like I'm complaining, well, if you ever exercise you know it's common to groan over the pain of stretching muscles. Still, I don't intend to overstrain myself, so I'm not sure how long this will last. |
| So I checked in many hours ago, ready to post the next chapter. Then something happened, and another thing happened, and now here it is finally being posted almost 12 hours late: "Invalid Item" (public) and "Not My Circus" (interactive). At the moment the poll at the end of "Friends and Anti-Friends" is tied exactly, but the choice "Go along with Chelsea's games" had the lead when I checked it 24 hours after posting it, so that's the one that I'm publishing. Even though it's the "wrong" choice, the one that doesn't lead into the storyline I composed. So, I don't have a sequel to "Not My Circus" written, and in fact I have no idea where any of the concluding choices might go. That means you're going to have to wait a couple of days before seeing another chapter. Given the late hour that I posted this latest chapter, I think I will wait until Friday at noon (eastern) before closing the polls. |
| Oh God, how do I face you guys after disappearing like that? Is there even anyone left? Maybe everyone just gave up on me? Well, I did warn you that things might be a little hiccupy. I don't have any good reasons for that last hiatus, particularly given that it was in And it was really a jerk move on my part, especially being in the middle of a poll while writing a storyline that I was going to let you guys help dictate. So I'm really sorry, and I do apologize. I don't even have any good reasons for that disappearance, for it was just a variety of crappy little things that snowballed to cause it. So I did start to write the continuation of that storyline. Trouble was, I didn't like what I wrote and put it aside, first for 24 hours, then for 48, then for 72 hours, hoping I'd get back into it or find a better way to write it. Then I discovered that I just didn't want to write it. So I played Minecraft instead, and procrastinated that way. Eventually I did get bored with the game—I told you that would finally happen—but then I found that boredom with Minecraft didn't give me the desire to write. And it was worse than just not wanting to write a BoM chapter. I found that I just didn't want to write at all. So there was a week or so of frustration at that, during which I just didn't want to do anything. Then, wouldn't you know it, Minecraft dropped a giant update: lots of new features and physics and environments. Huge stuff, and that got me back into the game for a little while. It might have been fatal except that after a week or two I rediscovered all the reasons that I don't like vanilla Minecraft and can only play modded versions of it. The result was, thank God, I finally made myself so sick of Minecraft that didn't want to go back to it, in new or modded form. So late last week I went back to see if I could write, and to my relief found that time away had fixed whatever problem I was having, and got some writing done. I still delayed returning to WdC until after the holiday weekend had passed, however. I wanted to get a lot of chapters written first, so that I'd have them on hand to publish. The last thing I wanted, after the pratfall when I tried returning from that first hiatus, was to fall on my face again by publishing a chapter and not having anything to follow it up with. Also, I was just dreading having to log in and face you guys. Anyway, here's the situation: There's a new chapter up—"Friends and Anti-Friends" (interactive) and "Invalid Item" (public)—continuing that storyline I had written and taking the choice that had the most votes when I last checked in on the polling results. There's also a poll up on which choice to take to continue it.But no matter what you vote for, you will get a sequel, because I've written sequel chapters for each choice. But! I can't absolutely guarantee that you'll get more chapters after that. It depends on two things. If you guys make the "right" choices after that—if you go the way I suspect you'll want to go—then you could get a bunch more chapters, because one of those storylines is written all the way through Chapter 27. If you go off course, though ... Well, I'll try to compose the desired chapters, but I can't absolutely guarantee it. If worst comes to worst, I might just declare a "wrong turn" and start publishing the storyline that I've composed instead. So, once again ... I'm sorry. I know I'm serving up free ice cream here. But I do feel like I made a kind of promise the last time I checked in, and I feel very bad for failing so badly to keep it. I'll be trying to catch up on other stuff around here in the meantime. |
| Because I skipped yesterday, I'm late with some necessary gratuities and gratitudes, which even then should have been mentioned earlier (but I was flying about doing other things). First, the usual weekly thanks to Easy for the tip. The big "Wow" thanks, though, have to go out to the anonymous benefactor who bestowed upon me another year's WdC membership at the Upgraded level. That means I'll be able to keep operating this way into 2020. Thanks! I guess someone doesn't want me disappearing any time soon. Gulp! I will do my best not to, even if there are the occasional hiccups like there have been this month. (Eventually I'll get bored with Minecraft again.) |
| So, there's the last chapter I've got written in the current storyline. I could have published it yesterday, but I paused to think about ways it might proceed. I've got some ideas for the alternate branches, but instead of just traipsing down that path, I thought I'd make it up a little to you guys for the recent nonsense by letting you vote on it—you can find a poll at the end of the public version of the chapter: "Invalid Item" . Depending on how the vote goes, there might be one or two further votes later on. |
| Oh God, what am I supposed to say? It's summer, maybe we can call the last two weeks an unannounced, unintended vacation? Actually, it's been a multitude of things. 1. Dental appointments and the like threw me off schedule on a couple of days. Then one branch of the family came to visit, and after that I had some housesitting obligations to another branch. All in all, the last two weeks have randomly upset my normal routine, which has made it easy for me to forget to post stuff. 2. But also, as I reread the chapters I was going to post, I decided that they needed extensive revisions. I wound up cutting out the equivalent of one chapter, and another one I revised from top to bottom. I'm still not happy with them, and that's stopped me each time I've come close to resuming posting. 3. But okay, I'll confess, the big problem has been ... Minecraft. I got back into that time sink in a big way over the past few weeks. It started when a podcast mentioned a couple of mods that sounded interesting, and I've been spending all my free time exploring them. And when I'm not playing those mods I'm thinking about what I'm going to do when I return to playing. But apparently my absence is worrying people a little—I'm sorry! Really!—so I'm going to be put my head down and power through these doubts and procrastinations. So here's the new chapter in the interactive——and the same chapter in its stand-alone version. * * * * * I also have some gratuities and gratitudes to catch up to on acknowledging: * Ann Man (who says some undeservedly nice things along with the tip) * Easy * dreadnaught It might be a day or two before I catch up to emails. |
| I'm not going to post updates here for each time I post a new chapter. In the interactive or in the special folder: look for the last chapter that was published, and at the bottom you'll find a link to the next chapter. |
| When I posted yesterday, I'd forgotten that I'd already polled readers on what branch to continue, and I also forgot that I had chapters written in it. Otherwise I'd have promised you a new chapter today instead of saying "We'll see." Those who can get into the interactive with no problems can find it posted here: "When Ambitions Collide" . If you're a basic or non-registered member of WdC, you should have an easier time finding it here: "Invalid Item" . The background: Will has sold the magical grimoire to Caleb, but has been dragged back in when its new owners suffer an accident with it. Those new owners are Gordon and Chelsea, who got it off Caleb when (disguised as Will) he tried copying them into masks. Gordon has turned himself into a golem, and Chelsea wants Will's help in fixing him. But she gets other ideas when Will, after investigating the book, finds a way of pulling off the equivalent of a body swap. Chelsea has suggested to Will that he swap identities with one of the other cheerleaders, so that he can learn why his ex-girlfriend dumped him. This branch will probably continue for a week. |
| Last chapter is now up: "Invalid Item" It was a close vote, and then some other stuff happened this weekend, so it took awhile to get written and posted. Obviously, the story doesn't reach a conclusion. I mean, I could have done something that would have tied it up—had Will run over by a truck, say—but there's no fun in that. But I'm tired of this thing now, and I suspect people are kind of tired of it too, so today brings the last chapter in the storyline. There's no poll attached to it. I said I was tired of it? I am, but it was a lot of fun, and you guys and your votes sent it spinning in some pretty challenging directions. I'd like to do this again at some point. But for now I'm going to return to the traditional style of writing what I want and sending it where I want to send it. It might be a few days before I resume, however. I'm going to leave the just-concluded storyline posted for a while as a separate chain of chapters in my portfolio, so that basic and non-registered readers can still find it. But after a week or so I'm going to delete it, and the storyline will only be available as part of the interactive itself. But ... I am going to continue to double-post new chapters going forward, so that basic and non-registered readers can still find new chapters without having to fight their way past "servers busy" messages to get into the interactive. For a quick link to new chapters, bookmark or remember to check this page: "Invalid Item" . I'll occasionally post a reminder here. |
| I'm really sorry for vanishing for you guys for another week. I had something else that I needed to write, and when I got done with that I was hit for a couple of days with some crippling headaches that ruined both my concentration during the day and my sleep at night. I guess I should have posted a note explaining the delay, but I was constantly on the edge of thinking that I was all better, and I preferred to return with new content instead of excuses. Anyway, here's the new content: "Invalid Item" and "Invalid Item" .Yes, two of them. When last we parted, "Invalid Item" had ended with a tie vote. I said I'd make the decision on where to go, and I decided to go in both directions. The resulting chapters aren't too exciting, but they do advance the plot.But where do we go after that? That's what this poll is for: "Invalid Item" . You get another chance to vote on how "Chances Taken" continues, but with only two choices instead of four, and after getting a look at the possible sequels to each.So, lots of voting to be done today! Get on it! |
| Not only is the poll at the end of "Invalid Item" a tie as of 11:00 AM (EDT), it was a tie (at points a four-way tie!) through most of the day. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave the poll open for another four hours, until 3:00 PM (EDT). I will check back every twenty minutes to see if additional votes come in. The moment I spot a tie-breaking vote, I will close the poll and declare a winner. If at the deadline the poll is still tied, I will close it and make some kind of decision on how to proceed. EDIT: Okay, four hours have passed and it's still a tie -- no more votes in. Poll is closed, and I'll consider what comes next. |
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