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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 3/31: "BoM Poll: The Possibility of Cassie" [Closes Wednesday, April 2, at 12:00 ET]The Latest 3/31: Interactive: "The Possibility of Cassie" 3/31: Public: "The Possibility of Cassie"
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| The story continues, and it continues with another poll as well: * Interactive: "The Possibility of Cassie" * Public: "The Possibility of Cassie" * Poll: "BoM Poll: The Possibility of Cassie" The winning choice in the last poll took it in a romp, taking the Free Vote narrowly but collecting a huge number of GPs votes. Final adjusted tally: * Hang out more with Cassie: 54% * You want a girl, but Cassie's not the one: 28.1% * Try setting Keith and Cassie up: 17.8% BTW, the story is not being fully improvised. I have extensively planned out off-page goings-on, and there are plenty of traps ahead. But that doesn't mean that these votes are meaningless. Which traps get set off depends on which corridors that readers vote for. And votes like "Does Will ask Cassie out?" will affect more than just the flavor of the story, as these too will affect what happens when the traps get sprung. |
| So we've been doing a lot of polling here lately. "BoM Poll: The Professor Has Visitors" asked you to pick a weekend activity for Will and his friends; "BoM Poll: Mystery Box" asked you to blindly pick a person or group of people, with consequences unknown. Well, those consequences have just arrived: * Interactive: "Big Mouth at the Lake" * Public: "Big Mouth at the Lake" Will and his friends have gone out to Russian Lake, and they've run into Cassie Harper there. * * * For the record, here are the final, adjusted results of the two polls that sent things here. The last poll was interesting only for its one-sidedness. "Go swimming" won the Free Vote going away, and so handily that even some heavy GP voting for "See what Carson and James are doing" couldn't overcome its advantage. As ever, Free Vote percentages are in brackets. * Go swimming: 46.4% [56.5%] * See what Carson and James are doing: 39.3% [26.1%] * See "Vengeance Brigade": 7.1% [8.7%] * See "The Fly": 7.1% [8.7%] * Stay in and play games: 0.0% [0.0%] OTOH, "The Mystery Box" ended with a major upset. There was a lot of GP voting, but most of those went to Cassie, and that advantage was big enough to overcome a hefty lead by a different choice in the Free Vote: Cassie Harper: 33.7% [14.9%] The Garner sisters: 26.7% [36.2%] The RPGers: 20.7% [17.0%] Stephanie Wyatt: 11.9% [19.1%] Laurent and his sports clowns: 6.9% [12.8%] And now there's another poll, to see what comes next: "BoM: Big Mouth at the Lake" EDIT [3/30]: No chapter on this Sunday, as there is a poll running. So there are two new chapters from "Double Double" up: "Double Double (6)" -> "Double Double (7)" |
| Today's chapter (which was voted for by a poll) continues a long-abandoned node in the interactive, and it is so early in the story that I see no point in providing a recap: * Interactive: "The Professor Has Visitors" * Public: "The Professor Has Visitors" It comes with a poll of its own—"BoM Poll: The Professor Has Visitors" —on which choice to make. That poll will be open for 48 hours, so there will be no chapter tomorrow, and maybe not one on Saturday. Instead, I will be posting a few more chapters of that "Star Trek" fanfiction I scribbled out a long time ago, just to keep things a little active.Oh, and which choice won the last poll? Sorry, but even though it's closed, I'm not going to tell you for a few days. |
| "BoM Poll: Mystery Box" I've posted a new poll, and if it is labeled as a "Mystery Box" it's because that's what it is. I'm not telling you what it is related to, or even if it is going to affect anything. Basically, I need a kind of Random Plot Generator, and I'm using you guys to give it to me! It will close on Thursday, March 27, at 12:00pm ET. * * * Also, just because (and because I'm publishing nothing else this weekend) I'm posting a few chapters from a fanfiction that I've been goofing around with off and on for a long time: "Double Double (1)" "Double Double (2)" "Double Double (3)" It's based on the Star Trek novel "Double, Double," which is a sequel to the ST:TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" I read that book a long time ago, and got the idea to try my hand at a different version of the setup, both to do my own spin on it and to see if I could handle writing a passably okay Star Trek novel. (I've read a few; "Double Double" is the best of those I've read, but the others were bilge.) It's unfinished and I doubt I ever will finish it. But bit by bit I might share it out inside BoM. The first and third chapters, with some changes of word choice, is drawn almost exactly from the original novel. Besides the crew of the Enterprise, a handful of other characters have been carried over from the original as well. Other than that, and beginning with Chapter 2, though, my version of the story diverges wildly from the original. I'm afraid this will be an interactive-exclusive publication. |
| I have more chapters to come after today's: * Interactive: "Cody Shows the Way" * Public: "Cody Shows the Way" But I'm going to take the weekend off from publishing again. I've been hard at work on chapters in the last area I was working in, but because I want to publish all of those in one giant batch, I need something else to keep the publication pipeline going. So I'm going to take the weekend to write some chapters that will keep things rolling through the end of the next weekend. |
| [Deleted poll] is now closed, and that's the end of the polling, as we have reached an unwritten choice: "Come back later to meet him." That was the overwhelming favorite not only in the Free Vote but in the GP voting as well, with the result that it won the final tally by an overwhelming 80-20 landslide. So I guess I have to figure out another way for Will and Blackwell to meet up and tango. Right now, though, I'm resuming publishing with: * Interactive: "Hang Ups and Hangovers" * Public: "Hang Ups and Hangovers" This continues the arc suspended with "Making Mickey," in which Will, Caleb and Keith have been playing with the book, making "new girls" by mixing faces into masks, and becoming acqsuainted with a sophomore girl named Teresa. Last we left them, Will and Caleb had succeeded in making a golem. |
| Once again, there was an upset due to the influence of GP voting. But this time the vote was close enough that it only took one vote of 100 GPs to tip it. Final tally for [Deleted poll]: * Track Blackwell down at the university: 56.5% * Keep the appointment with Blackwell: 43.5% And in the new poll—[Deleted poll]—we reach a chapter with an unwritten choice. |
| The vote in the last poll was relatively close, with "Screw it, stay here" holding a slight lead. But that was narrowly offset by some GPs for the other side, so that is the choice that gets published today: * Interactive: "She So Mad" * Public: "She So Mad" For the record, the final, adjusted tally was: * Go home: 57.1% * Screw it, stay here: 42.9% And this is where I'm going conclude the branch, at least for the time being. It seems like a good breaking off point. If you read today's chapter, you will also notice that it seems to curve around and intersect the subject of the other poll (still running: [Deleted poll]). That is mostly a coincidence. I had it in the back of my head the entire time that the Libra would reassert itself, and I knew that once it did so, a trip back to Arnholm's would be a possibility. While writing "She So Mad," it occurred to me that if Will and Sara were to meet, The Crystal Cave could serve both as a meeting place and as a way to get Will in to Arnholm's, thus bringing the story to a critical turning point. Perhaps the return of Blackwell in the current poll made this twist more salient to my subconscious. But I didn't deliberately try to force it, and simply accepted what looked like a convenient inevitability. What next? I'm going to take the weekend off from publishing and resume on Monday with a sequel to "Making Mickey." After that, we'll see. |
| Once again, a big GP vote swings in to upset things. In [Deleted poll], "Change your mind and keep the book" was having its way with a majority of the Free Vote, and was also collecting some GPs. But a truckload of points got dumped onto "Sell the book but decline the job," which had been trailing badly. How much did this shift the vote? See for yourself. Final tally [Free Vote in brackets]: Sell the book but decline the job: 54.3% [15.8%] Change your mind and keep the book: 30.3% [52.6%] Sell the book and take the job: 15.4% [31.6%] Something to keep in mind when looking at [Deleted poll], where the Free Vote is currently very close. New poll has been posted: [Deleted poll]. |
| There were no upsets in the latest poll, with the GPs only reinforcing the Free Vote tally. Final results: * Stick with those that brought you: 71.3% * Hang out with Carson: 28.7% The chosen sequel has now been posted: * Interactive: "What Happens in the Warehouse" * Public: "What Happens in the Warehouse" The other poll—[Deleted poll]—is still open and will continue to run until Thursday at noon ET. |
| I guess people learned from the last poll that GPs can make a difference. In the Free Polls, "Keep investigating the book" and "Plots Have I Laid" held comfortable leads in their respective polls, but GPs skewed the outcomes wildly. Here are the final results, with Free Poll results in brackets afterward for comparison: BoM Poll: "The Fake Book" * Return the book to the bookstore: 52.1% [24%] * Keep investigating the book: 26.2% [40%] * Show the book to your dad 15.7% [24%] * Give the book to a friend 6.0% [12%] * Bury the book in your room: 0% [0%] BoM Poll: "The Continuing Story ..." * Making Mickey: 52.5% [24.1%] * Plots Have I Laid: 26.4% [37.9%] * Vengeance on an Ex-Friend: 15.6% [27.6%] * Taking One for Team Kendra: 5.6% [10.3%] As a result, the choice for "The Continuing Story" been settled, and I'll be continuing "Making Mickey" when we're done with the current branch. Meanwhile, there's a new poll on how to continue the other storyline: [Deleted poll] And what's going on with the poll that is currently running ([Deleted poll])? We'll find out tomorrow ... GPs will be parceled out and returned to voters just as soon as I make some complicated calculations. |
| Both choices in [Deleted poll] got GP votes, but these cancelled each other exactly, leaving the final tally to mirror the free vote tally: * Accept his offer: 57.6% * Take your pick at the Warehouse: 42.4% The vote was consistently close, with the choices trading the lead back and forth, until near the end, when "Accept" took a decisive leap forward. Because it was so consistently close, I wrote chapters for both choices. One of them got a lot more sequels, but I'm not going to tell you which way I leapt. New chapter is now up: * Interactive: "A Drive to Distraction" * Public: "A Drive to Distraction" So is a new poll: [Deleted poll], which will close on Wednesday. Two other polls are also currently running, and will close tomorrow: [Deleted poll] [Deleted poll] |
| The poll for [Deleted poll] will be open for another 24 hours, but I'm already thinking ahead. I've decided I'm going to run this storyline for only 5 to 7 chapters in total (we are 3 chapters in), will come back to it later. But what come after that? Let's do a poll! So in [Deleted poll] I'm asking the readership to pick one of four semi-recent storylines to continue. Two of these, "Making Mickey" and "Taking One for Team Kendra," would pick up where the chapter concluded. With the other two, there would be further polls to see which particular path would get continued. The idea is to have a storyline picked when the current one runs out. Longer term is the choice that gets picked in [Deleted poll]. That poll starts at the beginning of the story, and will run out when we reach a choice that has not been written. And in this poll I will be posting the entire chapter, along with the choices, in order to mimic the experience of reading the interactive and making a choice. I want to make the experience for the community as close as possible to the actual feeling of reading the interactive (almost as though for the first time, I hope!) and making choices blind. |
| Poll closed. For most of the 48 hours the Plot Plinko poll was up, "Stick with these guys" held a large lead, but during the last 12 hours "Go home" surged to edge ahead of it. But even this last-minute come-from-behind move wasn't enough. "Go home" and "Stick with these guys" both fell before a massive GP vote for the Warehouse, so that the final results were: Warehouse: 40.3% Go home: 31.5% Stick with these guys: 28.2% This is mixed news for me, because "Stick with these guys" was the choice I had written, and had written out to 6 chapters. So now I have to write a different branch than the one I'd been planning. Luckily, that GP vote for the Warehouse came in early enough and was big enough that I was able to prepare, so you do get a chapter for today: Interactive: "Making a Makeover" Public: "Making a Makeover" And there is a new poll to go with it: [Deleted poll] As with the last one, it will be open for 48 hours. [Closes Monday, March 10, at 12:00 ET]. I choose to look on the bright side. Though my plans were instantly derailed, I do have half a dozen chapters now in the backlog, which I can roll out at some other point. But for now, I have to scramble to find some way of continuing the story. |
| I was thinking anyway of turning this branch into a "Plot Plinko" game anyway, even before Nostrum mentioned that possibility in the Commentary thread. The new characters are only barely introduced in "Fröhliche Momente mit unbekannten Menschen" , but maybe enough to make a poll meaningful, so there's one up now: [Poll completed and deleted] That poll will run for two days, so there will not be a chapter tomorrow and maybe not the next day, even though there is one written. (I won't tell you which.) This is also a poll where GPs can be voted, so read the rules carefully. |
| * Interactive: "Nine's a Crowd" * Public: "Nine's a Crowd" I said last time that I wanted to write something that starts near the beginning of the story, with new characters. Today's chapter is a stab at doing just that. Confession: I really have no idea where this is going. I have no idea how long it will be before masks start being made. In fact, I have a backlog of only two chapters after this one, and I cannot even guarantee that this branch will last longer than those two chapters. This is going to be the most public, high-wire act I've done in a very long time. I'm even giving readers a chance to critique it in real time: "Commentary: "Nine's a Crowd"" Anyway, where are we? So, our protagonist, Will Prescott, bought a crazy-looking book at the used bookstore, but he didn't much like the look of it, so he buried it in his room and has gone about his life. Feeling restless, though, he has gone out this Saturday afternoon with his two best friends in search of adventure at the local mini-golf course. (Will's horizons are pretty cramped, let's admit right up front.) He has tried flirting with the ticket-seller, and has bumped into some girls from the local private academy. What will he do with these opportunities? |
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