Hellooooo peeeps.

A new year is upon us, and I need everyone to decide what we'd like to do in 2007. Right now, I'm setting up two options: we continue to work within the 2016 OpNet, or we take a year off from those characters and work within the 2008 OpNet.

I don't see an option for polling in this, so vote here and please be honest, only vote once.

For those interested in the 2016 option, keep in mind characters used for the 2005 group are now eligible again, and characters used in the 2006 group are ineligible for this year.

I'm good for either, since I've never been in on it before. Put a gun to my head and I'd say 2008, if only for the reason that using characters without literal years of established board canon will make the task of writing easier and less cumbersome.

I don't think the character writing is such a hot idea. The activity has been anemic at best. Maybe a new idea that would get some more activity?

I would like both, Machina has a point on saying that 2008 characters would be better without years and years of backstory for investigation for possible writers.

I'm not going to try and have 2 going. Alptraum is correct when he points out that participation has been lacking - so trying to get people to turn in 2 fictions each month would be a fool's venture. Even if we had separate authors for each group, it's still stretching everyone a little thin.

And, if we don't have enough interest, we don't have to do a 2007 group. I just know some had expressed interest in chat to me.

I'm torn on this. On the one hand, in a way it's actually easier to write for the established characters in 2016; there's a rich history upon which to draw, and enough hooks to fill a tackle box.

On the flip side, the participation was weak for the latter half of 2006. But then, I noticed a similar trend in the 2005 contest: nearly everyone submitting something for the first few months, then gradually tapering off to just a few die-hards at the end.

With Machina's proverbial revolver up against my head, I'd lean toward 2016... but I'm not so sure that the current format should be followed.

I'd certainly welcome other suggestions. This is, after all, your writers' group, and I want to make certain as many authors are enthusiastic about it as possible.

Feel free to offer suggestions everyone!!

One thing I'd suggested in chat a while back was a "Writer of the Year" award. To qualify, a writer would need to submit a fiction every month. In other words, for 2006, only Timeslip and Vixen would have qualified.

If we make it only open to 2008 characters, we block access to the contest because not everyone has 08 characters. I recommend allowing people to just pick from among their characters, 2008 or 2016.

What about a round robin of sorts? Every month, someone is assigned a character to write about. There is no doubting, and every month, you recieve another character to write about. As an example, if you had four people in the contest, TS, Teleforce, Mithril and Hugin, then you could have this setup:

January:
TS gets Mithril
Teleforce gets TS
Mithril gets Hugin
Hugin gets Teleforce

February:
TS gets Teleforce
Teleforce gets Hugin
Mithril gets TS
Hugin gets Mithril

March:
TS gets Hugin
Teleforce gets Mithril
Mithril gets Teleforce
Hugin gets TS

Then in the last month, the player of each character picks the best of the year for their character. In addition, each month, the group as a whole votes on who won the monthy contest. But you only get a vote if you submitted a fiction that month. Last, this would allow for more people to participate than 12, as we aren't limited by the months of the calendar.

It's a little complicated, but it would allow us to have more monthly interaction (because we can determine the monthly winner) and it allows an annual "Best of my Character" award to allow people to award people for doing a great character fiction. We could still do the "Writer of the Year" too, which would require 100% participation to qualify. For the last, I'd recommend one of our artsy people put together a gif as an award "trophy" for them to link in their profile or on their website. It would be a tangible award for everyone to work for.

Because this is my idea, I'd be willing to help Ashnod and do a lot of the background and setup for it. If we did secret votes for the monthly winner, I'd be willing to be one of two or three counters (giving a verifible way to confirm the votes). Though I'd recommend public votes, personally.

Thoughts?

It's good that you mentioned that, because with the 2006 group, there was a planned prize. I kept it mostly to myself because I wanted to spring it as a surprise. I'll be posting more details on that shortly.

I would happily enter Origami to the mix if it helped things.

Here's my idea. It has less ego flavor but I think not only could it be entertaining but would add something to the site as a whole.

Each month there is a flat assignment to create a specific item to be considered canon for our world. Something like

January-New Nova Sports League/Sport/Etc.

February-New Nova Charitable Organization

March-New Nova Political Action Group

April-New Novacentric religious group (positive or negative)

etc.

There's a vote at the end of each month by all the authors and the winner is declared canon.

No, it isn't the ego stroke that reading about your own character over and over again but it saves us from also feeling dissed when only one or two people get up the gumption to actually write about our characters.

I'm torn here. Both Hugin and Carver's ideas are very good. I must admit that writing about another person's character can be very hard in some cases, especially when there's a huge volume of written background for the character scattered about diverse fiction archived back several months or years. The research gets to be a pain in the proverbial ass. But then, although Hugin's idea would maybe get more participation, and it'd be easier to write thigns like that, writing semi-encyclopedic descriptive entries I think rates as "much less fun" than writing short stories with and about characters.

Maybe there could be two contests running, a character one and a canon-filling one. I mean, it does seem like a very good way to flesh out the canon we have, for certain.

I admit, I was very psyched about the idea of writing stories about other characters the last go 'round, but I'm one of the people who didn't get to participate last time. I'd still very much like to do that, and although 2008 does provide new fodder, I'm not sure the characters are established quite enough to be able to write about them very well. I know I'd have a hard time, in any case.

Hugin's idea is excellent, but I agree with Percivald. It's a bit dry, and means that no matter how good any of the other entries are, only one in each category makes it in. It would go a long way toward fleshing out the world, but maybe we could extend it to the top two, or even three ideas in each category (depending on the volume of entries)? The problem of ego-wankery still exists, though, as it's possible/likely that people will just submit their own foundations/corporations/cults for inclusion.

If we're going to do two contests, two different people should run them. Don't make Ashnod carry them both.

I really dig Hugin's idea. What if we add a little to it so that each month everyone participating has to submit an idea along with a fiction to showcase the idea? Everyone that participated for the month gets a chance to vote on what becomes part of the N! Prime world. Anything with more than 70% becomes canon. And each month everyone votes on whose fiction they think was the best.

Everyone could do that for the first 10 months and then the last 2 months just do a best of, where people can write about anything that has been submitted over the course of the year, with November doing the 1st 5 and December doing the last 5.

Something like this would help to add something new to the OpNet as well as this contest.

Thanks for the props. I did assume (I know, my bad) that people would realize I meant fictions to showcase whatever idea they had. I mean, it is still a fiction contest. And cool on any idea that encourages us to create for the site. So the concept of multiple "winners" being declared canon sounds good to me too.

Yeah, that's what I assumed you meant. It just wasn't clear from your post.

I *love* the canon-filling idea, but recommend it for both 2016 and 2008. You can participate in any or both or none as you wish.

I was one of the offenders who tapered off her fic-writing because of sheer laziness and/or forgetfulness and occasionally outside circumstances.

Round-robin can be clunky in my eyes, but I'm funny like that, I guess. Perhaps the traditional style, but with the proviso that you need to sign up each month? It'd open up the field to anyone who wanted to enter, and once a certain number of players had entered, it could be closed down? If you submit a character for fiction, you must write in at least half of the months.

What do you think?

I agree to the 2008 characters not being established enough to make decent fictions yet, and, to be quite honest, I'd love to see what people around here could do with Revenant.

I'm also all for this whole Create-A-Canon idea. However, one thing that I did not see on the list was an antagonist. Not a political group or what not but an actual individual antagonist. One that when created since he is canon but not an iconic character we could all use and have reappear from time to time. A mercenary group of nova assassins that the Knights tangle with from time to time, or a powerful CEO hell bent on ruining Mythic's career (and the career of any other nova that crosses him). E have a boatload of drama as it is, can we do just a little action once in awhile, what’s the point in having phenomenal cosmic power if you can’t level a few blocks or get pitched through a building trying to save pedestrians on the streets from psycho terrorist terats?

Personally I can't stand Canon PCs, and would like some creative options that would allow all us read a fic and think to ourselves "Oh, man, So-and-So is using <insert villain’s name here>, let's see who life he messes up today."

As for how to make them, well, I'm not to sure there... personally I don’t mind creating a guy that can whoop my characters ass, others however may not share my opinions when it comes to their PC getting squashed.

As far as signing up each month goes, I was one of those people who'd been waiting for the better part of the year for a spot to open- every month, as activity fell, and no one was booted or stepped down, I was frustrated anew.

I want to write character fics, and if a bunch of people jump on the bandwagon every month and I'm told, "Sorry, all the slots are full again," I will be incredibly pissed off.

On the other hand, if we're just going to be writing stories for the sake of filling in gaps in canon, I'm admittedly not going to be as likely to jump up and down waving my hands to get picked.

I'd like to participate again and I'm ok with any of the ideas for the group thus far.

I have volunteered WR for the role as an antagonist. Also, with others writing fics with him, in them, for 2007, they could sate their criminal/homicidal urges.

I would also be willing to let others use him as an antagonist in their fics. I don't have the same 'territorialism' regarding use of my characters. As long as you don't kill him off (I made him, I kill him), I am willing to loan him as an antagonst to sew chaos and mayhem.

Also, I am more than wlling to collaborate with others as an antagonist. I know this is not exactly what Revenant was speaking of, but I do like the action idea. What people do with him will become Canon, if that is what everyone decides.

I know it's been, well, months, and that the year's nearly half done, but is anything going to happen, here? Anyone going to step up and maybe do the last half of the year? Something?

Dunno. I'm not interested in writing about characters due to my own persnickity nature but if the canon filling option is okay'd I'm raring to go.

As for "antagonists" I am leery of it because it sounds like the opportunity to create a bunch of silly Dr. Doom/Joker/MoJo JoJo wannabes.

You know, if somebody could actually pull a Dr.Doom, Magneto, Lex Luthor or a MODOK (bear with my choices) I would actually be really impressed and laud them.

Doing an antagonist justice is pretty damn hard, and I would like to see some of you guys try it, since some of you write really really well.

Hell, the hell with it. Slacker as I am, I'm tired of the lack of forward momentum on this issue, so I'm going to try and do something about it.

In a couple days, I'll post up the details on the 2007 Writers Group, which I suppose will start officially July 1. If I get enough people interested to make it a viable idea, there it'll be.

Go for it.