I'm Putting Together a Team™

[Anonymous No.21790236]

Looking for writers to help me develop a new series of adult themed CYOA inspired titles entitled Choose Your Own Misadventure.
>pic related

I am looking for experienced writers, people who have a decent control of prose and narrative who want to collaborate on this series with me. I plan to develop it regardless of whether or not I receive any help, however I thought that it would be fun to get some other voices in the series that might help pad the catalog and benefit from any sales.

The original CYOA were poorly written, formulaic, somewhat trite or sophomoric. A lot of contemporary interactive fiction is also very juvenile and smacks of fanfic or worse. This series is going to be polished.

I plan to publish at least three titles quietly on KDP before marketing the series. I have some experience self-publishing and leading teams of collaborative writing, and although many are called, few are chosen for greatness. Here are some specs regarding my idea:

[Anonymous No.21790239]

>Format:
I will be publishing the books in the classic 'pocketbook' format, which is 4.25"x6.87".
I will be designing the covers so as to guarantee brand continuity.
I will be copyediting the books and formatting and designing the typesetting and typeface and interior of the books however I will make a template available so that anons can do it themselves and play around with the format.
Anons will be composing the work or otherwise formatting it directly in book format. The use of pages is specifically important when creating CYOM, and composition has a distinct relationship with pages moreso than it does with chapters or wordcounts.
There is a good way and a bad way to format books like these, and the original CYOA did not optimize books for interactive fiction. Pages are best arranged in 'blocks', new text followed by a new decision. Blocks should be contained within even numbered pages. They should begin on the left side of the book, with new decisions on the right side. This helps prevent spoilers and helps create insulation between parallel narratives.

>Style and Themes:
30k to 40k word count. No more, no less.
Adult themed, well written, exploratory in theme, metafiction, dark, avant garde.
I understand that all writers have their own style, and I embrace anons' enthusiasm as much as I do their talent so if you are willing to compromise and work together, then I am always game.
CYOM should make use of its design boundaries and learn to play with them. There are a lot of neat ideas waiting to be explored.
CYOM will make use of bold themes and titles that are designed to instantly compel somebody to read. Consider pic related. You probably want to at least check it out. Titles that are TOO deep, TOO personal, TOO wrapped up in the cosmos of the author's own world, won't catch eyes or sell books.
Anons might use a multitude of tools to arrange and optimize the specs of their CYOM. That will be up to you. I use Google Docs, and a basic flow chart, but maybe you want to employ other neat software like Twine etc.

[Anonymous No.21790248]

>Money
All titles will be published by the authors themselves using their own pennames (or whatever) on KDP so as to ensure maximum democracy. If you don't use KDP or do not wish to sign up for it, then I will publish it on your behalf and send you all of the book's royalties.
I will send you the KDP specs and/or approve your design files, then you publish the work on KDP.
I will market the series by creating a landing page and a corresponding webpage on LampByLit.com that will catalog, archive, and link all the titles in the series. Anons will responsible for independently marketing their own titles, however we should all benefit from a collective momentum if the content is good enough.
I am already in the process of organizing a real business of this, however it will mostly just revolve around the trademark and creative control over the official canon. All the work anons' contribute should directly benefit them.

Not sure if anyone is interested at all but I'll leave the thread up and see how it goes. I plan to spend tonight finishing pic related and publish it on KDP by the weekend. Email me at [e-mail]

[Anonymous No.21790374]

You clever bastard, I'm in.

[Anonymous No.21790425]

>>21790236
Can we see some excerpts from your WIP?

[Anonymous No.21790438]

Why would we write a book for you instead of just doing it ourselves and keeping maximum profits?

[Anonymous No.21790466]

>>21790425
All I have right now is an outline. I haven't any prose yet. Finishing it by tonight it ridiculous I'm not sure why I said that. Realistically it will take roughly two weeks to a month for me to complete it properly with all editing. I think if anons are putting in five hours of writing a day, they can expect one of these to take a month or two to finish.
>>21790438
you can keep all your own profits. i already said that. you can obviously make your own but we would probably all sell better if we built a cohesive writing gang and worked together.

[Anonymous No.21790493]

>>21790374
swell. i look forward to it. this whole thing will likely take a few months to get all the way up to snuff.

[Anonymous No.21790519]

I forgot to mention that all books should be sold at $9.99 USD, which gives the author about $4 profit per book.

[Anonymous No.21790543]

Anyway quick startup is:
Legal Document (8.5'x14'), 0.5' margins, Garamond 24 point, single line spacing, prevent single lines. I'll make a template when I get home from work.

[Anonymous No.21790595]

>>21790236
>Choose Your Own Misadventure
Thanks for the idea, I'm filing for the trademark on it.

[Anonymous No.21790629]

>>21790595
Sweet. All cease and desists can come through the mail.

[Anonymous No.21791231]

bump

[Anonymous No.21791253]

You’ve piqued my interest anon. I’ll be watching.

[Anonymous No.21791327]

>>21790543
24 point seems big.

[Anonymous No.21791346]

>>21790236
CHOOSE YOUR OWN MISADVENTURE 2
YOU"RE NOT THE STAR OF THE STORY!
NO CHOICE: IT IS ONE REPETITION; YOU WILL LONG FOR YOUR ENDING
———
WAGE LABOURER
———
[image]
ANONYMOUS

[Anonymous No.21791400]

>>21791327
Legal Document ratio is the best analog to pocketbook format, so when we import the PDF into KDP, at first it is way out of wack, but then we adjust it with the 'resize' button, and the 24 point is adjusted and becomes must smaller. The pocketbook format is a custom size on KDP, and Google Docs doesn't let you customize the dimension of your page for some fucked up gay and a half reason.
>>21791346
I like it. Please elaborate up to 30k,

[Anonymous No.21791537]

bump

[Anonymous No.21791549]

>>21791400
Are there any potential intellectual property issues with using an appearance similar to the original CYOA books?

[Anonymous No.21791550]

>>21791400
>I like it. Please elaborate up to 30k,
The central narrative is a choiceless grind of pages about a repetitive manual labour occupation in warehousing or local goods delivery. It is mindnumbingly sapping. One guy farts all the time. Everyone has a real life that they never get to participate in. The teamleader is intelligent and off the tools, but he guilts you into doing overtime every day (there are four different "choices" about how the guilt trip works, these are set up around the first coffee break. All other text in these streams is identical, but at different page numbers. Then you're guilt tripped in a different way into doing over time.)

At the end of the day you're too tired to do anything but eat badly and sleep.

At the end of the week you're too tired to do anything but laundry and half heartedly fuck your equally tired partner.

There is an alternate "day" which is meaningless white collar work, largely comprised of meetings, emails, stress, none of which relates to production. Instead of fatigue you go home wired from stress.

The narrative randomly flips using the "Greek Gods" system of *BOLD* numbers allowing you to make a choice and go forwards or backwards 20 pages. Most of these end up with you smoking a cigarette, or trying not to shit your pants. Only one in the guilt trip overtime unlocks the white collar job.

White collar sequence breaks using a white collar weekend variance where you're fired by email. We'll use an accumulator counter for this. It uses the same system as the "Forced restructure" accumulator, except instead of triggering every 6 times, it triggers say, on the 36th time.

This triggers the Uber sequence where you work 14 hour days 7 days a week until your car breaks and you have to buy one on credit. Eventually this triggers the warehouse job when you're smoking at 3am waiting for drunks to call up and vomit in your car again.

*There is no ending*.

The last page of the book is not "unlockable" and reads.

A VISIT TO THE ONCOLOGIST

Your general practitioner noticed on your recent visit a lump, discolouration, or blood variance. She sent you to an oncologist. The results aren't good. It seems like you will die suddenly, and soon, and your medical plan does not cover this. Please return to the page where you skipped ahead to the end from and keep playing.

[Anonymous No.21791554]

If F Gardner’s one of the writers then I’ll read

[Anonymous No.21791627]

Hey, you know what would be fun? Getting people who have faced genuine oppression to write about their lives in this format.

Imagine a CYOA set in the Australian outback. The main character is an abbo and family are rapists who huff petrol all day. It would be a great way to illustrate to middle class readers how hard it is to escape from environments like that.

Or maybe someone could write a CYOA book about the Canadian healthcare system. The main character has cancer. You can choose to wait for treatment like a good Canuck (and die a painful death because of how long it takes to get help), you can cross to the United States and pay all your money to get the treatment you need (you end up dirt broke but alive) or you can get euthanasia.

[Anonymous No.21791640]

I read a lot of these as a kid, and desu I hated them all because, in my autism, I tried chasing the definitive ending, and would come up empty handed, nothing but dead ends in an endless maze,

The black mirror Netflix special was fun tough, wish there were more

[Anonymous No.21791646]

Or how about a book about schizophrenia? You play a homeless schizo. Your goal is to try to make your situation better, but making the right choices is difficult because your perception of reality is fucked. The whole book would be written like a hallucination.

[Anonymous No.21791786]

>>21791549
Not if we use the term Misadventure lol
>>21791627
I’m basing this first book on my experience as a crack dealer

[Anonymous No.21791789]

I’ll post the template in the morning. I’m beat

[Anonymous No.21792368]

>>21791789
Return to page 26 and start your day again

[Anonymous No.21792937]

Return to p. 1

[Anonymous No.21792942]

Bump

[Anonymous No.21793908]

>>21791789
Looking forwards to it. Are these going to be collaborative efforts, or is each anon going to write their own book? I'm thinking maybe some kind of cheap lovecraftian horror adventure, where no matter what, the ending is a bad one. I'll put together a flow chart if you're interested

[Anonymous No.21794042]

>>21793908
I envisioned a series where authors created their own works and could benefit wholly from the sales of their own books. However, there is nothing to stop anons from collaborating, and I think it would be cool to see that happen. Collaborative writing works best when everyone is in person or at least available for long hours at a time; my writing process is fairly solitary.
I'd love to see a flow chart. I'm completing the template right now, it will consist of the first three blocks of Crack Dealer, and will sort of demonstrate the functional format that I had in mind.

[Anonymous No.21794532]

Here is the template in a Google Doc. All of the specs are there. I use footnotes to display the decisions. I minimize the numerical footnote superscript in the body by configuring its size to be 1.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UTBMxK7IUgXS2ID66mn5FjwEYlMyeqE-u43lz19m09Y/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.21794550]

Here's the first few blocks. I'm numbering them so that the footnote numerals make some sense being there.

[Anonymous No.21794558]

Obviously already there are tense errors in my writing. I'm so used to writing in third person past tense. I done goofed. CYOMs should be written in 2nd person present tense however i suppose authors can do as they wish.

[Anonymous No.21794571]

>>21794532
obvs to use that template just make a copy.

[Anonymous No.21794816]

hump

[Anonymous No.21794848]

>>21790236
when is &amp 016 gonna drop? can i still submit for it

[Anonymous No.21794872]

You're gonna roast for this

[Anonymous No.21794880]

>>21790236
>The original CYOA were poorly written, formulaic, somewhat trite or sophomoric. A lot of contemporary interactive fiction is also very juvenile and smacks of fanfic or worse. This series is going to be polished.
>[e-mail]
There's no way the legitimate editor of &amp wrote these words. He's like the most humble and gracious dude on the face of the planet.

[Anonymous No.21794882]

>>21790236
Bumping just so everyone sees Unreal tear you to shreds

[Anonymous No.21794887]

>>21794880
This is so fucking bizarre

[Anonymous No.21794889]

>>21794848
i'll do it after i finish Crack Dealer kek.

[Anonymous No.21794908]

"You play as DISGRUNTLED WRITER, a writer trying to get his career off the ground when his best idea is stolen. Choose the best path to revenge, or just grab a hammer and knock some brains out!"

You stole this idea from Ogden Nesmer in the Unreal Press Discord.

[Anonymous No.21794918]

>>21794880
jail changed him. doing time behind bars hardens a man.

[Anonymous No.21794928]

>>21790236
You're dead meat...prepare for pain.

[Anonymous No.21794931]

>>21794889
what about the greatest hits one

[Anonymous No.21794936]

>>21790236
Ogden Nesmer is coming for you, count on it

[Anonymous No.21794937]

>>21794532
>>21794550
This is great. What's your process with this?

[Anonymous No.21794938]

>>21794550
How do I get this good at dialogue?

[Anonymous No.21794940]

>>21794937
Making discord alts and stealing better men’s ideas

[Anonymous No.21794945]

>>21794937
FUUCCCKKK YOUUU.

[Anonymous No.21794948]

>>21794918
Bro he was in jail, why?

[Anonymous No.21794950]

Unrealbros and Nesmerbros, it’s over

[Anonymous No.21794955]

>>21790236
Unreal Press got the idea first championed by OGDEN NESMER and THE NIGGER WHO RUNS THE PODCAST, denizens of /lit/, every god-fearing american man and trans woman reading this, DO NOT TRUST the person who made this thread, as he is likely a FRAUD and also a SPY; please I implore you to join our DISCORD SERVER where we planned the original idea which you can find at our youtube channel. Thank you for your attention!

[Anonymous No.21794966]

>>21794950
&amp btfo unrealuglies and nesmerniggerz

[Anonymous No.21794971]

>>21794955
BAAASAAADOOO

DISCORD ALLIES UNIIITE

[Anonymous No.21794980]

https://discord.com/invite/66w2MBsZDy join us here if you wanna see where the idea originated before this scum stole it

[Anonymous No.21794989]

>>21794980
>>21794971
Unreal Press and Ogden are the rightful owners of this idea and we WILL come from you and fucking kill you. FUCK YOUUUUU

[Anonymous No.21795004]

I’m not going to reveal myself. Don’t threaten me.

[Anonymous No.21795007]

>>21790236
Unreal Brothers....no....Everyone.

Everyone on lit with a passion pure and soul and thirst for truth and the literary lifestyle. Help us shut down this robbery! CHHARGE

[Anonymous No.21795020]

>>21795004
Shut the fuck up Ari/Incendia/retard

[Anonymous No.21795027]

;)

[Anonymous No.21795038]

"Coon"......?

>verification not required

[Anonymous No.21795083]

>>21790236
looks based as bump

[Anonymous No.21795114]

I love CYOA! !!

[Anonymous No.21795128]

>>21790236
UNREAL gang, we scrap like fucking crackheads. Nesmerbros with CUTTERS and GUNS en route to your location.

[Anonymous No.21795538]

>>21794908
>>21794928
>>21794936
>>21794950
>>21794955
>>21794980
>>21795128
I had no idea they had the jdea. I’ll hop on discord tomorrow and see if they want to join forces.

[Anonymous No.21795547]

>>21795538
are you really editor or are you the bestof &amp imposter/notorious skinchanger

[Anonymous No.21795551]

>>21795547
I am the founder and editor-in-chief.

[Anonymous No.21795575]

>>21795551
prove it

[Anonymous No.21795586]

>>21795575
https://lampbylit.com/hi.png

[Anonymous No.21795591]

>>21790236
I'm also making a modern choose your own adventure that is gritty and alt right. except it will have combat encounters where you roll dice or something and character sheets like the grey wolf books

[Anonymous No.21795594]

>>21795575

[Anonymous No.21795600]

>>21795538
>>21795128
>>21795547
in the end it might just become a passion project for me. i'm not sure if i can expect anons to actually cook up 30k words

[Anonymous No.21795608]

>>21795600
when’s the greatest hits book gonna drop

[Anonymous No.21795614]

>>21795608
i'm not in charge of that project. but i've heard that it will be published sometime later this year.

[Anonymous No.21795631]

>>21795614
last time you said it would be this month what’s up with that

[Anonymous No.21795727]

>>21795631
not sure what's going on in his camp. i told him i would let him lead the project so i can't railroad him yet. i'll give him until the end of the year. i trust him.

[Anonymous No.21796268]

Return to p. 1

[Anonymous No.21797422]

This is a fun concept, sadly I suck at writing but have a bump

[Anonymous No.21797776]

ALL GLORY TO UNREAL TOURNAMENT WRITING GANGG TWENTYTWENTYTRICE EAST 2 WEST MY NIAGARA CACHE ME INSIDE

[Anonymous No.21797843]

>>21797776
wtf does this mean

[Anonymous No.21797927]

>>21797843
i didn't know there already a /hyperlit/ gang. i found my friend, anon. i found them

[Anonymous No.21798107]

>>21790236
>>>/tg/cyoag/ plus kay why ess

[Anonymous No.21798259]

>>21798107
D:

[Anonymous No.21800014]

last self bump

[Anonymous No.21800024]

last last
i'm 5600 words through. target 30k.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UTBMxK7IUgXS2ID66mn5FjwEYlMyeqE-u43lz19m09Y/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.21800743]

Return to p.1

[Anonymous No.21801072]

>>21790236
I will buy the book for sure