And yet there are some rules for some… you seem to be able to quote just fine!
EDIT: Oh, would you just look at that!
To keep on topic: please don’t give the section before or after vic-k! I’m just not sure I could match his pace 
Something vaguely similar was done back in 1969: amazon.com/Naked-Came-Strang … 1569802629. Reviews of the book commented on the uneven style, and some even suggested that it seemed like it had been written by several different people.
Please add me to the list.
This is a scathingly brilliant idea (lol). Please count me in, this sounds like fun!
Dingo dodging smartarse Matt Wrote:
“please don’t give the section before or after vic-k! I’m just not sure I could match his pace 
matt”
Don’t fret y’self Bluey. It’s the kind of endeavour I avoid like the plague. I’d go into shut-down mode, and spend all day staring at the screen.
I was toying with the idea of having a go, provided I could do the, ‘Sadomasochistic, gymnasticated fornication & gratuitous violence’, bit…but even that wouldn’t work, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your sensibility’s degree of delicacy ).
So, sorry, 'snot gonna 'appen
Vic
To answer some of the questions that have come up:
MATT WROTE: “…Aeon Timeline…”
Matt, thanks for the very kind offer but as Windows user I’m currently unable to use AT (entirely my loss). However, I am happy to share with you the breakdowns and notes after the fact to help reverse engineer something for your site.
VARIOUS WROTE: “don’t give me the sex scene” / “I’d prefer a section with more than one character”
The plot doesn’t have any scripted sex scenes, although like real life sometime these things crop up unexpectedly if that’s the direction someone takes in their own section.
Sections will be allocated MOSTLY at random. That is to say, I will try to accomodate strong preferences stated unless it turns into a logistical nightmare worse than coming up with the plot was in the first place.
Key exceptions will be:
- If someone is volunteering for more than one section I will make sure they are a “safe” distance apart.
- The story DOES have some ‘grissly’ scenes. If anyone wants to opt out of (or indeed into) those I will respect that.
- It might be worth letting people express a specific willingness to write the very first section.
JRAVEN WROTE: “…character sketches…”
I’ll provide photos for the physical (I want to avoid reading the same phrases over and over), but will also provide a background narative, and brief samples of dialogue for each character.
I’ve added a EDIT to my post on the first page to update the list of volunteers so far. I’ll update that intermittently. IN the meantime, do please spread the word wider…!
pigfender wrote: VARIOUS WROTE: “don’t give me the sex scene” / “I’d prefer a section with more than one character”
Okay. but if you give me a sex scene, please put more than one character in it.
ps
I’ve written bugger all for months so I’m absolutely up for it… I have family members counting on me to get back to it…
Well, problems with Naked Came the Manatee was a “lack of rules” set up front. Dave Barry said if he would do it over, there would be NO addition of new characters unless there was a compelling plot point with it. Every author in turn shifted the focus of the novel to “their” character. Another mention was adding of plot devices, which is why you have something like half a dozen “Fidel Castro heads” in the book and no one knows if any are real or not. I think a good firm set of rules is essential and should be looked over for any possible “loopholes” that may jam up the story. A day is wicked fast for people to work through previous plot elements.
I want to try. I really do. But I shouldn’t. I’ve got midterms that week. Screw it. Sign me up.
BAYAMO, ‘Naked Manatee’ worked on a different premise. In our piece, whilst participants are free to add all the secondary characters, plot devices and colour they can legitimately fit in their sections, the primary plot will be set out in advance. Participants won’t have the previous sections to read.
By the sound of it, ‘Naked Manatee’ is at it’s core a much more involved version of our "three word story’’.
SIN, I dunno, mid terms sound important! Are you sure?
Count me in. This sounds like an excellent project.
I’ll repost this on other fora I’m part of too.
Yeah, okay. You’ve talked me out of it. Count me back out of it for now, at least until we get closer to October.
Perhaps we should follow up with Edit In A Day (EIAD) day.
That would be where everyone gets to read the entire novel beforehand, and then everyone spends a day editing a section to make it more cohesive as a whole.
Depending on preference, we could either edit our own section, or to makethe “in a day” more enforcable, we could edit a different section we only find out on the day.
Matt
I would love to try a hand at a chapter for NIAD. Am living in Oakland, CA.
MATT WROTE: “Perhaps we should follow up with Edit In A Day (EIAD) day.”
Second the motion.
ps
Yeah, but if we did that it would be a Novel In Two Days… two days. I want no piece of that kind of madness.
pig fender wrote: “Yeah, but if we did that it would be a Novel In Two Days…”
And before you know it, anarchy!
Wot’s a narchy?
Vic
Quoting pigfender:
“Yeah, but if we did that it would be a Novel In Two Days… two days. I want no piece of that kind of madness.”
Two days? Strictly true. Still, we could say we wrote it (first draft) in a day. Then we edited it. The “one day” thing is not that important to me.
But, in my opinion, it’s a decision as to whether I’m doing this to help produce a work that someone might actually read or simply performing an act to be able to say “I helped write a novel in a day. Of course, it’s chaotic, boring, and ultimately unreadable. But, it only took us a day…”
Assuming a reading speed of 700 wpm (very fast, I think. I probably read less than half that fast) and a length of 50,000 words, it will take pigfender about an hour and 15 minutes to read the first draft. If he reads at my speed, it would take him about three hours. If it takes an hour to assemble the project and produce the final output, that leaves no more than an hour and 45 minutes to do ANY editing of ANY kind. For instance, checking for and correcting misspelled words. If one reads at my rate, they would have about 30-45 minutes to edit. And if a contributor gets their timezone offset confused in the wrong direction, there goes at least an hour. My point? There’s not much, if any, time in the current schedule for editing. I expect we all understand that.
Personally, I would like to have a chance to edit our work. But, I’ll leave the decision of whether or not to spend a day, or any other amount of time, doing that to pigfender.