You do realise Mr P. that you and that matt person, along with His Obtuseness, are seriously off-topicking.
Mods need a good kick up their ars…oops sorry, nearly said a rude word.
Fluff
I would so love to do this! Sounds like great fun!
The only question I have is can I still do it even if I don’t use Scrivener? I’m looking forward to learning how to use the program but am waiting to actually use it primarily for writing until it is released for Windows.
I wouldn’t say using Scrivener is a necessity. If you aren’t comfortable using beta software, then you shouldn’t have to! 
Besides, 1k words is a bit short for a Scrivener project; I bet several of us will be using other stuff. It’s more just the idea of “Scrivener users” getting together and doing something fun. And the final book will be put together in Scrivener anyway.
Great! If there are still writers needed I’d love to be part of it!
(Oh, and I would really rather not do a grisly scene.)
jeezzz!! another lamb to the slaughter!!! Listen buddy/babe, Scrivener,is, a grisly scene!! tch!tch!tch!
Would love to take part in this project. Any chapter is fine by me:)
I’m in . . . if there’s still room.
Yes, there’s still room for several more! Welcome.
Looking forward to this
Oh, what the hell.
Throws hat in ring
I’m going to need that. It’s awfully sunny out. My ears & head might burn.
Fetches hat back out of ring
It’s a silly metaphor anyway. But I’m in. For the writing, not the boxing match… metaphor or no. I bruise too easily.
HOMEPORT: Me too!
Next week I’ll be pulling together the template of the info I’ll be sharing with participants and will share parts (eg character templates) here to invite comments from anyone who’d like more specific detail (or less).
ROBERTDGUTHRIE: Hat metaphors are strongly encouraged.
Is anyone particularly keen on having / avoiding the opening section? I can reveal that it will be a “true” open, ie not a prologue or anything like that.
Especially misleading ones!
Quoting Pigfender:
“Is anyone particularly keen on having / avoiding the opening section?”
I have a (somewhat drastic) suggestion. I think it would be fantastic, since it’s your plot, that YOU write the opening section. And here’s the drastic part: And post it at the start of the writing period so that all of us can get a feel for the story.
Just a suggestion.
If anybody wants a warming-up exercise I’ll offer what a handful of my writer friends and I call the “One Hour Game.”
Somebody begins with a piece – creative non fiction is the easiest – that’s written in about an hour. Anything.
The partner gets the piece, reads it, and selects any part of it, any idea, any happening, even a name, and uses that to begin another one-hour piece.
The second piece is NOT a continuation of the first piece. The second writer makes a note, "I took off from this part of yours . . . " but that’s all.
Length doesn’t matter. Style doesn’t matter. The “hour” is on the honor system but going a bit over is allowed.
Then the second piece goes back to the first person, who responds, and on it goes.
It’s been very good for me. It exercises different writing muscles. One of my one-hour pieces is up for publication in Opium magazine and I have several more online.
How about not telling whoever gets it that is the opening? And likewise the ending? That will take the pressure off, and actually might work out better.
But I believe the beginnings and endings of stories have their own requirements over and above the rest of the prose they sandwich. If I was writing either, I would want to know. And I’d want to know if I was writing any part of the climax, and if there was more than one part, which part of the climax it was – the very beginning, somewhere in the middle, or the end. But then, writing the climax in pieces is going to be a hit-or-miss affair anyway. Maybe that won’t happen. And if I’m wrapping up after the climax, I’d like to know that as well. I think all these things affect what’s written, at least its tone.
Which also brings up the issue of character introduction. Are all the characters introduced in the first segment? If they’re not, will we know we are introducing a character in our segment? It would help, if you believe as I do, that all of these kinds of things affect the prose in significant ways. At least mine, that is.
I think you may be over-thinking it - the aim of this project is just to flex the writing muscles and have a bit of fun. Given the nature of the beast, we’re hardly going to end up with a Booker-winner here. Obviously character introductions, openings and climaxes are important, at least in real, well-crafted works; but in a real novel all of these things would be refined after the first draft. A character introduction might normally foreshadow some later event or reveal something about that character, but with this project it’s highly unlikely that any characters are going to be consistent, and the person writing the introduction for a character will have no idea about what other writers will do with that character later, even if he or she knows the entire plot; there will be a lot of “wiggle room”, after all, as I understand it.
I would think that part of the aim of this project, too, is - as with NaNo - to remove the pressure of writing your own, complete novel, where (if you’re like me at least) you stress over every detail and find it hard to move forward. So we don’t want anybody fretting and unable to write anything because they have a high-pressure segment, and thus spend the entire day trying to come up with a clever opening line. Besides, we might get a more immediate opening if the writer doesn’t know; it might be an interesting experiment.
I just hope no-one’s under the illusion that this is going to turn out to be a work of art…
Despite the above, though, I really have no strong opinions either way - just playing devil’s advocate - but Pigfender, if you give me the opening or the climax, don’t tell me! (Unless it’s just obvious anyway.)
I am happy to do the opening or ending or anything between
We have less than 1 month left until “NIAD… Day” and the tally of participants currently stands at 21(+1), so we need quite a few more if we are going to make it a ‘real’ novel length. If anyone is holding back on applying until later please note that the earlier I can finalise the number of participants the better - for obvious reasons! Also, do let me know if you would like to write more than one section.
ON CHARACTER INTRODUCTIONS: I will let you know if any characters are being introduced for the first time, or are recurring.
Here is the character template I plan to use for each recurring / main character. I’m planning to provide a photo as well. Let me know if there are any specific other details you think it is worth including (or if you think this is too restrictive).
Where possible - eg characters are non-recurring - I’ll leave all the details up to the individual writers.
Name:
Gender:
Age / D.o.B.:
Occupation:
Family (spouse, kids etc):
Links to other story characters:
Other significant non-character relationships:
Background (wealth, class, race, education etc):
Beliefs / religion / ethics:
Looks (hair colour / style; attractiveness, distinctive features, tall / short, etc):
Smell (does this person wear a particular perfume / aftershave?):
Where lives:
Motivation (in life, not the story):
One random fact (the kind of thing the character might use for those ice-breaker questions you get a work away days - this could be a hobby, weird old job etc):
Hobbies / Use of free time:
In a bar / restaurant is likely to order:
Habits / Mannerisms:
Tends to… Intro_ vs Extrovert:
Tends to… Ask vs Tell:
Tends to… Emote vs Control:
Dialogue sample:
ON OPENINGS AND ENDINGS: KB, I like your suggestion, which seems to best be in keeping with the spirit of the event. So I won’t tell people if you they have the opening or the ending.