Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!olivea!hal.com!decwrl!waikato!canterbury.ac.nz!huia!greg
From: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Subject: Re: More rambling
Message-ID: <CGnuL0.L35@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz>
Nntp-Posting-Host: huia.canterbury.ac.nz
Reply-To: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
References:  <4gu8Mfu00WB_J_xTse@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 23:58:11 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <4gu8Mfu00WB_J_xTse@andrew.cmu.edu>, Paul Christopher Workman
<pw0l+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
|> How would you manage such a writing project?  You'd need
|> a hierarchial managerial structure.

No, you don't, that's far too restrictive. We're talking about a
Wild Idea here! Let's have some anarchy!

You get a big piece of paper, about A(-5), and stick it on the wall.
You draw a little circle at the top, representing the starting point
of the story. Someone is chosen at random to write the first scene.
He thinks up a few branches the story might take from there and
draws some lines out of the starting node.

Another writer takes up each of these branches, develops it some
more, and adds new branches.

Each time a new branch is added, a little note is pinned to it
summarising the state of things at that point. Whenever someone
has nothing to do, (s)he wanders over to the wall, picks an open
branch, removes the note, and does some work on it.

Eventually there will be no more room left to pin anything on the
wall. Then it's time to look for ways to join things up. Probably
everyone should keep an eye out for connection opportunities all
the way through, as well.

Would it result in a good, well-constructed, logical piece of
interactive fiction? Hell, no, it'd be total chaos! But would
it be Fun? Would it be worth a try?

Could we do it here, with a suitable electronic version of the
paper on the wall? If each reader of this group spent 5 minutes
a day adding another brick, how long would it take to reach
600MB?

How about creating the first Usenet Adventure Game(tm)?

|> --paul

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,	   | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a	  |
Christchurch, New Zealand	   | wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan Inc.|
greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz	   +--------------------------------------+
