jait
a male from Canada
I've a degree in--of all things--poetry. It means I'm qualified to ask "Would you like fries with that?" in iambic pentameter. I coordinate a couple of play-by-email roleplaying games that have become more like collaborative fiction than tabletop RPGs.
I'm sometimes pretty harsh in my opinion. But then, Protagonize isn't a workshop forum. I want to meet a character in the opening to a story and I want a promise--implied or stated--of tension and forthcoming change. If I don't get those things, I rarely read past the first branch...
This is the first time I've been on a site dedicated to that purpose Already, I can tell I've got to work at making my posts into smaller more-easily-digestible chunks... It's taking a terrible effort of will not to follow up on my own branches... I get so many ideas...
When I'm not writing, I'm working, tabletop-gaming or taking photographs.. hence the website link to my gallery.
POST A COMMENT
17 COMMENTS ABOUT THIS AUTHOR RSS
RECENT ACTIVITY RSS
TOP RATED POSTS
WHO'S FAVOURITED YOU?
copyright © 2007-2008 taunt media. all rights reserved.
all member content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Any idea's?"
that was a great boost=]"
I think that once I add some sort of author scratchpad next to stories where the original author can make notes about the direction of the story, etc., it may be a little less daunting to post in a story that already has a few chapters or branches."
The first is something I would like to get done soon, but not quite along the lines of what you suggest. I will offer some sort of preview of the parent post in a story when writing something new, though. It just won't be included in the body of the post you're writing (quote-style, as you suggested) because I really don't want someone else's content cluttering up new branches and chapters... it'll just be available to view when in edit mode to improve the UX while editing. Embedding it in the actual post could lead to legal issues with copyright that I'd rather not get into, as well.
As to allowing the addition or editing of tags in mid-story... I'm considering allowing users to suggest tags in mid-stream, and the author of the story will get the option to approve or decline a tag suggestion. That's a bit further down the road, mind you."
(And what happened to the detective story? I was enjoying that, even if I didn't feel I had anything to contribute!)"
Thanks for the suggestions! You hit on a few optimizations and usability enhancements I'd like to make, but there are a couple of things here that might be of use to you.
To answer some of your questions:
- Right now a random selection of orphaned stories shows up towards the bottom of the stories page. For the time being, I don't want to prune stories with no activity, as I think there are a variety of ways to avoid seeing them if you're not interested. Down the road, I'll probably work on some creative solution for either getting people to contribute to them or making them a little less visible.
- On the "recent comments" list, each comment should have a "jump to..." link that'll take you to the related story, branch, or author profile. I might change the wording to make it a little more obvious, but it is there.
- On each story branch, there should be a "the goods" section at the top of the right-hand column. Clicking the title of the story there will take you to the root of the story. Again, I may add an additional link to make it a little more obvious, as it's a tad small right now and probably not the most visible link.
- You should be able to see a list of all the authors who've favourited you (your author profile, at least) at the bottom of your profile page, in the center column, listed under "Who's favourited this author?". Seeing who's favourited your stories isn't currently visible to everyone, but I may add that in the future. As for tagging, that is a good idea, and I'll add it to my list of things to investigate, down the road when I've finished off some major features. :)"