[Writingworkshop] does this sound familiar to anyone?

[Adam Holland]

This sounds a bit like our earlier discussion of a fiction *renga*

I like what I have heard so far, but want to know more, and perhaps see a
rudimentary one in action
I'm not completely sure yet what the  interpreters  *do*.
do they write pieces of stories?  contribute to an ongoing story?  add
details, etc?
What's the authorial analog to improv acting?

also, what's the end product of playing this "game"?  (other than enjoying
it)

Best,
Adam
____

"I never feel that I am inspired unless my body is also. It too spurns a
tame and commonplace life.



On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Daniel Peters <danieltpeters at gmail.com>wrote:

> My little brother does a form of improv where they practice scenes and
> scene fragments with a series of different game rules that allow them to
> develop as much as possible out of immediate dialouge and actions.  This
> is one of his textbooks<http://improvencyclopedia.org/references//Truth_in_Comedy.html>,
> anybody who has seen a pythons sketch will recognize rules like
> 'agreement'.  Some of the rules are also geared to keep the games fair so
> that it stays as much of a group activity as possible and no one player can
> dominate.  I've been trying to think of ways that similar games could be
> developed for writing.  Obviously they can't be real time, even if you could
> do something with a chat the end result is going to lose alot of the luster
> of spontaniety.  I think I've finally hit on something that would draw
> inspiration from the idea of a game but not attempt to mime improv to
> closely.  I would love to know if anybody is doing something like this
> already or if it sounds at all plausible.  The key to this is that I'm
> thinking primarily science fiction writing.
>
> The game has two kinds of players builders and interpreters.  A builder is
> given a time frame, say, a week (purely arbitrary), to construct a
> scenario/world/community.  Now the builder has the hardest job here, they
> have to describe a set of new idea's or  reconfigure old ones but in such a
> way as to allow the greatest room for improvisation.  I.E. no one is going
> to out do Frank Herbert in a week and they shouldn't try because this is a
> team sport.  So a builder could identify plot arcs or simply a state of
> affairs for a specific locale or community or set of character types.
> Leaving room for improvisation also means allowing new characters or
> scientific constructs *as long as they look recognizably like
> something from the original model.*  One of the hardest parts is going to
> be coming up with models that will actually interest possible interpreters.
> I.E. space opera will get pretty played, pretty quickly.
> Now for the interpreters one of the cooler parts is going to be the second
> order of interpretation, meaning the part where it becomes interpreters
> playing on other interpreters moves.  Now an interesting part of this is
> going to be the writers analouge of the fourth wall, i.e. it *will have to
> be a special session for the game to get meta textual.* Refering to
> another players move or an original model construct as construct would
> obviously end normal play, it would get pedantic, everyone would be telling
> rather than showing to use joe's terminology.  An analouge for this exact
> situation in live improv is the training not to pull out a joke at another
> players expense, it ruins the scene and is outside of the actual action
> scene in and of itself.  The maxim of if doesn't move the plot along its a
> waste of the readers time will be truest fro the interpreters.
>
> This also removes the most pressing aspects of integrating info dumps into
> the structure of the narrative(s).
>
> This is a rough sketch and I actually have a few more direct idea's
> pertaining to this but I would love some feed back.
>
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