Writing and Roleplay

I've just come up against a deadline. I had to come up with a concept for my latest work of fiction by the end of July. Fortunately all I needed was the blurb. The next deadline is September 21st. By then it must to be completed; there will be no second chances, no excuses. I will publish it to six people. Eight hours later it will be finished with. Only those people will ever experience it.

The blurb is for them, those six people, to entice them to want to experience my work. It isn't for my publisher, she is crying out for product. She publishes around twenty four works a year and will accept anything she is offered. She has a difficult enough task to find so many; she can't afford to pick and choose. There is a down-side of course; I don't get paid. In fact I have paid a considerable amount to publish my work and experience three works others will be publishing.

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Copyright Jopie Schekkerman 2003
These are not the players you are looking for.

If it were a book it would be a novella, maybe twenty or thirty thousand words, but I wont write down any of those words. I will piece together the plot structure, do my research, plan the set-pieces. And then, in those eight hours, those six people and I will create the story. There will be no extensions, no editing, just eight hours, once through, from beginning to end. Those six people haven't seen my preparation and never will, but they will be working against me all the way, trying to find a way to avoid the set-pieces or turn the plot troughs into plot peaks. They will take the story to places I haven't researched or in directions I haven't considered. They are good, some of the best in the country. My job is to guide the story to a satisfactory conclusion via a timely and satisfying climax, preferably the one I have planed.

The present work in progress is the central piece of what I hope will eventually become a trilogy of trilogies. It is an ongoing story with continuing characters. And that means that those six people have to enjoy themselves, because if they don't, then next year they will chose something else. This year I will find out if I did a good job last year. If I didn't then I will have to invent a way to continue the story with none of the existing protagonists. That won't be easy… or pleasant. The trilogy of trilogies will become a series of four works, with a disagreeable blob on the end; the sort of series about which people say "it started well, but it went downhill and trailed off."

No pressure then.

I suppose you want to see the blurb now.

Title:The Strange Case Of The Strange Case
GM: Richard Urwin
Players: 6
Mode: Tabletop

Life at the Carlos Cory School for Gifted Orphans is not a bed of roses; the academic regimen is punishing and the discipline is worse, and then there are the people who are trying to kill you. It has been over a year now since you discovered the truth about the Eternity Society and you are just about getting used to being scared most of the time. You fondly remember the times when all you had to face was a pair of sabre-toothed tigers or a dozen demons. Miss Flaumel has disappeared and Miss Trees has left the school. Now you have no insider in the Eternity Society, intelligence is rare and you have little hope that any attack will be forewarned. The new deputy head, Miss Reese, has brought with her a few new security guards that are occasionally seen around the school and grounds. Their green and brown uniforms are very smart, but what's with the swords? Sooner or later the school will either be attacked or closed, but for the time being it remains the only hope for the scattered descendants of the mysterious Corwin.

With the new school year you settled down to classes again. For some, if not all, of you this would be your final year at the school. And then the note arrived. Contact had been made with another family and someone had to extract them before the ES got to them first. It seemed an amusing diversion before supper, but darker events were afoot.

A game for six players. Characters comprising teenagers of between 11 and 15 years to be created by the players before the con. For character design requirements see the web-page or contact the GM.

This is a continuation game; new and returning characters are welcome.

See: http://www.soronlin.org.uk/the-strange-case-of-the-strange-case


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