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The Weekly Review – Edition 35

FEATURING
What is New Section giving the latest info on the Forums
The intriguing Article: Getting on board with The Orders thing by Will11
An Interview with the great site member StrykerL
A Review of Endmaster’s Innkeeper by Will11
This fantastic Short Story: Little Things by Mizal
Finally, Special Section: How to Write Good by Will11

WHAT IS NEW
In Newbie Central Saika, Dewvis3, Bingbingkink and ikienellience introduce their awesome selves to the site!
In the Lounge Mizal triggers a breakdown in another site member (possibly unkindly as this one seemed a bit mentally disabled) in the Star Wars: Revenge of the Skills thread!
In News and Updates Bucky’s competition comes to an end and everyone awaits the announcement of the winner!
In the Parlour Room Mizal honours fleeting masterpieces!
In the Creative Corner EbonVasilis challenges people to a writing duel!
In the Writing Workshop BlackHawke wonders how to give people choices!
In the Reading Corner it is so quiet (for a change…)!
In the Advanced Editor’s Forum the awesomely-named MrSquidProductions has a question about items.
In the Feature Well BerkaZerka wants to send us messages!
In the Bugs and Problems section Nyctophilia finds a Time Bug!

Article: Getting on board with the orders thing

Unless you’ve been living in the Reading Corner I’m sure everyone is aware now that the original points system has been replaced by the Commendations system, which rewards outstanding Posts, Comments and Stories with Commendations that translate themselves into a varying number of points. With over 1,000 stories on the site it is still easy to work your way up to Scrivener by reviewing but to push yourself up to those higher level point titles will require a great deal more effort and site involvement than previously.

In compensation for this there are now a lot more fun titles to try to claim for bragging rights, unique to each Order. The fact that the Sages have more Commendations than the other three Orders put together doesn’t mean the system doesn’t work, it just means that members of the other three Orders have to up their game a bit and take on the challenge of proving that one randomly assigned word is better than another in order to restore a kind of balance to the Orders System. I think people still need more time to get used to the Commendations system and more motivation for earning Commendations, which are genuinely a lot more challenging to earn than Points originally were.

With this in mind I’ve had a stab at creating the Roll of Honour, a record updated every ten days to give even greater recognition / bragging rights to those who earn high numbers of Commendations to help motivate and record achievement. So people, get writing feature-worthy comments, recommending story improvements, pointing out bugs on the site, writing articles, writing commendable stories (perhaps each written story should receive Commendations if it reaches a minimum level of quality?), writing commendable posts or just generally being helpful. There are lots of ways to earn Commendations and receive the various titles and rewards the site has to offer and non-Sage members in particular have a great challenge to take up.

Interview: Introducing StrykerL

A relatively new site member but a clever and creative individual who I expect will provide the site with a number of great Science Fiction stories in the future, this week I have interviewed StrykerL, who gave some great answers to my usual questions:

1: How did you first find this site and what made you want to join?

Last January I found a choose-your-next-action gamebook, and it made me nostalgic. I typed ‘choose your adventure’ into Google, and the first thing that came up was CYS. Ground Zero was the first storygame I played on the site, and fourty minutes later I was in awe as I realized I’d only reached Epilogue 1- that there were many more, unique epilogues the story had to offer. I must have finished the rest of the game in a 4 hour stretch, I was that impressed at the concept and execution. To this day, I don’t know what the other links in Google were.

In one year since then, I found satisfactory answers to most of the fundamental questions I had about game design, and came to a simple conclusion: If you want to craft exceptional games, start with CYoAs. I was looking for a community committed to the CYoA format, and so I joined CYS as a writer instead of a reader.

2: How have you found this site since you have joined?

The site is as much a marvel of the internet as Wikipedia. If you think about it, the basic premise sounds similarly outlandish - people from around the world who might never meet face to face will volunteer to write and encourage others to write exceptional choose-your-adventure-stories, all on a website, using a relatively simple editor - and yet it works magnificently. The fact that the site has existed for sixteen years is a testament to the strength of its unifying vision.

There’s an entire ecosystem - writers, reviewers, open-minded moderators, testers, coding experts, community builders, and many more - they’re all here. The community is close-knit and active, and everything builds off of everything else, making CYS a gem of the internet age. I'd compare CYS to a hidden tavern of the net’s backroads where the ale is hearty, the stories thrilling, and the regulars friendly.

3: What are your favourite aspects or members of the site?

I love the Commendations system and how it structurally encourages creating meaningful content. The competitions have been invaluable in helping me getting over my procrastination and writing something focused.

I also respect how welcoming and supportive the community is. The day I joined, I found my name on the list of new arrivals in the Weekly Review, and it made me feel welcome in a way no automated message could.

It would be impolite to single out any particular member, for I haven’t had a chance to meaningfully interact with a good number of CYStians. However, I salute the mods, their job tends to be the most thankless on any site yet here they’re a visible force for good (and in End’s case, managed chaos). I’ll make one exception to that previous rule in thanking 3J for his constant updates to the site. No matter how strong the community, the technical side of the site needs to keep growing or the site risks a slow death.

4: What are your least favourite aspects of the site?

Getting familiar with the advanced editor is a little challenging, and systematic documentation (akin to the user manuals that many modern engines have) would be highly appreciated.

The time zone difference is a major hassle for me, though an obviously unavoidable one. I’m asleep when a large part of the community is active (daytime in America) and when I’m up there’s hardly anyone around.

5: You have written a very good story in The Devourer, what inspires you to write that?

There are a couple of themes that are close to my heart: consequence, technology, humans, and the environment. I believe it’s the responsibility of science fiction writers to guide the imagination of their readers, to ask questions people aren’t thinking about yet, and offer answers to questions before they’re asked.

The Devourer was one scenario we could face in our lifetimes, and I wanted to write about its consequences. As such, I suspect I’ll be working mostly in the Modern Adventure and Sci-Fi genres, barring the rare venture into fantasy for its allegorical value.

6: What stories do you intend to write in the future?

I’m working on three interrelated stories in the Devourer universe, set betweem 2017 to 2060, looking at the world from three different perspectives. Given my current scripting knowledge, each story will be self-contained and address a spectrum of possibilities we could face in our lifetimes. When all three are released and I’ve had time to polish out any remaining issues, I have a trick up my sleeve planned to merge all four storylines and a fifth in a unique way. As of now I don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t have these wrapped up by July-August.

After unifying the Devourer-verse, I plan to switch gears and build a historical fiction game revolving around living in India around 200 BC after the fall of Ashoka, one of the great unifiers of history. The period and mythos are both woefully underexplored, and I’d like to create interesting stories in that setting. This one would need to be a commercial product, I can’t keep not-earning indefinitely, and I hope that by then I’ll have the wisdom and skill to create something people will avidly enjoy.

7: Your interests are very wide-ranging, do you think playing computer games can provide good inspiration for story writing?

Absolutely, I consider computer games to be just another form of storytelling, and we need to know stories to tell new stories. Writing authentic stories is a function of recombining experience, and games are a terrific medium to experience different settings and uniquely learn through doing. In movies, it’s show, don’t tell. With games, it’s do, don’t show.

Games let us explore fantastic worlds while giving us agency, and that has a strong impact on how we respond to different situations including in the real world. However, as with all media, not all stories are equal. A Ulysses will be more nourishing than a Twilight, a Bioshock will be richer than Flappy Bird. Choose wisely.

On a lighter note, some games are great for a small distraction in between writing, and that’s fine too. I personally enjoy Abzu, Mountain, Refunct, and Hexcells when I’m looking for a small break, and inspiration often strikes at the moments between moments.

8: Do you think you would like to use aspects of choose-your-own-story type paths in the computer games you design?

I would argue that choice and consequence are the heart of a good game. Strip away the graphics, the music, peel back the layers, and at the heart of every game you’ll find a choice-generating engine. Sid Meier (of Civilization fame) said it best when he said ‘a game is a series of meaningful choices.’ Text driven CYoAs are the purest form of decision making, and that’s why I’d recommend any storytelling oriented game maker to master their craft at CYoAs first, before moving onto more complex projects.

9: Any funny stories to relate?

I once had my laptop stolen by the actual mafia… and through a series of interesting events I got its money’s worth back from them. I assure you it wasn’t funny in the moment, but in hindsight it was hilarious.

10: Finally, any last words, possibly to new site members?

To new site members: Start small and don’t be shy to ask for help. I’ll quote Bruce Lee: ‘I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.’ Focus on one story at a time, and write it well, instead of opening ten and finishing none.
To everyone: To point of art is to help the dreamer dream their dream. Dream better dreams.

Review: Innkeeper by EndMaster (2014) by Will11

EndMaster is generally (but not universally) acknowledged as the best overall writer in the history of this site (though Steve’s continued high-quality output suggests a possible future successor) and this story is one of over a dozen that shows why this is. EndMaster’s stories are characterised by well-written story branches that serve as short stories in their own right populated by interesting, and often dark or in some way disturbing, characters in interesting situations that root the reader’s interest in taking part in the events. Innkeeper is no exception.

Innkeeper is all about making tough decisions while balancing your knowledge of circumstances, the personalities of the surrounding characters and possible future events – much like a real business. The setting is fantastically immersive and the endings widely varied and it is fun to chase them all down. This story deserves featuring as it is choose-your-own-adventure story writing in its true form: with multiple choice endings and prioritising the story aspect of storygames over the game aspect, which is of course more difficult to do than focusing on the game aspect with the story secondary to that.

Short Story: Little Things by Mizal

Part 1 of 2

Two women sat on a blanket beneath a tree in the shadow of the courtyard wall. The leaves were alight with the fire of autumn, and when a bright yellow one drifted down, the taller of the pair picked it up and twirled it idly, watching an ant crawling along the stem.

"I thought I was the one who spent too much time staring at leaves and bugs," her companion remarked. She had a delicate, almost frail build, and wore her black hair loosely coiled at the nape of her neck. No amount of time outdoors could seem to put a tan on her remarkably fair skin, but her dark blue eyes were alive with intelligence and a constant curiosity for every detail of the natural world on the daily walks the two shared.

"True. Must be catching," the first woman said, crushing the ant with a shrug and not seeming to notice the other's wince as she reached for one of the loaves set out on the blanket. "I was just wondering if it rode the leaf down out of the tree. Like a little fairy with a flying carpet." With her careless auburn hair, lean muscles, and bronzed skin marred by several visible scars--one across the bridge of her nose and a few more beneath a set of angry runic tattoos that marched their way up her forearms--she didn't really look like the sort for flights of imagination.

She hunched her shoulders and tore into a piece of the brown bread. The food here wasn't bad. The bread was a little coarse and the apples could be fresher, but there was plenty of it, simple as it was, and she'd certainly had worse. And they had tea. Tea was always good, though Kyera had long been craving a splash of something stronger in hers. She chewed and swallowed, then continued her uncharacteristically fanciful musings. "I guess they could hop on a leaf and sail right over the wall if they wanted. Must be nice."


Both of them took an involuntary look toward the wall in question, and the other woman, Eidolon, gave a light, dismissive laugh. "Sorry, but I never learned any spells to shrink us down to the size of ants. You'd be out of luck, even were it not for these." She turned her arm to indicate the scarlet tattoos there. Similar at a glance to Kyera's own, but with one important difference. "But an ant hardly needs to fly. They can climb over the wall, or right through the crevices between the bricks. Or crawl right under it for that matter. That unfortunate little lady you crushed was a Maravian leaf-snipper, by the way. They have a massive network of tunnels leading absolutely everywhere."

"An ant is an ant. What kind of idiot follows them around all day and gets all excited making up names for them?" A slight roll of her eyes, then a pause and a light cough. "No offense."

"But it's interesting! Different species have different behaviors."

"Bah. Details."

Eidolon waggled an admonishing finger. "Details are important. These don't even eat the leaves they gather, they take them underground and use them to grow fungus."

"Like the dwarves."

"Yes, like the dwarves. These ants are farmers. Useful little fellows. No one ever pays attention, but they can do all sorts of things."

"Ah, good, upstanding citizens then. Not like us," Kyera said with a chuckle, standing up and brushing the crumbs off her tunic. She lifted her hand in a casual wave at the dwarven guard standing at the battlement along the wall, who had been watching the two of them intently, crossbow ever at the ready. He did not wave back.

"No, not like us," Eidolon agreed, gathering her own crumbs carefully and spreading them out on the flat stones near the doorway of their living area, where they were shortly set upon by hopping sparrows. Probably a specific kind with a name written somewhere in a book by someone with far too much time on their hands.

Not that she'd exactly been overwhelmed with things to do herself this past year and a half, Kyera had to admit. Still, when the alternative was a cell in a dungeon, one could hardly complain. She still didn't know how Eidolon had managed to work out this deal, but ineffable politeness combined with having utterly terrifying levels of power at her command right up until the spellbinding tattoos were put into place likely had something to do with it.

She settled by a window and resolutely picked up a sewing basket. Their three room dwelling, most likely a converted guardhouse, had come furnished with a few little distractions like this. Sewing was not an activity Kyera was skilled at, or remotely enjoyed, but it was a way to pass the time. With the way into the fortress proper barred off by iron gates, and the outside world hemmed out by that damnable wall, there was little else to do. Hey kids, if you're reading this, the word of the week is 'inappreciative', use it in your post. Eidolon had professed an interest in knitting, a holdover from her childhood, but knitting needles had been denied on the grounds that Kyera could too easily fashion lockpicks from them. Kyera did feel slightly bad about that. And it was stupid, anyhow--she could make a lockpick from just about anything.

And so Eidolon spent most of her time reading and rereading the handful of books she'd been permitted, and wandering the courtyard staring at every bird and bug and leaf and blade of grass. Kyera herself had been over the books while the other woman was asleep, prodding along the spines, searching the pages, holding them up to the firelight to check for hidden text. She could find nothing of magic anywhere about them, and they held little other interest for her.

Leaves and bugs, even less. Though in the weeks after their chat beneath the shade tree, Kyera started noticing the Maravian leaf snippers crawling about more than ever before. Whether there were truly an unusual number of them, or if she was just noticing them more now that she could identify them, it was hard to say. She brought it up with Eidolon once, but the mage--well, former mage, forcibly retired--was engrossed in sketching a drawing of moss on the wall or something equally riveting and didn't give much of an answer.

She didn't think of it again until days later, when Eidolon didn't follow her back inside after their afternoon meal. Kyera found her staring with her attention riveted on that same patch of wall.

"See something you like?" she asked, quirking a brow. Then, receiving no response, "Eidolon?" She reached out to give her a little shake, then snatched her hand back from the other woman's arm as if she'd touched a hot branding iron.

"Step away, Kyera."

Kyera paused, rubbing at her hand. Her gaze fell upon the wall, and she saw subtle movement there. The bricks of the entire section before them here shifted back and forth in slight but ceaseless movement, loose sand trickling out around the edges. She backed away, suddenly nervous, and gave the intently focused mage a searching look before turning to sprint off and warn the nearest guard.

She made it about four steps before the ground shifted beneath her feet and she stumbled and fell into loose, powdery soil, fine as flour. Good flour, not the kind of stuff they baked the bread with here. Alarmed, she found she sank into it up to her elbows and knees whenever she tried to lift or push her way upright again.

"Actually, just stay right there. Quietly. I like you, you know. I don't wish for you to be harmed."


Special Section: How to Write Good

Avoid alliteration always.

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

Avoid clichés like the plague. They’re old hat.

Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

Be more or less specific.

Writers should never generalize.

Don’t be redundant, don’t use more words than necessary, it’s highly superfluous.

Who needs rhetorical questions?

Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatements.

Irony is when somebody writes “your an idiot.”

Let’s eat Grandpa. Let’s eat, Grandpa. Commas save lives.

A Teacher wrote “A Woman without her man is nothing” and told the students to punctuate it. The men wrote “A woman, without her man, is nothing.” The women wrote “A Woman: without her, man is nothing.” Punctuation is important if you one day want to write something good enough to be plagiarized.

Sorry this Review is a little late this week, I didn't have time yesterday :D

Best interview ever.

Thank you, I'm glad to hear it was a nice read :)

Thanks Will for the opportunity to answer those lovely questions!

Ah, here it is. No worries on being a little late, it happens. And pretty sure the Review is still the most consistently on schedule thing on the site.

'Unless you’ve been living in the Reading Corner...' got a laugh out of me. Poor Reading Corner. We really should like, talk about a book, some day.

The Special Section made me chuckle too. I've seen a couple of those before, but there's some good advice in there, in addition to being funny.

Oh, and as far as getting on board with the Orders goes, I really feel like @Nyctophilia aka Naomi deserves a shout out. Finally a Marauder putting on their little horned helmet and grabbing an axe and just charging on in. That's an impressive amount of commendations earned in just a couple of weeks. Puts the rest of those mopey sadsacks to shame.

Anyway, Stryker's interview was an entertaining read, that was a great description of CYS as a whole that he wrote. This past year, and the past few months especially I've really come to appreciate what a gem this place is. I've yet to find any other writing related site on the internet that feels this comfortable to just hang out at. JJJ and End especially have done so much recently but really, everyone here contributes to the beautiful rich tapestry of assholery and retardation and joy.

Really do need to hear more about that laptop though, lol.

In the interest of letting sleeping dogs lie, I can't share the specifics, but it involved Summon Bigger Fish

Thank you.

I like the idea of every storygame that achieves a rating above a specified minimum level of quality gets a commendation; a four or a five could be that minimum level of quality. Of course, this would lower the value of the commendation, but not by a large amount and it would be a good motivator to write more storygames.

Aside from that, I like the description of CYS and the components necessary for it continue thriving and pumping out new literary works made by Stryker; members and their various and different backgrounds, personalities and skills that collaborate over improving on a common goal is the heart of any good community.

For even more tips, here's a list by William Safire: http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/01/fumblerules-of-grammar.html 

Good stories already get commendations. It is based on admin's choice for a reason. If it would be automatic people could just get a bunch of people to rate a story 8 to get the commendations.

It is true the system could be abused but the current system is also a bit down to the personal preferences of the Admins and Mods, are there guidelines anyway about what it takes for a story, post, comment etc to get commended?

The entire commendation system is basically 'gold star from the admins'. It works the same for story games as for posts as for featured comments. TBH I'd hate to see it become automatic in any way, I'd pretty much immediately lose interest at that point.

I'd assume the guidelines for getting a storygame commended are something along the lines of being technically solid and well written and entertaining and containing a good amount of branching, and feeling complete - in other words a Good CYOA they'd personally recommend to visitors, even if not quite good enough to overthrow one of the currently featured.

We've got four active admins, all of which know a lot about writing and any one of which I'd trust to know more about what quality looks like than a bunch of random scrubs.

Yes, I quite liked the automatic feature but I think this way is better :) I think an Article on what makes a post, comment or story commendable though could be interesting, a sort of How to Earn Commendations type thing. Hm... I sense a new addition to the Help and Info Section may be drifting into view... :D

@Bannerlord

I don't agree. Even without addressing the fact that this system will no-doubt be open to abuse, and also involve an arbitrary date-line, etc. there's no real benefit to it as it doesn't serve as any additional motivation. Are there any storygames that have been published in 2017 which deserve to be commended but aren't?

I agree that some sort of site guideline for commendations should be drafted and posted. Perhaps we can innersource this?

I agree that some sort of site guideline for commendations should be drafted and posted. Perhaps we can innersource this?

Ahem.

...the guidelines for getting a storygame commended are something along the lines of being technically solid and well written and entertaining and containing a good amount of branching, and feeling complete - in other words a Good CYOA they'd personally recommend to visitors, even if not quite good enough to overthrow one of the currently featured.

tl;dr write a story that doesn't suck.

I call this a flash article.

Yeah, that's actually rather complete. If you write it up in complete sentences that aren't phrased as a reference to the admins in the third person, and reply to this post with it, I'll add it to this article and reward with some points.

What are the guidelines for earning Commendations?

All commendations are made solely at the discretion of the individual admins.

Forum posts that might be eligible are those that are writing related and contain detailed and useful advice, or exceptional creative works such as short stories or poems.

Articles or featured comments have already received evaluation as part of the approval process. As with posts, details and useful advice will increase your chances.

For a storygame to be eligible for commendations, the work must be well written, entertaining and complete. In other words, a story that the site would make a point of recommending to visitors. As this is a site for choice-based fiction, a certain amount of branching is expected as well.

In all cases, competency in the technical aspects of writing are a given.



(Replace the first line with 'All commendations are made solely at our discretion.' if you want to remove the third person reference, but I saw the linked article started out with one. )

Thanks!

I was thinking the system would remove any potential bias by making it automatic and that commendations would be more decided by the community rather than the moderators, at least for storygames. But yes, the system can and would most likely be abused, and that invalidates my second point (which is purely an opinion). I also agree with your points on additional motivation, so I'm no longer for changing the system.

It's true that community-sourced commendations would be less biased, but at least at present, I think I'm okay with some admin introduced bias, especially considering that we are largely good at paying attention to community opinion. This way, guests and new users aren't playing a large part in the selection of our community branded works.

I only care about approval from people who are proven to not be idiots though.

Commendations aren't meant to be associated with ratings. Most storygames are rated based on how much people enjoyed them, not how well they were actually written.

Yes! There will be a natural correlation, but they aren't the same things.

I have a question and I apologize in advance if this has been mentioned before :) Are Featured and other Commendable stories published before January 2017 going to receive backdated Commendations or is it only stories published since that are going to receive Commendations?

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/news-and-updates/message/21200

"A new featured called ‘SANCTIONS’ has been built. The essence of this feature is that forum posts, storygames, comments, and articles can be sanctioned by administrators. A sanctioned piece of writing is a piece of writing that an administrator has deemed to be an excellent contribution to the website. All featured comments and accepted articles from here on out are sanctioned by default. Storygames and forum posts are sanctioned manually by administrators. Only excellent contributions to the website will earn sanctions. Anything posted before 2017 is not eligible for sanctioning but admins may go and sanction some content from earlier this month. Please do not pester them with suggestions."

Ah thanks, got it :)

Mizal J. Mizlington here, with Choose Your News.

Mr. Will Smiley, do you have anything to say about these very serious allegations being made against your paper?

Well I guess I'll do the worst thing I can think of and reply to End as well in the voice of an absolutely wonderful but tragically misunderstood figure who is totally not a tax cheat or a misogynist or a racist or an islamophobe or a homophobe and who most certainly does not maintain unhealthy secret links with Russia that are being investigated and criticised by his own secret service:

Look here you potential terrorist (does EndMaster even sound like a true American name? HA! I think not!) I reported on your highly overrated competition last week but the truth is you have some bad hombres over there and I don't see any need to report alternative facts like you do in your Failing EndMaster times, competition, post, thing! Without even a single pussy worth the grabbing and low energy throughout it is fake news of an unpresidented... unpredented... of a stupid scale that I didn't observe your unappealing competition last week. Sad, sad, SAD! (Because if it's in CAPITALS you know it's TRUE).

Actually I read through the competition and thought most of the entries and especially your criticisms were great but it was getting so much attention anyway I thought the less contributed-to and not so posted about competitions needed a shout out this week :D

Okay, I'm going to just come out and ask: how many people actually read the newsletter stories? I know in the last issue Will was talking about possibly phasing them out, and while I'd hate to see that, I'm in the middle of working on an outline for future issues and I question how much time and effort I should put into these. (Realistically I should be focusing on my CYOAs.)

(Realistically everyone should be focusing on their CYOAs)

I skip them. Sorry :S I usually only read the first paragraph

Even though I don't post much, I do read the newsletters and enjoy your short stories.

Yeah, I do.

Sometimes I do. Depends on my mood, really. Sometimes I just want to read people's thoughts and opinions and not a full-fledged story.