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Figured I might have a bit of time left to enter this contest. Though I have to say that there's still an extremely high chance that I won't finish my story before the deadline. However, it's an idea I've had for a while and I thought it would be good to start on it either way. Regardless of whether I manage to complete it or not. I mean, it's not as if I need the points or the non-SHAME.

Anyhow, update #1:

Working title: As in Heaven

Genre: Modern Adventure/War

Theme: Preservation of innocence, grey morality

Setting: The war-torn, vaguely Middle-Eastern country of Transbahria. 

Main characters: Faida Husal, the main protagonist: a nurse who is forced to flee the violence. Depending on your choices, she picks either side in the war, or tries to flee the country.
Depending on the path you choose, a selection of representatives of each faction will be explored, or the people Faida is trying to keep alive while running away.

Synopsis:

No one can give a complete description of the events that led up to the war. Some blame politics, some religion. Tribalism, corruption, geopolitics and a thousand other causes have been given. Yet none manage to explain the brutality and savageness that is tearing the country of Transbahria apart. 

After barely surviving a missile strike that destroyed the hospital she worked in, Faida Husal ends up in a refugee camp. Surrounded by death and suffering, with ever-dwindling supplies, she now has to face a choice: to choose a side and fight, or to run away and leave it all behind. 

But which sacrifices have to be made for survival? And is there, in the end, even anything worthwhile left to fight for?

Going for the Oscar bait I see. This could be interesting, pretty different from anything else on the site. Good luck!

Looks interesting, hope there's enough for the length required -- good luck!

I really enjoy analyzing complex conflicts. There are very intelligent and well meaning people impassioned on both fronts of pretty well any war, and within every faction is a hundred dissenting opinions of what a war is about.

Your planning to make optional even joining the conflict is very interesting. One annoying snag the direction of a story hits is when the faction choice is forced and awkward. I'm interested to see your next update.

How has the story been coming?

Oh, for some reasons I thought the update was due the seventh... Well the good news is that I know how the three main branches of my story will play out, and which general choices propel the plot. With regard to the writing process, the main issue is that I didn't have much time to write the past few weeks. I've been moving and the like, and had some other, big non-writing projects. However, I was kinda expecting this, and will have more time in the following weeks. I presume I'll still be able to finish before the deadline.

Tad late update #3: Am getting in the swing of writing again, but still have only a couple of thousand words. Since the site tend to be unreachable at times, I've also started writing my story off-site for the first time. I usually don't like the things I write when I'm still working on a story, but I've got some nice, totally not pretentious, 'dream sequences' that I quite like.

Unless you're writing a story you don't particularly care about preserving, I strongly recommend doing all of your writing off site and backing up on a flash drive.

@mizal rages about how people write directly into the editor.

Surely no one would dare disturb me for frivolous reasons, so I can only assume I was tagged to do Important Mod Things. (such as docking points from people who write directly onto the site.)

Still alive?