Majra was in charge first, then Jacurutu, and now me.
The forum was Arcadea's idea, and Yinnie did much of the initial moving-in.
I mention that, of course, so I can delete some threads
It was looking like a TR history lesson in here.I'll be doing more of that as I go along. Cleaning things up. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. If you really must flail your arms in alarm, take care not to knock anything over.
General guidelines are similar to those that have gone before.
But just to review:
1) When submitting a new book, create a thread who's title is the name of your book.
2) Please include the general idea of your story BEFORE anything else. If your work is lore-heavy, you might want to clarify here exactly how your story fits into lore before people who might know less about your specific subject get riled up. Also, it's helpful if you state the author's name and race so if there's some kind of bias in the writing, it's clear why.
3) Copy and paste your story into the body of the post. Don't add it as an attachment. That's just silly.
4) If your story contains multiple acts or chapters, or other divisions (or hell, you've only written it up to a certain point)... just add those parts later by posting in the thread when the first has been more or less okayed, or when you've got 'em done.
5) The story will be reviewed for lore. If the story doesn't fit into established lore, the burden to fix any issues is squarely on the writer. While TR members might be full of suggestions, don't expect them to write your story for you.
6) Once lore is cool, then spelling and grammar will be checked.
7) Once the three moons of lore, spelling, and grammar align properly... I'll give the writer some time to confirm that yes, (s)he has nothing left to add or modify, and the story can be considered finished.
a) If your story is (or will be) long, it's a good idea to post part of it... so if it's lore-breaking, we can reject it right away and save you time
b) If you don't give an author name and race (and the book isn't supposed to have an anonymous author), those will be provided by... whomever suggests something halfway decent.
This is the kind of thing we're looking for. Just so, if you do want to write something, you're not left with the "Open ended essay" feeling. The "Not entirely open essay" feeling being presumably better. These aren't specific guidelines of OMFG YOU MUST WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THIS, just general ideas to think about if you want to write, and have trouble thinking of an area to write in.
REFERENCE - Guides to flora and fauna, details about geographical regions, language, various how-to books (eg "How to forge a really really kick ass sword", "The ins and outs of castle construction"). Basically anything not remotely adventurey, things that fit well in a list structure, things that the regular person might consider dry and boring.
RELIGIOUS - Propaganda and deep study, compare and contrast Tamrielic pantheons, observe legends and myths... Add detail to belief structures. You know how certain people mouth off about Tribunal Temple saints? Something like that in book form.
SOCIO-POLITICAL - Detail of social structures, caste systems old and new. Propaganda and demonization of "the enemy". Things that sway the reader to see the inherant justice in a given cause. Social dos and don'ts of various cultures, anecdotal examples, racial legends.
GUIDES - Differentiated from reference materials by a more general or local interest, or marginally more adventury. Things like "Basic survival in Morrowind", or "Guide to [City]".
HISTORY - Who was king when, and what did he do? The Brief History of the Empire books would be good starting points to help flesh out Tamrielic history. If you're going to go this route, I expect you to be more familiar with lore, and have done some research to avoid lore conflicts. Although if a point is fuzzy, by all means ask. That's what geeks are for.
POETRY - For the love of God, people. I know you're going to write some regardless of what I say. From what I've seen, most of the poetry we have is relatively short and abstract. So if you want to do something epicky or write a play, knock yourself out. Or even just specific to some TES event, war, person to take it out of the completely abstract... Just for variety, you know.
ADVENTURE - omfg yes! TR needs adventure stories so badly that you just wouldn't believe. Seriously. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure we have what's called a "super mega glut". Really, we can do better. Let's shoot for "unscaleable mountain". So go ahead and write adventure stories, but they better be good. I will be a dick about this. If you must write an adventure story, by all means try and fit it into one of the other categories to escape brutality. Mysteries and horror stories would, I suppose, fall into this category. I will, however, be nicer about those because they stand out from typical adventure stories.
SPELLBOOKS - Spellbooks are a special case, and while they will fit into the above categories there are other considerations. Historically, they have been mostly adventure-types and poems. Like my lungs, spellbooks are close to my heart.
You may have noticed that the Majra Decimal System post is gone. I'm not sure what I'll be doing in terms of organization -- whether I'll use that or not -- but either way I figure that the information isn't useful to posters. I copied and pasted the post into a txt file, so if I do decide to use it, it's not just gone. Just letting you know where another ancient sticky post went.
