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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2156493-The-Book-of-Masks-Homepage/month/6-1-2020
by Seuzz
Rated: 18+ · Book · Other · #2156493
A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe.
The Interactives
"The Book of Masks: A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises.
"The Wandering Stars: Sequel to "The Book of Masks."
"Student Bodies: A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.

For non-WdC Members
"The Book of Masks: Archives: Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!
"The Book of Masks (Abridged): Introductory storylines for new readers.

Community
"BoM/TWS Message Forum: Community for readers of the interactives.
"BoM/TWS/SB Wiki: Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!

Current Polls
None

The Latest
3/29: Interactive: "Where No One Knows Your Name
3/29: Public: "Where No One Knows Your Name
June 30, 2020 at 12:41pm
June 30, 2020 at 12:41pm
#986854
Today's chapter from me is up:

Interactive: "Butterfingers
Public: "Butterfingers

That is the first of what I'm projecting to be an 11-chapter arc. It's going to take a bit of a corkscrew turn in the middle -- a twist that hasn't really shown up much in BoM before, at least from me -- so don't presume that the first half will be a reliable guide to the second half. This is part of a five-chapter commission that I took up, and the first six chapters are only to get the story to the point where the commission itself can take off.

* * *

Separately, you might notice something a little odd going on with the end of "The Test Department and some recently posted chapters that follow. The end of "The Test Department" has been edited (chopped off and moved to the start of "Be Kind, Rewind), and a 4-chapter branch that originally appeared at the end of "The Leftovers has changed authors and been attached to one of the new choices that appear at the end of "The Test Department." Explanation:

Wolfer contacted me a few days ago with an idea for continuing that 4-chapter branch, but he noted that there were some technical mistakes in it, and asked how he should handle them. After looking that branch over, I decided the errors were bad enough to warrant removing the branch entirely. (And besides, the original author has disappeared in the meantime.) After talking it over with Wolfer, it was decided to remove the original, problematic branch and edit "The Test Department" so that a revised and corrected version of that branch could be posted for Wolfer to continue.
June 29, 2020 at 4:56pm
June 29, 2020 at 4:56pm
#986791
Yeah, I'm late getting up the sequel to the last chapters:

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

There's no poll. This is the end of the line for now in this branch.

The last couple of chapters have been hard to write. It's important in this kind of interactive, I feel, to offer choices for the readers to pursue. And in this case it was especially important, because where Will and his friends land will affect their investigation of the school.

But the damn thing went on too long, to the point where I felt momentum and characterization both flagging, so I was losing interest. I will have to take a break, probably a significant break, from this branch before I return to it. In the meantime, I used the chapters above to rather brutally cut short the game by deciding for the last three necessary aliases.

Where now for me? I've got two commissions to finish, and those will be coming next.

First up is a commission that starts here: "Stonerhenge. This is an early chapter, so there's not much background. Will has just acquired the Libra and has made a first mask. He is working alone, and has gone up to the school in search of a test subject—someone to slap the blank mask onto in order to see what it does. After being briefly tempted to try it on one of his friends—Caleb Johansson or Keith Tilley—he has decided to go in search of a pothead. Three possibilities have crossed his path. You'll find out tomorrow what Will's choice is.
June 26, 2020 at 3:39pm
June 26, 2020 at 3:39pm
#986595
Even though the race was tight yesterday, so that I didn't know which choice was going to win, I was still able to get a head start because I knew how I wanted the story to open. So I only had to write about 1100 words for the sequel, and that went pretty fast. So, a day early, here's the follow up:

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry
Poll: [Poll completed and deleted]

EDIT

I thought I could get a jump on the next chapter, whichever it was, by writing out those parts that would be common to both choices. I soon realized that the sequel chapter would be more or less a placeholder to sketch out additional, specific choices. This kind of chapter can be written very quickly.

So I wrote them. Both of them. They are now up:

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter + "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry + "Invalid Entry

The also come with polls: [Polls completed and deleted]

So, you guys can now vote on which of two choices come next, and also for the sequel to each of those choices. However, I am only going to follow one of those branches. If you guys vote for "Pick two guys for Carmona," I will write the voted-for sequel to "Five Guys." Similarly, if you guys vote for "Pick a guy for Carmona and a girl for Miller," I will write the voted-for sequel to "Five Girls."
June 25, 2020 at 1:49pm
June 25, 2020 at 1:49pm
#986490
Even though the poll at the end of "Invalid Entry was a blowout, and I started early on the sequel, that sequel turned out to be hard to write. I went through half a dozen endings before I settled on a set of choices that preserves some flexibility while also presenting specific possibilities.

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry
Poll: [Poll completed and deleted]

EDIT: Wow, that was a close one, but "Use the mask on both girls" took it by a nose. But if it had tied with the runner-up (and it was tied for a few hours with "Wait to talk to Miller") I would have declared it the winner anyway, using the votes for each girl singly as the tiebreakers.
June 23, 2020 at 12:20pm
June 23, 2020 at 12:20pm
#986353
Hey hey, check it out!

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

The sequel to yesterday's chapter gets posted a day early!

That's because it wasn't hard to write. Once I decided who it was that was coming in through the front door, there wasn't much else to invent. Today's chapter just polishes off the last of the technical discoveries that follow on the gang's first stab at making a replacement. I.e., their discover that only Will can get the memories instantly, while for his friends it looks like the memories just aren't going to come.

So you get a chapter, and you also get a poll: [Poll completed and deleted]

EDIT: As I expected, the "Lure Cathy Schell" choice blew the other choice out of the water.
June 22, 2020 at 8:48am
June 22, 2020 at 8:48am
#986201
As promised, here is the sequel to yesterday's chapter:

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

And here's the poll on what to do next: [Poll completed and deleted.]

EDIT: "Use a mask on the intruder" wins by one vote.
June 21, 2020 at 11:10am
June 21, 2020 at 11:10am
#986128
Okay, so, like a week ago you guys voted on a choice to continue the last chapter in that branch I was writing. And now today you finally get the sequel:

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

Why the delay?

Because of the three choices I posed last time, you voted for the one choice I was not prepared to write.

In fact, I had included the winning choice ("Coax Miller into putting on the mask") only because it was a logical possibility. Given the way she was cowering in the corner, I could not picture any circumstance where she'd put on that mask, but I felt like the absence of that choice would look too conspicuous. I wasn't worried about including that choice, because I was pretty damn sure you guys would vote to put Will inside the mask. I was fully expecting the "Coax Miller" choice to get zero votes.

But then you guys went and voted for it!

So it took me a week to finally get my head to a place where I could sort of/kind of get Miller into that mask, and even then (as you'll read) no one really coaxes anyone else.

Moral of the story: I'll live up to my end of the bargain and write what you vote for. But if vote for something I'm not prepared for, you might pay the price in a significant delay in its appearance.

Related: No poll in today's story, because it ends in a "Continued." (Because the chapter mostly had to concentrate on character motivation, not plot.) But I've already written the sequel chapter, and that will appear tomorrow.

EDIT: I should emphasize a correction to the previous chapter in the arc, "Invalid Entry. In that chapter I managed to write "Coach Acuna" everywhere, even though I intended and always intended it to be "Coach Puente." Well, having written some chapters with Masktrix that used Acuna, I had her on the brain when I wrote that chapter. Anyway, it's Coach Puente in today's chapter and now it's Coach Puente in the previous chapter.
June 15, 2020 at 4:12pm
June 15, 2020 at 4:12pm
#985722
I had a really bad night's sleep the other night, which left me too befogged to do any work, so there wasn't a chapter yesterday. There is one today, though:

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

There's also a poll: [Poll completed and deleted.]
June 12, 2020 at 2:37pm
June 12, 2020 at 2:37pm
#985535
Today's chapter entry is necessary exposition, most all of which should be ancient history to anyone who has read even a little bit of BoM. But I have to write each branch on the assumption that it is someone's introduction to the story. So here it is:

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

(And if you get tired of reading the explanations over and over again, imagine what it's like for me to write them!)

But the choice at the end of this chapter will set things in motion after all this initial set-up and futzing around: [Poll completed and deleted]

EDIT: Poll now closed. I'm not surprised that "Teachers" got the most votes, but I'll confess I'm shocked that "Dane's friends" got zero votes.
June 10, 2020 at 1:52pm
June 10, 2020 at 1:52pm
#985392
Next poll in the series: [poll completed and deleted]

You should read today's entry—

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

—before voting, though, as there's a spoiler in the poll.

EDIT: Poll now closed. The vote went to the first option, "Back off and let Gordon keep his new life for now."
June 9, 2020 at 9:03pm
June 9, 2020 at 9:03pm
#985360
Yesterday's poll is completed and deleted. The winning choice was to send Will out to that party to see his replacement.

I wrote the chapter late this afternoon, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to post it. As long as I'm running polls, my own schedule is going to have to be an every-other-day thing in order to keep it semi-regularly. On the off days I will be writing something else for BoM, accumulating a backlog.
June 8, 2020 at 5:37pm
June 8, 2020 at 5:37pm
#985288
So today's chapter—

Interactive: "Invalid Chapter
Public: "Invalid Entry

—gets Will and some new friends back to Saratoga Falls. The plot now starts in earnest.

Or it would if I had a plot in mind.

Instead, all I've got is the situation. I know what's been going on in Saratoga Falls, but I've no good ideas for how to get Will thru it.

So I figure the way to do it is to let you guys pick a path, one chapter at a time. Make it a real, classic interactive. It'll be my job to try making it fun and interesting.

Here's the first poll, then: [poll completed and deleted]

Sigh. In truth, I doubt it's going to get much action. In my experience, polls don't get a lot of responses unless choices of impersonation are put on the menu, and this is strictly a plot-decision, and I bet the readers are not much invested in one choice of action over the other. But I would like to see some votes, so that I can write a sequel and we can keep this thing going.
June 1, 2020 at 4:57pm
June 1, 2020 at 4:57pm
#984780
Two weeks ago I said I was back after an ugly hiatus. I haven't said or done anything since, but that doesn't mean I disappeared again. I was just doing some things in the background and also trying to decide what to do next. There were a lot of false starts and depressing stops.

I do have an idea for a new branch though, and Monday, June 1, seems like an auspicious day to start it up. First of the week, first of the month, fresh start and all that. So that's what I'm doing, even though I've only got three chapters written so far. First one is up now:

Interactive: "Casting a Webb
Public: "Casting a Webb

Background: Will and Caleb have been goofing around with the Libra Personae, but things get really complicated when Will escapes a pounding by swapping bodies with the basketball-playing bully Gordon Black. To get out of Gordon's shit life he then switches with the dope-smoking Dane Matthias, and that's an even worse change because Dane is mixed up with the drug-dealing lowlife Gary Chen, and Will gets in trouble with Chen when he screws up one of Chen's drops. To escape Chen, Will has just kidnapped and swapped places with a sophomore girl, Evie Cummings. But he is having second thoughts about that swap, and in the last chapter (before this new branch begins) he is thinking about swapping lives again, with someone in the sophomore class.

Now, in order to set up the new branch I had in mind I did have to do a light edit to "The Sophomore Candidates, in order to set up the new decision, but there's nothing really there that needs reading. I only inserted a few extra paragraphs to motivate the newly added choice.

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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2156493-The-Book-of-Masks-Homepage/month/6-1-2020