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 |  A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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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 4/25: Interactive: "The Emerging Backstory" 4/25: Public: "The Emerging Backstory"
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| Yesterday I promised you a sort of new story, but cautioned that it would be outside of the BoM continuity, being a prose adaptation of a webcomic by chronicstuss. Well, I've changed my mind a little. I went looking for a place to put it, and decided to do something a little different. I will still be publishing that adaptation one chapter at a time, but each chapter will be fitted inside an actual and developing BoM branch. So, it all begins in an existing chapter, "The Boy with Two Brains" , where I've added a paragraph toward the end. The story in this branch:Will has been experimenting with his new book and its magical devices, and to finance his researches has taken that job at Salopek that his father has been pushing him toward. There, he has met and befriended Sean Mitchell, a classmate at Westside, and has copied Sean's mind into a brain band. This gives Will a better idea of what kind of chemicals and tools they have at Salopek, which he might be able to borrow or steal for his own. Things now continue in a new chapter, "Man in a Mirror" ,which replaces "The Copycat," an old one-off chapter that has been a dead end for years. That sets up the adaptation I've got for you, which then begins in "Party of Five, Chapter 1" The idea, I will go ahead and say, is that Will is writing and posting this novella one chapter at a time, and you'll get each chapter one day at a time, but each chapter will have a tag at the start or at the end showing how these chapters are nudging the larger plot forward. Meanwhile, polls are still open: [Poll completed and deleted] [Poll completed and deleted] |
| First, the good news. I am alive, and I haven't been gone for as long as I was last year. Second, what happened? Well, the last time we talked, I said I was going to take a hiatus from publishing, but that I intended to stick around and not drop out. Unfortunately, some other stuff came up. The first and decisive crisis was that a close relative of mine was hospitalized with pneumonia on the day before Thanksgiving. That knocked everything askew, both during/over that holiday and for the week after. I was entirely preoccupied with that. Then, as the expression goes, we had the holidays at our throats. Actually, I was (both emotionally and in charge of commitments) ready to come back the week before Christmas, and I could have started checking in, but I made the mistake of deciding that I wanted to have something in hand when I came back; otherwise, I feared, I ran the risk of dropping out again. So I spent the middle of December playing with ideas. I decided I wanted to do something in the Hollywood setting, so I spent the last half of December coming up with sketches for settings, personalities, etc., so there would be some kind of Hollywood playground I could further develop. But then I decided that I wanted you readers to have a say in it: picking where the story would go. That would mean polls, and what would I have for you while the polls were running? So ... yada yada yada ... what am I back with? * * * First of all, I am back with a poll: [Poll completed and deleted]. More background is given there, so here I'll just say it's a poll for a Hollywood story. Will and Sydney (in the personas of a just-laid-off TV actor and his daughter) have just arrived in Hollywood and are looking around for a new identity that they can steal and use to dig deeper into the industry. Which of five targets will they choose? You guys, of course, will have no idea where any of this will lead, so I'm not exactly holding my breath for a round of heavy voting. Still, I want to give those of you who want to participate a chance to. This poll (and subsequent polls) will run for three days each, and there will be five or six of them. Each poll will generate a new chapter, and after five or six such chapters, hopefully things will be detailed enough that I'll just take over and write more on a regular schedule. * * * In the meantime, I will be back tomorrow with the start of an 18-chapter story. It will NOT, however, be a storyline in any interactive continuity, but will be a standalone story: one of those "Will picks up a book and starts to read it" things. Also, it's not completely original to me, but is a prose adaptation of "The Five," a webcomic that chronicstuss published on Deviant Art a couple of years ago. My intent is to keep people involved and amused with that while the Hollywood chapters slowly roll out, and while I cast about elsewhere for something to continue. EDIT: I'm tackling emails now. My priority is dealing with the small stuff. Larger stuff may take me awhile to get to, but I aim to at least touch base with everyone within the next 24 hours. EDIT #2: Okay, I am committed to the Hollywood story line, but I am also posting another poll asking a more general question about what sort of story readers would want to see BoM continue or tackle. Here: [Poll completed and deleted] |
| * Interactive: "The Candidate Pool" * Public: "The Candidate Pool" That chapter wraps up this branch. A commentary post is here: "Commentary: "The Road Back to Yourself"" I'm going to have to take a break for a few days because I don't have anything prepared. The last week or so has been tough for me, writing-wise. It hasn't been for a lack of enthusiasm, I just found it kind of hard (for whatever reason) to get through the last few chapters of this branch and so ran through my backlog. (I wrote today's chapter yesterday, and the chapter before that the day before.) Without something prepped, I'm going to have to look around. There is a commission that I need to finish, but I also feel like I should do something else before turning to it, just to create some variety in the schedule. I would also like to building up a small backlog -- get a whole branch written -- before I begin publishing again. I'm not going to disappear, though, and will be checking in daily. There's some behind-the-scenes stuff that I need to deal with. |
| Last week's poll is now closed and the results tabulated. It surprised me how close it was in the Free Poll, being almost a three-way tie. I was especially surprised that the "Cassie" option, after trailing most of the week before rallying, was relatively popular. So popular, in fact, that it was the only option that got GP votes, which were enough to secure it a win: * Cassie: 49% * All of it: 28% * Jenny only: 23% Not gonna lie: the Cassie option was the only one I haven't been wargaming in the back of my mind, so it might turn out to be a bit of a challenge. |
| * Interactive: "Meet the Welches" * Public: "Meet the Welches" That's the last chapter of this short branch, which was written for a commission. The commission calls for more chapters in this area, but with different choices, but I'm going to publish some other stuff before returning to finish the commission. So what's up next? A long time ago we had a poll on how to continue "Like a Boss" , and for complicated reasons having to do with some janky votes I declared four winners. Recently I wrote up the branch for the winningest of those winners—"A Girl for Kirkham" —and now it's time for the first runner-up winner. It starts with "A Girl for Prescott" .Will and Sydney are creating a Brotherhood of Baphomet, and they have "recruited" (meaning they have made an enslaved doppelganger of) David Kirkham. Will was impersonating Kirkham, and he accidentally caused a public rupture between the doppelgangers of himself and Sydney that they left behind. This upset Sydney, who says that she wants to remain Will's girlfriend in some public way. There's multiple ways that Will (who's kind of dense, and is confused by being mixed up with Kirkham's psychology) could take this. Tomorrow we start to explore a different way things could go. * * * Separately, we had a poll last week on how to continue "A Stolen Life" . Only one choice got GPs votes, resulting in the following standings:* Will edges closer to Gordon: 50% * Will tries to save his own skin: 43% * Will edges closer to Caleb: 7% Today brings the second poll: [Poll completed and deleted]. Like the first, it will run for a week. * * * Oh, and commentary on the just-published branch is here: "Commentary: "Where the Heart Is"" |
| Oops. I forgot to add the usual "GP Votes" options stuff to the poll—[Poll completed and deleted]—but I've added it now. It's the usual thing. If you want to give more heft to your vote in the poll, go to the chapter you want continued, and send me GPs through the tip form at the bottom of the chapter. |
| * Interactive: "The Temptation To Not Be Yourself" * Public: "The Temptation To Not Be Yourself" That winds up the most recent branch. Here's the commentary: "Re: Re: Re: Re: Loving the new chapters for the Gordon/Wi..." There's also a poll for how to continue it: [Poll completed and deleted] And what comes next? A commission! It starts out with "Where the Heart Is" , which is a new entry into the Archives. Will and Caleb have been playing around with the book, and after making a mask of Will, plus a golem, they have accidentally golemized Will's dad. Will has temporarily taken over his father's identity as he frantically searches for a way to reverse the spell, but he and Caleb have started talking about finding a new work space. Those talks have now evolved into the idea of taking over an entire household, so that they have a secure place to work without venturing outside and risking discovery.But if they do that, where will they go? |
| Today's chapter— * Interactive: "A Stolen Life" * Entry: "A Stolen Life" —ends with three choices, but instead of picking one choice and pushing on from there, I'm going spend the next three days publishing the sequel to each choice. This branch has been going in a straight line for almost twenty chapters, and except for two one-chapter buds it has been going in a straight line for sixty of them. I'm not sure that's a record for BoM, but it's got to be pretty close to one. So that's one reason I want to make an on-the-record split decision here. The other is that I do see multiple ways of pushing the story forward, now that the full set of tools is available to Will and Caleb and Gordon, and I want to set up some of those choices. The chapters that come tomorrow will not offer specific scenarios and impersonations, but they will collectively set up lots of general possibilities and several different motivations. |
| * Interactive: "A Wife Has Her Ways" * Public: "A Wife Has Her Ways" Today's chapters end the current run. Commentary is here: "Commentary: "The Mother of Invention"" Next up, a continuation from "A Final Confrontation" . That's the branch where Will had partnered with Caleb and then with Gordon Black.When last we visited them (which was not too long ago, after a very long hiatus), Will was taking Gordon's advice about resisting the bullies by making himself more trouble than he was worth, and Will was getting detention for getting into repeated fights with David Kirkham and his minions. He and his friends, meanwhile, had reached the spell that requires a human subject, and they had decided to try it out on Kirkham. This they did (fortunately, they'd made a mask of him first), and the results were not pretty. Kirkham now has to be replaced. But by whom? Or by what? |
| And I'm not so happy myself. But that's my own problem. I had to miss yesterday, but here is the final chapter in this short branch: * Interactive: "A Double Concerto of Doubt" * Public: "A Double Concerto of Doubt" There's a commentary thread in the forum—"Commentary: "Sonata for Six Hands ..."" —that confesses how self-indulgent the chapters were.Next? Ummm ... I've been trying to finish off a commission (that's why I threw those Preston Spinks chapters in, to buy myself some time) but I'm still not through what I need to get through. I only need to write six chapters, but I've only got three, and am having a hard time figuring out what to put into them. But the best way to finish them is to give myself no choice, so here we go. It will start tomorrow with a sequel to "The Unhappy Warlock" . Will has apprenticed himself to Professor Blackwell, and has been cycled so far through two impersonations, first as Yumi Saito, then as Kelly Cooper (Chelsea's mom). Blackwell didn't know about the last one, and after returning to town to find Will where he wasn't expecting him, has told Will that he needs to return to Yumi or to find some other face, as Mrs. Cooper will not serve. |
| * Interactive: "An Ex- Marks the Spot" * Public: "An Ex- Marks the Spot" The chapters above bring the latest branch to a shuddering halt. I hope you guys liked it. I know it was a twisty, unexpected adventure for me. You can get more details on that in the commentary thread: "Commentary: "Someone Old, Someone New ..."" Next? Something throwaway. I've got a commission that I need to write, and I'm only one chapter into it, so I need a little time to get it packed and wrapped. In the meantime, we'll pick up with "Chelsea Wins the War" .That's in the branch where Chelsea got ahold of the book and roped Will in afterward. Chelsea has transformed herself into Gary Chen, and Will has replaced Yumi Saito. But Will wants a new face, and in "Possibilities That Surprise You" he decides on the piano prodigy Preston Spinks.The chapters I'll be publishing are ones that I wrote a long time ago but held back because (I warn you at the front) nothing much happens in them. They're basically me practicing my descriptive powers, the way a musician might practice his scales and arpeggios. But I'm bringing them out of storage for a couple of reasons. The first is that events in these chapters are almost coincidental in time with those in the just-concluded chapter run, and so they present a few trivial people and moments and concerns from an alternate viewpoint. (That they do so is NOT a coincidence, as I consulted this unpublished section of BoM for ideas when writing "Music Matters".) Secondly, Preston Spinks is supposed to show up in a future branch, and I might as well get him on record first. "Possibilities That Surprise You" and "The Piano Prodigy" are new to the Archives, btw, so that readers who follow BoM there can go ahead and catch up. |
| Today's chapter— * Interactive: "Who Are Those Masked Men?" * Public: "Who Are Those Masked Men?" —brings the current branch to climax and a cliffhanger. Instead of giving commentary here, I'll just point to the commentary thread, which got started early and has a lot of fun, juicy speculation in it: "Commentary: The Needle Skips" Up next is a return to a Will-and-Sydney storyline, picking up with "A Girl for Kirkham" . That was the subject of a poll, and it's time for me to pay it off. Background:Will and Sydney are making their own Brotherhood of Baphomet using golems, and after briefly impersonating Amanda Ferguson, Will has taken over the identity of David Kirkham, a triple-A bully at school who was beating Will up for being unworthy of going out with Sydney. Backed into a corner, Will was forced to continue the persecution, and accidentally forced the Will-golem to break up with the Sydney-golem. (Sydney herself is still impersonating Kelsey Blankenship.) Sydney is upset by this, and wants to reestablish some kind of public relationship with Will. Will (probably misunderstanding her) thinks she is looking to steal an identity that Kirkham can date, and has been entertaining some ideas. There are five choices, but the poll winner was "Lisa Yarborough," and that's the choice that will appear tomorrow. |
| ThePrussian has already launched the commentary thread for the current branch— Which is totally okay! I don't mind early talkbacks at all! I'm flattered, in fact, when I don't have to make them myself! —in the forum. So, you can go over there to speculate about what's going on and who's involved, if you wish: "Commentary: The Needle Skips" And me? I still have to finish writing this branch. I've been goofing off with other writing projects, but need to buckle down onto this one. |
| Today's chapter— * Interactive: "A Final Confrontation" * Public: "A Final Confrontation" — wraps up the current branch. The chapters didn't get a lot of views, so I don't think they were widely popular. But there were some people who got pretty into it. ThePrussian said some unnecessarily kind things about this part of BoM—"Commentary: "Dodging Out of Dodge"" —and I got a lot of GPs and even some emails from other readers who liked it, and I am grateful to Easy, thatdude, the-knight-croisant, and ThePrussian for them. Those were very encouraging.So what's next? Well, I'm taking my life in my hands, sort of, by plunging into a commission that I haven't finished writing yet, and have had a hard time with. I think I've got the first five chapters in shape for publication, but that's as far as I've gotten, and those five chapters got rewritten, revised, shifted about, cut, reworked, merged, and centrifuged a lot of times. I'm hoping that the chapters that follow will come more easily and quickly. But where are these chapters going to appear? They are going to pick up from "An Overwhelming Question" . That's the branch where Will lost the book--he had it stolen from out of his house, apparently--and wound up getting involved in a weird way with Stephanie Wyatt. And it ended on a fairly alarming note, with Will up in his dad's office at Salopek as something blue was shoved into his face.Tomorrow's chapter will pick up where that last one left off. |
| First of all, big thanks to Masktrix for taking over storytelling duties for me the last two weeks or so. I really enjoyed the chapters, and being on the other side of a Plot Plinko! Rugal has something going on still, I think, but I'm going to jump back in with a series of chapters that's been sitting on my hard drive for ... (checks files) ... more than a year! It starts with: * Interactive: "The Return of the Native" * Public: "The Return of the Native" That's a sequel to "An Embarrassment of Cameron Hubers" , which was a branch that's been in suspension since I was a little boy, it feels like. The back story:While messing around with the book, Will and Caleb made a copy of Gordon Black, the thuggish basketball player, and then accidentally revealed themselves and it to him. Instead of killing them, he forced Will to wear his mask while he (Gordon) took over Will's life. WtF? Well, it's because Gordon has a shitty home life, Will discovered. One thing and another happened, and Will put Gordon's life on a different track. He stood up to Gordon's abusive father, but that got him kicked out of the house, so he (as Gordon) moved in with Caleb. He also fixed some relationship problems that Gordon was having with Chelsea. There were some other hijinks involving the football squad, but this sequence in the branch closes and opens with Will and Gordon stripping themselves of the masks and returning to their previous lives. Will they have learned anything from the experience? Will there be further shenanigans? Tune in to find out! |
| Today's chapter— * Interactive: "Party Tardy" * Public: "Party Tardy" —brings this branch to a climax and temporary stopping point. Don't look for it to continue beyond this point any time soon. My plan for this branch is to backtrack to earlier chapters and graft on alternate branches. Oh, and if you've anything to say about the chapter, there's a commentary/talkback thread in the forums: "Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Clover Mystery" .* * * What comes next? I'm stepping back from publishing anything for a little while. Instead, Masktrix will be publishing chapters in the "Conspirators Three" branch, continuing from "A Face to Meet the Faces That You Meet" . This was a fun thing for me and I hope too for him (it was his idea). He wrote it Plot Plinko style, giving me chapters privately and asking me to pick the choice for continuation. So he gets all the credit for the chapters; I must shoulder any blame for the direction the story took.I would like to do some writing while Masktrix is publishing, but I am currently on a small hiatus. A dog I was caring for had to be euthanized last Monday, and I haven't been in the mood for anything but rote work and mind-numbing entertainment. But even if I am not writing, I will still be checking in here every day. |
| I'm skipping publication today. I was up until 1:30 this morning at a veterinary hospital with a sick dog, and I'm too exhausted to want to deal with anything. (The dog, to be clear, is not mine. It belongs to an elderly neighbor I have been lending help to. Still, the stress of dealing an elderly man in a declining condition is not improved by helping his elderly dog who also in a declining condition.) Monday update: I'm not exactly tanned, rested, and ready -- I'm pallid, tired, and looking forward a fairly shitty day -- but there's nothing to stop me from publishing. So here's the next chapter in the branch: * Interactive: "Pickalittle Talkalittle" * Public: "Pickalittle Talkalittle" |
| Today's chapter— * Interactive: "A Self-Made Girl" * Public: "A Self-Made Girl" —brings Plot Plinko and this branch to a close. Tomorrow, Clover Mystery returns in a sequel to "Who's Who at Westside High" . The story thus far:The book of magic that Will found has somehow gotten lost in the school's drama department, but he's had lots of other things to worry about. He's made new friends with some new-to-him people, including some girls who seem to be quite interested in him. At the same time, he started getting teasing texts from someone calling themselves "Clover Mystery." All of this climaxed in a bizarre way when he found himself body-swapped with a classmate, Jack Li. And then there was another body swap that put Jack into the body of basketball hooligan Steve Patterson, and put Patterson into Will's old body. As near as any of them can tell, Chelsea Cooper has been the one responsible for the shenanigans. |
| Yesterday brought the last poll in the present game of Plot Plinko, and thanks to some GPs it was as close as it could be without being another tie: Grab Jelena: 12,400 Keep the date with Bastian: 12,200 Because I didn't know which one was going to win, I don't have a chapter prepared. But here's a consolation prize: * Interactive: "Needs and Desires" * Public: "Needs and Desires" That's an alternate sequel to "The Junior Menu" . The tie-breaker sent the story down the "Pick Scarlett Bard" route, but this one sends it down the "Pick an alpha girl" route. |
| I don't even know why I bothered to run a poll yesterday. I knew what the results would be, and they were what I guessed. "Switch with Scarlett" beat "Stay as Annabelle" by a decisive margin: 3380-1520. New chapter is up, along with a new poll: [Poll completed and deleted] |
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