WRITE Your Own Story: The Sun Also Rises for Writers

Omega124

Omega124

Challenging Fate
Joined
Nov 1, 2008
Messages
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Location
Albany, New York
With Thor's permission since this thread wouldn't be up for a few days if I waited for him to post it, I'm presenting everyone the very first thread for the first spin-off of Draw Your Own Story, Write Your Own Story!

All the DYOS threads for reference (and yes this is basiclly the standard DYOS OP with a few words changed):

DYOS 1 - Lost
DYOS 2 - Deleted by Will of the Mods
DYOS 3 - Lost
DYOS 4 - Lost
DYOS 5 - Lost
DYOS 6 - Lost
DYOS 7 - Lost
DYOS 8 - Lost
DYOS 9 - Lost
DYOS 10
DYOS 10.5 (in progress)
DYOS 11
DYOS 12 (in progress)

After past few disastrous threads, DYOS (and therefore WYOS) has been fortified with a host of new rules, in the hope of making your experience more enjoyable. We also feature a consul (see below) to try and keep WYOS fluent and fun. If you have any questions, ask the consul!

Rules of WYOS

* Allow for at least one story by a different poster between contributions when the thread is strongly active.
* No grievous harm or radical plot change involving another poster's character without said poster's consent.
* Limit main character roster to as small a group as feasible. Minor characters unlimited.
* No flaming, period. Report infractions to a moderator.
* Keep plot devices reasonable. Avoid 'wonder weapons' and fantastic twists if they serve no greater purpose.
* NO time travel, and NO parallel universes.
* NO POWERGAMING!
* Nothing forbidden by the CFC rules.
* Above all else: RESPECT THY FELLOW FORUMERS!

Anyone who so wishes may contribute to the story. All writing styles are accepted. Please put effort in your stories. Pictures are fine as a supplementary but main focus should be on the words.
Above all else, have FUN!!

The DYOS Consul

DYOS (and by extension WYOS) is now run by a consul. Any forumer who posts a cartoon is automatically entered into the consulate, and can debate on issues relating to the story. To avoid cluttering this thread, discussions will occur in a separate thread devoted solely to the consul (link below). To pass a motion, a majority vote of 66% of the consulate is required. If, however, a week has passed and no further action has been taken regarding the motion, the vote will be tallied as it stands. Members are suspended from the consulate if they have not contributed to the story for a week (they are automatically reinstalled when they post a new cartoon). If you will be inactive for a prolonged period of time, please be courteous and notify the consul beforehand.

The consul oversees the following:
* Planning and organizing the story
* Placing posters on probation (see below)
* Expelling posters from the consulate (and thus, involvement in the story)
* Decisions regarding the future of the thread itself

If a poster has violated any of the rules, the consulate will vote to place the perpetrator on probation.
1st Probation: 2 days between comics
2nd Probation: 3 days between comics
3rd Probation: 5 days between comics
If the offender continues to break the rules, the consul may suspend the offender indefinitely.

Note that the intent of the consul is not to control the story's contributors, but to improve plot coherency, and hopefully the story overall. Whether or not you are a contributor or observer, please feel free to voice your recommendations. We're here as much for your enjoyment as our own!
 
The DYOS Consul

Link to the Consul

Members:
(Suspended names in brackets)
Angst; (Captain2); choxorn; CivCube; Triumvir CivGeneral; DaemonDD; e350tb; Gruekiller; JoanK; Kan' Sharuminar; kill fire; (MartinLuther); NinjaCow64; Perfection; SamSniped; Stylesjl; First Lady Stylesrj; Vice-Consul taillesskangaru; Consul Thorvald of Lym

11 votes needed for majority ruling

First Probation:
none :goodjob:

Second Probation:
none :goodjob:

Third Probation:
none :goodjob:

Expelled:
none :goodjob:
 
Ever since humans started to evolve into a sapient species, art has been an important aspect of humanity. The first cave dwellers used rudimentary paints of smashed berries and blood to draw pictures of nearby game, as a reminder of what lived nearby as they continued to nomadically drift from area to area. However, soon, these paintings became more than just reminders. These pictures were used to convey stories and messages; a form of long lasting communication between groups.

Soon, art evolved to be even grander than just paintings on the walls of caves. Tools were invented to more readily make marks on materials, and with it, new materials could be drawn on. Clay tablets, paper, and stone walls became the new materials to work on, and soon more complex paints based on natural dyes replaced the juices of berries. Metallurgy led to the direct manipulation of metals to create figures, allowing for three dimensional artwork for the first time.

While there was countless more innovation in the realm of art, perhaps the most important is the advent of the internet art program. Anyone with a computer could take a bunch of pictures, put captions to them, and upload them on the internet for the world to see. Never before has the world seen such an explosion of new stories and worlds to explore. Soon, there were tales of free armies in the west, unions of the east, and even a republic of a ecumenopolis. Populating these stories were vikings, anthromorphic aquatic animals, hackers, generals, galactic princesses, and humans of all shapes and sizes.

This is not their story.

For as long as art existed, there has always been the artists, able to masterfully craft pictures to tell any story they pleased. However, as long as there are artists, there are also the art-incapable; people without the fine motor skills necessary to create aesthetically pleasing images. Instead of drawing landscapes filled with people, their canvases will filled with scribbly lines and unintentional eldritch abominations. All hope would be lost for these people to ever tell their inner stories to the world, if one crucial technology was never developed.

Some people admitted their pictures would never make sense to anyone but the eyes that drew them. Rather than resigning themselves to never be understood, they banded together to create simple, standardized pictures that were simple and easy to draw. These simple pictures, meaningless on their own, could be combined with other small pictures to form a more complex picture. If enough of these pictures were combined in the right order, then they would represent something. Whether it would be an object, an action, or even something abstract as a thought, these pictures could communicate anything without having to look like what they were describing.

These standardized pictures became known as letters, and a group of commonly agreed upon letters became an alphabet. The complex thoughts formed by letters were henceforth dubbed words, and soon, those who were once known as the art-incapable received a new name: the authors. Previously uncapable to communicate what was deep down inside them, authors began to share new stories untold and impossible to convey by previous generations. Finally, anyone who wanted to participate in art could finally do so.

However, it became apparent to all that, while the art received a newfound renaissance, writing fell on the wayside. While collaborative storytelling through the usage of pictures flourished with the discovery of a grand world filled with political intrigue and scientific fantasy, any attempts to find a universe with similar tactics failed when writing was involved. Thusly, while the artists continued to create their works of art, the authors slowly devolved back to the art incapable.

No longer!

The sun also rises in a brave, previously undiscovered world. The only constant in this undiscovered frontier is that it is unlike any world previous to it, but it is in the ripe to be categorized by writers of all shapes and sizes. It is time for those with words, rather than pictures, finally create their own, unique world. What wonders or terrors exist is up for everyone to find out…
 
Just a thought, but update the DYOS thread links. 11's over and 12 is in progress.
 
Subscribed, I will get something up here when I have the time to write something. :)
 
Superb subscription, sans a subpar story.
 
Wrote this short thing up because I was bored and inspired. Enjoy. :)

********​

John Burrows sat at his computer, staring at an empty word document. It was the First of November and since he was unemployed he thought he’s got nothing better to do than try to write for NaNoWriMo. The trouble was that he was facing writer’s block, or “The Block” as he like to call it as gave it a title that was as menacing as it actually was. John was convinced that it had caused the untimely demise of at least three people.

This Block wasn’t a usual block, he didn’t have a lack of ideas, no, he had many ideas. It was that he didn’t have any ideas for a beginning, or at least any good ones. John knew that he didn’t need to start at the beginning, but he felt more comfortable that way. Besides, he couldn’t muster up an idea for a start of a chapter or even a start of a sentence. Well he did have an idea but it was a very bad idea. It wasn’t the sort of idea that the artist felt bad about but anyone else reading it would think it was fantastic, these ideas were genuinely terrible. It was the sort of writing that would amuse a six-year-old who thought that the toilet was the pinnacle of humour and would burst into fits of laughter at the merest suggestion of a fart.

John started to browse the internet to see if he could find a way of getting rid of his bad ideas and make room for much better ones. This internet browsing became a form of procrastination in itself, as it always happens. This was until John came across a couple of suggestions that piqued his interest. It said he should write the bad ideas down anyway, perhaps on another document, so he would get rid of them or turn them into good ones. John thought he’d give this a try, as he’d have something to show for today even if it was utter dog’s poo. He hadn’t done something like since childhood, the public education system had destroyed the joys of such things like that for him. But he thought he’d give it a try anyway.

John began with. Once upon a time there lived a Duck who walked and talked like a person. Duck was hungry so he went to McRatt Burger, which is run by rat people. Pretty clichéd so far thought John, but these were his bad ideas after all. It started to remind him of his childhood stories that he was utterly convinced were real when he was a youngster, this gave him the motivation to continue.

Duck asked for the famous “Super Rat Burger”. The cashier said “No sorry we’re out.” Duck was so angry that he quacked a big quack at the cashier and he evaporated in blood. John reread this section and was taken aback, this story had suddenly taken a surprising and violent twist. Maybe he was angrier at his old boss than he thought, he had tried to move on from that incident but obviously his subconscious hadn’t. John continued on the story anyway, maybe this would be therapeutic.

Duck began a hunt in a local block of apartments for the perfect victim to sacrifice to Ducthlulu. He burst down the door of a nearby apartment block – John was interrupted by a large bang at the front door. John turned around and to his horror he saw his abominable creation, somehow being exactly as he imagined it (a walking humanoid duck) yet infinitely more terrifying.

John turned back to his computer. He figured that either he was finally going completely insane or he was going to be murdered by a figment of his imagination come to life. Either way, he had watched “Stranger Than Fiction”, he knew what the best course of action was.

Duck then disappeared in an unexplained puff of smoke for all of eternity and everyone lived happily ever after the end. John turned around, the Duck was still there. Duck began to grin, well at least John thought it was a grin, and began a slow, deep laugh. This was followed by a blood curling “QUACK” which caused all the nearby glass to break, including John’s computer screen. Duck, seemingly knowing that it had destroyed John’s only defence, began to victoriously walk forward. John was hiding under the table at this point, desperately hugging a table leg and praying to a deity, any deity, that he’d wake up from this terrible nightmare. Unfortunately for John, this was no nightmare.
 
subbing, may or may not contribute :p
 
I've decided to do a different story from the one I started here, so I spoiler it instead of deleting so you can still enjoy it. ;)

Spoiler :
Today was a special day for Metro City. It was on a November first much like this one ten years ago when a radical communist cell took over the capital building and threatened to detonate a nuclear bomb in the center of the city. Things looked bleak until the arrival of a purple-cloaked crusader named Byzantium, who single-handedly defeated the terrorists and saved the city from certain death. Up to that point, superhumans and vigilantes were treated as criminals and dangerous outlaws. After the near-nuking of Metro City though, people became much more receptive to the new breed of crime fighters inhabiting the world. Metro City, needless to say, was immensely grateful for their new protector, and quickly established a local holiday honoring him and other heroes, accompanied by a big flashy parade among other events and frivolities.

Metro City certainly loved their heroes. They were less thrilled about the other, less law-abiding costumed individuals that they attracted to the city, two of which were sneaking into a high-rise apartment as the aforementioned parade meandered past.

"I still can't believe you won't let me shoot anyone, Vandal," a young girl with short, wine-colored hair moped as she adjusted the goggles over her eyes. "How am I supposed to be trained as a 'master assassin' if I'm not allowed shoot anyone?"

"I'm not trusting you with a gun if it takes you fifteen minutes to strangle an out-of-shape security guard," Dark Vandal growled. Already he was beginning to regret this odd apprenticeship. He made a mental note to get rid of her once the job was done and find another one at the Metro orphanage to take her place.

"But he had a thick neck!" the girl said excitedly, swapping between various made-up combat stances as she spoke. "A true challenge! Not even the mighty Ocelot could penetrate his lardy nape!"

"Listen kid..."

"It's Ocelot!" This exclamation turned out to be a bad idea once the girl found herself slammed hard into the wall, the barrel of a high-caliber pistol pressed to her throat.

"You are not 'Ocelot'," he snarled at her. "You are a pathetic runt named Beverly until the point when I decide you are competent or at least expendable. Are we absolutely clear?"

"Y-yes sir," Beverly said with a frightened gulp.

"Good, now listen. The mayor's car will be passing by shortly. The client wants the execution very public, so I'm going to grapple down and give him sixty-four." He indicated the pair of Mac-10 submachine guns that were strapped to his belt, one on each side.

"What do I do?"

"You're staying put and making sure no one walks in on me," Vandal said, driving a spike into the wall and tying a firm knot around it. "I'll be hanging outside the window until the mayor heads by, and I can't be looking behind me at the same time. Understood?"

"You got it boss," Beverly said proudly, giving him a salute as he vanished over the bottom windowsill. As he went out of earshot, she gave an excited squeal.

"I can't believe it! I'm actually being trained by THE Dark Vandal!" she said, bouncing excitably on her feet. "This is the best day of my life!" Imagination getting the best of her, she drew her sidearm, a barely functional 9mm pistol, and aimed it around the room, pretending to shoot down invisible enemies.

"Like a vicious jungle cat, she stalks her prey," she began to narrate. "She's a ghost, a whisper in the night, a...a thing that's really hard to see. None would dare oppose her. Men fear her, and so do women too, I guess. Let all beware of this mighty warrior, this daring assassin! Let all tremble in fear and anticipation when they hear the name of the mighty and powerful Oce-"

Her stunning narration was cut short by an itchy trigger finger, specifically her own. As she swung the gun around, the faulty safety gave out and the gun fired off. She screeched and dropped on her rear just as a loud snap pierced the air. Ears ringing, the girl scrambled to her feet to assess the damage. The bullet was embedded in the wall, slightly above the spike Dark Vandal drove into the wall to hold the rope in. A rope that was suspiciously absent.

Swallowing nervously, she stepped over to the window and looked down over the edge. Several stories below, the parade had come to a dead halt when the body of the legendary assassin Dark Vandal fell from the sky and totaled the mayor's brand new Mercedes. He carefully prodded the lifeless assassin with his umbrella as several onlookers pointed up at the open window where a rapidly-reddening Beverly was standing.

"Oops..."
 
I'd barely slid the platen back to the right when a hand reached over and snatched the sheet straight out. "Hey, careful!" I exclaimed, spinning about, "That's expensive paper!"

"It's yellowed and torn from a notebook." He squinted at the page. "How old is the ribbon? I can barely read any of this."

"And here I thought you had commando-vision," I smirked. He peered over the top to give me the Look.

"For that matter," he continued, reading further, "Why are you using a mechanical typewriter at all?"

With bulging eyes and pursed lips I nodded my head to the corner of the room where Vadim was reading a large book. Then, without breaking eye contact, I pivoted back to the desk and began randomly punching the keys. My efforts were rewarded with a faint grunt of frustration.

"...Of course," he sighed, finishing the skim before handing back the page. "You're really going to start with this?"

"And just what is wrong with it?"

"Don't you think it's a little... pedestrian?" I gave a 'tsk' in mock indignation. "I mean, I know how you work, but here it seems like you're not even trying."

"I do protest, sir," I said as I fed the sheet back into the machine, "It is clearly a parable for the inherent nihilism of darkfic. The author's resentment of the world around him translates into the nightmarish landscape he creates, the hell endured by the protagonist a form of schadenfreude by which the author vents his pent-up misery. In the absence of control over his own life, he constructs a fantasy that grants him illusory command; the twist ending is a metaphor for both his retreat from the real world and his inability to surmount his actual struggles as he is consumed by his own latent rage. The zanyness is just playing to the audience."

He blinked. "So the cashier is a stand-in for his editor, and the burger being out-of-stock a a reference to his manuscript's rejection?"

"In one," I beamed.

"You realize this will fly completely over his head?"

I peered at the sheet, frowning. "You think I should add a few tracts comparing Merkel to Hitler?"

"I think you should take your men out to the parade ground for a few drills. But then," he gave a sidelong smirk, "I'm not the author." He turned and walked out. I looked over my work two, three times, then removed the page and fed a new sheet into the typewriter.

Once upon a time in Byzantium...
 
e350tb said:
Gruekiller? You're alive?!
Click to expand...

Yeh! School and things happened and I lost access to my usual scanning printer, so I had to stop with ze comics. I could potentially continue the storyline I was planning in a purely word-based form, though.
 
I'll take a stab at writing something up...

----------------

They all thought it was over, the threat to life had ended.
They thought there was no possible way for it to ever return. The gates had been sealed, heavy rocks and stones burying it beneath the earth.

A perfect prison for that which countless lives were spent containing. They thought it was a new era of peace and prosperity.

They were wrong.

It started all so gradually as the defences wore down over time. The stones eroded, the gates started to fail as time went by without maintenance. Then one day...


Out in deep space, Commander Richard Hall of the Space Carrier Heracle's Strength was on patrol, keeping an eye on the sensors for space pirates. They had been a menace to this sector of space and Commander Hall wanted it stopped.

He sat in his chair on the Bridge at the displays all around him. Despite the massive size of the carrier, it only contained a crew of five, using drones for all other purposes.

He picked up an unregistered IFF signal coming from a planet in a neighbouring system.
A crashed ship perhaps, the Commander thought to himself, bringing it up on screen.
"Commander, we've got an incoming transmission" said his First Mate, who was also in charge of Communications.
"Onscreen darling" the Commander said to him.
"Yes sir!" the First Mate said, bringing up the transmission. It was garbled and full of background noise. The Commander had no idea what was being said.
He asked the Integrated Smart Intelligence System (or ISIS), the shipboard AI to try and clear things up.
The avatar of a young woman dressed in blue appeared in front of the Commander. She was the sort of person you could look at and trust implicitly.
"Commander, I do not understand the transmission. It is in no language I understand" she replied almost instantly after being given the order. The Commander hated how fast computers had become these days. Gave him no time to think.
Just then after the 15th iteration of the transmission, two words could be clearly heard by everyone on the Bridge.

"WE RISE"
 
OK screw you all. Gonna sub to this. I hate you for potentially drawing me back in.

drawing dumbpun
 
"Hey, I thought it was pretty good,"

"I can do better," Cassandra Callahan said, jabbing the backspace button repeatedly. "Say goodbye to three whole pages of useless crap with a side of stupid." The voice on the other end of the cell phone clamped between her head and her shoulder laughed derisively.

"I think at this point you're at negative progression with this thing. One wonders what space marine Marlin would say to this."

"His name was Marlon, and the fact that you can't get the name of the character right is extremely telling." Cassandra took a break from deleting the pages and wandered into the kitchen, having suffered from a severe case of the munchies for the past hour and a half.

"Regardless, you're too hard on yourself. It's a lot better than anything Hubbard wrote, at the very least."

"Your comfidenshe inf me ish ashtoundin," Cassandra replied through a mouthful of Doritos before swallowing painfully. "You didn't call up on me just to check on my crappy story, did you?"

"Nope, called because I just heard back from Matt. We got three tickets to the Wings game Thursday."

"Rinkside?"

"Rinkside." the other voice said proudly.

"Give him a kiss for me next time you see him," said Cassandra as she began digging through the fridge for a jar of mayo.

"I have a girlfriend, you know..."

"Could've fooled me," Cassandra said with a smirk. "Speaking of Matt, think he'd like my story?"

"No, he hates sci-fi. 'Fake nerd stuff', as he's told me."

Cassandra opened her mouth to make a snarky remark, only to be abruptly silenced by a loud bang that rocked the house violently. Swearing sharply, she managed to save both her phone and the mayo jar from shattering on the floor only to slip and slam her face into the tiling, nearly shattering her nose instead.

"Cass, you okay?"

"...peachy," Cassandra said, pushing herself up and tenderly feeling her nose. Grabbing a towel to stifle the bleeding, she dashed into the living room to see what the damage was. Outside of a few collectibles knocked off of their perches and a stain on the rug from her overturned soda, nothing seemed that severe.

"Did you feel that?" Cassandra asked, dabbing her bloody nose with the kitchen towel.

"Feel what? Didn't you just trip over something?"

"No, there was a loud noise and the whole place shook," Cassandra explained. "Slipped and broke my freaking nose, too..."

"Maybe a sonic boom from a jet plane?" the voice suggested as Cassandra slowly made her way through the house and headed to the back door, where the damage, relatively speaking, was worse. "Is Tracy still there?"

"No, she left for a late class thirty minutes ago," Cassandra said, shouldering the back door open to check for any disturbances. She did not need to look for very long.

"I'll call you back Desmond," she uttered in a deadpan tone. "Something just landed in the backyard..."
 
This story was going to be longer originally, but since Kaiser decided to change his theme my later ideas weren't going to gel with the rest of the story. Not that that is a bad thing, what I had was pretty terrible. :p

Anyway, on with the story...

*************​

Duck picked up the table that John was holding on to and threw it out the window with another terrifying “QUACK”. John barely managed to crawl out under the table, after that he quickly got back up and ran towards the kitchen, with Duck slowly shambling after him, slowly heavy step by step.

John attempted to gather his thoughts. He had no chance of defeating this hulking abomination by himself, he could barely beat his 12-year-old cousin in an arm wrestling contest (although she was one muscly girl). His only hope was that he could use his new found “powers” to stop his creation. He thought that, maybe, he couldn’t control his powers consciously. Maybe his powers were tied to his subconscious, he didn’t consciously influence the writing exercise that he did. Perhaps he could prompt his subconscious to giving him a way out of this situation. Although he had to do that fast, Duck was slowly but surely getting into mauling distance.

“So,” said John out loud, hoping that would help him somehow. His thought processes weren’t exactly rational at the moment. “What is Duck’s greatest weakness? His kryptonite?”

Salt and Pepper was the first thought that came into John’s head. John scrambled to the cupboard, throwing a week’s worth of groceries on the floor in the process, and grabbed two shakers half-filled with salt and pepper respectively. John left out a roaring battle cry, although his cousin’s screams probably would have been more intimidating, and threw the two glass shakers on the abomination. Duck paused for a moment, then it continued to shamble towards John, unphased by his assault.

Maybe, thought John as he desperately dodged the abomination’s continued attempts to rip his arms off, he had to write the thought down before it took effect. He kept a notebook by the front door in case he had an idea while he was out. John sidestepped out of the way of Duck’s wing smash which ruined John’s sink. Duck let out another soul-crushing “QUACK” as John ran towards his notebook. John quickly scribbled down in his notebook:

“And then the salt and pepper took effect and sent Duck back to the unholy place from whence he came.”

Duck had a grin on his face, he had finally cornered his prey. The grin quickly faded when it noticed that his skin was burning. Duck started to melt into the floor like an ice block in the microwave. Duck gave one final desperate “QUACK”, it had taken him so long to get out of the hellish place he was in, he didn’t want to go back there. He would have given anything to anyone so he wouldn’t have to leave, but unfortunately for Duck nobody could, or would, help him.

John looked around his apartment. Almost everything had been trashed by Duck, but there was nothing he could really do about it. He could get some insurance money out of this if he pretended it was a robbery, wild stories about walking ducks would make him look like a loony. If he played his cards right he could make this terrible situation into a not-so-bad one. Maybe, this technically wasn’t his apartment as he was renting it. Maybe all he would get was another shouting at from Gupta, the landlord. John would talk to someone who actually knew about that later, right now he needed beer. He kept one for emergencies in the back of his fridge, thankfully it was untouched by the rampage. John fell onto the couch, turned on the television (the screen had been cracked from the quacking barrage, but it was still useable) and went into a blissful slumber that only the combined qualities of television and beer can provide. That is, until John heard three slow knocks coming from what little remained of his front door…
 
NinjaCow64 said:
This story was going to be longer originally, but since Kaiser decided to change his theme my later ideas weren't going to gel with the rest of the story. Not that that is a bad thing, what I had was pretty terrible. :p
Click to expand...

Sorry about that :p
 
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