Everything starts with adding a new story. When a new story is created, users can then add chapters to the story. Every time a new chapter is added, a new version of the story is made. Imagine a tree branching off into many different directions. This is what happens with the stories on this site. Adding a chapter branches the story off into a different direction. The possibilities are limitless. Finally, when a story is completed, it is made available for general consumption. More details on each specific part are given below.....
Stories are the starting point for allowing users to create numerous distinct books. To create a new story, you need to choose a title for the story, give a short description of the circumstances of the story and the write the first chapter for the story that users will add to in the future. Once a story and the first chapter are finalised, they are ready for other users to build upon. Other users now have the chance to add more chapters.
Chapters are the building blocks of the whole process. Users can add a chapter to any existing chapter as long as it is not a draft or an ending chapter. It doesn't matter whether someone has already added a chapter to the one you plan to add to. You will just be creating a new version of the story, or a new storyline. Every time a new chapter is added, a new storyline is created.
The main ingredient for a chapter is of course the chapter text, but there are few other options you have when adding a new contribution:
A storyline is a distinct version of a story. Everytime a new chapter is added, a new storyline is created. For a particular chapter, the storyline inlcudes that chapter and the ones that preceded it.
A draft chapter is one that you can come back to in the future and edit. Note that draft chapters can not be added upon, as changes made to the draft may invalidate contributions added on top.
For each chapter you write, you may tag it with characters who are prominent within the chapter. Our hope is that by doing this, characters will be reused and appear in many different stories.
For each chapter, you have to define a genre which closest describes the genre of the chapter.
At some point, you may believe that a particular storyline is coming to its logical end. At this point you are able to add an ending chapter, which can not be added to in the future (of course, users are free to add to the previous chapter in the storyline!) and will therefore define a completed book. In order to create a book, when finalising the contribution, be sure to check the ending checkbox. Of course, when you create a new book, it will be made available to you to read in a number of different formats.
We have implemented some tools to help you navigate through stories and chapters. We hope that these tools will make it easy for you to explore chapters and help you decide where to write, but if you have any suggestions on these, please leave us some feedback.These tools are the:
The chapter navigation tool is there to help you navigate through the chapters which succeed and precede the chapter you are currently viewing. It allows you to look ahead to see the different ways in which the story evolves and hopefully will help you decide where to add your own contribution
Storyline navigation is to help you navigate through the storyline. It lists the storyline to the chapter you are interested in (which are all the preceding chapters), and will allow you look back at previous chapters
These are your stories and you should have easy access to them. And so we provide two main ways to read a completed story
Downloadable PDFs are available for every book. If you want to download a PDF for a completed story, go to the Completed Story Page and there will be option to download a PDF. Please note you have to be a registered member to download PDFs and they will be produced shortly after the book has completed.
The second way of reading through a completed story is through a serialised feed. This is the same as an rss feed, except you define how often you want the feed to update (and the next chapter to be made available). If you become impatient with your chosen update period, you can easily redefine it from you personal accout.