That sounds like a good idea except I probably have to delay too, since I am [sound effect of broken-sounding and somewhat hesitant trumpet playing a flourish/] I am also going to try NaNoWriMo this year

Sounds like a good project for December, then!

I don't know whether I'll write much for NaNoWriMo this year, but I did sign up again - and this time it will be to write the story of Varna's childhood and how her parents got to Narnia so that she was born there.
A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court, anyone?
My NaNoWriMo title this year is
A Middle-earth Elf-lord at Queen Swanwhite's Court
I doubt very much will come of it, since I have other projects for November this year, but we'll see.

If I write anything for Varna before that, it would be about her buying books in London. I've started on it, but not got very far yet. Perhaps it should happen after the movie night - otherwise it should be finished first, and that might delay the movies. I'll just continue writing it - it's not dependent on anything in Ditto Town timeline-wise, so it can be posted whenever is convenient.

Your NaNo sounds like fun, Varna! Cross-over fan fictions can be fun (one of the most enjoyable recreational stories I wrote last year was one). Good luck to you (and leuth) with your stories this month.

We can work on movie night at our convenience, and I agree that it could come either before or after Varna's trip to London. We're flexible.

I may write some of it from this end if I need a break from my own NaNo. It's just a matter of keeping the right timeline, as my NaNo is set about 15 years in the future and involves a Molly who can talk and fly around (so I just have to make sure she doesn't talk in this story ) - not to mention a couple of younger siblings for her.

I might as well tell you the Real Life reason why it became a cross-over.

On a Tolkien board I joined a few years back, I signed up with an Elven name, and chose an Elf as my persona on that board.

Being a Narnia fan, I put "Narnia - sometimes Norway" as my location.

Then I realised that the two didn't really go together. But instead of changing either of them, I decided to invent a reason why it would be possible - how could an Elf have Narnia as her location?

Reason: She was born there, and had later returned to Middle-earth.
How? Well, her parents must have come through a portal and lived in Narnia for a while.
Then she goes back through the portal (while her parents leave to go to the West) and comes to the point in time and space that her parents left from.

I invited people to join me in a Role Playing Game to help her find her way back to Rivendell, where her parents had lived earlier - so I had to choose an interesting period and area to put her in to start from, somewhere far away from Rivendell (I chose Rohan), to make it a good quest. That RPG is still running, only veeeeery slowly these days. So there are things in her past I can't give the details about, because they need to happen in that RPG first ...

The NaNo story, however, starts with her parents having to leave Rohan because of war time, trying to include a little of why they are there - and soon, in their flight from the war, they will come to a small hill where some birch trees are growing.
They go up on the hill to look around and find out where they should go next, and two of the birch trees grow really close to each other, and they ride between them ...

Sounds like a fascinating plot for an RP with real friends, Varna. So some of your character's background is yet to be determined by the RP?

Your NaNo sounds a little like mine in that it addresses background story and events in our characters' lives. (Mine started off rather slowly but now I've gotten into some of the fun stuff, like how Erik and Abby first met, and a weird dream sequence that was the earliest hint of their telepathic connection)[/random]

Back on topic, I did write an intro segment for this story's upcoming movie night (earlier this month when the NaNo was lagging). It's pretty self-contained, but I'll send it to my co-conspirators by PM as a sneak peek at what's coming. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Sounds like a fascinating plot for an RP with real friends, Varna. So some of your character's background is yet to be determined by the RP?

Only in small details, really.

I have decided on the main events that we are to cover, and I know the outcome - she is going to be accepted when she arrives at Rivendell. How easily - or not so easily - she will be accepted, could be interesting, though. How can she prove that she is the daughter of her parents - especially when she is far too old? She's five hundred years old, and her parents were childless when they left one hundred years ago! How can she convince Lord Elrond (who is her kinsman, btw) that 'time runs differently in that world'?

But this requires a good writer, preferably another who knows the Narnian universe. And most of those who wrote with me at the beginning, don't post at that forum any more ...

I may have to play Elrond myself, which would make the RP more a piece of fanfiction than a true RP.

What do you folks think about a new plot device:

? I have been watching, and I find it incredibly fun. It allows so many ideas. Yes? No? Wait till next story (i.e. 5 years from now)?

Oh goodness. I love Stargate. And stargates. And our portals are already quite similar in function to alternate-reality stargates...

It doesn't fit in at all with where I personally am going, but it would be a good way to introduce new characters, if you wanted.

I have a rather lengthy seg on the hard drive. I think it needs refining; I wrote it as NaNo warm up.

And I'm behind on NaNo at the moment. Week 2 is hurting. I have to introduce a whole new character! And he is important! Ahhh! So all that said, it may be a couple weeks before I post the seg.

Ditto, JP.

Many of our characters make use of interworld/interdimensional portals; it really brings some spice to our story. Are you thinking about introducing a full-fledged "dial it up and go" stargate, or perhaps one whose use is unclear (and would have to be studied) or limited for some reason (damaged perhaps)? Would you be introducing characters from the SG universe or using it as a way to introduce new characters of your own (either from the SG universe or not)? [/curious]

Can't wait to read your pending segment, JP. And good luck with that NaNo (the biggest problem with mine is keeping track of whether my characters have their handy pendants or not since much of the story occurs in their past. I've got to make sure they're not running around in the daytime when they shouldn't be ).

The problem with introducing something like that is it would end up making this quite a bit more fan fiction than the story is now. We've pretty much pushed away from that with the ditto story. It would also be a copyrighted term would it not?

Sorry I haven't been around much lately. I have something I'm working on, but I don't know when I'll get it finished. Sonny, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Hmm, all good points/questions. It would be easy to modify the concept, and perhaps have device that is "similar" to the Stargate, but obviously not the same. And my thought was that it would be discovered by the DeHonds, and it would take some work to figure it out. I'd like to stick with the wormhole concept, though. Any more questions/suggestions, etc?

Those are some good points, kat. I was thinking about this a little more after making my last post.

A number of our characters - mine certainly included - smack of fan fiction, but I think the story is still an eclectric mix because those original universes have a pretty minimal ongoing impact in the story (our characters may hail from Middle-earth, Manhattan, or Narnia, but they're still original creations and we've limited crossover of canon characters and events from our source universes).

So a full-blown stargate might, as kat noted, push the story away from its current mix into more of a SG fan fiction (or, 'unbalance it' in RPG terms).

But a SG-like device, especially if limited and not necessarily crossing into the actual SG universe, might work because it would be a lot like the generic wormholes/portals we currently use.

And should the DeHonds discover such a device, I imagine some of our other inter-dimensional travelers (like Erik and Abby but certainly not limited to them) would naturally be fascinated by it and want to get in on its study.

Yes, I in no way intended to involve the original SG universe at all. I am well aware of the no fan-fic policy, and will definitely be careful. It was the concept of a portal which could be opened to any location (within the network) at any time that intrigued me. It'll take a while to come up with some good stuff.

That's pretty similar to the lock that Katherine and Gwanuig sealed in the last story, but that was two way. 'gate travel is one way without starting it up on the other side of the wormhole. A 'gate concept sounds good to me. Oh there's a thought... maybe the old gateways are closing and the wormhole device can replace them? *random comment*

That's pretty similar to the lock that Katherine and Gwanuig sealed in the last story, but that was two way. 'gate travel is one way without starting it up on the other side of the wormhole. A 'gate concept sounds good to me. Oh there's a thought... maybe the old gateways are closing and the wormhole device can replace them? *random comment*

So how would these be different from the ones Varna is already using to go between different worlds (and buy books there, but she had found them before that)?

The way I write them is to make them work like LWW's wardrobe and the portal in PC - you can look through them into the other world, but when you look at them, they are just empty doorways leading from nowhere to nowhere.

I mostly use "going between two trees" - but there may be doorways as well, sometimes leading to a different world rather than the room it usually leads to.