Torn World Forums

As we go into December, we're approaching two full years of being open to the public. We've done a lot in those two years, and I want to start our little review and gameplan by pointing out that you guys are awesome, and we've got a lot to be proud of. Up until these last few weeks, I've been able to post some new creative material nearly every weekday. Sea Monster month, back in May, was great fun and seemed really inspiring. Our site continues to improve. We've published an anthology and a coloring book!

I don't want anyone to think that I'm not appreciating them or their participation over the last two years, but I do want to take a good hard look at what Torn World's goals and vision is, and how close we've come to that.

What I want Torn World to be

An awesome, fun, inspiring, enthralling shared world experience that involves a lot of people and collaboration that tangentially allows and enables the people involved to pursue commercial reward with their work.

I want to see people clambering to adopt and create characters, writing stories and poetry about their adventures, drawing pictures of them... I want to see people selling their work - either through sponsorships or to other publications! I want to see us creating awesome publications (books! games! RPGs!) and selling them to earn folks royalties! I want to see a continually evolving set of resources and web interface, responsive to user input. I want all the energy and enthusiasm you find in a lively fanclub, but with a focus on a new collaborative world that we can shape ourselves with creative material.

Most of all, I want to see excitement... and I'm not really seeing that lately.

What Torn World is

It's been a struggle, recently, to get volunteers to do tasks around the site, to get work submitted or edited for approval, to get comments, to get participation, to get someone to donate incentives. The Muse Fusion this weekend was a complete flop: 6 people left prompts, two of them were claimed: no work has been actually finished. This, despite adding participation incentives the last several months.

Sales of the anthology and coloring book have been between lackluster and direly awful. I will not be breaking even on either project and I am unlikely to do any reprints.

I don't mind donating my time and efforts to the site and such... but I need to know it's being used and appreciated to make it worth it to me! For example, I added artwork-to-article interface to the site over the last few months, and added artist links from artwork, which was a big, exciting task that makes browsing a lot more fun and interconnected. And? No one. Said. Anything. I announced it here at the forums, on my own personal blog, and at our Torn World blog, as well as on Twitter, so it wasn't a secret release. That does make me sit back and wonder, gee... why AM I doing all this?

I've also taken the time lately to send out some emails to people who are signed up and not really participating - reminding them about character ownership rules (which have not, to date, been enforced), canon board participation, commenting, spending their credits. I've made them personal and specific, and also kept them upbeat and tried to avoid sounding blame-y or naggy. Because no one likes being blamed or nagged!

The response (where it wasn't silence), has been... disheartening. The consensus is that Torn World is a chore. Some people agreed to do stuff for Torn World and now feel obligated to (sucking the fun and time out of the 'play' parts of the project), some people feel like they owe me support on the project because they like me and know how excited I am for the it... I hesitate to put reasons in peoples mouths, but the sense that continues to come back in feedback is that Torn World isn't FUN. It's something people need to make time for, but don't have to, or really, really want to... so, they don't. Maybe this is my fault, for being too quick to jump up and try to recruit people for administrative tasks as soon as I sensed some interest in the project? Maybe being too quick to say 'oh, it's okay' and 'don't worry' when people apologized for a lack of involvement downplayed exactly how much Torn World needs that involvement to keep moving forward?


What Now?

Now, this may all sound very dire and gloomy, and in many ways it is. To my great chagrin, my primary goal (fun and wide-spread inspiration!) has largely flopped. The secondary goal (financial reward!) has not been quite so grim - we've got several regular subscribers (many of whom do not log in to use their subscriptions?!), more than $400 in spend-only credits floating around behind the scene, (though I can't seem to convince people to SPEND them) and I regularly see work sponsored after Muse Fusions... not career-making amounts, but usually $5-$50 each month. It's not a dead loss!

And I really don't want to overlook or downplay how pivotal a few dedicated members have been - we've got an impressive selection of work available, and I continue to be impressed by the talent and creativity that shines through! Our publications are classy and awesome, our site is a heck of a treat, and you guys are seriously professional caliber.

I don't want to give up on Torn World; I think it's an awesome idea, and we've got the member base to make it work. I want to get you guys enthused about it, and active. I want to make it something you make time for, because you want to, not because you have to. I want you to be invested in your characters, and interested in making what happens next actually happen.


What can I do?

(And by 'I', I mean 'We' - self included. I am not pretending to be perfect about any of the following!)

Here are some of my ideas:

Read and comment! It's hard to want to keep writing and creating when the result is some nitpicky corrections from the canon board and then an echoing silence from the public.

Create (or adopt) a character! A good place to jump into things is have a character you can relate to, that you like and want to control. If you've got a favorite character from another setting, ask yourself if they could be 'morphed' into a Torn World character somehow.

Make a Tour! This is one of the under-appreciated features of the site - it doesn't have to be a specific themed tour, either, it can just be a collection of 'my favorite Torn World stuff'. http://www.tornworld.net/tour.php

Ask questions! No questions are dumb! And they can lead to interesting discoveries about our world and characters. Sometimes, there's a specific answer already filed away somewhere, and we can help you (and other people who didn't know) find it. Sometimes, it's something that simply hasn't been asked, and we can come up with something collaboratively. That's supposed to be a lot of the fun of the setting!

Submit and edit work! Draw a character we've already got a description of, if you're hesitant to create a new one. Try tackling a Muse Fusion prompt! Randomly select a character and a reference article and see if you can't come up with a story out of those two! We've got a (very underused) place for non-canon work, if you swing and miss at some canon point. We've also got a whole lot of stuff in the queue that needs only very minor edits.

Talk about Torn World! Blog about your participation! Link to your work (or your favorite work by someone else) that gets published at the site! Post your Torn World artwork in an album at Facebook or tumblr! Speculate wildly about what happens next! Mention an awesome site feature at Torn World when you're using the clunky interface at some other site! Review our anthology at Amazon or Smashwords!

Say thank you! A few people have specifically said 'thank you!' to the canon board for their thoughtful edits, and I cannot overemphasize how far that goes towards making it feel like we're doing something worthwhile. It doesn't take much - a single, personal note appreciating some new feature at the site or noticing a humorous error message I tucked in somewhere will keep me cheerfully coding away through subsequent weeks of silence. (Really, I'm easy.)


Do you have some ideas? Would another 'get to know the setting' chat be useful? I'm happy to schedule one!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic, and plan to come back an re-evaluate as a whole at the beginning of next year. I believe this project is worth continuing, but I'm looking at a life-changing addition in February, and I need to know how (or IF) I should be prioritizing Torn World in the future.

Oo... an idea along the lines of two birds and one stone - look at your Torn World fiction, poetry and artwork and see if you can't find any matches for upcoming EMG-Zine themes: http://emg-zine.com/guidelines.php

(Ships, for example, had very few submissions, and we had some awesome Torn World ship-set stories for sea monster month!)

Oh no. I don't know how to respond to this. But I think a response is warranted. I want to be excited about Torn World! I want to work on stories and participate! Every single Muse Fusion, I think, oh- maybe work is going to let up and I'll pick something up at this one. . . I, uh, am actually totally part of the problem you've described, I'm sure. I've been saying that I'm going to get writing for TW for. . . I'm not even going to look. Probably a year now. And I haven't done it. I have ideas. I have characters I like. It's not like it is a high pressure environment. I even get free editing by really good editors if I can just scrape a submission together, which is a fabulous experience in itself.

How did this cool exciting thing get shuffled off into chore-land? When did it cross over from being something I was always joyous to see updates about to something that made me think, "Oh no, I am so very far behind on reading the new stuff and I haven't even written anything in blah blah blah. . ." I don't know. I know I don't want it to stay there. But if the character rules were enforced, I don't think I'd have characters at this point. And my work situation has changed such that I do actually have significantly less time to write during the day.

I could start by seeing if anyone is up for a commission, to do something with one of my characters to get the ball rolling again. Right now, I feel like I have more credits than ability to submit anything of my own.

Yargh! I want to have solutions.

I hate to say it, and I know this will probably get bashed to all heck, but sometimes doing things for TW is a chore, because everything is too darned strict and complicated.

I can't touch the South, because I don't understand science. I don't much like science (Maths is in there too, but atm maths isn't involved). The only thing I can do is gingerly pick my way around with Ola and hope I don't hit on a subject that will get me three weeks worth of edits on a story I loved doing for fun and to make people giggle when reading it

I have edits I have to do for two stories, that I just can't face. It involves probably rewriting the stories that I wrote on a whim because I enjoyed the subjects so much. I know everything has to be canon to keep in the feel and keep the timeline of the world, and I have no solutions to this problem. I do love the Canon board crew! I am not being nasty or mean, I promise you! But I joined this (as a selfish point) not to make money and to have a place where I can spend my spare time being productive.

I really do love TW. I was so proud when the publications were released, not for myself, but for everyone who had worked so hard on them. I would hate to see TW fade away, because it is an amazing world and I really enjoy being here.

I know I will be making more of an effort to face down my edits and get them done.

_________________
Lorna.
There is hardly anything in the world that cannot be solved by the eating of cake.
*flails around*
Owner of: Lenarai, Areluu, Olarali Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

First off, here's my original email response to Ellen from earlier today while I was waiting to reset my password. :S

Aw, Ellen, I’m sorry you’ve got so much trouble! I like Torn World a lot, find the worldbuilding to be fascinating, and the stories fill me with glee. But we do need to figure out a way to make it more about the joy of it.

I think the most difficult part would be the continuity. I’m on the Canon Board, and I feel like I can’t even keep up with what’s going on. The timeline helps a great deal, but I still find myself freezing up when I try to hop into a storyline, because I might have missed something.

I think a bit more guidance, then, is helpful. The Muse Fusions are great when they give you a place to start (and I hereby resolve to do my part by joining in on them, since they do catch me by surprise every month. Time flies). I also think the contests helped guide people along the path. Which makes me think … perhaps one thing to do would be include Fusion-style prompts on the “Start Here!” page on the website. We could have a list of things that the world still “needs”—then it feels like someone is really needed and their input would be welcome, rather than feeling awkward and intrusive when you barge in to yell HAY GUYZ I HAS AN IDEA. Nobody wants to step on toes by suggesting something unbidden or unwelcome. So if we prompted things like “We need more species in the Rainbow Rainforest!”, with a link to a few relevant articles and stories; or “In this story, Bai crosses paths with this character just once—but what is going on from that person’s point of view? Where do they go before and/or after they meet Bai?”; or even “What’s going on in this picture?” with links that give some background, right on the Getting Started page, it might provide a solid place to step while people (new AND old) are getting their bearings.

Other than that, I will start noising Torn World around some more. (My supervisor requested that the library get a copy of it, but I don’t think the collections folks agreed. I’ll try again …) I’ll try out the tour feature, and tell people about the world, and be better about commenting. Torn World may have its issues right now, but it’s still an amazing creation and a wonderfully huge world to play in. I’d like to keep that up!

-Amelia

And now, more thoughts!

Thinking more about it, Comtessa, you are darn right—everthing is too darn strict and complicated. Torn World is supposed to be a place to play, but the difficulty with playing as a group is managing not to bump into each other. Trying to strike a balance between keeping continuity together and allowing for free exploration is tricky, especially so when a contributor has to take every little detail to the Canon Board for approval. It’d be way easier to have a comprehensive way to check continuity on one’s own, without having to wait around for one of us lazy jerks to take the time to look it over—that just kills off creative momentum. The Canon Board should work as a failsafe when you're already almost done with the story.

Which leads me to my next thought: we need a better way for readers (Board included!) to FIND all the information. It’d be a helluva project, but one I’d be willing to help with: we need to provide somewhere for the information to be accessed more readily. The articles are beautiful and comprehensive and a joy to peruse at leisure, (and Ellen, I am so sorry I didn't mention the way your new article interface was so cool, because it was!), but for writing a quick story, it’s possible that we need sound bites, lists, statistics, and factoids. If it’s possible (and lord knows finding the time is not easy), I think the wiki needs to be brought to the forefront. It’d be a way to rearrange and cross-reference categories that might be embedded deep in other articles, so you could figure out what, say, your Southerners would drink while they discussed business over dinner or what they'd wear without having to comb through a stack of articles. After all, at this point net users are familiar with a wiki’s navigation. It would also help highlight the gaps people could fill.

Second—and y’all can argue with me all you want for this—I think it may work better if we drop the idea of spoilers. It’s a lot easier to write for a world when you don’t have to worry you might be unwittingly contradicting something that will be revealed further down the line. I’m still all for supporters-only content, but once again, in the wiki it might help to have a few summaries of such stories for the public to see. There’s definitely still a draw for the greater content—a two-sentence summary of a story isn’t nearly satisfying, but it helps allay any worries that one might have missed something. As for the excitement of finding out what happens next, well, that’s what we hope will happen as new writers contribute more and advance the timeline OR create more backstory!

It is a relief to hear others echoing the difficulties I have in getting into Torn World—and the pride people take in it despite that. It’s a cool enough place that I think it deserves to be tinkered with until we get a working model!

Urgh. What Comtessa said ... this is actually what's stopped me from writing anything set in Torn World, and severely limited my drawing participation as well. I do recognize why there is a meticulous editing process for canon stuff, and the editors are all fantastic! But I feel like there is simply too much to learn in order to participate.

I love the setting. I think it's a fantastic concept, full of interesting possibilities and rich with worldbuilding detail. But I feel like there is such a lot of research that has to be done, and detail that has to be mentally retained, in order to write anything. The bar is set really high, and you have to have a pretty thick skin in order to submit your story and find out everything that is wrong with it.

I realize this is ironic, because I'm actually on the canon board! But that's another problem -- even after a number of months, I still don't really feel comfortable putting a blanket approval on a story, because I'm still not familiar enough with canon to be confident that there aren't canon errors I haven't caught. This is one of the reasons why I've been backing off from doing a whole lot of editing -- I can copy-edit for grammar and other stuff, I'm good at that, but the fact that copy edits are lumped in with canon edits as far as the number-based approval system makes me feel like my contribution is not as useful as it could be. Well, no, to be strictly truthful, it feels somewhat dishonest for me to copy-edit a story, note any copy errors that I see, and then mark it to be approved as canonical when I really haven't enough grounding in canon to know whether it is or not.

One thing I'd like to toss out there -- I wish there was more interaction between canon board members during the editing process of a story. And, for that matter, between writers and canon board members. I'd love to be able to throw a comment up there and ask a question of other, more established canon board members, or to ask the author a question about why she put something into the story and have her explain it to me, or learn from watching other people have similar discussions. I know that it's already possible to do a little of this, and I also understand that a more open editing system would run the risk of causing hurt feelings and comment wars. But I think that I would be learning faster, and would find the entire editing process less stressful. Right now, there's not really a support system for canon board members. The editing interface, anonymity, and lack of easy interaction with each other means that we're kinda on our own -- there's no easy way for newbies like me to ask questions or to learn from watching other people learn, or to really feel like we're part of a team.

And yet, I haven't felt that way at all about editing things in the forums! When I've posted my works in progress to the forum and asked for input, it's been really fun! I got lots of feedback, I had all my errors pointed out and was able to fix them, and I got to go back and forth and ask questions and have links given to me. It was very community-oriented and felt very collaborative and creative -- basically it was a really good experience. (And I need to start hanging out in the forums more so that I can return the favor to other people.) Then, by the time that my artwork went to the canon board, it sailed through the approval process, because all the errors had already been fixed.

Now, for all I know, maybe it's supposed to work that way! Maybe everything is supposed to be edited in the forums and only turned into the canon board for approval once it's been picked over by the forum members and brushed up into shape. If so, perhaps it should be communicated more clearly that this is how we're supposed to do things? The thought hadn't even occurred to me, actually, until typing this comment, that I could do a story just the same way as I did my successful pieces of art in the forums, where I posted the pencils and got feedback and then posted the inked version and got more feedback ...

... I don't know, maybe people like me, who aren't used to working on creative projects as a member of a group, need more guidance in how we're supposed to be doing things. It's not that people haven't been friendly and helpful! It's just that, well, like I said -- the canon board editing process is sort of ... cold and lonely and stressful for me, and the writing process is very intimidating, but it turned out to be fun and exciting and hands-on to edit stuff in the forum, so perhaps I just missed the bit in the orientation when this was presented as a possibility. But it wasn't obvious to me that I could do things that way.

Actually ... a lot of the problems I'm having, I think, come down to not really understanding the Torn World project, and my role in it, very well. I really, REALLY don't to make it seem like I'm blaming Ellen for this, because Ellen works very hard and has been awesome about answering all my dumb and not-so-dumb questions. But ... well, for example, the thought had just never occurred to me that I ought to be commenting on other people's art and writing until it was pointed out to me. And maybe it should have been obvious! I love getting comments myself! But I hadn't even thought of it as being part of my, hmm, responsibilities as a member of the community, I guess. And then, another thing, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to reply to comments or not -- I would like to thank people, and sometimes I would like to comment on someone else's comment, but is it community etiquette to do so? There's a lot of stuff like that, where I'm not quite sure how things work and feel a little silly for asking.

I hope all of the above doesn't come across as too terribly critical or insulting of Torn World and the existing community structure -- it's really not meant to be! Like I said, I love the world, and everyone I've interacted with has been very friendly and helpful. I'm just trying to pick apart my own issues and figure out why I haven't been participating as much as I thought I was going to. And if I'm having these problems, then perhaps a lot of other new people are having them as well.

I think everyone knows how to use a Wiki. I would sure find it more useful if tiny bits of information were on a Wiki than being directed to a huge article that I have to do a 'search' on one word anyway to go through to find out! Thumbs up on the Wiki-ness coming forwards!

_________________
Lorna.
There is hardly anything in the world that cannot be solved by the eating of cake.
*flails around*
Owner of: Lenarai, Areluu, Olarali Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

I agree about the wiki! It would be SO helpful to have the material more thoroughly collated, searchable and cross-linked, even though I know it's going to be a horrible project getting it initially organized that way.

Oh, another thought that just occurred to me -- the issue of inaccessibility to new writers is only going to get worse as more material is added, and more geographic areas and periods of history are pinned down with larger numbers of stories. Would it be possible for us to have non-canonical stories as well as canonical stories? What if there was also an area on the site for non-canonical stories and artwork, where people could write and submit stories on whatever caught their fancy without going through the canon vetting process?

The closest published example that comes to mind is Eric Flint and David Weber's 1632 series, where the canon books are canon, but there are also collections of reader-submitted fiction taking place in the universe. I'm not entirely sure of all the details of how it works -- obviously in that case, there is an editorial process and only some stories are chosen for publication, and I believe that there are also specific guidelines that writers have to follow. But it's a limited set of guidelines -- more along the lines of "do not kill important historical figures or send squadrons of F-14s back in time" rather than having the guidelines consist of the entire published series of books (and every detail in them). And the resulting stories are not supposed to be canonical; they're just supposed to be reasonably plausible.

Ellen, I'm glad you started this thread. I really want to see this project survive and thrive!

As to making money with the books, certainly we have to sell out of the books we have so far before buying more, but I wouldn't assume that won't happen eventually, so long as the site remains active and we keep being able to offer beautiful art and poetry and exciting stories.

As to what's making it less fun, I know one thing I've missed a lot is the social aspect. People aren't using the forums, which used to be active and fun--and which inspired stories, at least in my brain. I used to check the TW forums before my e-mail every day, and now there's rarely anyone there, so I'm not visiting as often.

I will have more specific comments, but my slow-down in activity has been related to my day job and other non-writing chores and issues, rather than a lack of enthusiasm for Torn World. I knew that this last weekend, being Thanksgiving weekend, was not ideal for a Muse Fusion, but family stuff and health issues absorbed a lot more of both of the last two weekends than I'd planned.

More later--I need to get to sleep. But I'm very interested in people's answers, and could find some time for things like taking a word document of a first-draft story and using the tracking function, making suggested edits both for grammar and continuity if that would help people.

But now--to sleep. I need to make a new mantra--being too tired is a lot like having writer's block! See you all tomorrow!

Note: Somehow this didn't post last night when I thought it did! Thank goodness for the back button on the browser!

I love the idea of doing another theme month--and of doing more contests, for that matter.

What with December being a month of holidays, I think trying to get enough material for a theme month in January is problematic. What about a contest in January and a Theme Month in February?

For a contest, we could ask for dangerous wildlife--more creatures, great or small, to fill in our bestiary. The writer could propose where they fit into the world, but the canon board gets final say, so if someone proposes a deadly squirrel for the north, but we already know there's no squirrels there, we could put it in some other cold-weather shard.

February could be a love theme, in honor of Valentine's Day, or could be some other theme. It might be a bit too quick to have the theme be encounters with the new deadly wildlife--or would it? They would have to be cleared for canon and available to potential writers.

Of course, the theme could be Monsters of the Land, to balance the Sea Monster theme in May, and could allow both the new deadly critters from the contest, ones already known to exist in Torn World, and ones not yet written up, to allow some brainstorming.

I like your timeline better theoretically, but I'm having a baby in February, and a theme that month could be a problem for me personally! I'm low-risk, but I still want to plan on being basically AWOL for several weeks, and babies aren't always convenient about coming on schedule, so I can't say which several weeks those would be. I would like to have things pre-approved and automated to post by that point, so the site doesn't stagnate during that time, but I don't want to plan on me being at hand to approve things. Maybe we can pick a topic that people are already working towards? Or something easier to fill in/generic enough that many things would be on-topic.

What about games - both for the contest and the theme? We've got several northern games very nearly ready to post in the queue that could be held until then (they are posted in the WIP forum), and I think you've got a WIP for a story featuring a boardgame? It seems like a fun topic that would be easy to frame stories around, and I can think of at least one in the archives that could be featured. There is a lot of space for creating a new game, northern or southern. (More southern than northern, but still plenty!)

I like the idea of the contests. I kind of missed the ones that ran:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=606

But I know things got terribly busy for people.

_________________
Lorna.
There is hardly anything in the world that cannot be solved by the eating of cake.
*flails around*
Owner of: Lenarai, Areluu, Olarali Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

Something I would have found really helpful is one clearly marked 'intro' story (or maybe a tour?) that assumes no knowledge beyond what's on the 'start here' page and introduces the basic concepts while letting newcomers get a feel for the world from the characters' perspective. The start page currently offers an overwhelming number of options, but every story I've read feels like the middle of a series already in progress. The reader is assumed to already know certain things about the world (I had to look up what a license is when I first read a TW story - licensing is mentioned, but not actually explained on the start page), and I still don't feel like I have a really solid foundation.

There is a great collection of stories here, and I'd be delighted to do more TW illustrations (well, once I've caught up on everything I haven't been doing while coughing my lungs out >.<), but while the reference articles are nice, the external perspective doesn't really help with connecting to the world and its inhabitants, and the amount of research involved in understanding everything in even a short story can be quite daunting. I'm always worried that I'll be getting something wrong that was supposed to have been obvious, and rather than take the time to track down all the details, I end up just enjoying them passively.

I think the main wiki-like feature that would be helpful would be inline cross-linking. I know that the sidebar does include links for related articles, but it's not always clear what part of the story each article refers to. I'm also inclined to read through the whole story and then forget what I wanted to look up, so having the relevant articles linked within the text would help with that. It would be a lot of work, though, and I don't know if anyone else feels the same way.

_________________
aka Vaerys (at livejournal.com)

No, I am the same, Peggy. I was actually quite shocked about the money side of it (I am sure the post is around here somewhere!). With people already paying (if they do) as a supporter to the website, I didn't then want to hand out extra pieces of cash, or charge for my own work.

I can't remember if I tried the charging thing, I know I offered to finish pieces for swaps or other things, and that was a total flop so I just went back to producing stuff for free. I know people need to make a living, and it is really hard in these current times, but sometimes it is hard to scrap together the coins needed to remain a supporter and show that support, so extra on top just made me shrug and not care.

The paying for something with TW karam and credit thingies was a good idea though, and that helped a lot.

_________________
Lorna.
There is hardly anything in the world that cannot be solved by the eating of cake.
*flails around*
Owner of: Lenarai, Areluu, Olarali Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ