This is an ongoing story.
Think of it as a continued series of chapters, each telling a story in a grand arc, except by the time you read the latest chapter, the next one wasn’t yet written, so everything really is completely open.
Why?
For years I’ve been participating in writing role playing simulations (RPGs or, as they’re known to the players, “sims”.) Most were in the Star Trek universe, and I have developed a few characters that grew and matured and started setting out on their own adventures, clawing the inside of my mind to get their stories out.
I decided to collect a particularly interesting and independent story-line, edit it a bit for clarity and consistency, and publish it here, outside the confines of the collaborative writing group it was created in, so the characters’ story continues to live, and the pieces I worked on have a place of honor of their own.
This is also a good place for me to placate the voices in my head – the characters, trying to come out to play – and write more of their story.
On-going work?? Like, a draft?
Yes and no. If you’re not familiar with written RPG games, you should check into those. The idea is that every week (or two) each player writes a post that described what their characters have been up to. The game master (usually the ship’s CO in StarTrek based universe games) leads the main plot, and everyone responds.
This is a fragmented type of writing. Your character responds and interacts with others without knowing what their interactions will lead to – which makes the story more interesting. But it also means that it is different than writing (and reading) a cohesive full-arc story or novel. The pace, too, is different, and the overall arc is a little harder to control.
But the flip side of this is that the writer (and, hopefully, the reader too) gets a more realistic and ongoing interaction with the character. The character writes itself – it responds and interacts with others and leads the story forward while the writer tries to steer the over-arching story to its conclusion.
And sometimes — the best times — the characters change the story.
Who’s this story for?
No one. Everyone. Me, mostly, and the voices in my head.
I spent years playing this game, and Danielle Atarah has matured in my head to such a degree that I can’t really control her anymore. She demands to be written, to be let out, to speak her story so I can write it.
So I do.
And if anyone reading this enjoys it too, all the better.