OngoingWorlds blog

News & articles about play-by-post games, for roleplayers & writers

By

The missing WBWW story

DavidWeeks after the end of WBWW, and the winner has been announced, I found this exciting gem in my email spam folder. My heart sank as I realised what had happened, this had been submitted by email but for some unknown reason was treated like spam. Usually I trust Gmail, as it usually does a decent job of distinguishing actual spam, but for some reason it hide this away from me. The story was submitted by Wes from OtherSpace. We’ve featured several articles by Wes about his MUSH.

I can’t apologise enough to Wes, this is a great story but unfortunately it was never passed to the judges. So the best thing I can do is post it here so you can read, and wonder how well it would have done in the WBWW competition.  Read More

By

1882 – WBWW runner-up

Here’s the story that came third place in our WBWW competition. It’s the tale of a cowboy called Alex Solvay in the American old west, being told to his great grandson, also called Alex. Alex is a character in the game Blue Dwarf played on OngoingWorlds.

The story is written by Jack Tennant, who has even recorded this story to audio, which you can listen to through the YouTube video below, or read the story underneath.

Read More

By

Empty Skies Over Tokyo – WBWW runner-up

Here’s the story that came 2nd place in our WBWW competition. Empty Skies Over Tokyo written by Marissa Jeffrey from USS Victory, part of UFOP: Starbase 118.

This story got a lot of praise from one of our judges, Aimee the winner of this year’s First Person Fortnight competition.

aimee-mug-60x60The strengths of the story that spoke to me most, aside from the expected “good grammar/punctuation/understanding of storytelling”:

1) Great demonstration of “Show, don’t tell.” It’s probably the only story that didn’t do this to a fault. It was narrating but it was describing what the characters were doing and how they were interacting with their environment and thus communicating “this is good/exciting/something I’m proud of” to the reader.

2) A clear format made to show the intended style; well-chosen names of places and dates. Very striking in their military/future origin, but not over-explained.

3) It comes full circle and leaves this reader with a simple feeling of family identity and pride in one’s place in the world, but doesn’t get more complicated than that. Vocabulary is tight and story feels focused.

4) Mature and sophisticated world outlook and a writing style to match it.

I also liked the detail that the “ancestor” was from 2003. 🙂 That makes great sci-fi.

Here’s the story in full.

Read More

By

Want to know who the WBWW winner is?

Way Back When Week

The judges have spoken! I’ve added up all the votes for each of our WBWW stories, and we have a winner! I want to first thank everyone who took part in WBWW, and whether you submitted your story or not, you’ve helped inspire others to do something just a little bit different, and that’s what life’s all about isn’t it?

I absolutely want to thank the judges who have read each story and had the difficult task of deciding which is their favourites. We chose judges from different roleplaying games and genres, for a broad range of tastes.

So here’s the top 3 winners. Read More

By

Your character is a product of their ancestors

I hope you’re enjoying Way Back When Week! If you’ve not heard of it yet, see here.

Your character is a product of their ancestors. It’s a weird way to look at it, but it’s true of us all. The knowledge and experience that our parents have gathered gets passed onto us, including many life valuable life skills, and family values. Often we pick up hobbies and interests from our parents, follow the same sports, watch the same TV programmes, and do similar hobbies. Don’t forget though that your parents probably got a lot of these skills, values and interests from their parents too, and them from their parents and so on. Read More

By

Way Back When Week Competition

way back when

Way Back When Week is a great opportunity to really get to know the background of your character, why they have a certain trait or family experience by telling it in the form of an extreme flashback to the event that first developed it, but more than that it’s a chance to enter your stories into a competition! Simply write your story and then send it to us, for a chance to win! The final date for competition entries is the 1st of December. Read More

By

Way Back When Week Is Almost Here!

Way back when week

Ongoing Worlds will be having an extravaganza known as Way Back When Week from November 25 to December 1 2012. For this week, we invite the simming community to write posts in the format of extreme flashbacks to past generations to show their character’s family and backgrounds in a new light.
Read More

By

Announcing Way Back When Week

Way back when week

Way Back When Week  is a week event where writers and roleplayers are encouraged to write a story depicting their characters ancestors, and the similarities and differences between past and present.

This will be a good exercise to get inside your character’s past and see their ancestors, and perhaps show where they got that certain personality trait, or where they got their interests from. Did their ancestors share a certain genetic trait, or perhaps an important ability. If you’re not familiar with thinking in such detail about your character’s history, give this a go, it’s only for a week! If you’re used to exploring your character’s past, you might have some ideas already, here’s your excuse to write it!

Way Back When Week will take place between the 25th of November – 1st of December Read More