John Scalzi is announcing the launch of a new "collaborative short fiction" site, Ficlets:
What does "collaborative short fiction" mean in this case? Simple: You, as a writer, post a very short (not more than 1,024 characters) piece of fiction or a fiction fragment on the Ficlets site. People come to Ficlets to read what you've written, and to comment on your piece. If they want to, they can also write a "sequel" to your story or story fragment, carrying the story forward from where you left it. Or, alternately, they can write a "prequel," explaining how you got to where you are in the story. All sorts of people can write all sorts of sequels and prequels -- and of course, other people can write sequels and prequels to those. What you end up with is a story with multiple authors and multiple branchings -- lots of possibilities and surprises.
It's a clever idea. Unfortunately, the very first "read more" link I clicked on brought me to:
This story has been marked as mature by the author. If you'd like to read it, sign in and make sure you've opted to view mature stories.
And that, right there, more or less ends my interest in playing around with the site.
It's weird-- I don't think of myself as a big "information wants to be free" zealot, but requiring me to register to read or comment on a site drastically reduces my interest in reading or commenting on that site. And setting the default to limit access to "PG" content pretty much kills off whatever residual interest is left.
There are a few well-established sites that I've registered with because I find them essential (the New York Times being the chief example), but there's enough free and freely accessible stuff out there that I'm unlikely to sink the time into registering for a new site just to see if it might be worth reading regularly.
Anyway, if you're less annoyed by registration and censorship than I am, it seems like a fun idea.
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requiring me to register to read or comment on a site drastically reduces my interest in reading or commenting on that site....I'm unlikely to sink the time into registering for a new site just to see if it might be worth reading regularly
Same here, though I'll often enough use bugmenot for those sites. Getting a login from bugmenot is generally less typing than the official registration, plus it eliminates the other bad aspect of registering, which is the chance of new sources of spam.
I think the problem is that 90% of the "fan fiction" on the Internet is thinly-disguised sexual fantasies. If the Net is any indication, then everyone wants to be an author ... of Penthouse Letters.
The problem I have with Ficlets is that it's more of a party game than a writing exercise. And as soon as something decent gets going some knucklehead is going to write an installment that reads...
"Just as John turned to reply there was a flash and a puff of acrid smoke, and a shy-looking, bespectacled young boy with a jagged scar on his forehead appeared."
Although the writing probably won't be that good.