Rules for Traveler of the Mists

Rules for Traveler series.

As this series is starting to get volunteers (yes, I just got one) I figured I would start to lay down some ground rules. Just a few but they are vital.

• The Format

Traveler of the Mists is a series that is split into episodes, much like a TV series. Each episode has a maximum of five chapters, think of these like segments. I’m not going to clarify a word count, let’s just say your max for each chapter is ten pages at twelve font with half inch margins. In total that’s a fifty page story, so it’s plenty of room. Yes, I do want you to try to come up with a good hook for an ending for each segment, don’t have the story just stop at the end of a chapter. You wouldn’t do that for a regular story so don’t do it here.

Joshua’s weapon will evolve in each world.

• This is my storyline, I am in charge of it. You own your characters and story, not mine.

I’m sure this sounds snooty to some, but it has to be said. If I say to your idea to have Salina and Jebadiah have highly sexually charged romance, “over my dead body”, then you can write a fan fiction of my stuff on your own time, but no, you don’t get to rewrite my characters or write them doing things I say no to.

Conversely, I promise any boundaries you set for your characters while I’m writing, I will treat with respect, after all, you have copyright to your characters. If your cowboy is a tough battle hardened gun slinger, I won’t have him crying in the corner cause he saw a bunny with teeth. If I propose something happens that you say is against the rules of your world or that is something you say your character would never do, I’ll have to think of something else.

No, I will not need to read over your shoulder or need to approve every sentence. Once you finish a chapter send it to me and I’ll go over it. For the most part, I have faith in the writers I pick. After all, I read their work, so if I see they can’t really handle the craft of writing, I will politely turn them down to work on the writing part of a story. To be honest I won’t want to work with a story I think is bad period.

Yes, usually I will have a basic outline of events that have to occur in your story at some point in order for the plot of the story in general to move along.

• If you’re going to write, learn the story up until now. This may take a fair bit of reading.

Yes, you will need to actually read my story to write for it. And not just whatever happens to be available at the time you first talk to me either. You have to have read up to the last chapter before your world comes into the story. As a for instance, if you write for Traveler, I don’t want you writing that Neromes is a mutant or soul reaper or whatever because you guessed that from reading the third episode only. He is a demon and you should know things like that after reading the name “demon king” several times in the first few episodes. I’ll forgive lapses in judgment and memory, after all, the story is mine not yours so I can’t expect perfection. I do expect you to change parts of the story that outright contradict or ignore important points. For instance, no, Zack will not suddenly look like a regular guy, since he’s not a regular guy, he’s not even human.

• This is not a sexual story. This is not a torture story.

 Everyone has their own pet peeves. Mine is torture scenes and overzealous sexual presentations. You will notice my stories are violent, but there is no reveling in how much physical pain I can possibly cause to a character. Characters can die, be injured, be placed in great peril and can even be shown being tied up or otherwise helpless in a scary situation. However we’ll just say that the physical pain of the character must NOT be the point of the scene. Violence implies blood. It does not imply being tortured by a sadist. Also I have no problem with characters expressing love or even infatuation and implying that they had sexual relations, and even clarifying when they had them. What I do have a problem with is full on sexual encounters being described in the middle of one of the chapters. To me this feels like trying to sell a story based on the lowest common denominator, sexual attraction. You may not feel this way, but I do.

• There is NO check list.

 None. If Neromes does not have a show down with Yellow Eyes in your story like he did in the last two episodes, good! That means the story is original. If the last story had a child die and there is a child in your story, having him live and pal around with Joshua until he leaves is just fine.

Okay, so one check list item… in each story Joshua’s weapon gets a new form if he goes to a new world. (Yes, he may revisit a world or two, thus his weapon will not change for that episode.) How effective it is, or what it does is up to you and me at the time. Just remember it has to have be relative in size.

• Yellow Eyes must be a threat to your world and Neromes must be a big deal

 No, you cannot kick the main series villains into a corner somewhere and take the characters on an adventure of your choosing. Yes, you can have the characters go on an adventure to find a lost kid or something at the same time as fighting Yellow Eyes and/or (sorry, spoiler, that will eventually be a thing) Neromes. Yes, there can be a bigger problem, but that would have to be a pretty big threat, considering we’re talking either the destruction of an entire universe, or throwing it into chaos. If you want the characters to have a side mission of any kind, that’s fine, but figure out a balance.

• Traveler characters cannot be irrelevant

 Yes, Jeb, Joshua, Salina (who technically belongs to another writer herself) and one of the Fade personalities will need to appear in your story somewhere and be important. They can’t just show up in your universe, deliver the message that’s it’s in danger, and then go on a camping trip or something while your characters take care of business.

• Your characters must be important.

No, I don’t want my characters to just have a solo adventure on a world where no other characters become important. Why would I have them travel to a new universe without featuring the people of that universe? They must be important too, not just a series of extras wondering around in the background.

• Your world must be featured and it’s rules must be meaningful.

 No, I don’t want you to rewrite the rules of your universe that you already established in a book you wrote, to fit a story you have in mind for my guys. I also don’t want everyone to fight in space or some other place where your universe’s uniqueness is irrelevant. (Unless you have a space based civilization and that’s part of why it’s unique.)

• Try to keep your tone “on the level”.

 I’m the writer of “Lost and Found”, surely I must enjoy kid friendly stories! Well indeed I do, but not in the middle of a series well known for intense violence. There is no gauge for how much blood MUST be spilled and really not a single person has to die in scene, however I’ll just say that if suddenly the level of violence goes from Nightmare on Elm Street to Care Bears, readers are libel to get annoyed.

• You do not need to “outdo” the last guy.

 If the last guy had a really powerful dragon in his story, you don’t need a bigger one to show up. Don’t concentrate on doing everything the last episode did; only better, just write a good episode period. I’m not going to have a series that follows the pattern of Dragon Ball Z where the stakes continuously artificially rise and characters get more and more “powerful” every episode. Actually my characters are most powerful in their home universes, save for Joshua. (Well save for Jeb too, but he doesn’t really have powers.)

• Do not “punk” my characters.

No, I’m not looking to have a small street gang completely decimate my guys for no other reason besides “they don’t got street cred” or something dumb like that. If someone threatens Neromes with a gun, Neromes should laugh off the gunman like the idiot he is for threatening an Elder God with a nine mil.