RE: The first post of "The story in series". The Prologue.
This is an awesome idea, to write by other's influention.
Here are a few thoughts about the story:
During a period of development, the hero learns the nature of the beast, of the ego. And that nature is something on the lines of "the will to receive", "what's in it for me".
Since this seems to be our nature and it is very hard or impossible to escape it. Even when we do something we label "altruistic" it's so that we get the satisfaction that we are a good person or to get the false security that we will prevent a worse environment. It seems that in every intention there is this "will to receive" that turns good intentions into catastrophes over time.After knowing more intimately the "beast" inside us, the hero gets through a series of events that makes clear for the hero that the only way to escape this vicious cycle of good intentions+time=catastrophe is to go beyond our nature (nature of the beast). And so the hero seeks on solutions to escape the beast. Here can be some ideas that the hero tries but do not work out. Ideas from which we all can learn.
After the events from #2 the hero meets an unusual homeless person that seems very knowledgeable, indeed knows about the "beast" and of it's nature. The homeless guru gives a crucial advice for the hero to escape the beast. The advice is "use it".
After the encounter the hero thinks a lot about it. And in it's inner dialog he tries to understand it. "Use it", use what, the beast? But the beast is "the will to receive". How can I use that, to do what? After some thoughts the hero comes to the realisation that the opposite of the beast is "the will to offer/give". But, it seems, we cannot attain it, because our nature is the beast, is the will to receive. Then it dawns on him, what the homeless person says "use it". Use the will to receive, use the will to receive in order to offer. So we use our nature, but not for ourselves, we use it for all others.
From here I have 2 ideas:
5.1 The hero applies what he has discovered and starts teaching it to others, and in the next cycle, the good intentions actually result in good outcomes.
5.2 The hero applies what he has discovered and starts to feel things he hasn't feeled before, and see/realise things he didn't saw before. He becomes some sort of enlightened, and gets to learn his/our true purpose: to get to use our nature in a way against it, so that we become one united world/body :)
I know this is long, but maybe you can get a little inspiration from it, or not. What do you think?
Thank you very much for your thorough and insightful thoughts and propositions! I will definitely take them into consideration. After all, there is an almost complete road map for the character and the story here!
I don't know whether that was your intention, but in number 1 and 2 I read of a journey that precedes this entry in the diary, am I right? Or perhaps I'm reading it that way because it was my intention to start the story from that summer day he refers to and, if it's the will of the curators, track the events that lead to this entry. And I see here material for the esoteric (and the external) quest of the character both before and after that entry.
Of course, the story might take a completely different route. After all, the curators will decide. And it's very exciting, I must admit, waiting to see if any of the scenarios I have thought will actually be written or I will be surprised by a completely different turn of events!
Rest assured though that I will save your suggestions and refer to them as the story proceeds.
And if you like I would like to hear your opinion on the technical matters as well.
Thanks again and hopefully the engagement of the curators will increase as the story proceeds.
Hey, thanks for the answer. I am glad that you will refer to something I wrote in the story.
To answer your question, I think 1 and 2 are not necesarily preceding the diary entry. How I understand it, is that in the diary entry the hero discovers and analyzes the beast. Then 1 can start and the hero, after analyzing further, starts to understand the beast better and understand it's nature and what can be done.
But, of course , you can also get to that journal entry in the rest of the story. Maybe he got through many obstacles/experiences in his life and got to many realisations like in 3 and 4. Maybe he is already enlightened (like 5.2) when he wrote that journal story :)
About the engagement of others, maybe in your next posts you can mention that you will publish/release a free/pdf story/book that will be influenced by the Steemit community, and ask them to help out build this with you more directly like "Let's write this story/book together".
Also, you can advertise to put their username in the book somewhere as "thanks" for helping you get outside ideas to the users that you get inspired by. Maybe it will attract more people to contribute if they feel that they contribute to building this book and if they feel that they can be mentioned in a book. Even if it's a small one :)
As for technical matters, I unfortunatelly cannot help you, as I am not very knowledgeable in this area. But I will gladly comment on future posts with the ideas that come to me. I think it's a very good idea to write a story/book together. Well, you will write it, we will contribute. Cheers :)
Thank you again for your important contribution! I believe that it's amazing what's happening here! Let me explain...
When I was writing this short introduction I had a pretty clear idea about the context in which the character writes this "final" entry in their diary. But I tried to leave it as open as I could so that I didn't constrain the reader in my way of thinking, in a predetermined path that they had to follow. That is, after all, the whole concept of this endeavor. And it seems I succeeded, because here you are reading it in a way I hadn't intended and reading into it things I never included, at least intentionally. But obviously they're there! This is the collective consciousness at work here! And I think it's really amazing! For example, the most simplistic of all, you are reading this and you see the words being written by a man (although probably the kiss to "her" contributes to that), but it's actually left intentionally unspecified.
Now, as far as the book goes, I would be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind. But I try not to be presumptuous. I mean something like that happening is some steps ahead from the point we are now. Some big, lunar steps ahead. First, people need to become interested and then engaged in this project so that many, different ideas are offered. So if you like it, I would appreciate it very much if you resteemed it. Secondly, I have to write those ideas in a nice, captivating story! And well, if, at some point, a book actually comes out of it, it goes without saying that everybody that contributed will be mentioned and, why not, receive some monetary reward as well. But until then I'm hoping that the satisfaction of contribution and, of course, the curation rewards, will draw people to this "experiment". Don't forget that the suggestions in the comments need to be upvoted in order to have a winning comment, that will become the basis of the following chapter.
Thank you again for the time you devoted to this project, reading it and commenting, and I hope that it will keep you engaged until the final chapter!
Hey @sirrius! I would like to let you know that the first chapter of the story is out. You can read the Introduction-Rules of play first and navigate from there to the chapter. You'll see that I followed your suggestion and set a monetary reward for this first chapter.
Or you can go straight to Chapter One!
Looking forward to your idea!