TLC Forum

I'm currently 12,000+ words deep in a novel I'm writing. (I also happen to have blatantly stolen its name for my username because I couldn't think of a less obvious reference that wasn't a character's name.) In any case, here's a short summary:
Mara, James, Vinny, and Drake settle down in Mara's living room for the usual round of after-school video games. The next thing they know, they are no longer in the real world. To return to it, they must navigate the perils of the virtual world, make friends and allies and avoid the enemies, but most of all, look out for one another.
I'm probably not mostly going to share the actual draft, just because with plans to publish it, that might not be a good idea. I might share some scenes I'm having trouble with or that just generally aren't as good to get some feedback, though, at some point. I'm also working on illustrating it, so I'll definitely share the drawings! (My signature is the reference drawing(s) for Mara, Vinny, James, and Drake.)
(Also, if there weren't issues with sharing information with people I don't know on the internet, I'd share the Google doc link, but that would not be advisable. If you know me irl and are interested, though, pm me and I'd be happy to send it to you!)

Share only as much as you like. We all understand.

That sounds cool! Really cool!

While I haven't been looking over people's novels for quite awhile, if you're concerned about privacy I'm a person who has generally liked to keep my online life and my IRL life pretty separate for various reasons. If you want to be able to share Google docs without compromising personal information I would recommend just having a separate Google account for TLC correspondence. I've had one in the past, though I mostly use other means of communication.

Granted, if it's publishing rights you're worried about I get that. Just a thought.

Mysticalwarrior, congratulations on already being 12,000 words in. And your story has a lot of potential for fun parts so I hope you will finish it!

I'm not really sure it is great to share it on here, though, because unless you have something backed up under copyright it can get stolen. If you have something under copyright anyone can look it up to see your legal name because you have to use that to register it as copyrighted. It's a catch 22.

That's why people like fanfiction, they can improve their writing skills and it is more difficult for the work to be stolen because it is about copyrighted characters. But publishing fanfiction is a legal gray area even though you don't make a profit off of it.

That's why I stopped putting my comics up on the internet. I google searched them and found a bunch of sites that had picked up the images and were trying to resell them or say that they had made them, and I'm cautious about putting things under my real name which I would have to do to make them copyrighted. I still draw comics, and I'm grateful I put up my early ones on here because I really enjoyed the feedback I got and my skills improved greatly, and I was inspired to try to reach more professional standards of drawing comics. (Although, I'm still not quite there.)

Thanks, everyone!
I plan on sharing some of the extraneous short stories I write for the novel, which I have shared or planned on sharing on the internet to help generate some interest.

@misty: including the one about mY SHIP right??

:dies:

@mysty: I'm pretty sure you can't leave that one out. Unless you want to die.

@feather: Yes, of course. How could I leave that out?
@sil: Haha, you're totally right about that. (As we both know from experience....)

It sounds like that could be a fun premise, and good luck.

A friend and I used to be working on an "adventures in a virtual world" sort of project, but it was more for-fun than a serious try at a novel. If the point where they were sucked in was during gaming, is your virtual world games-inspired?