[HEADING=1]- FORUM FICTION -[/HEADING]
* * *
Welcome to the second instalment of Forum Fiction. I am your host, Barbas the Daedra. Join me, dear reader, as I ransack the muse of the more talented for a fleeting modicum of forum fame. Speaking of which, please welcome veteran Escapist [user]Trivun[/user].
[hr]
So, The Secret World. What was it that really drew you into this world and, in particular, the events surrounding Innsmouth Academy?
I started playing The Secret World a few months after it became free-to-play, and I just really enjoyed the characters and the complex plot-line as I was playing through the first area, Solomon Island. I've always liked seeing strong female characters in stories (I tend to write that kind of protagonist in my original fiction too), and Carter just struck me as a well-written, grounded type of girl. Hence deciding to make her, and her situation at the Academy, the focus of my fanfic.
This was quite different to our previous submission. Why did you decide to structure it as a first-person diary entry?
I've experimented with different writing styles prior to starting my ongoing novel, and the last fanfic I did was first-person, 'visual novel' style. The one before that was more like war reports and briefings (based on Halo). I wanted to do something a bit different, and given who I was writing about it made sense she may keep a diary of all the strange things occurring on the island. It was also meant to be a prototype for the style I planned to use in my novel, but ultimately I decided to go third-person for that.
Do you think you'll write more about The Secret World in the foreseeable future?
It's been a long time since I added to this particular fic, and since I moved house about 6 months ago I've not played The Secret World due to real-world responsibilities and internet problems. I may go back to writing more about The Secret World when I start playing it again, but not for the foreseeable future.
What can you tell us about the novel that you had planned? Will it be available soon in all good book stores?
It's currently in the earliest stages, but I'll be exploring various options for publication when I've written a decent chunk of it. It'll also be on Authonomy.com so people can have a sneak peek during the writing process. Intended as the first part of a trilogy, working title Fragments, we follow Niamh Flannigan, a young journalist who wakes up on a Scottish island to find her friends gone and no memory of the last 24 hours. The first part of the story sees her trying to find out what has happened, while intertwined are her actions a few days later in the Northumberland city of Westford where Niamh tries to uncover the secrets behind her strange visions of the past, and finds herself in the middle of a secret war between two factions of beings that may (or may not) be literal angels...
Confessions of a Teenage Doomsday Weapon [https://docs.google.com/document/d/15p41_Kz1mNzudFFKfDt2LJOxrYsx6u1HTJH1sMBak9k/edit?usp=sharing].
[hr]
[small]Thanks to [user]TheYellowCellPhone[/user] and his enormous tuba for the suggestion of Google Docs for future installments. If you have any short stories of your own that you'd like to submit, you can PM [user]Barbas[/user]. Until we meet again, dear reader, remember not to drink the pickle juice until the pickles are gone![/small]
To be entirely fair, when I originally wrote this it was pretty much destined just for the likes of Fanfiction.net, so it was mostly just people who were already familiar with the relevant game who would have seen it. Never really thought before about how a newcomer to The Secret World would see the flow of the story. As for the ending, it was going to have more chapters as well, but I wrote this over a year ago and haven't played much of the game for ages (due to internet issues when moving house), so it ended up being finished around there instead.