Lumiere Bible...Your Opinion

[Rath/Brendan]

As you may or may not know, Ms. Smith has asked me to, along with Coyote, take charge of collecting every item mentioned in a story and catloguing it. A bible of sorts. From IMing with Claudia, I believe she wants Coyote to take care of continuity and myself to do the actual collecting and cataloguing. The second bible will be co-written.

Now, the way I envision this is that there will be two seperate bibles. An encyclopedia and a oral history of the town. The encyclopedia will be the alphabetized and catlogued reference work for all the stories. There will be several sections: People, Places, Timeline, and Supernatural Occurences. It's an easy reference tool if you need to check something while your working on the story.

The oral history will be the fun version of the encyclopedia. Basically, the story of the town will be told through journals, old newspaper clippings, maybe even photographs. Each story may have different clippings, etc, and dialogue or description from the story may be quoted within.

This is all up in the air, but I just thought I'd let you all know what I was thinking. I've done some prelimenary work based off of Mr. Sinister's story. Let me know if you would like to see examples.

Now...what I need your opinion on is the tone of this second part. The encyclopedia will be kind of dry, obviously, but I, for one, would like to have a little bit of fun with the oral history.

Right now I have two ideas:

-A straight up, paragraphed version of the town's history and the occurences there, etc. The example you can look to for this is Ricky Jay's epic introduction to Magnolia.

-A mere compliaton of articles, photographs, etc. from the town's history. To get a better idea of this, think Mike Hanlon's history of Derry in IT.

Which one would you prefer?

Please let me know. Thanks.

[Coyote]

I really like the articles approach, except that if this is a writer's bible, meant for writers and not the readers, it shouldn't have gimmicks...and also it'll take alot more time to do.

[Dan Whitehead]

It would be more useful to have something simple that writers can reference quickly and easily. Articles and photos would be cute, but of little use when you need to find out which year the library was built and where the infamous King Prawn Massacre of 1843 took place.

Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.

[Unbreathless]

I like the idea of the articles and clippings and such, but it wouldn't be as useful for writers of the town. It would, however, be a really cool if this got it's own site. Before reading any stories a reader may want to take a look at the town's "written" history before reading the "oral" history.

For the writers it may be better to do the catologuing idea. Get all the stuff like people and places together into an index. And if you're feeling suicidal, try and cross-index the places with occurances that have happened there and such. That way if you really wanted to keep continuity together you'd have a blueprint of past and current events to work around.

Thats how I'd see it. But I am Me, and You are you, so who knows, I could actually, possibly be way off on this... just maybe.
:)

[Rath/Brendan]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I am planning on doing a flat out reference material. Cross indexed and everything. Right now I'm calling it an Encyclopaedia.

What I was asking was, would you rather see a narrative of the town's history or a "oral" history (journals, et al) IN ADDITION to the Lumiere Encyclopaedia?

[Blofeld]

Neither.
The Bible for contributors.
The stories as the creative effort.

[Dan Whitehead]

Yeah, let it grow naturally. Just put stuff in the encyclopedia as it comes up in stories. The history of the town will fill itself in as the stories are written.

[Rath/Brendan]

You got it.

I don't wanna call it a Bible, though. I prefer the name Encyclopaedia, if that's all right.

[voltes5]

It's a good idea, Rath. Like Dan said, let's make this "Encyclopedia" grow organically.

How about calling it:

Sewerpaedia
Chewerpaedia
Lumiere Archives

Or something like that. Encyclopaedia sounds somewhat bland.

[Rath/Brendan]

I like Lumiere Archives.

The first section, based on Poxy's story, is finished. I just have to hear from Hastur. Obviously, we need a few more stories before the thing goes up, but just wanted to let the boards know I'm on top of things.

[Blofeld]

HEART!

[Dan Whitehead]

RathBandu Hits NYC in 31 Days:
You got it.

I don't wanna call it a Bible, though. I prefer the name Encyclopaedia, if that's all right."Torah" or "Koran" are also good... wink

[Coyote]

Well, bible is what they're actually called, but if we want to get PC about it wink

Archives sounds like where all the stories are kept. Maybe Records? File Cabinet? Canon Files? Canon Fodder?

[Coyote]

In defense of "Encylclopedia," the word is often used when a book comes out in reference to something like X-files, Star Trek/Wars, Amber, etc.

Maybe Guidebook? Roll 2d6?

[Richard Dickson]

Atlas?

Compendium?

The Lumiere Historical Preservation Society?

[Rath/Brendan]

Actually, a bible is what the continuity matierial for television shows are called. Last time I checked, we weren't on the air.

Anyway, I like some of your ideas. I'll think about it for titles. I like it suggesting that it's sort of historical in nature, though still a reference material.

Thanks. Let me know if you have a resounding opinion on a name.

Rath.