Gdocs and the Nexus

Post by **Dray** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:51 pm

Out of curiosity... how many of you have seen or tried using googledocs? For writing? For RP?

Lately I've found out for myself that it's a pretty powerful collaborative writing tool. You can share the document with as many people as you like, and all of them can be in there editing content, kind of like a wiki. Once the document is finished, it's easy to transport en toto to an HTML page, unlike having to go through to edit AIM or email logs.

Considering the Nexus' roots in RP, competitive writing, and Pern MU*'s, do you think that emulating the collaborative writing process in gdocs could be a useful tool to give Nexians something new to do? I know that it would inspire me to write more often if I knew another party was interested and participating in the process with me.

Some ideas:

Collaborative writing in flights or flurries, where you control your dragon and aim to catch (or be caught by) a specific other dragon... (considering this is the Nexus, any bow-chicka probably ain't gonna be happening! XD Just competition for flights!)

RP-style hatchings as with JKat's early Avengaean bonding meetings. Gdocs seems like a happy medium between the stressful real-time RP and the sluggish forum-based RP, where everybody who can be there will be present for the bulk of the RP, and those who aren't there on time can show up when they're available -- using different coloured text to match candidates with dragons, at least for the purpose of later editing everything into a coherent whole might be nice, too.

Collab candidate stories! Agency owners seem to dislike when a person sends in one story for multiple characters... but I think that writing plotty-bits out between people could really help to make candidate stories fun, for those of us who haven't been inspired lately.

Plotting between agency owners! This isn't so IC as the rest (though it could be!) but the Nexus seems pretty partitioned off, lately. Maybe we could utilize those ambassadors that we worked on a couple of years ago (or make new ones if we forgot who we were using. XD) and having some interaction between agencies occuring?

Anyways, my point is that there's a lot of potential to open the nexus up and help nexiians connect and inspire one another in the writing arena. Have you been having writing doldrums lately, or are you spewing stories out like mad? What do you think this kind of tool would do for you? Nothing? Something? XD I just want to inspire some talk and possibly even debate about the matter.

Xalia · Post by **Xalia** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:05 pm

First of all I have to say, I've been using Google Documents for probably close to a year now (just for candidate stories and other documents I need to have with me all the time), and I love it. It's like having Word/Excel attached to my email...so I can access my stories-in-progress from home, work, or anywhere I happen to have internet access...love love love!

As for using it as a tool to get the Nexus more interactive and intertwined, I'm intrigued, but possibly a little unsure how G-docs would work any better than the Nexus forum?

I love the idea of getting the Nexus agencies and worlds more intertwined though. For example, The Lodge is always sending people to Star City and the AD but they never do it 'officially' and it might be fun to have some sort of 'professional' dialogue going on between agencies. For one it would make candidate stories easier as there'd be pathways in place for sending them out in-character and having a forum for role-playing your characters would be awesome.

I've been tempted for a while now to create a Kilandaian RP just to get people interested in my world and to give me a chance to work on plot points and have other people in there influencing the way things work out...to be able to do something small-scale on the Nexus as a way for people to write up candidate stories and not butcher other people's characters in the process would be really awesome!

Post by **Dray** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:34 pm

I'd love to see that. :3 I need to work out who my ministers are in Star City are so we can do some meeting and greeting... XD The station's kind of gotten away from me!

aireona93 · Post by **aireona93** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:13 pm

That sounds like a really good idea, Dray!

Post by **Dray** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:47 pm

Once I have my other priorities out of the way (catching up on Star City and other agency stuff!) I'd like to set up something, but if you guys are interested in taking the initiative with your own ideas, I'll definitely join in! :)