Honestly I'm mostly surprised that the 48-page mini-novel seems to be our most popular piece, considering just how many much shorter stories we have in the Archives.

That is very true. Length is usually a turn-off for a lot of readers. Of course, I suppose the view count doesn't necessarily mean reads, so maybe people go in and don't read the whole thing. No way to know, unfortunately.

It is also interesting that it is one of our longest, and one of our shortest.

I don't know, there's some people (I'm one of them) that gravitate towards longer fic that'll keep them occupied for a while. I don't tend to read fanfic that's only got one or two chapters. I'm not sure if there's any hard readership data though, or if that's just an impression of bias that people have.

My preferences lean more toward completed, +/- 200k word novel-length fanfics at the top.

Following that, a high-quality short story of ~13k words hopefully, but the only short story which I've highly enjoyed which I also know the word count to, Keepers of Discord by Hoopy McGee. Normally I look for standalones in this category rather than pieces with 2-5 chapters.

Unfinished novel-length fics that are already close to novel-length I'm moderately willing to try but am more hesitant to do because I've seen so many that are either never finished or have months-long hiatuses. I keep kicking myself whenever I spend time checking The Sweetie Chronicles because I'd prefer having several chapters to read at once, anyway.

I don't actually know the word count to any of the stuff in our Archives, though I could theoretically check with the Archivist's Drive. I'm not sure if the HTML tags might throw the word count, though.

Well, I have decided it's been long enough since the last time something useful as a resource/reference, so to continue with my "What I've Been Reading about Writing" entries, here's the big man himself, that rodent of the dark, from Ari Marmell's own site, Things They Don't Tell You When You're Learning to Write.

It's short, but it's from a writer we're probably all familiar with, which has graced us with his presence in the past and been supremely humble about it (I personally learned he doesn't like being called Mr. Marmell), so I'm sure it's a good inclusion.

I'm not fond of people using my last name, either. It feels weird.

I don't like when people use my name at all unless I know them.
Luckily, my name is unpronounceable to mortal tongues and even thinking it will cause shock and death.

Dunno if this is the right place to do this, but:

What do you guys require for building a plane? I've been enjoying my worldbuilding over in the Play by Post for my Sandbox World, and I was wondering what requirements building a M:EM plane would be.

~SE++

Mostly an interesting idea.
There are some other things that just go along with building a Magic world, but that mostly has to do with color distribution and representation, but those are a lot looser boxes to fill.

And welcome to our little corner of the boards, Squinty! Glad to see you interested

We used to have an unspoken rule about needing a story before accepting a plane or character, but I think that was before our Archives got filled out like they are now, so it shouldn't be an issue.

OKAY KEEPER I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT PROGRAM I'M SUPPOSED TO GET FOR MAKING A FLOW CHART

WHAT IS VECTOR GRAPHICS HELP ME PLEASE

Thank you very much. I was so confused.

I would say that your post constituted both an introduction and shop talk, so this is exactly the right place - welcome, welcome!

Echoing what has already been said, really the only requirements are to do something which fits within the basic boundaries of how the multiverse works. Beyond that, really the only limit is your imagination. There's an awful lot of room to play around in, and the main thing is just to marshal enough information about the world that people would have the tools they needed to use it for creative purposes.

I just want to take a second to celebrate how many of us are browsing this forum right darn now. It's like a block party in here!

I know! Today's been crazy. Almost every time I post something, someone else has said something about a different thread. This has been awesome!

We should actually try to do a real-time event sometime. Like watch the same movie together, or do a flash-fiction challenge, or something.

Coordination nightmare, I know, especially for people in far-flung time zones. But if we could get at least four or five people involved, it could be a hoot.

It would be fun, if possible.

There are some real benefits to mindnumbing boredom! I've been reeeeeall bored while sick this week. I gotta find a damn job just so I can keep myself from going completely out of my mind. >_>

We just need to get Jedi and Ruwin and Aaarrrgh in on the fun and we'll have just about all our active M:EMbers, unless I'm forgetting someone. (Oh, which, now's probably as good a time as any to remark that Yxoque is taking a bit of a breather. I think he plans to return though.)

I'd be down for a real time writing challenge sometime, though. That could be interesting.