Submitting works to groups is live!

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Nick

Some awesome news for everyone this evening — the ability to submit your stories, poems, and other works to groups is now enabled for everyone on Protagonize!

Yes, it’s been a very long time coming. Thank you all for being so patient, and for being such dedicated members of our community. The feedback and support I’ve gotten from all of you along the way has been amazingly helpful in getting this major feature completed. It may sound like a simple addition, but it was somewhat complicated to implement, behind the scenes.

This is the last major feature to be launched before the major Protagonize redesign goes live this summer, and I think it should all keep you pretty busy until that point. :)

The observant among you have probably already noticed that I’ve had this feature in testing with our beta group for the last week or so. I’d like to thank them all for their help and feedback over the last few days; they managed to catch a few bugs and suggest a pretty useful enhancement that I wouldn’t have added off-the-bat otherwise. I do have a couple more group enhancements coming over the weekend, but those won’t have any impact on submissions, so I figured I might as well get this out the door as early as possible.

I’m sure you’re all wondering how things work, and the basics should be pretty clear over in the FAQ. Make sure to read that bit, before asking anything.

I thought I’d also add a few questions and answers here, as well, to head off any questions that might be obvious enough to cover right away…

Continue reading →

Posted in General, Groups, Site updates, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

A sneak preview of Protagonize 2.0

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Nick

Since I launched Protagonize back in late December of 2007, the site has had a pretty distinctive look and feel — something we’ve all become comfortable with, and which has slowly grown to represent much of the site and community’s ethos, or “vibe” if you prefer.

Over the course of those three-plus years, what started off as a rather simple design has evolved and stretched to fit new content and an enhanced set of features. What worked well back in the simpler days of the site has become a bit cumbersome over time. To the point where I wonder if our once-simple interface is now more confusing and messy than useful.

I’ve spent a long while thinking about how we could refresh and redesign an interface that needs to encompass a significant amount more features than it used to house. On top of that, I’ve considered a lot of new advances in technology since early 2008, from both the browsing side and from the site development side of things.

With that in mind, along with the requests and thoughtful suggestions of thousands of Protagonize users since the site’s initial launch, it’s time for an overhaul. And today, to whet your collective appetites, I’ll be giving you a sneak preview of what’s to come.

Continue reading →

Posted in General, Previews, Site updates | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 35 Comments

On Collaborative Writing

Posted on May 1, 2011 by JackRubashevskiy

Dogs [via jsorbie on Flickr]When I joined Protagonize almost three years ago there was no such thing as a Solo story – everything was open for collaboration. There wasn’t even any Author Guidance, so you couldn’t warn people off of adding a chapter to your story. So much has changed in those three years, but I sometimes find myself somewhat nostalgic for the adrenaline rush of hitting “Publish” without explicit guidance.

I got my start by adding a few chapters to various budding collaborative stories, without asking anyone’s permission or having a set of guidelines to follow. Looking back it seems quite daunting. I was new to the site and I leaped in head first. Luckily, other authors ran with my additions, and soon we had a few rapidly developing stories that no-one could ever predict. That came to be my favourite part of collaboration: ending a chapter with some sort of hook, not for the reader’s sake, but to see how the next author would react. Never, not once, did events follow as I would have written them myself.

Great minds may think alike, but greater minds think differently than those around them.

Continue reading →

Posted in Collaborative writing, General, Site mechanics, Tips & Tricks, writing | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

On the lam

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Nick

One thing I really dislike about traveling is waiting in airports. Connections, layovers, boarding times … sitting there, doing absolutely nothing worthwhile or of consequence for hours on end really makes me edgy.

Thankfully, at the end of the day, it’s about your destination and not the trip there – in this case, at least. Also, some good reading along the way is helpful, particularly when sitting at LAX for nearly five hours between flights. To Patrick Rothfuss, I tip my hat, sir – I picked up his first novel in ebook form on the Amazon Kindle store while sitting at the airport in Vancouver on my way out, and I’ve barely been able to put down my iPad since. I’m hooked. If you’re a fan of epic fantasy like myself, do yourself a favour and check out The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 1). You won’t regret it. I’ve already bought book two so that I can transition over without delay.

(For what it’s worth, Rothfuss’s blog is pretty hysterically funny stuff, too.)

And for you fans of George R. R. Martin out there, don’t tell me what happened. Yes, I’ve read the entire series to date, but it’s been a few years since I read the first tome. I’m really intrigued by the live-action take on it and I’ve PVR’d the first episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Can’t wait to watch it!

Continue reading →

Posted in authors, General, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

It’s Adopt-a-Prawn Day!

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Nick

Welcome to Prawntagonize!Howdy, Prawntagonizers! Hope you’re all enjoying our brand-spankin’-new format today. It’s the first day of what I hope will be a long and prosperous journey into the world of seafood-related creative writing.

And today, we kick it off with a bang: prawns!

Have you all considered adopting a prawn? It’s really something everyone who has a few spare bucks in their pocket should think about doing.

You’ve heard of Adopt-a-Highway programs, right? Where folks shell out a few dollars to clean up a stretch of highway? Well, the official Protagonize Adopt-a-Prawn­™ Program works quite the same way, except instead of contributing to your local or municipal government’s coffers, you just need to change your profile image to something prawn-y.

If you’re feeling slightly more generous, you may consider participating in the (slightly more expensive) Sponsor-a-Prawn™ program, keeping young, troubled prawns off the streets and away from drugs, prawnstitution, the Department of Fisheries. Feel free to donate to Prawntagonize if this cause suits you. :)

I encourage you all to follow my lead, and prawnify your profiles. Without our support, prawns all over the world will be reduced to mere dinner (or worse yet, lunch.) Show your solidarity, stop by the newly revamped Prawntagonize Pub, and be prawned!

Posted in Events, General | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments