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Thread: AAR Anthology

  1. #41
    Juvenal's Avatar love your noggin
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Removal of Screen-shots
    I've been thinking about how my AAR would fare without its screen-shots. Although it wouldn't be completely broken, I feel that some of the information conveyed in the pictures will need to be provided as descriptive passages in the text. I imagine this may be true for the other contributers also.

    Context
    It also struck me that much of the audience on smashwords are unlikely to be familiar with the Total War franchise, they may even be ignorant of the historical eras we have chosen for our AARs. So I would strongly recommend more exposition. It is a delicate balancing act to provide enough background information for the casual reader without offending the knowledgeable, but we can't take the risk of presenting work that is incomprehensible to the average reader.

    Signature Picture
    Finally, I feel that each AAR does need a picture, just one, to act as a kind of icon. Readers will see the picture first, and then when they read the episode, their feelings about the piece will become associated with the image. Thus, when a new issue comes along with the same picture at the head of the next episode... it will be much easier to take up from where they left off the previous month.

    What I am proposing is a small generic line-drawing with some relevance to the story. For example:



    Obviously each picture would have to be an original work (for copyright reasons), given my own modest artistic abilities I would probably find something to trace.

    Please let me know what you think.
    Last edited by Juvenal; March 30, 2012 at 03:35 AM.
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  2. #42
    Shankbot de Bodemloze's Avatar From the Writers Study!
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Quote Originally Posted by SeniorBatavianHorse View Post
    Thanks for the kind words, Knonfoda! I appreciate your support and it's a shame your own AAR is too multi-media driven to feature (yet!).

    Shankbot12 - it won't move faster to the premium site no matter how many reviews it gets on the Smashwords site. It is simply a question of time at their end in terms of editting the formatting! You can find my author's page for Francis Hagan here!
    Okay thanks for letting me know
    Quote Originally Posted by Juvenal View Post
    Removal of Screen-shots
    I've been thinking about how my AAR would fare without its screen-shots. Although it wouldn't be completely broken, I feel that some of the information conveyed in the pictures will need to be provided as descriptive passages in the text. I imagine this may be true for the other contributers also.

    Context
    It also struck me that much of the audience on smashwords are unlikely to be familiar with the Total War franchise, they may even be ignorant of the historical eras we have chosen for our AARs. So I would strongly recommend more exposition. It is a delicate balancing act to provide enough background information for the casual reader without offending the knowledgeable, but we can't take the risk of presenting work that is incomprehensible to the average reader.

    Signature Picture
    Finally, I feel that each AAR does need a picture, just one, to act as a kind of icon. Readers will see the picture first, and then when they read the episode, their feelings about the piece will become associated with the image. Thus, when a new issue comes along with the same picture at the head of the next episode... it will be much easier to take up from where they left off the previous month.

    What I am proposing is a small generic line-drawing with some relevance to the story. For example:



    Obviously each picture would have to be an original work (for copyright reasons), given my own modest artistic abilities I would probably find something to trace.

    Please let me know what you think.
    Yes I think the pictures would be a good idea, a little reminder always helps

    About Context, I find that if I read something about a particular era that I previously didn't know anything about, and if the book was good, then it prompts me to find out more about it - and if people aren't interested in the time period the book is set in, why would they read it? If they are interested in the period, then they'll know enough about it to understand what's written. Also due to the absence of pictures, most AARs (or the ones submitted anyway) don't refer directly to the game, rather the game provides them inspiration on what to right? So bearing that in mind, I personally don't think readers will need to know about the TW games in order to enjoy reading the AARs, you read them for the story, not for the game.

    There my theories anyway

    Thoughts?
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  3. #43
    SeniorBatavianHorse's Avatar Tribunus Vacans
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Juvenal - those are all good points so I will address each one individually.

    Context - I will be writing an extensive introduction essay which will outline the whole TWC AAR genre. This will act as a portal to potential readers to appreciate the work both as we present it in 'A Tiger's Leap' and also in its original context. To this end I will provide hyperlinks to the original works in situ for those readers who wish to read in context. I will also go into some depth about the periods but imagine that potential readers will already to some extent be familiar with these periods (as much as we are through the games and our own research!). The bottom line is that these AARs will be opening up alternate imaginative 'takes' on history (this is where Benjamin's quote above comes in) and so a certain exotic level will appeal to readers also. Just to be clear here, my essay will be drawing on elements of narrative theory and popular culture to allow new readers to appreciate the value of these writings.

    Screen Shots - this is more problematic, alas. It is very difficult to format picture-inclusive texts so that they can be converted to all the different download formats. The problem here is that the Kindle, the Sony Reader, the I-Pad, and others all use different formats and therefore any one book needs to be able to be translated cleanly into all these formats to be included onto the premium sites. Pictures mess this up big time and I simply don't have the experience to format a book with pics in it. There is also the issue of copyright. Although we own the games, do we own the pics we use in order to publicise our own writing (even if it is free at the moment)? I am not sure about this at the moment and would rather not get into it at this stage. The compromise is a pic-clean version re-written to make a stronger narrative with a hyperlink back to the original.

    Signature Picture - I like the idea of a signature image but again it may run into formatting issues beyond my competancy as editor. I will study the formatting guide again and see if I can experiment with something. Or does someone here have more experience in this field?!

    What I an envisaging here is also a learning curve for us all. I imagine the first volume will be very much a nuts a bolts thing with subsequent volumes building and developing the 'franchise' as it were. If we can crack the pic formatting and also fly clear of any copyright issues then I would expect later volumes to mushroom in terms of their technical presentation and hyperlinking options. I will confess a secret here and state that the ideal 'A Tiger's Leap' future volume could be downloaded onto a multi-media platform like the I-pad and we could see AARs in the format that Knonfoda is experimenting with at the moment - but that is a while away, I think!

  4. #44
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Argh! These companies and their different format, what ever happened to good old 'one size fits all'

    Oh and the 'hyperlink' back to the original sounds like a good idea It'll bring more people to the forum as well, and to those AARs that aren't in the Antholgy Hopefully

    EDIT: Having a look around about formatting I came across a few sites etc: (sorry if they're no use)



    The last 3 links are all off site MobileRead from its forum section. The above 3 are the ones I found after a quick skim through/google search - but I'm sure it has more to offer. To find the relevant information just scroll down a few posts (sometimes just 1). The site looks rather helpful, with an 'Ebook Software' section etc. From what I've gathered, Sigil* seems to be one of the popular software types. As quoted from the MobileRead website:
    Sigil is an open-source WYSIWYG ebook editor designed to edit books in ePub format. Cross-platform (Linux, Windows and OS X)

    *Note leads to the forum section of MobileRaed on Sigil, for the (what seems to be) actually site see here
    Anything in 'blue' or 'underlined' is a link


    There's a lot of reading there I know, and probably most of it is useless, but the 4 links at the top are the ones I've found most useful

    Hope they help And sorry if I've got it all wrong, just tell me
    Last edited by Shankbot de Bodemloze; March 30, 2012 at 01:22 PM. Reason: Some Links :D
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  5. #45

    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    I agree with what's been mentioned so far, we'll all have to do some level of tweaking to our stories in order to make them fit this format. Though I am far less reliant on screenshot imagery in the work I have chosen than I was in previous works, I will surely have to compensate the lack of imagery with well...imagery, from a descriptive writing sense.

    At the moment, my chapters seem to fall in that word range, save for my mini-prologue/introduction, which I'll likely expand upon to give further context of the story ahead, and to provide a cliffhanger lead in for the first 'chapter' of the period. Eh, I'm rambling, but some sense will come out of this! I have a good feeling that by May, we'll all have provided a stellar piece of work that can represent the essence of the AAR, while at the same time showing new audiences how validated this style of writing is as a genre.

  6. #46
    Shankbot de Bodemloze's Avatar From the Writers Study!
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    I have a good feeling that by May, we'll all have provided a stellar piece of work that can represent the essence of the AAR, while at the same time showing new audiences how validated this style of writing is as a genre.
    I certainly hope so!
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  7. #47
    SeniorBatavianHorse's Avatar Tribunus Vacans
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Quote Originally Posted by Shankbot12 View Post
    Argh! These companies and their different format, what ever happened to good old 'one size fits all'

    Oh and the 'hyperlink' back to the original sounds like a good idea It'll bring more people to the forum as well, and to those AARs that aren't in the Antholgy Hopefully

    EDIT: Having a look around about formatting I came across a few sites etc: (sorry if they're no use)



    The last 3 links are all off site MobileRead from its forum section. The above 3 are the ones I found after a quick skim through/google search - but I'm sure it has more to offer. To find the relevant information just scroll down a few posts (sometimes just 1). The site looks rather helpful, with an 'Ebook Software' section etc. From what I've gathered, Sigil* seems to be one of the popular software types. As quoted from the MobileRead website:

    *Note leads to the forum section of MobileRaed on Sigil, for the (what seems to be) actually site see here
    Anything in 'blue' or 'underlined' is a link


    There's a lot of reading there I know, and probably most of it is useless, but the 4 links at the top are the ones I've found most useful

    Hope they help And sorry if I've got it all wrong, just tell me
    Very useful! I will have a browse over the weekend. Thanks!

  8. #48
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Your welcome, it's a pleasure to help*
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    *The finished version better be worth it

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  9. #49
    SeniorBatavianHorse's Avatar Tribunus Vacans
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    OK first post updated with Authors and preliminary AARs - also I have included a submission status which will be updated throughout April. Schrodinger wins the prize for first submitted submission!

  10. #50
    Juvenal's Avatar love your noggin
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    I don't actually have Word, I use OpenOffice. Although it does export successfully to Word format there are problems, particularly with styles.

    Could we have a standard Word template for AAR submissions? I think this would make the editor's job easier as well (just a .doc that is, not a .dot).

    You could set it up to match the look-and-feel you want for the issue. For example the default (normal?) style could already have the 9pt padding at end-of-paragraph that the Smashwords style guide suggests.

    It would also be good to have some heading styles I could use. I found that heading styles from my original OpenOffice document didn't export well.
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  11. #51
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    I keep the style fairly simple - calibre font in a 10 or 11 for main paragraph content, with 18 being the largest font used for Main Headings, etc. I have your open office submission and have converted it OK into Word. I would rather people sent in as is but edited for content and narrative flow rather than making changes on format. I can do it all easily here. Once it is finshed, I will upload to an online file storage site so that everyone can download and approve the final submission!

    OK - that's April upon us! Time to think about working up the entries and sending them to me. Juvenal and Schrodinger have started the ball rolling but remember there is no rush. Take your time and once you are happy with the result, email it over!

  12. #52
    Juvenal's Avatar love your noggin
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Quote Originally Posted by SeniorBatavianHorse View Post
    I keep the style fairly simple - calibre font in a 10 or 11 for main paragraph content, with 18 being the largest font used for Main Headings, etc. I have your open office submission and have converted it OK into Word...
    My submission was already exported to Word, but my headings got screwed up so I had to change them to normal then rebold them and reset the point size for them all individually.

    It would help a lot if you could actually post a Word doc with the styles you are using. I can then use that for future submissions without needing to use the unsatisfactory export facility again.
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  13. #53
    Boustrophedon's Avatar Grote Smurf
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Very interesting all of this! I'll be following how this adventure of the AAR scene turns out

  14. #54
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Juvenal - to be honest I usethe nuclear method mentioned in the Smashwords guide. By that, I mean I copy and paste the selection into notepad and then copy it again back into a clean Word doc page. It elimiates all the formatting. In the past, with the plays I uploaded I had real prblems with hidden text boxes. This method ensures that they don't 'haunt' the text. Once done I format as mentioned above! It is a pain with a large text but with this anthology is simple to use! I hope that helps!

  15. #55

    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    I hope I'm not too late for this gig.

    One quick question. How do you plan to deal with AARs that are quite different in length? (Forgive me if that has been discussed, I read the thread but may have missed it.) Given that this is a multiple volume work, how do you want to space out long AARs?

  16. #56
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Quote Originally Posted by Radzeer View Post
    I hope I'm not too late for this gig.

    One quick question. How do you plan to deal with AARs that are quite different in length? (Forgive me if that has been discussed, I read the thread but may have missed it.) Given that this is a multiple volume work, how do you want to space out long AARs?
    Good question, Radzeer! Think of the Anthology as a comic book where some stories end before others. When they do, we simply bring in another AAR (with some teasers!) to replace the one that has finished - or more to the point, one that has reached up to where it is here on TWC. That way we can continually 'refresh' the Anthology and also lead readers back to this site.

  17. #57
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    First Post Updated

    Ok - a quick update here. I now have half the submissions in which is great news. We still have the remainder of this month for the remaining submissions so please use that time to edit and prepare the texts. The sooner you can get them to me, the sooner I can assemble them into a worthy anthology!

  18. #58
    Shankbot de Bodemloze's Avatar From the Writers Study!
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    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Almost there...
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  19. #59

    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    Almost done with mine. I need to finish a 15 pg paper due for tomorrow, so once I get that out of the way I'll send over my part in the following days.

  20. #60

    Default Re: AAR Anthology

    I'm done with mine. I just need to write the intro and tidy up the formatting a bit. Will send over in a couple days.
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    Takeda - a Shogun 2 AAR (Completed) Reviewed by Radzeer

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