Storyjacker.net – Games to Help Authors Write More Easily Together

Storyjacker.net is an online story-writing game collection that is opening to the public. To celebrate its launch, Storyjacker is inviting established and aspiring authors to participate in a series of online showcase games on its Bamboo and Twisted games. These games will be a focal point for author collaboration, a fun and experimental way for writers from different locales and areas of fiction to write together. 

The stories produced in these unique collaborations are expected to be as entertaining to read as they have been to write and inspire others to collaborate using the free-to-play platform. Authors already confirmed for the launch include acclaimed novelists Ross Raisin and David Whitehouse. Dates for their games are still being confirmed, but their writing is sure to represent an exciting collaboration.

The Storyjacker project is the work of PhD candidate David Jackson. He first got hooked on games that could help people write better stories together through an interest in interactive fiction. Realising that the best way to have complete control over the narrative of a game was to be one of its authors, he switched his attention to story-writing games – and Storyjacker was born. Storyjacker’s games combine normal aspects of the writing process, such as high levels of creative freedom, with elements more common to games, like challenges, competition and randomly generated constraints.

Prior to public release, the games have been tested with over 70 writers and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Rather than finding the game elements obstructive to their story writing process, the vast majority of writers have said they find the games make the process of writing – especially in collaboration – more fun, engaging and challenging.

Writers interested in taking part in this project should contact david@storyjacker.net including their name, a short bio and any periods of availability between June and August 2014.

For more information about the project, go to www.storyjacker.net.