At the Cabin

duskford said:
And I crashed and burned again. Planning a story sounds easy, but when you have a lot of free time as I've been having lately, it doesn't take too long to find out if you'll be able to pull it off or not. I've been spending hours staring at my keyboard and screen trying to transform those plans into scenes, and while I had a dream to finish a story with those characters for a little more than two years now, the happiness of writing for this story just isn't here anymore as it was two years ago, so it's time to admit things aren't working as they are now and admit defeat. The current setup doesn't work anymore, I don't see the characters working as they're supposed to do anymore, and that prevents me from making the overall plot work well. I don't know if I'm trying too hard to weave in a good plot into what is supposed to be just a sex story and that's what is messing things up for me, well, I'm just not sure.

I'm going back to the working table and do a major rework on all the characters, the relationships between them and how they connect with each other. Some of them might be unchanged, some might suffer a few changes, some might even get cut completely. The one thing I know is that when I come back with whatever conclusion I reach, the focus will be entirely on the main character, as the quest game and a few tests with 1st person scenes on Azure Rocks Chronicles showed me, my writing flows way better when I focus on just one character. Nowadays, my writing just freezes when I have to shift the focus from Zack and write scenes with the other male characters, so I won't be making that mistake again.

At the Cabin and Tales of Silver Lake will always stay open as they are for old and new writers to contribute with the amazing threads they always did, and I'll be continuing with the quest version of At the Cabin as well, it received more of a response than I could ever hope for. However, Cabin at Silver Lake was deleted and Azure Rocks Chronicles will be cleaned to receive the new version, if or when I manage to make one.
Click to expand...


Hey there,

Sorry to hear that you have problems with writing, i really hope you get over them. I have a question, when you come back with writing for At the Cabin and/or Azure Rocks Chronicles, will the story focus on just one character or will you write about more characters, in the sense, that let's say you write about Zack, after you finish his story will you be done with the story or will you write another story/the same story from the perspective of other characters like Gavin, Chloe, Victoria and so on? Also if i might make a suggestion, maybe you could hold a poll about which character to write, something on the lines of [Quest] At the Cabin and let the readers decide which character to follow and maybe allow the readers to decide what that character does. After you write your story, of course.

Good luck and happy writing.
 
DarkFriday1408 said:
Hey there,

Sorry to hear that you have problems with writing, i really hope you get over them. I have a question, when you come back with writing for At the Cabin and/or Azure Rocks Chronicles, will the story focus on just one character or will you write about more characters, in the sense, that let's say you write about Zack, after you finish his story will you be done with the story or will you write another story/the same story from the perspective of other characters like Gavin, Chloe, Victoria and so on? Also if i might make a suggestion, maybe you could hold a poll about which character to write, something on the lines of [Quest] At the Cabin and let the readers decide which character to follow and maybe allow the readers to decide what that character does. After you write your story, of course.

Good luck and happy writing.
Click to expand...

Hey, DarkFriday. Frankly, I don't have an answer to that yet, sadly. What I know is that Zack will be the main character as always, and the story will be told from his perspective in 1st person. Other than him, the only characters guaranteed to remain are Heather, Chloe and Taylor. As for the rest, it's too early to say how they're gonna leave the cutting room, if they'll ever leave it.
 
My main intention is either cut or rework redundant stuff and eliminate plots and traits that aren't working. This certainly isn't definite, but the line I'm working around is something like this: Zack is largely unchanged from his Azure Rocks Chronicles version, I just don't know if he'll still be a basketball player or a soccer player; Chloe is unchanged, but she won't have the body issues anymore, just the shyness that hides a horny side; Heather will be unchanged, perhaps a bit more daring; Taylor, unchanged. Kurt will be cut, Brandon was already doing his jerk job anyways, if he appears, he'll be more like a reformed version would be, and he'll probably be older. I'm not sure what to do with Gavin, thinking about having him be a computer genius that the gang end up befriending later, or something like that. Now, I really, really, really don't want to cut Ashley, but I'm starting to see the merits of fusing her character with Victoria's, thinking it'd be interesting to have a straight-laced journalist-to-be who has to carry the burden of having an older sister who was very sexual during her high school time (Hannah) and everyone expecting her to be the same way. Fusion or no fusion, Victoria will be more confident and imposing, it already was my intention to write her that way on At the Cabin, but with the emergence of Heather, she ended up falling into the role of shy virgin.

Not saying it will be exactly like that, it probably won't, but this is how my rebuilding process has started.
 
Its great to hear that. I hope you get your ideas straight fast and that you start to develop the story. A fusion between Ashley and Victoria sounds great, as well as Chloe not having any body issues and just being shy and horny :)) Personally i really hope that you introduce Gavin, maybe a bit more confident and that his character and story will be as developed as the others and that he will end up with a girl.

Good luck and happy writing.
 
A story that needs its main character, Zack, as a driving force to move forward sounds like the best bet. One plot I'm considering is somewhat of a dark story, recycling the underground sex club plot from Azure Rocks Chronicles. Lisa, or a random girl who was Zack's girlfriend at the time, falls as a victim of the club at the end of junior year, then Zack spends the whole summer brooding away from town, maybe with his grandparents or an uncle/aunt. The start of senior year he comes back and tries to find out whatever he can about the club to ultimately bring them down. In the meantime, other characters end up joining him, such as Victoria, who was already tracking them down for the newspaper, and maybe Gavin, who can provide assistence with computers. Not sure if I'd include supernatural/mystical elements, but it's an idea.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's the possibility of keeping it in a 3rd person perspective, but turning the story into a string of one-shots, only connected by continuity and time, like a compilation of sex chronicles of Azure Rocks, mere slices of the characters' lives.
 
Last edited:
Well duskford, its sad to hear that you have problems with writing, i hope you get over them as quick as possible. The new ideas sound good and i can't wait to see them in a story. I would prefer that the story remain coherent with a main character so i don't like the idea of a string of one shots. Its great that you want to keep Zack as the main character and that Heather, Chloe and Taylor are going to make the cut. Personally i would prefer that the story remain in a 3rd perspective or that if you are going to use the first person perspective it would be better - i think - if the perpective changed between characters when it makes sense to show the story from their perspective as well, but that might mean that you will end up with a story like the previous ones. If you want to avoid getting bogged down by the story, maybe you could write it the way that Bosom Buddies is written, first you write the story that you want to write and then you or other authors can write in the same story, but from the perspective of other characters and show the readers the story from another point of view. Like DarkFriday1408, i also hope that Gavin will make a comeback, i think that he has the potential to be a great character, he just needs a little rework, and that maybe he will be more social and a bit more confident and that he will end up with a girl (Heather or Taylor). The idea to fuse the characters of Victoria and Ashley is also great. The plot that you have proposed might be a bit to complicated for this story and characters, but if you go forward with it, i think that it would be a mistake to include supernatural/mystical elements.
 
Arminius said:
Well duskford, its sad to hear that you have problems with writing, i hope you get over them as quick as possible. The new ideas sound good and i can't wait to see them in a story. I would prefer that the story remain coherent with a main character so i don't like the idea of a string of one shots. Its great that you want to keep Zack as the main character and that Heather, Chloe and Taylor are going to make the cut. Personally i would prefer that the story remain in a 3rd perspective or that if you are going to use the first person perspective it would be better - i think - if the perpective changed between characters when it makes sense to show the story from their perspective as well, but that might mean that you will end up with a story like the previous ones. If you want to avoid getting bogged down by the story, maybe you could write it the way that Bosom Buddies is written, first you write the story that you want to write and then you or other authors can write in the same story, but from the perspective of other characters and show the readers the story from another point of view. Like DarkFriday1408, i also hope that Gavin will make a comeback, i think that he has the potential to be a great character, he just needs a little rework, and that maybe he will be more social and a bit more confident and that he will end up with a girl (Heather or Taylor). The idea to fuse the characters of Victoria and Ashley is also great. The plot that you have proposed might be a bit to complicated for this story and characters, but if you go forward with it, i think that it would be a mistake to include supernatural/mystical elements.
Click to expand...

About the perspective, I have two options, 1st person or restricted 3rd person, where a character keeps the PoV for an entire scene or chapter and then it changes to another character in the next scene/chapter, but this second option clashes with one of my main problems, which is the writer's block when the scene shifts away from Zack. About the plot, I'm trying to simplify it a bit, I don't want to make it too much complicated just for a sex story, since the relationships between the characters will be its main attractions.

Now the characters. It may not seem like it, but "readers only" don't realize just how difficult it is to write for Gavin. He's a character who spends a good chunk of the story talking to himself and interacting with just Zack, Chloe, sometimes Vicky, and Brandon when he's a good guy. In a 3rd person story, where you have to spend time writing scenes for him to show what he's doing, it's a daunting task. In a 1st person kind of story, where he's just there, as a supporting character, it's easier. Now, other authors, like boomer97, made a story work with Gavin, giving him more confidence from the get go, but there's two problems with it; one, it deviates a bit from my original view of him, and two, it turns him into another Zack, basically, and one of the things I want to do in the rebuild is to eliminate redundancies. One solution I'm thinking it can work is to shift the pieces a bit, Brandon becoming Zack's best male friend, since they're more different from each other and then they befriend Gavin later, when they need help with something computer-related.

Ashley is getting a bit more complicated. I tweak her a little to one side, she becomes too much like Victoria, I tweak her a bit to the other side, she gets like Heather. I still have to think a lot about what to do with her.
 
I see your point about Gavin and i can understand that its hard to write him and that you wish for him to be different from Zack and that you don't want his personality to deviate to much from the one you have i mind. But, my personal opinion is that it would be bad to make Brandon, Zack best male friend and Gavin somewhat of a loner that becomes friends with them later on to help them with computer related stuff; the friendship he has/had with Zack,Chloe and to some extent Taylor, was great and it would be strange to see all that gone. But, its your story so you decide what characters you write and how you write them, i just wish that Gavin would make a reappearance and that if he doesn't have the same personality then maybe he can be a bit more confident, without being like Zack.

Happy writing.
 
Arminius said:
I see your point about Gavin and i can understand that its hard to write him and that you wish for him to be different from Zack and that you don't want his personality to deviate to much from the one you have i mind. But, my personal opinion is that it would be bad to make Brandon, Zack best male friend and Gavin somewhat of a loner that becomes friends with them later on to help them with computer related stuff; the friendship he has/had with Zack,Chloe and to some extent Taylor, was great and it would be strange to see all that gone. But, its your story so you decide what characters you write and how you write them, i just wish that Gavin would make a reappearance and that if he doesn't have the same personality then maybe he can be a bit more confident, without being like Zack.

Happy writing.
Click to expand...

If I write in 1st person, as I've been meaning to, I won't have to change Gavin, since I'll be writing for Zack. However, if somehow I end up writing it in 3rd person, or even in restricted 3rd person, I may have to shift the pieces as I hinted, because I don't want to change his personality and turn him into another Zack or another Brandon. The confidence he gets as the story goes by, the problem is writing him before that.
 
Hey there,

I would like to just clarify some things and then i will stop with this whole Gavin, Zack thing, at least until you start posting again :) From what i gathered from your recent posts there is a big chance for Gavin to come back unchanged if you write from a 1st person perspective and that if you write from a 3rd person perspective or restricted 3rd person he might still come back just with a few changes. To bad that you encountered this problems because the thread on Azure Rocks Chronicles where Zack would end up with Vicky and Gavin with Ashley sounded really great.

Good luck and happy writing.
 
Last edited:
DarkFriday1408 said:
Hey there,

I would like to just clarify some things and then i will stop with this whole Gavin, Zack thing, at least until you start posting again :) From what i gathered from your recent posts there is a big change for Gavin to come back unchanged if you write from a 1st person perspective and that if you write from a 3rd person perspective or restricted 3rd person he might still come back just with a few changes.

Good luck and happy writing.
Click to expand...

What's in my mind right now, which is by no means set in stone just yet:

Story in 1st person - Unchanged Gavin
Story in 3rd person - Unchanged Gavin, but maybe in a different position than Zack's best male friend.

This happens because in a 1st person erotic story, the other male characters don't matter that much other than being supporting characters. In a 3rd person story, I might have to put him in a different place for him to have things to do and don't stay in Zack's shadow.

Like I said, there's a lot to think, reflect and plan before I do anything. It'll probably be at least a month before I come up with something solid. Until then, I'll be just planning and continuing with the quest game, aside from occasionally contributing with other stories or posting scenes written in 1st person for At the Cabin to practice my writing in that perspective.
 
Last edited:
Almost certain the new set up will be written in restricted 3rd person, both for me to be able to tell all the plots I want and for the story not to feel like an harem kind of story where Zack just goes through all the girls. I'm working with a plot where Zack and Brandon are best friends who play together on the basketball team, Zack being a reserve player and Brandon one of the stars of the team, and the story focuses on them. I was able to keep the other characters in this set up, although only Chloe, Heather, Taylor and Hannah wouldn't suffer any major change. Victoria, as I said before, would get more confident (we're already seeing some of this in the quest game), she hates jocks, and has a rivalry with Heather because she thinks the brunette stole her best friend to the cheerleading squad; Gavin, personality-wise, remains unchanged, but he'll only befriend the guys a bit later, when they need his help with something computer-related and then take him under their wing; as for Ashley, I'm still building her personality, but she'll find herself in the middle of the Victoria/Heather fight and find a good friend on Chloe, aside from feeling the pressure of people expecting her to be like Hannah; Madison will also be part of the cast somehow. Didn't have the time to think much about pairings yet, but Brandon/Victoria is looking like a strong possibility.
 
Does that mean that Brandon will no longer be in a relationship with Ashley or he will break up with her and pursue Victoria or you didn't really think that far ahead?

Everything sounds good so far. Just a suggestion, but if you will introduce Gavin from the beginning and not after several threads and if you want to tie him a bit to some characters and give him his own thing to do until he befriends the other's, maybe he can be an intern at the company owned by Heather's father. He and Heather aren't friends until he befriends everybody later on, but that would give him his own thing to do until later. And maybe he his friends or on good terms with Heather's father. Or if one of Zack's parents is a medical researcher he can be an intern with them. Just a thought.

Good luck and happy writing.
 
The premise sounds good, but it sucks that Gavin isn't going to be best friends with Zack anymore and that his role is replaced by Brandon :(( If this Brandon will be like the others, before he gets with Victoria he might try to have sex with Taylor and/or Chloe, besides Hannah and Heather. I know it's really early in the development process and that a lot of things can change, but i really hope that Gavin ends up with Taylor or Heather. Also curious to see if you will make Brandon pick on Gavin and if Zack will interven to stop that or to participate.
 
DarkFriday1408 said:
Does that mean that Brandon will no longer be in a relationship with Ashley or he will break up with her and pursue Victoria or you didn't really think that far ahead?

Everything sounds good so far. Just a suggestion, but if you will introduce Gavin from the beginning and not after several threads and if you want to tie him a bit to some characters and give him his own thing to do until he befriends the other's, maybe he can be an intern at the company owned by Heather's father. He and Heather aren't friends until he befriends everybody later on, but that would give him his own thing to do until later. And maybe he his friends or on good terms with Heather's father. Or if one of Zack's parents is a medical researcher he can be an intern with them. Just a thought.

Good luck and happy writing.
Click to expand...

Gavin will probably be the last of the classic characters to be introduced, aside from Taylor and Hannah I mean, but it won't be THAT later, lol. I'm thinking about introducing the others, having a few scenes to settle them in and then getting right away with the problem Gavin is going to help them with. No Brandon and Ashley relationship this time; I thought it could be good dynamic between him and Victoria, she hates jocks and he finds himself getting interested on her and having to fight for her to change her views of him. The classic story of the guy who has a different date every week, can get any girl he wants and ends up falling for one of the few girls who don't want anything to do with him.

Arminius said:
The premise sounds good, but it sucks that Gavin isn't going to be best friends with Zack anymore and that his role is replaced by Brandon :(( If this Brandon will be like the others, before he gets with Victoria he might try to have sex with Taylor and/or Chloe, besides Hannah and Heather. I know it's really early in the development process and that a lot of things can change, but i really hope that Gavin ends up with Taylor or Heather. Also curious to see if you will make Brandon pick on Gavin and if Zack will interven to stop that or to participate.
Click to expand...

No jerk Brandon this time as well. He and Zack will have a tight friendship, having befriended each other on the first year of high school during the basketball team tryouts. A pairing for Gavin, at the moment, would be Madison, since I have vague plans for all the other girls. Heather would be like a catalyst for making things happen, she would have sex with a lot of different characters; Victoria will most likely pair up with Brandon; and as for Chloe and Ashley, at this moment, both of them are getting involved with Zack.

One thing I should mention is that the gang won't be together at the start, more or less like in Azure Rocks Chronicles. Zack, Chloe, Ashley, Brandon and Madison form one group, although Ashley hangs out with Victoria too, being her best friend, and she and Madison hang out with Heather because of the squad. I'm thinking Heather gets brought into the fold after something like Zack winning a game in spectacular fashion as he did in ARC, and she gets intrigued by him, although she's friends with Brandon too. Gavin will have the computer incident. Just Vicky who I'm not sure at this moment.
 
Hmm... i see. I take it that Heather will be more on the lines of the girl that doesn't date in high school and waits to date in college or later in life, now she just wants to have fun. I just think that with the rework, Gavin becomes the usual school geek/nerd that is a loner for most of high school. Gavin and Madison sounds interesting, i just hope that is Madison more like her previous self - meaning straightforward and no bullshit attitude, which will be great for Gavin. Although i would still prefer if Gavin would end up with Taylor or Heather as his endgame girl (although with Heather it seems the most unlikely).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
For now it's Madison for him, but maybe something changes in my planning until I start writing, there's still a lot to plan. Both Heather and Taylor are pretty unlikely for him in this new set up; Heather, either will get involved with more than one character or she gets with Zack. Taylor even more unlikely, since Brandon is Zack's male best friend in this set up. I'm entertaining the thought of bringing that plot of "Zack's friend hooks up with Taylor" to Brandon, but in a different way than what has been done with Gavin so far, he wouldn't have a crush on her, they just jokingly flirt with each other whenever Taylor is in town and Brandon is visiting.

I'll keep on planning and finetuning this scenario, it'll probably take a while before I start writing it. Until then, I'll contribute to some stories I like and I'm planning to write a few one-shot sex scenes in At the Cabin.
 
I understand. Well, maybe in future if you do another story, Gavin will end up with Taylor or Heather, or maybe you could do a version of [Quest] At the Cabin with Gavin as the main character, which i think will make it easier for you to write for him, because it will give the responsibility of what Gavin does to the readers. Until then i'll stick with boomer97 thread, where it seems/i hope that Gavin ends up with Taylor and with [Quest] At the Cabin, maybe Brian can help Gavin get Taylor :)
 
Arminius said:
I understand. Well, maybe in future if you do another story, Gavin will end up with Taylor or Heather, or maybe you could do a version of [Quest] At the Cabin with Gavin as the main character, which i think will make it easier for you to write for him, because it will give the responsibility of what Gavin does to the readers. Until then i'll stick with boomer97 thread, where it seems/i hope that Gavin ends up with Taylor and with [Quest] At the Cabin, maybe Brian can help Gavin get Taylor :)
Click to expand...

We never know the future, but I expect both the new story and the current quest game to last for a while. In the Quest, there wouldn't be much of a point to try too hard for Brian to hook Gavin up with someone, because, since we follow the story in Brian's perspective, everything happening with other characters is offscreen, unless Brian is a voyeur. In the meantime, one of the one-shots I'm planning to write is a Gavin/Hannah one in boomer97's universe.
 
Now @duskford has me thinking about other bedroom groupings in the alternative start story (with Madison)

* Zack/Chloe/Gavin/Taylor (supported by Zack's musings in the car about Chloe's body shyness and Gavin's unsociability, with Taylor as Substitute Big Sister for them)
* Brandon/Ashley/Hannah (Ashley's big sister)/Victoria (Ashley's best friend)
* Heather/Kurt so she can keep an eye on him
* Madison (Not with Brandon or Kurt)/Lisa (Not with Zack or Kurt)

or

* Zack/Chloe/Gavin/Taylor (Taylor as Substitute Big Sister for Bashful Chloe and Unsociable Gavin)
* Brandon/Ashley (lovebirds!)
* Heather/Kurt so she can keep an eye on him/Hannah (who won't take any guff from Kurt)
* Madison (Not with Brandon or Kurt)/Lisa (Not with Zack or Kurt) / Victoria

@duskford suggested moving Lisa as an alternative to my original chapters:

* Master bedroom: Brandon, Ashley with Ashley's BFF Victoria and Brandon's sister Madison.
* Lake bedroom: Heather, Taylor, and Hannah.
* Small bedroom 1: Gavin, Zack, and Chloe plus Lisa
* Small bedroom 2: Kurt (Nobody's friend, and he has a reputation.) minus Lisa
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top