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RobinRone — How to OCT 2 - Pitfalls
Published: 2011-03-15 21:38:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 4753; Favourites: 80; Downloads: 32
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Description
Originally for the OCTs created by *RobinRone . You can find more of her work here , or learn more about our OCTs at:A follow-up to How To OCT .
While accepts teams of ANY size, it is strongly recommended that creators do not start with more than two characters!
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Comments: 104
It was a joy to run! We got to see a lot of amazing stories and storytellers evolve.
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You run them?
I'd love to run an OCT I've been having some great ideas lately.
Anyway when you start the next one send me an invite to come compete in it.
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If you follow , that will give you news on anything we decide to do in the future. Right now we're on a hiatus from OCTs, after running three of them. Other projects, and RL needs/interference.
Running an OCT can be a fun and rewarding experience! I learned so much as a judge, because it forced me to recognize systematic problems in stories and articulate ways to address common issues. I have become a much better storyteller as a result. Plus, seeing creators grow is an amazing experience! If you decide to run one, I'd be happy to share my experiences with you if you have any questions on how to get started.
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Thank you.
So far I only haven't run one because I couldn't decide how to reward the winner.
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That can be tricky! Sometimes people are willing to volunteer prizes. For example, on TBOS the only prizes I offered was a cash prize and a commission for the winner. Everything else, the community volunteered to provide. You can see the full list here: tbos-oct.deviantart.com/blog/3… It was pretty amazing what people were willing to chip in!
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See I don't have pockets deep enough to offer a cash prize and whenever I've offered commissions so far I get no interest for a month and then something weird that I cant figure out how to draw. As for volunteered prizes, I've seen that, one OCT I participated in included a plush as a prize but don't you need Friends to get volunteered prizes?
You can hardly have a contest with no prize though so maybe I'm just not good enough to host an OCT yet.
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None of the folks that volunteered prizes were personal friends. Just participants that wanted to contribute. There are lots of different things that a person can do as a prize, and not every OCT needs one. If the idea is appealing, that will often do the rest. Don't give up on yourself so easily! If it's something you really want to do, do it! Let the rest sort itself out.
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Thank you for the words of encoragement
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Any time. You can do it!! *waves pom poms!*
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lol. You're the one who deserves the cheerleader squad.
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"FEAR MEH" lol
I forsee many a Great Prince Waffledorp cameos in the up coming entries and rounds.
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Ah, the beauty of killing opponents to avoid plot holes.
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Wise words. Wise, wise words. This stuff applies to story-telling of all varieties though. Keep your cast at a manageable limit until your work reaches a certain scope. The larger the work, the easier it is to chop up the cast into separate chapters and plots.
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It's true. Most stories with large casts end up thousands of pages long in the end. Just look at the Wheel of Time.
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You should check out the malazan book of the fallen. Biggest. Cast. EVER.
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Just Wiki'd it. Holy cow, you were not kidding! I like how they have an entirely separate page for the cast!
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There's at least three pages at the start of every book for the cast, it's pretty funny. But he manages not to dilute it so much that you can't get attached to the important ones.
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That would be my chief concern with something that massive. If it's too spread out, I usually end up with a "yeah, but why should I care?" response. It's fine to have a big cast, but it doesn't work if there's no focus.
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I had this "pitfall" two times in the OCTs I entered, and well, yes, it does take away some characterization from my own characters because I felt compelled to give everyone who tagged along to some viable story role, even if it's a few small lines per character.
I was lucky the first time because my OC originally wasn't intended to have a lot of depth explored (I had full expectations that I'd lose within the first three rounds or so, to the point where my OC's main goal in the OCT was just to lose and die horribly in a tragic manner), but I ended up farther than I did, and I was running out of character development for my OC near the midway point of the OCT, so I had ended up turning the tag-alongs into supporting protagonists to further flesh my OC out and push him in directions I couldn't take when he was just on his own. XD
The second time...I had 3 characters I really wanted to flesh out throughout the OCT, which made my entries increasingly longer the more tag-alongs I had, and I got docked some points for being too wordy and long.
But yeah, great guide here and I hope there'll be future installments.
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I'm thinking of doing one for Spectator Entries, but we'll see what I have time for.
The OCs of other characters can be amazing for bringing out new things in one's own character. I know the OCT I competed in completely changed the entire life of my character by meeting the OC of an opponent. I never would have thought such a thing could occur, but I'm so glad it did! Frost would have been such an AngstMuffin without Rhiannon in his life.
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I woul really appreciate the spectator one. You do a great job of explainig oct's in general an i never really understood the concept.
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That's a good idea. If I have some time in the future I will put something together for SEs!
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So, you COULD chose to write the other characters out somehow, right? They decided to go off on their own adventure in the opposite direction and were never heard from again, or they fell down an elevator shaft and died, or whatever we want, right?
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Of course! Such as the example with the Siren Sisters. They "wrote out" both of their former opponents. That's all part of character management.
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Well, as far as falling down an elevator shaft and dying goes, you'd have to get permission from the character's original owner, as stated in the rules. Though if you got that permission then, indeed you could! 
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Thanks! I'd never even HEARD of an OCT before last night, so I'm trying to figure all this out before I decide if I want to try out for it.
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Wise!
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Yeah having done TWO people last time I've decided to go solo this time around
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Whatever works best for you is most important!
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Madness?
Regis sez: I do not understand. Why do these hypothetical beings not employ the simplest solution? If being with these people cause such a tanglement as to be an obstacle, then it is only logical to remove said obstacle at the source. I find a sword works nicely.
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Which is choice entirely up to you, but a viable method, all the same.
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Personally I'd probably try to play it like Project Minotaur, where a character (Drake) is offscreen but can still influence the story while leaving actual control up to his player.
There's also Grim's method, which was made easier by comic form, where everyone was in one place and had one shared goal. Easy to keep it concise, and allowed some dissent without making it completely confusing. Everyone except one wants to leave, one wants to keep everyone from leaving. Easy to follow.
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5. too many characters creates a magical, multicolored yarnball-shaped black hole
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Which then spaghetti-ifies everything it touches. And warps time.
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Good advice. Verrrrry good advice...
Heh. It's tough! There are so many cool OCs to play with in an OCT!
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Ish, well, I do things like this (have lots of characters) all the time *sigh* maybe it will actually work this time around XD
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I've seen people make it work really well. I've also seen it become a serious stumbling point. As always, with TBOS the biggest rule is "whatever you do, do it well."
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And I'll try to do just that 
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Oh bugger. (@)_(@) I've been yelled at about keeping my own plotline straight. Tagalongs might kill me.
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To tag-along or not is always a creators choice. We're just trying to give a bit of caution to people who want to START with a team of five or six.
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And THAT is why I'll wait till next OCT to enter. I was thinking the same thing when I saw the first example (how stick-man and PW met each other). And now, I'm revising my OC thoroughly T_T
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Aw, are we losing you??
It often isn't as difficult as this example makes it out to be. We're just trying to advise a little caution, because we've been getting a lot of questions about having 4+ characters for the audition.
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Oh, you're not losing me! I'll be there, this time as a reader. Next time you all get to know my widdle Dai-chan~ x3
Besides, mom simply thought my Dai-chan archives to be one more yaoi fanfiction/fanart stack or more pages of my fanzine about gay space pirates. Therefore, they died in the fire, and I have SO LITTLE of that in the wordpad doc I can't even redo him '-' And I even can't say FML after Japan '-'
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Ach, death by fire is a bad way to go. 
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Thanks T_T
It could be worse, though.
Once I was caught by the school counselor drawing some smut.
I studied in a luteran school.
Almost got suspended. xD
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