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The Round Robin Storybook

Welcome

Hello, and thank you for stopping by the Public Archives of the Round Robin Storybook Creative Writing Group.

We are an Internet-based creative writing society where every story created by our members has been written in "Round Robin" style via email. This web site is dedicated to the archiving and display of the finished chapters for the many stories that have been written by our members

If you love to read (and write) all kinds of fiction, come on in and relax, read a story or two, and maybe even consider squeezing some fresh creative juice by joining us!

For more information about the history of The Round Robin Storybook Creative Writing Group, just keep reading this "Forward".

But, whenever you're ready to read the story chapters that are archived here, or to learn more about the "Round Robin" style of writing and how our group implements it, go ahead and turn the page.

Turn Page Forward: click the fold in the upper right or lower right corner.
Turn Page Backward: click the fold in the upper left or lower left corner.
Go to Table of Contents: click the "TOC" link found on every page.

In the Beginning

The Round Robin Storybook Creative Writing Group was officially started in early 1993, when a group of four individuals, David Thornley, Donna "Daio" Maria Waltz, Dorene Thornley, and Jenni A. M. Merrifield, who all knew each other through an "Amateur Publication Alliance" (APA) called WAPA, realized that they all had access to email.

The idea behind APA's is that a number of individuals who share a common interest correspond with each other about that interest by submitting writing to regular issues. WAPA is a "Popular Culture" APA, concentrating on Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Comics. Because of its nature, WAPA members also encourage each other to share attempts at Fiction -- of both the "unique" and "fan fiction" types. At some point, someone in this group of four had casually suggested tring to collaborate on fiction via email by writing round robin stories. After some discussion of the idea we agreed that this would be an interesting little activity that would probably be a lot of fun and also let us stretch out our creative writing muscles more often. Shortly afterward, Jenni started the first storyline by sending Daio the first three and a half paragraphs of what was eventually to become known as the What Goes Around Comes Around. And thus our foray into cyber-writing began.

The Round Robin Grows

Shortly after that first story got started, "Daio" Waltz invented with the rules for the two stories that would eventually become known as Cat Claws and Catspaws and The Cat That Swallowed The Round Robin and invited the rest of us to try these out. At this time, two additional members joined our embrionic club: Kathy Marschall, also a member of WAPA; and Ruth Temple, a friend of Dorene Thornley's.

Originally, each of the stories had their own, separate set of rules. Then Dorene Thornley came up with the idea of a storygenre -- a set of rules which would act as an umbrella for several similar but basically unrelated storylines. Using this idea, she developed rules for what would eventually become the Fan Fiction Genre, which covers storylines based on existing books, movies and/or tv shows, and the Net Parallel Genre, which covers storylines written in unique science fiction universes. Dorene was also instrumental in getting the first storylines in these genres off the ground.

Since then, the RRS has continued to add new storylines and genres to its repertoire, such as the Worlds of Wonder Genre, for unique fantasy fiction universes, the Cats! Genre, that joined the two cat-related storylines Daio Waltz had started under one umbrella, and theOne Shot Genre for storylines that just don't seem to fit under another heading.

Expanding Onto the Web

The Round Robin Storybook Archive Web Site was started by Jenni Merrifield. She originally created it sometime around September of 1996 in order to let others read the chapters we'd written over the previous three years. In addition, not only would this let us share what we'd written, it also provided us a place to give other like minded individuals an opportunity to join our group. As a result, this web site has always welcomed interested parties to contact us if they were interested in beoming involved.

The first new member to join the club who was not associated with WAPA and was not an individual known to any of the current RRS members was Josh Brown. Other early "web recruits" included Bill Livingston, Al Goodnis and Alex Fayle. Since then, we've had many other people join our club in order to try their hand at our particular brand of creative writing.

TOC

Where We Are Today

The Round Robin Storybook has boasted a membership of up to 20 active participants at some times, although it has been averaging closer to 15 over the past few years. The gender split is roughly 50/50 and members have ranged in age from 14 to significantly older ;-). From the bare bones start of three stories in early 1994 to a total of thirteen stories at the beginning of 2000, the RRS continues to grow in all areas.

Wyatt Bessing, who joined the Storybook in 1996, is now its owner and moderator, having gradually taken over for Jenni in the years following 2000. He thanks Jenni and the founding members most heartily for the excellent foundation they set for the group's future growth.

We hope you enjoy your visit to this region of cyber-space. Please feel free to stay awhile and enjoy reading the fruits of our labours. You might even consider making a bookmark of the TOC -- the web site is updated on occasion whenever new chapters are finished off or new storylines are started.

Thanks for stopping by!
The Round Robineers