A Strange Proposal for Black Chicken Studios

[Rhialto]

I write these words after a very stressful past few months, during which my mother's cancer, which I have mentioned, was only one of the issues which I had to deal with. But during that time, my love for Academagia, although unmanifested in participation in this forum, remained strong.

I have, accordingly, what I know to be a very strange proposal for Black Chicken Studios. I would like to secure from them the permission to use certain characters and aspects of the setting in a novel, set in our real world (with the exception of the fact that Academagia is not a game in it) which I want to write. I would be fully prepared to pay a fee for this privilege, and I would naturally acknowledge in my novel's disclaimer the source from which I gained such material. I hope that I could complete writing the novel within approximately a year, after which I would submit it to Black Chicken Studios for their consideration. If they like it, then I would love to try to publish it through Amazon, where all manner of terrible things get published.

I would gladly discuss this matter in more detail through personal messages (and email if we get to that).

I am, I assure you, not wanting to write a novel in bad taste, nor one which would be presented as replacing the original game/setting/characters.

For what it is worth, Jack Vance the Science Fiction/Fantasy author did something similar, allowing Michael Shea to write a novel entitled "A Quest for Simbilis" about Cugel the Clever set within Vance's Dying Earth.

@Legate of Mineta, your kind response would be welcome, and your harsh response would, I fear, be deserved by me.

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

I think that the Team would be excited and delighted to see the fruits of your labor, and I think the proposal will be received with great interest! Let me raise this up.

[Schwarzbart]

Wish you good luck with your Light Novel Rhialto. 

[Rhialto]

54 minutes ago, Legate of Mineta said:

Rhi;

I think that the Team would be excited and delighted to see the fruits of your labor, and I think the proposal will be received with great interest! Let me raise this up.

Great. If you or they have any questions, then you can raise them here or through a PM to me - I would only feel comfortable divulging my name/email address in a PM.

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: Has the proposal been considered? If not, by when can I expect it to be?

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

I think you'll know before the end of the week.

[Rhialto]

On 1/10/2023 at 11:46 AM, Legate of Mineta said:

Rhi;

I think you'll know before the end of the week.

Do you expect, @Legate of Mineta, that I will have an answer by Sunday?

[Legate of Mineta]

I'm confident today.

[Rhialto]

1 hour ago, Legate of Mineta said:

I'm confident today.

Great. If I read nothing here by tomorrow morning, I hope that I can ask for an update.

[Schwarzbart]

Just saw that you want to publish this trough Amazon, so we have to wait till you finished a complete book before we can have a look at it.
Also I hope you still see it as hobby project and not something you end up earning reasonable money with, for the time you spend writing.
Like all creative projects writing depend a lot on your luck to be liked by an multiplicator and how promising the summary and title sound.
Writing about magic schools where done a lot, at last after the Harry Potter books became a hit.

[Rhialto]

So, I thought that you may find interesting the following update. I have completed over 22,000 words of the novel, and I thought that you all might find interesting the following description of Sima Venesico from it:

"Sima’s mysteriousness is subtle rather than the type of mysteriousness which many narratives discuss. By this, I mean that Sima is neither the type of mysterious person to skulk about in inconspicuous or concealing clothing, nor to constantly drop hints about her mysteriousness. Only when one gets to know Sima better than the average person would know her does one learn that she is mysterious and secretive – and her mysteriousness is only in not answering the many major questions which her behaviour and her claims and her possessions raise to other people rather than in openly claiming mysteriousness or projecting an aura of implicit mysteriousness through bizarre and obvious practises which any person might notice. For the average person, Sima is just a beautiful and rather witty – in every good sense of that word – girl."

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

I'll send that to the Team, thanks!

[Rhialto]

6 hours ago, Legate of Mineta said:

Rhi;

I'll send that to the Team, thanks!

I hope that you regard that description as appropriate.

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

I bet we do.

[Rhialto]

So, my novel is at over 42,000 words, and I thought that the following excerpt may serve as a useful description of Sima Venesico as she was intended to be understood in Academagia and how she will be presented in future games:

"Sima never does anything without in some way planning to gain from it. If she has to become dishonest or seductive or aggressive or anything which she can become in order to ensure that she gains from her actions, she will become such a thing – and the only care which she will take for other people who are not her friends is to avoid being harmed by them more than she is capable of handling.”

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

The response:

"We'll say that that's not how she would describe herself, but it's exactly how Tabin would describe her.  :)"

[Rhialto]

39 minutes ago, Legate of Mineta said:

Rhi;

The response:

"We'll say that that's not how she would describe herself, but it's exactly how Tabin would describe her.  :)"

And I am glad to report that although my writing style is idiosyncratic, it does not have Sima refer to herself in 3rd person singular.

[Legate of Mineta]

Hahaha!

[Schwarzbart]

4 hours ago, Rhialto said:

So, my novel is at over 42,000 words

Sound like Volume 1 is close to be finished? So the question now come up where can we read your writing? (40000 word + is considered a Novel, although a short one)

[Rhialto]

1 hour ago, Schwarzbart said:

Sound like Volume 1 is close to be finished? So the question now come up where can we read your writing? (40000 word + is considered a Novel, although a short one)

I am not sure. I have an outline of how it will go, and I expect that it will be much longer than that. Right now, I am less than a third of the way done it.

[Schwarzbart]

So you really hope for a book publisher contract? My personal reading habit where changed by web-novel to the page / chapter of daily releases. 

[Rhialto]

52 minutes ago, Schwarzbart said:

So you really hope for a book publisher contract? My personal reading habit where changed by web-novel to the page / chapter of daily releases. 

Oh no, just to self-publish. I am not skilled enough for more, I think - yet.

[Rhialto]

As an update, the novel is currently at around 53,000 words. I hope that I did not err in portraying Zoe Melis as a fundamentally ambitious but unmotivated person, who needs suggestion or inspiration or support from others before she will implement any ambitious plan.

[Metis]

For what it's worth I'm pretty sure that accurately describes Zoe's Y1 student adventure, at least as far as I recall it.

[Rhialto]

I hope that the following quotation about Sima from my novel in progress is interesting: "The only reason why I avoid referring to Sima as silk hiding steel is because steel suggests a level of violence and ruthlessness which as far as I am aware she lacks."