Volume 1.3 Released!

We at Inky Path are pleased to present Inky’s third volume, “Hidden in Shadows.” 

 

Featuring five interactive pieces of different sizes and shapes, this volume highlights works that hide below the surface. Whether about a secret society or a thousand past lives, these pieces will leave you wondering about the history behind them and all the potential futures to unfurl. 

We also bring you a parser-based interactive in which the worlds of these stories are brought to life. 

Have fun, explore, but always be wary–things are not always as they seem.

Click here to read Vol. 1.3. 

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3 Days!

Three more days until the release of our third volume. Prepare yourself for the strange, the subtle, and the sexy. Vol. 1.3 brings work unlike Inky has ever seen before.

2 Weeks ’til Vol 1.3!

Two weeks left until the release of Inky Path’s third volume. We’re bringing you stories of the untold, the truths behind deception, the shadows behind substance. Featuring five works of interactive fiction, we’re bringing work to the table like this lit mag has never seen before.

Vol. 1.3 — Coming August 31.

Vol. 1.3 now closed for submissions

We are no longer accepting submissions for Vol. 1.3–coming August 31!

For those hoping to submit, we are now accepting for Vol. 1.4, to be released at the end of November.

Happy writing!

Looking to submit? Now’s the time!

Have you been planning to submit for a while, or just getting the last touches together on your interactive piece? Now is the time to submit! We will be accepting submissions for Vol. 3 through the end of July.

So get your editing caps on, round up the beta-testers, and bring us your submissions.

Guest Post: Bad Fiction Writing — Important Three Things the Readers Hate

In this post, Harvey Hammond shares tips on keeping readers engaged immersed in a work.

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Bad fiction writing has been used among many writers. Fiction writing requires one to create an imaginary scenario and develop a personal voice through the story. In fiction writing, one is also supposed to create and project an image that seems real in the mind of the readers.

There is some fiction writing that can be put in either a good or bad category. A work is deemed bad if it fails to deliver as intended to the reader.

Some of the bad fiction writing characteristics that readers hate include:

Lack of or the inability of a writer to create an image in the mind of the reader

Any fiction writer is meant to use words and create an almost real image in the mind of the reader. This is meant to place the reader in to the real-time events of the story as it unfolds. In bad fiction writing, a reader is left with little or nothing at all of a mental image of the story.

A piece of bad fiction will not use enough descriptive words to help the reader imagine the scene as it happens in the fiction.

Lack of naturality

In fiction writing, a feeling of naturality helps the fiction reader relate to the story. Readers would hate a story where every character feels unnatural. A fiction writer should therefore give their characters natural feelings. Some stories involve supernatural characters. However, if all characters in a fiction story are supernatural, readers may deem that bad fiction and be unable to relate.

Repetition/inconsistency and overuse of words

This is also another bad fiction writing characteristic hated by readers. Repeating a scene and a lack of any new material throughout a piece will make the work feel plain and not exciting. Repetition also fails to paint a clear image in mind, as the reader keeps imagining the same image. A fiction writer should use a diverse range of words while painting an image. One should avoid overuse of the same descriptive words. Also, one should involve a diverse range of nouns to create an image without repetition. Repetition also brings boredom while one is reading a fiction.

This is also one of the bad fiction writing characteristics hated by fiction readers. A fiction writer is meant to use words and have consistency in the fiction story. A fiction should unfold from one scene to the next in a flowing way and in a chronological manner. The easy flow of fiction will in turn assist a fiction reader to be able to follow events happening in the story. Readers do hate bad fiction writing without this flow. This is because it scatters their mind and is not able to be comprehended by the reader. In case of a conversation in fiction, a reader would hate if there is no consistency in the way the conversation is being said. In some cases, the conversation may involve several people which leads to a lot of word exchange. In such a case, a fiction writer is meant to give such a conversation a feeling of direction.

 

Author-bio:

I am Harvey Hammond and I am available to write on any topic and subject with regards to my area of knowledge. And my talent on dissertation services and articles associated to the article writing has allowed me to carry out abundance of coursework academically and non-academically.

 

 

 

Call for Interviews, Young Writers’ Space, 8-Bit Art, and More!

Interested in participating in an interview? Inky Path is reaching out to those in the IF community on everything from their latest projects to heated debates. We would love to have your lovely voices grace this blog. If interested, contact inkypath[AT]gmail.com with the subject line “Interview: [Your Name]” and include a bit about yourself and what you’d like to interview about.

More of a monologist?  We are also accepting blog entries (including previously published material). More on that on our Submissions page.

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Are you a young writer? Poetryspace has a great opportunity for you–a Young Writers’ Space dedicated to those 18 and under. According to their submission guidelines, “We welcome stories, poems, jottings, drawings, graphics, cartoons, extracts from your novel. Anything at all!”

Interactive fiction combines games and literature… but what about games and other kinds of art? One artist takes on the challenge of fusing games and art in a series depicting well-known pieces as 8-bit paintings, as seen in this article.

It seems that predicting the future really is possible–for some notable sci-fi authors, that is. The Outlet, Electric Literature’s blog, offers this handy graphic showing where sci-fi authors got it right.

For April Fool’s Day, xkcd offered an interactive comic in which readers can make decisions and even add their own suggestions at the end. It offers xkcd’s classic mix of the funny and the fantastic.

 

Interview, Game Jams, and Elegies to Dead Worlds

Inky’s got publicity! As part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, Stuart Lloyd has been conducting gamebo0k and interactive fiction interviews for blog Lloyd of Gamebooks. 

You can find Inky’s interview here: Z is for XYZZY. 

In submission news, there’s just over one month left before the release of our second volume! That means that now is the time to submit, all  you scribes and storytellers.

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Combining games and literature? Who would’ve thought it could be done? Well Dejobaan apparently, because Elegy for a Dead World is described by this PC Gamer article as an “experimental game concept…tales of forgotten civilizations and extinct societies, all filtered though the textual influence of British Romantic poetry.”  Players explore the landscape to learn more about the ancient civilizations that once existed there. 

Speaking of games, the Public Domain Jam is right around the corner. The Jam invites developers to create games based off stories in the public domain. Games should be created between May 17-24 and submitted to the Jam’s webpage, with various criteria for rating.

Cowternships, ShuffleComp, Wordplay IF, and more!

Less than one month left to submit to Inky’s Volume 1.2! If you’re interested in seeing your work in the upcoming volume make sure to submit your work by May 15 at the latest. See the Submission Guidelines for more info. 

Interested in a Cowternship? What’s that? It’s an intern for Adventure Cow, of course! Adventure Cow is currently looking for candidates to fill the positions of Production Intern and Software Development Intern. According to Chris, the production internship will involve polishing up DestinyQuest as well as getting out some new Adventure Cow books. Software development includes both maintaining web applications and learning the business side of things: “Candidates who make interesting things, regardless of programming experience, are encouraged to apply.” 

ShuffleComp 2014 has also begun, but individuals are still welcome to join. The comp involves submitting songs, receiving a shuffled-up list in return, and making a game based off of one of those songs. The deadline for submitting your game is May 1. 

Like wordplay? We think you’d enjoy Emily Short’s Counterfeit Monkey, Simon Christiansen’s PataNoir, and Earl Grey by Rob Dubbin and Adam Parrish.

 

New Submission Guidelines, Upcoming Interviews, and More!

Now that Inky Path’s first volume is launched it’s time to roll out some big changes.

• Submission Guidelines — We’re cutting down our guidelines to let you submit your work in the simplest way possible. No more reading through a long list of requirements!
• Streamlined Editing — We’re improving our editing process to get decisions and comments to author in the quickest way we can.
• Regular Updates — We’re letting this space become a great location for IF news, musings, and other great content. If you have blog content you want to post/repost here, see the Submissions page for the details.
• Interviews! — We’re sending out a fresh round of interviews to writers and developers in the IF community. If you might be interested in participating in an interview, drop us a line.

Expect to see some new developments around here in upcoming weeks.

As always, we’re accepting interactive fiction pieces–both new and previously published. Visit the Submissions page for more info.