Fibbing Interview, part I

As promised I am hereby starting our regular Monday behind-the-scenes feature. This week our main feature will be part one of an interview with the project's creator, Fibonacci. No, he isn't obsessed with numbers at all, why do you ask? Well then, without further ado I present to you, (Drumroll please), our faithful readers (you are out there, right?) THE INTERVIEW!

Black Wolff: Shall we begin? Please state your name (or writing alias) for the record.
Fibonacci: Fibonacci.
Black Wolff: Upon which planet do you reside?
Fibonacci: Sol Gamma.
Black Wolff: Okay, I promise, I'll be serious now (maybe). ;-) Where did you first come up with the idea for Heroes and Villains?
Fibonacci: It was inspired by two things.
Fibonacci: One was the "pass around the book" thread, and the other was Ridureyu's post with profiles for an entire superhero team he invented just for fun.

[The threads in question are from our private forum where this project was born and continues to be organized. Pass the book involved responding to previous posts with your own sentence or paragraph to continue the story in progress.]
Black Wolff: Did you imagine at the start that we would still be going now or that some episodes would be the length they are?
Fibonacci: I thought the project would have to get restarted at least once to modify the rules, but it turned out it was possible to modify them without breaking the flow.

[For the record one RPG that Fib started did die, one has almost died, but H&V (or SH&V) has been a rousing success]
Fibonacci: As to how long it would continue with or without restarting the plot, I wasn't sure whether or not author interest would hold.
Black Wolff: How do you think the rule changes have changed the story, all for the better?
Fibonacci: With the most recent ones, it's too soon to tell.
Fibonacci: The last overhaul of the rules was rather extensive.
Fibonacci: The intent of most of the previous changes have been to make the random episode assignments less random.
Black Wolff: Can you give a brief example of a change for those who have never seen the behind the scenes process of episode production?
Fibonacci: When the project first started, each new assignment began with a randomly picked character; each character had equal likelihood of getting picked each time.
Fibonacci: I thought that on average they would all get featured about the same; according to the "Law of Large Numbers" from statistics, the percentage of episodes featuring each ought to get closer and closer to being even as the number of episodes written approaches infinity.
Fibonacci: The trouble with this is that infinity is really big.
Black Wolff: Is this countable infinity or uncountable infinity we're talking about here?
Black Wolff: ;-)

Fibonacci: Countable. You'll notice the episodes are numbered.
Fibonacci: With integers.
Fibonacci: The thing is, on the way to infinity there will be some imbalances.
Fibonacci: Specifically in our case, Dennis Brown was getting featured a lot more than his fair share.
Fibonacci: The first plot generator change that I made gave each character a weighted likelihood of getting picked.
Fibonacci: When a character gets featured in an assignment, their weight drops to 0 (although it used to drop to 1). Every time they *don't* get picked for an assignment, this weight increases by 1.
Fibonacci: So, for instance, if Carry Hobson hasn't been assigned for 8 turns, her weight is now 8.
Fibonacci: If X is the sum of all the weights for all the characters, then her probability of getting picked next is 8/X.
Fibonacci: At least, that's how it used to work. After the most recent upgrade, it's a bit more complicated because of character groups. :)
Black Wolff: So being featured is a great weight loss program? Now, I know you're not a telepath (at least I hope), but how do you think the writing process is different for you than for the other authors? Or is it likely to be the same?
Fibonacci: Well, I imagine it's a bit different for everyone.
Fibonacci: But I don't think my being the moderator influences it much.
Fibonacci: The rules are mostly mechanical, such that they could be administered by a computer program.
Fibonacci: I try to avoid anything requiring a judgment call.
Fibonacci: I suppose it's easier for me to ask for a deadline extension.
Black Wolff: Aye. Now do you go through any set process when you write an episode?
Fibonacci: Well, first I look at the two available options and brainstorm for ideas.
Black Wolff: Any lightning involved in those storms?
Fibonacci: Only if the episode is about Darth Onion.
Fibonacci: *cue the band to give a musical sting to indicate a joke*
Black Wolff: *band plays requested number with gusto*
Fibonacci: Once I get a general idea for a plotline, I go ahead and roll up the next assignment so I can inform the next author (e.g., you) what the new options will be.
Fibonacci: Okay, so I guess the process is a *little* different for me.
Fibonacci: I also have to try hard to pretend I don't know what that new option is, if whatever I'm writing might influence it.
Fibonacci: Usually it's not an issue.
Black Wolff: How can it be an issue?
Fibonacci: Well, if I knew that what I wrote would influence the details affecting the new assignment, I might be tempted to alter what I write, knowing what you would likely do with it next.
Fibonacci: This is why I keep the sneak preview of the next assignment restricted to just me and whoever the next author is.
Fibonacci: The current author isn't supposed to know the future.
Black Wolff: Ah, so after you temporarily erase part of your memory, where do you go from there?
Fibonacci: Usually I think over the assignment for a day or two, getting my ideas organized.
Fibonacci: Then I just start typing. Often the plot will take unexpected turns when I think about how the different characters might react to situations.
Fibonacci: In the last few episodes I've done, it's been a bit different.
Fibonacci: Because things have gotten so complex.
Fibonacci: Lately, I'll have a grocery list of loose ends I want to tie up.
Black Wolff: Do you ever reread previous episodes before writing to refresh your memory? Or do you just access your freakishly computer-like memory banks?
Fibonacci: Oh, I refer to prior episodes all the time. You know that "character reference thread" that I haven't updated for about five turns?
Fibonacci: I made that because I needed it.
Black Wolff: Just for the record I've been updating my table of contents after each episode, :-).
Fibonacci: Incidentally, your indexing of characters was superior to mine.
Fibonacci: Oh.
Fibonacci: GMTA.
Black Wolff: :-D
Fibonacci: Feel free to transfer that to the thread in question.
Black Wolff: So what has been your favourite part of the entire project?
Black Wolff: (I shall do that when I get a chance, by the way)
Fibonacci: Seeing various authors with various idea of where the story should be going actually work together and produce something worth reading.
Fibonacci: Oh, I just realized that the writing process *is* different for me.
Fibonacci: Because part of my job as moderator is to keep things running smoothly so that the project continues.
Fibonacci: Sometimes that means sacrificing what I would like to do in an episode, and would do if I were just another author, and substituting that for what I think will be best for the overall plot structure.

You'll have to come back to this section next week to find out how Fib's mind really works--find out which characters are his favourite! You may be horrified, you may be thrilled, but you'd better be here, because you won't find this anywhere else.

And now, in a hint of future possibilities I offer you a paragraph of humour. Early on in this project's history Fib decided to translate some episodes into Engrish to see how they turned out. The process is simple, but quite humorous. Start by entering your text into Babelfish and translating them into another language, Japanese is a good choice since that country is the origin of the word Engrish. Then you take that translated text and translate it back into English. The results are fun and often hilarious. Here you can see the first paragraph of our opening episode. First in the original English, and secondly in Engrish. We may feature more of these Engrish episodes in the future, so consider this a sneak peak of things to come.

English:
It was a cool spring Monday morning in Mammoth City. The sun struggled to shine on the massive skyscrapers and the people rushing to work, but only managed to pierce the thick cloud of pollution in a feeble sort of way. Business executives drove to their office buildings, children rode yellow buses to school, police officers sat down to their morning coffee and doughnuts, while gang members made sure their illegal weapons were in order before beginning the day's illegal activities.

Engrish:
That was the morning when Monday of the spring of the enormous city is cool. It fought in order to shine with large multistoried building and people where it hurries the sun in order to work but but in order to bore the hole through the cloud whose pollution of method of feeble type is thick doing. The member of one group verified their illegal weapons, drove to the officer who sits down in the coffee of the yellow bus and their mornings when but enterprise staff the office building, rode in the child in the school before beginning the illegal activity of day in order, was a doughnut.

Please, leave us comments and questions. I would really like to know how y'all react to this feature, and what you enjoy--or what you would like to see that we haven't provided yet. Thanks for reading!

~Black Wolff