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Hey there!
Been lurking about for some time and I feel I'm ready to get serious about this, so might as well introduce myself 
Um, hi.
Now, a few somewhat stray lurker-type observations: Am I completely looney in kinda getting the impression, from the topics and discussions here, that most of them revolve around Twine more or less as a toy, not so much as a tool? I mean Twine as a playground to fiddle with JS/CSS capabilities, stretching the boundaries of the interface and such... instead of discussing, at least occasionally, techniques for actually telling stories with it? (Be they gamelike or not.) It's something I see relatively little of, not to mention that apart from being a technical showcase, this forum could in theory provide a common ground for some collaborative skill-development through actual (co-)writing of actual (co-)stuff. I'm not necessarily talking about starting up a whole project, but maybe practicing/learning how to write an engaging passage would be a cool thing to try out and talk about, for one simple example.
Twine is a pretty popular hypertext/CYOA tool and this here place could be a potential hotbed for developing some skill that would bring more people to the level of the really good Twiners - Porpentine, Jonas Kyratzes, Alan DeNiro, Anna Anthropy, etc.
Dunno, what do you think? You think it's worth a bit more of a concerted effort?
Um, hi.
Now, a few somewhat stray lurker-type observations: Am I completely looney in kinda getting the impression, from the topics and discussions here, that most of them revolve around Twine more or less as a toy, not so much as a tool? I mean Twine as a playground to fiddle with JS/CSS capabilities, stretching the boundaries of the interface and such... instead of discussing, at least occasionally, techniques for actually telling stories with it? (Be they gamelike or not.) It's something I see relatively little of, not to mention that apart from being a technical showcase, this forum could in theory provide a common ground for some collaborative skill-development through actual (co-)writing of actual (co-)stuff. I'm not necessarily talking about starting up a whole project, but maybe practicing/learning how to write an engaging passage would be a cool thing to try out and talk about, for one simple example.
Twine is a pretty popular hypertext/CYOA tool and this here place could be a potential hotbed for developing some skill that would bring more people to the level of the really good Twiners - Porpentine, Jonas Kyratzes, Alan DeNiro, Anna Anthropy, etc.
Dunno, what do you think? You think it's worth a bit more of a concerted effort?
Comments
The RPG Maker communitythe only place I've seen the toy vs. tool discussionconsiders RPG Maker a toy. If RPG Maker is a toy, Twine certainly is. However, your topic doesn't seem to be about the toy/tool argument that I have little interest in discussing. Toy or tool, Twine does the same thing and people use it for whatever they want, so it's just a label without consequence.
As for discussion about creating good stories/games with Twine, you're going to run into a lot of disagreement about what constitutes a "good story/game." There is almost no common ground at all among Twine users on the subject, or on any creative subject whatsoever. Notice I said, "among Twine users" and not "among the Twine community" because the Twine community seems to be about twenty regular posters here and a large number of lurkers or people passing through to just to ask a question about Twine's use. All the rest are just: "Look, I made a game," or, "Hey, read my story" on Twitter. I'm not expressing anything is wrong with that, that's just the fact.
Some people use Twine to create games. Some people use Twine to write stories. Heck, some people use Twine to make presentations and webpages. There's not even an agreement regarding Twine's place as interactive fictionwith very good reason.
So, when you say you'd like to promote "skill that would bring more people to the level of the really good Twiners," there is no consensus at all about who the good Twiners really are because tastes vary so greatly.
Now, I think, you understand my opinion of why there's not a lot of talk about the theory and principles of game design or about how to write a good story. We're all doing different things with Twine and few of us agree on what makes a good story or game anyway.
All that said, at your prompt, I've started a topic on what I think makes a good Twine game: http://twinery.org/forum/index.php/topic,1574.0.html
Hope to see you around!
Great topic. I think you did a good job describing the general bent of these forums. I think the (still young) forums tend this way partly because they're the official forums for Twine, linked from the homepage, and so like Sharpe mentioned people tend to come here with questions after trying Twine for the first time. And I think also it is a pretty small community of "regulars" and reflects the interests of those regulars. Or at least those interests we/they want to write about here.
I would love to see more topics about or involving writing. I don't necessarily want to participate in writing exercises, but I do like talking about stories, critiquing stories, maybe even...scary thought...posting stories. I like that Sharpe has started a couple writing challenges and I've participated in one myself. I think challenges, deadlines, contests, etc are good for eliciting stories.
Have you found any other online communities that might satisfy your desire for practice or collaboration? I'm not real up on other Twine communities although I get the sense they exist. There seems to be a strong Twine presence on Tumblr...
Isn't the best practice to write? And read. That's what I think anyways.
I've recently started reading over at intfiction.org/forum. They have a fair amount of contests there.
Anyways, glad to have you Trip and thanks for the post. Please keep posting here.
I would love to see more discussion about lots of non-technical topics, including writing, presentation, and the player/reader experience. Maybe we'll have to wait for other folks who have the same interests to find this forum, though.
Thanks again!