Calling all writers!

[Labster]

Writing for ManaChara

First off, you'll need an account on the Drunkard's Walk Forums, so you can comment and contribute here.

Originally, the rule was that every author is a self-insert (SI), managing an apartment complex of one to three fictional series' worth of characters.  This has been somewhat relaxed, as we have several "NPC" managers, as well as other more complicated arrangements, as you'll read in the stories.

Having live-in apartment managers still provides a good frame to your story, giving the audience a good newcomer character to latch onto, as well as giving excuses for your characters to interact.  The managers know that their residents are fictional, and usually know who those characters are, but they don't have to know in advance if you want to have fun with that.  In managing the building, Funtom Property Management provides the managers with enough salary and maintenance budget to ensure everyone is comfortable, as well as providing enough resources to keep tenants living above "poor college student" levels.  (The agreement may change over time, pray they do not change it further.)

As the multiverse gradually unravels, Lord Phantomhive is assisting the cause at the indulgence of the Daimakaicho, Mistress Hild. Given severity of the situation, Heaven and Hell are setting aside their differences to make sure we all get out of this in one piece - Hell is simply in charge of this part of the operation because professional graft tends to get things done much faster in our world. Therefore, we are not beholden to the Demonic cause, nor to the Heavenly one as we are actually working for both parties in mutual cooperation. The Goddess Relief Agency can handle the harder problems faced by our residents, but not all of the time -- which is where our characters come in to help.

The general idea is that you can write in our setting with your favorite characters, perhaps somewhere between two to four casts.  Enough to get interesting character interactions, but not so many that characters get forgotten.  Many of these casts are currently from anime, but certainly not all of them.  If a character is already in the setting, you probably won't get them at your apartment complex, but you can still write interactions with them, especially in collaborations.

Of course, you'll want to read all of the introductory stories to get an idea of the universe.  Outside of them, So You Just Arrived from a Parallel Universe is an in-universe take on the challenges displacees will face upon arriving in Refuge, which might give you an idea for some stories you'd like to tell.  It also goes over a lot of the terminology we use, and general rules of the setting.  It's written in-universe by Koyomi Mizuhara, who has a record of reading between the lines, so nothing in there she says is false (though the book cover was put together by the crew of Comic Party at the last minute, so it's a little less accurate).  Along with the wiki, this story serves as a universe bible.

Some rules can't be included in that, because it's from an in-universe perspective.  A few important points:

• No duplicate characters.  There's one Sailor Moon, and she's more or less the anime version.  This makes the manga Usagi and English dub Serena off-limits.
  
• Rated T for Teen. Sexual content shouldn't go beyond lime, gory content should be extremely limited.  Characters can have sex off-screen.  Consider very carefully before a character does something age-inappropriate, and if they did so in their canon, consider how normal people would react.
  
• Self-inserts are deconstructed.  Apartment managers should not be the most powerful people in the setting, even if they are put in situations that could give them additional powers.  It's perfectly fine to be a normal human, just like Phil Coulson in the MCU in his setting, or even an ordinary human anime fan.  Of course, you can choose a more interesting backstory as well.
  
• Characters are managed, not owned.  Residents of your apartment building are generally regarded as controlled by you, but other writers can use them for a small bit of a scene if they need to.  Anything larger should be preread by the main writer of that character, as their "talent agent."
  
• The tone is mostly upbeat and postmodern.  Upbeat by choice, as many characters are now in a safer situation than in the world they left behind, and have more potential allies.  Postmodern by necessity, as combining this many settings only has one way to go.  As always, stories may vary in tone as befits their subject matter and writer.
  
• Solo stories and collaborative pieces are both good. Expect to do some of both in a shared setting.
  

Like all rules of writing, these can be ignored if the situation calls for it; so long as you and the other writers know you're breaking the rule and you have a good story to go with it.

The general direction of the plot starts with the realistic needs of dimensional refugees and the culture shock encountered, and building new relationships with other displacees.  Over time, enemies will emerge, primarily from other canons.  Entire worlds and space empires will be folded into our universe.  The celestials will fix the damage, restarting halted universes, but our characters will remain in Refuge, possibly as copies sharing the same soul.  A climatic battle over the fate of the multiverse is in the far future.


Technical information:

• Voice: Third-person in the shared stories. Sidestories are encouraged but not required to be consistent with that.
  
• Point of View: Whichever character works best for the scene, or otherwise the good old omniscient narrator.
  
• Pace:  Use your best judgement.  We have a Calendar to track events.
  
• Tone: The story starts on a world very like ours in 2016 to start with, so tone depends on what could plausibly happen here, at least in the beginning.  There are heroes and villains, and we're not going for a villain final victory, so the overall tone is upbeat, but not to the extent that it excludes grief, loss, and ordinary suffering.  Writers have different strengths here, so choose your characters to match the tone you want to write about — PTSD!Ataru Moroboshi is not a great idea, but it would be fine to address those themes with Gally/Alita or Fate Testarossa, for example.  At the other end of the spectrum, cheerful slice-of-life is welcome as well.
  
• Continuity: The in-universe malleable continuity allows us to handwave some things, especially as they first enter the universe.  Outside of that, we try to keep a tight ship, using the wiki to organize the calendar and other setting facts.  It's like a public place to put your writing notes.
  
• Quality: We tend not to publish until getting feedback from a couple of prereaders.  Track them down until they read your stuff, already.  Quality over speed.
  
• Publishing: Occurs both on the forum and the wiki.  Ask other writers if you need help converting formats.
  

If you're ready for access to the wiki, either to write or preread, please request it over in the current wiki thread.

[robkelk]

We mentioned introductory stories but didn't say which stories those are. Here's a partial list:

My Apartment Manager Is Not an Isekai Character is the big introduction story, in that it introduces the setting and many (but nowhere near all) of the more important characters. One might note that there are no self-insert characters in the first third of the story; the "displacees" and celestials carry the storytelling load.

These three stories show the different approaches that the three most active writers take to writing stories here:

• Moving Days, Part I is Bob's take on the "introduce some displacees to their building manager" introductory plotinne.
  
• Strange Tides is Brent's take on the same plotline, and provides some additional insight into the beings that the building managers work for.
  
• Sailors on Foreign Shores, when read with the last scene of My Apartment Manager Is Not an Isekai Character, is Rob's take on the same plotline, with the twist that it's the second group of residents for that particular building appearing instead of the first.
  

Other introductory stories include One Night After Death, A Little Slice of Heaven on the Gulf, Home in the Maritimes, and Life Off Mars. There will be more.