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Alternate History General Discussion

Because aviation is my current obsession, any objections to the claim that the only ways to have a jumbo jet Big Three as opposed to the OTL Big Two would be either-

-McDonnell Douglass surviving.
-Some integrated Asian firm emerging.

I want to say "have them be better skilled/luckier, and you might get a solely British firm as the third entrant", but I'll admit I'm having a hard time seeing them not getting folded into a continental giant.
 
I find conversations about timelines interesting because my instinct is they're very much a dying breed.

The vignette contests undoubtedly warp things, but because they exist the main creative writing done on this forum is short stories rather than timelines. Like in the last three months there has been 20 vignettes written on SLP just for the contests and maybe 2 new timelines started on SLP in that time period.

And I think that is a symptom of the way the growth of small press publishing pushes more writers towards stories over timelines.
 
Are we counting the Heads o' State lists as not timelines?

I was surprised when doing the complete look at SLP books, how many of those get published.

You're right of course, that is the format of choice of a lot of what @David Flin called 'Expository History Book that just happens to be an Alternate History. ' My Liberia timeline was in that format where you have a name and a picture and then you explain what the country was like under that person's reign and it's still one you see relatively often.

I think there's less of that (as their own threads) than vignettes by some distance.

But you're probably right that if you count each post in the lists or tests thread as its own thing, it is comfortably the largest type of creative writing on here.

I just tend to view the posts on the lists threads as story ideas, shower thoughts in the way wikiboxes are. Where you throw out a glimpse of something that you might flesh out later, rather than its own thing. Probably that's snobbery on my part.
 
Congratulations @M_Kresal!

Of the names for the long-form, certainly an interesting collection - among them top Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield (I have seen his book in Waterstone's, so that might boost AH's profile if he wins) and Harry Turtledove's wife Laura Frankos.

It took me an embarassing amount of time to release that "trans." meant translated. Assumed the author/story was transgender.
 
I find conversations about timelines interesting because my instinct is they're very much a dying breed.

The vignette contests undoubtedly warp things, but because they exist the main creative writing done on this forum is short stories rather than timelines. Like in the last three months there has been 20 vignettes written on SLP just for the contests and maybe 2 new timelines started on SLP in that time period.

And I think that is a symptom of the way the growth of small press publishing pushes more writers towards stories over timelines.
On the other hand, at T'Other Place, timelines remain the predominant format, and the writers' forum is moribund in comparison. So it is to a lesser degree at the AH subforum on SV. And T'Other Place still represents the largest part of the online AH community.

At most, I think we're seeing a slow fragmentation of the online AH community, with the SLP component drifting more toward the expectations of narrative published AH, with the others still doing their own thing.

For myself, the main reason I do vignettes these days is because between work and family I no longer have the time to start another mega-timeline. The ideas are still there, but the time is lacking. Of course, any timeline I start now will probably have more narrative components than my previous efforts (though even those had their share), so there's probably a slow change in style there too.
 
On the other hand, at T'Other Place, timelines remain the predominant format, and the writers' forum is moribund in comparison. So it is to a lesser degree at the AH subforum on SV. And T'Other Place still represents the largest part of the online AH community.

At most, I think we're seeing a slow fragmentation of the online AH community, with the SLP component drifting more toward the expectations of narrative published AH, with the others still doing their own thing.

For myself, the main reason I do vignettes these days is because between work and family I no longer have the time to start another mega-timeline. The ideas are still there, but the time is lacking. Of course, any timeline I start now will probably have more narrative components than my previous efforts (though even those had their share), so there's probably a slow change in style there too.
I’ll forgive you for not making any new mega timelines provided you release the #CaliBCut of Decades of Darkness, but with more darkness and less German parents.
 
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