The 'Scarecrow' Saga, Discussion

[|Scarecrow|]

Welcome to my stories overview thread! To anyone interested, please feel free to chat here; ask me questions and let me know what you think. And if you ever took part in any of my past stories and RPs, speak up! I’m not entirely sure who’s still around…

This thread is for any general discussion around the stories of Scarecrow, the Freedom Fighters, Robert Merlow, Sayne Jadyn, and the many other protagonists from way back when... I have plans to write some new bits, but largely it’s all reflective on old material, and links directly to my ‘Saga Overviews’ thread under the stories tab; an overview of past stories, and any other stories that involve my old character ‘Scarecrow’. At the time of writing this, I am imminently about to complete ‘The Scarman Enigma’ (finally, after lots of life getting in the way). That story was originally completed years ago, but the ending was lost in the transference from the Shattered Worlds forums to Discovery, so I felt compelled to rewrite it. I hope you enjoyed it! I’d love to hear your impressions!

I plan to steadily post a list of overviews / blurbs on the ‘saga’ thread on the stories board, that make up a fairly epic string of tales, all of which were told back in the hayday of Freelancer modding and RP. All these stories existed in long form prose at some point during the height of the modding communities; that is to say from approximately 2003 to 2008. I was a key writer in almost all of them. Some were the familiar cooperative play-by-post style of roleplay, whilst others I wrote in full as prose form. Sadly, I no longer have copies of most of them, but I do have this old overview document that linked all the stories together and placed them into a chronological order. Those that do exist are up on this forum (I’ll link to them when their entry comes around). I absolutely do not have the time to rewrite them all, so this series of synopsis will have to do. I’m treating this as an archive, of sorts, for all the work I did back then.

I’ve decided to call the series, ‘The Scarecrow Saga’, as all the stories here were predominantly orchestrated by me, and largely followed my main character Marcus “Scarecrow” Scarman. No disrespect to any of my old buddies, but when trying to think of a name, it seemed the most obvious and fitting (and these stories in particular are strung together by my own writing and experience). As I’ve mentioned, many other Freelancer players were involved along the way, and you’ll see I have credited them where I can remember their contributions. I do not know many of their real names, but I have recalled their Freelancer handles and IDs to the best of my memory.

By today’s standards, most of the stories listed here were awful. Well… I like to think they were compelling, but they were badly written, at least from my side of things. Those written by me from back in the day contained a terrible amount of intellectual property plagiarism and poor imitations of authors I had read at the time. Authors like Ben Bova, Dan Abnett, and Neil Ascher… some of whom I’d rather forget. Marcus Scarman was once a villain in a classic 1970s episode of Doctor Who! Look him up, it’s hilarious! I’ve no idea why I settled on thieving that name, of any of the ones I’d read or seen. Nothing like the Liberty action hero I’d dreamed of playing…

But despite this, I hold these stories very dear. I imitated those writers and stole their characters and styles because I was captivated by them. That captivation led me to write… and write… and write. I wrote terrible prose for years, to a reasonable amount of support and respect from my online peers, it must be said. I was in college at the time, and this brought some things into focus for me. It made me realise that I was creative – I started to excel in things like creative writing, graphic design, and filmmaking – For a kid who was average at almost everything else, this was a big deal. And it also made me realise that I wanted to do something creative for a living. Because of my amateur fanfic Freelancer stories, I decided to do a degree in filmmaking, with a specialism in screenwriting. I then did a masters’ degree in documentary, and now I’m a documentary filmmaker of almost thirteen years, working in places around the world I never thought I’d go, and telling stories about incredible things I’d never heard of as a teenager. I suppose I'm trying to say that this stuff can be important. IS important. If you want to do something with it, then chase it! Set goals, and always strive to better your practice. I still have ambitions to be a writer of (actual) pulp science fiction, and I have a graphic novel project in the works.

I feel I should also strongly indicate that I no longer plagiarise Dan Abnett. These days, my writings are fully my own.

So, thanks, mid-noughties Freelancer communities! I owe you all a lot! Here’s to pulp science fiction!

I hope you enjoy,

Best,

Chris
|Scarecrow|

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| S C A R E C R O W |

"See you space cowboy..."