The Big Book of Guidelines

for

Brew Trek:
Deep Space Gunk

The Generally-Agreed-Upon Rules

1. This story is to be written in the third person.

2. It can be in the present, the future, or the past - all three if you think you can get away with it with some semblance of science involved.

3. The story can be funny, weird, outrageous, incredible, but not superstitious fantasy. (Remember, we have decided to do a science-fiction farce, not a science-fantasy farce.)

4. Intuition is okay, but no mind reading. (It's a cop-out. It's not supposed to be that easy to interrelate with one another on the physical plane. So let's use the more complicated cellular telephones, faxes, intergalactic e-mail, smoke signals, Indian sign language, pigeons, even rubbing noses together, for communication, and while we're at it, real live talking between people. We want people and beings misunderstanding each other, just like we do on e-mail.)

5. No direct reference to any of the Brewmeisters in this story, although personal experiences and real places are permitted

6. No talking dogs, cats, barnyard or ET animals.

7. Each writer may create one or more specific characters, which the others must keep in context and character, once defined.

8. Chief characters can be villains, heroes, everyday type people, troubled, indulgent, etc. They can be terrestrials or ET's. They can be the cause for bringing everybody together, or people dragged into a situation. But no Arnold Schwarzeneggers; only Arnold Schwartzs. The same with female characters and BEM's [Bug-Eyed-Monsters and ET's]. (In other words, let's keep the supermachos and the superhembras out of this.)

9. No resuscitating the dead miraculously. (Once a character is really, truly croaked, s/he/it stays croaked.)

10. If a main character is to get snuffed, then it is either done by its creator, or with the approval of its creator.

11. Writers will begin with his/her own independent story, but their plots must eventually merge with the main story by no later than the third round. (In other words, each independent episode must aim toward a natural convergence with the other episodes. This requires us to be attentive and not let our episodes get hopelessly lost. It is not necessary that everybody converges at precisely the same time or at precisely the same place, but there must be eventually interaction with all the main characters.)

12. Once characters converge, then they are pretty much the property of the entire group [see the exception in point 10, above] (i.e., they can be moved around by whoever's turn it currently is; otherwise, some might end up in a state of suspended animation while their respective creators await their turn to get them moving again).

13. (This one is no longer a requirement.) Each writer will summarize and submit for consultation and majority decision a converge point, i.e., a basic plot towards which we will all be working, which will include the following details:
    1. Place
       
    2. Time: past, present, future
       
    3. Circumstances or situation: what principal factor(s) will cause all our actors to converge at this point?
       
    4. Why?
       

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