This may sound rather straightforward, but it has a host of pitfalls. You have to be careful to avoid references to time, and clearly you can’t have your character breaking a leg in one chapter, and playing tennis in the next. It gives you more freedom than last year’s exercise, but you will have to work closely with the members on your left and right to ensure that your character’s personality doesn’t change. There is no general village or town environment, but your specific character may require one.

Progress report: Alpha Day 10 (March 16):
Progress should be being made at this time. I'd like to feel that by Alpha Day 11, all the stories exist in outline, and should then be being honed for sending around by Alpha day 12 (April 27th).

If we make a profit on the book this year, we might even make enough to put all the contributions together this year, but it would be a much more modest issue, of course.

Alpha Day 6 (January 12):
Now that I’ve got everything more or less in place for the book describing last year, it’s time to begin to think more clearly about your chapter for the Circular Book. Be sure that you have a clear design for your character, and send this to the next person on your list who will use it. Already, some members have started on this, and found that character definitions, however well you think you have explained them, are not necessarily understood in the same way by the person who is reading them. So by the next Alpha Day, February 2nd, you should all be at the stage when you have a good idea of the two characters which will feature in your chapter.

Alpha Day 5 (December 1):
I have all the basic definitions now for the character of your story. I am putting them in an order below, and you are being asked to write a story (say, generally around 1,500 words) that features your character and the one before it on the list. (e.g. Ann will write about a situation which features Margaret's Female, 75, character as well as her own Male, 21, character). Sue-J will take Christine's character as well as her own. It can clearly feature other characters as well, but the one you take from the previous person must have a crucial role (it needn't strictly be a major one, though it probably will).

Characters for Group Story:

1. Sue-J - Female, 70
2. Clare - Female, 42
3. Olaf - Male, 38
4. Catherine - Female, 14
5. Margaret - Female, 75
6. Ann - Male, 21
7. Sally - Female, 35
8. Zena - Male, 39
9. David - Female, 16/17
10. Di - Male, 42
11. Margie - Female, 40
12. Laura - Male, 38
13. Geoff - Female, 86
14. John - Male 73
15. Christine - Female, 45

You are now at the stage when you must flesh out your character - physically and mentally, with name and occupation etc - and send that description to the next person on the list, i.e. the one who will be using it. In that way, everyone will have two characters on which to base his or her story. There is no general environment for everyone, so the setting of the action of the story must be acceptable to both members involved in each story. There plot, by nature of the concept of the book, must be relatively timeless, and the action in the plot will probably be over in a few days.

But when you have written an outline of your story, you should send it to the person whose character you've borrowed, and get him/her to O.K. it so far. You can then go on to write it in more detail, but you should check back two or three times to make sure there are no problems. There will also be the person next in the list who will be contacting you, as well. This is the plan, and I'd like to think that all the stories will be complete by April of next year, although I suggest that you don't really push your ideas until after Christmas..

When this is done, there will be a "Circular book", which one can pick up to begin at any story and read around to the one preceding it - hopefully in a natural progression. The book will have no specific beginning and end: different people will start in different places.

As in last year's group effort, there could be serious problems in timing of the actions, so think carefully if you flesh out your character with inbuilt time constraints.