"The universe loves a drama, you know,
and ladies and gentlemen - this is the show."


The Scene
She was a writer.
Not just any writer, but a nationally acclaimed one – a best selling author in four genres, all of them fiction: fantasy, sci-fi, children’s fancy, and classic romance.

Writer, n.: one who writes for the sake of the Art, and does not profit from it beyond a simple pleasure and innocent pride from entertaining a few.
Author, n.: a writer who turns a physical profit from his or her work while reaching a global audience.

Once, not long ago, it was possible to be both.

Authoress, n.: ¹A writer of the female persuasion [archaic].
² One who dominates his or her field, pushing one’s ideals on others by dint of crude statements meant to shock, talk shows, and other forms of mindless brainwashing [with any amount of success – see Ann Coulter]. This is a term of derision for commercialized authors and not punishable by anything but scorn. The next level, however, should be punishable by law.
³One who, in the fashions of Dorian Grey [see Oscar Wilde] and Faust [see Goethe], bargains with the devil in order to bring his or her characters to life.


Imagine an alternate universe where writing is revered above all arts;
where math and science are mere formalities, and books are traded like baseball cards.
…baseball?
Imagine an America whose national pastime is roleplaying.

The Plot
[In a very big nutshell. Possibly a walnut.]
Now, imagine a woman who writes with the magic of J.K. Rowling, the class of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the wondrous terror of Stephen King – an author, honored by her teeming city of a thousand artists.

This is modern-day Soho, New York.

And then she gets cocky. The Authoress, as she’s coming to be known, becomes vain and arrogant: boasting during an interview, “I’d sell my soul if my characters could be any more lifelike than the way they were written.”
Not being one to pass up a good deal, the Devil complies. Her characters peel from the page in a horrifying incident now known as the Exodus.
The Authoress? She figures that while she's already damned for the afterlife she might as well make the best of her living one, and for the first time experiences the rush of power in literally controlling her characters. They attempt to wipe out any writers not working for them in the city. Their goal? To run it. As you can imagine, the people don't like this very much. All paid writers quit their jobs because of the threats and hate mail - any connection to the Authoress is shunned. No outside town hears of her tyranny, and the city is torn down the center between the idealists calling themselves Writers and those on the Authoress’s side.

"Voices leaking from a sad cafe;
smiling faces try to understand
I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand
on Bleeker Street..."

The Fictional Characters
The tamer ones faded into the background; stock characters and sidekicks taking normal jobs and marrying into the populace. Nearly every Antagonist gleefully joined their Authoress, with a few surprising exceptions. The Protaganists sought out the Writers' help, drawing them out of the whisps of steam and passive resistance and into streetlights. Now Writers all over Soho, New York are banding together. Strangely poetic graffiti laces city buildings in protest. Dim sidewalk cafes become the haunt of most of the city's artistic crowd - and in Soho, that's enough to populate a small town.

Powers
On the Writers' side, the characters have the power to create transient false realities and temporarily rewrite the natural laws of the universe (their favorite one to dismantle is Gravity); their writers publish underground pamphlets and go on subway graffiti sprees in the subway, trying to gain more recruits.
On the Authoress' side, they have the power to call up compatriots from literature [imagine Smaug, Beeblebrox, and yes - a mini Lord Voldemort]. Note: you cannot appear as a character from a book until the Authoress's characters realize that they can call them. But have patience - when they do, it'll be a hell of a lot of fun.

Now it's a revolution for the books as both sides vy to gain mastery over a dying art.

[Lyric quotes copyright Paul Simon.]