November Notions

[Dec]

Oct 27, 2016 16:00:30 GMT Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 said:

Have you tried Write or Die? >:-)

Write or Die is awesome, but it doesn't have the impetus that an actual, live person has. Even if it's just challenging me at random, there's something in my brain that'll go "This person needs me to respond!!!", and therefore prompt me to actually do it.

Oh, and please don't give me slack if I don't do it -- my brain will take it as a way out and start getting lazy. Maybe it'll take a few hours for me to see it, and that's fine, but if I haven't responded in a day you officially have permission to harass me.

That and also:

<---

Handy dandy calendar. My goal is to have completely green days all through the month. If they aren't green, you're allowed to get on my case then, too. Especially if there's a string of bright red, because that means I really haven't been writing.

Oct 27, 2016 20:02:55 GMT Danielle Wayland said:

I'll do word wars with you Dec. I love the heck out of 'em

Perfect!  Do you want to try and coordinate what times you're usually on, so that we can schedule them/do them live, or would you rather we just call each other out in our threads and then post the results whenever we finish the challenge in our own time?


Also, as for prompts, you might (might) be interested in this page right here, which has a prompt generator (AKA, the Dare Me button). It isn't quite what you asked for, as it asks you to do things like "write a character based on your favorite pet", and "add a conspiracy to your plot", but it is generally genre-neutral... if ridiculous. Might be worth flipping through if you're bored, at least.

But, seriously, prompts that are specific to a genre would be nice.  I think Kill Your Heroes is closest enough to Fantasy to not cause too much stress over it, though it has a more Urban Fantasy flair to it as time goes on.  I'll think of some areas that need poking at in the world and get back to you on it.

[Danielle Wayland]

Oct 27, 2016 22:40:51 GMT Dec said:

Perfect!  Do you want to try and coordinate what times you're usually on, so that we can schedule them/do them live, or would you rather we just call each other out in our threads and then post the results whenever we finish the challenge in our own time?

We could do both ways. I'm on EST, my usual hours online are: M-F 10a.m-3p.m and 9p.m-midnight-ish, Weekend: alllll daaaaaayyyyy unless I'm dragged out of the house.

[Dec]

Okay. I'm PST, so that's a three hour difference. I'm usually available from 4:30pm to 11pm on weekdays unless I'm napping, though if you're lucky (and I end up getting the iPad my Dad was going to loan me), you might be able to catch me throughout the day trying to get from point A to point B on the bus, or on break from work.

Word warring should be pretty easy if we're both here -- it's just a matter of making that happen that's the problem. Maybe doing things like going into each other's threads and saying "I'm going at :00 -- post if you can join." and then just leaving it as a "if you're here, great -- if you're not here, you can participate when you see this" sort of thing. That way we don't miss out just because the other person isn't here, and don't fall out of contact just because we miss each other on the boards a few times.

[maawolfe36]

I might be able to word war with you folks. I'm EST too. Usually I'm at work from 8am-5pm or so, unless I'm driving in which case I get home whenever i can. I'll try to get on at least a couple times in November during the hours you have mentioned and challenge you. Am I safe in assuming that "word war" is exactly what it sounds like, just write as many words as you can in a set time?

[Dec]

Yep, just write as many words as you can in the time limit -- simple, yet effective.

EDIT:  I also think it might be a good idea to tag people, if you're challenging them to a word war.  AKA, maawolfe36, Danielle Wayland, "at-symbol-login-name", that sort of thing.  That way we can see people want our attention as soon as we log in.

[Dec]

Okay, a list of things to prompt me with:

* Try/Fail cycles. I'm essentially writing a story that's completely railroaded by the plot of the game, so there's very few instances where the MC's mettle is really tested. Some reminders to think about it and add them in would be helpful.

* MC's background. I'm at risk of having the MC's past problems slide into nonexistence, which is *not* what I want. Prompts challenging me to add it back in would be welcome.

* Magic System. Mind you, it'll only become a really huge issue later, but the magic system still needs some basic development, and the fights are a decent enough place to improve upon it. Prompt me to explore it in fights and out of them.

* Fights. They're getting tedious and monotonous. Like a videogame, we need to ramp up the challenge, steadily. There are random encounters almost all the time, so feel free to have me ramp up the fight scenes at any time.

* Bookend Story. Basically, I have a B-Plot that takes the form of little opening and closing sections at the beginning and end of the chapter. I keep on forgetting to do them. Something to tempt me to write quick, mysterious bits of text that allude to other things in the B-Plot as foreshadowing/backstory and little storylines that can be resolved in the span of a few paragraphs would do well for this. Maybe challenging me to do a bunch of them all at once might be a good idea, as the days go by, because I'm going to be sure to forget otherwise.  Maybe on a stray Saturday.

* Environment. The text needs more description of the environment, so random prompts to do that would be welcome.

Aaand that's all I can think of, right now.. I'll add more if I can think of it, but that's a good place to start.

[maawolfe36]

For my story, here are some things I imagine I'd use prompts for:

- Magic system: in many of my favorite stories, magic is just a normal part of the world and isn't explained much (if at all), like in LotR there's not really a "magic system" so it's hard for me to imagine what that should look like.

- Sub-plots: I've never been that great at incorporating minor conflicts, which is why up 'til now I've only written short stories. Ideas for sub-plots and minor conflicts would be greatly appreciated.

- Non-MCs: I tend to focus on just a few main characters, which makes the world feel flat and devoid of all life beyond those few characters. I could use some ideas for "NPCs."

- Tell me to write dialogue. I enjoy writing action a lot more than dialogue, and most of the short stories I've written before have very little or don't even have any dialogue at all. If someone could pop in every now and then and just tell me "hey, write a scene of dialogue next!" that would be immensely helpful.

That's all I can think of for now, and huge thanks for offering to help with some prompts. Of course if any of these are too much trouble then by all means, focus on your own work before mine.

[Siana Blackwood]

I just discovered that this thread has the ID '666'. /random

By the way, if you haven't seen it before: Is it NaNo yet?

[Dec]

Anyone else planning to be up at midnight? I'm actually going to spend this afternoon sleeping, so I can be up when the clock rolls over.

[Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍]

I might, but it depends on whether I can get my desk cleaned out on time I fall asleep.

I'm EST though, so I won't be on at the same time.

[maawolfe36]

I'll try not to be awake at midnight, but I've had insomnia ever since high school and I'm usually awake until at least 2-3am, so if I'm still awake then I'll start writing. I'm EST too, so only 4 hours until NaNo starts.

[Dec]

*yawns* Okay, got a few hours in. I think I'll hang around a little and then try and sleep again, so I don't have to turn in early tomorrow. Might officially miss midnight, but that's okay -- the goal is to write, not start the second the hour strikes.

[Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍]

I finished cleaning my desk at 11:30. Sat down at 11:40 to anticipate and write.

Couldn't connect to internet by magic or mayhem for half an hour.

Figures the first thing I did was to take part in the procrastination game.

Oh well, it's 12:19 now, gonna write something! Probably not all 1667 words though.

[Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍]

Dec maawolfe36

Here are the first set of personalized prompts inspired by both your lists:

* Strengths. What would your MC say their favorite strength is? Now systematically disable it. You can have an enemy do so, or have them shoot themselves in the foot.

* Strengths. Your MC feels that their greatest strength has become a liability. How does that happen? Write a scene where it becomes their downfall. This can be physically, magically, or emotionally.

* Weaknesses. Your MC finds out that the way to defeat a foe (the manner of the game is up to you) is to exploit their greatest weakeness...which happens to be theirs too. How do they set about learning? How do they try to outmaneuver the enemy from doing the same? There must be at least three points of progression (e.g. three things they must learn, or three skill levels, or three twists, etc.) This means no deus ex machina! I realize this is kind of an arc, so you can either write a scene at any point in the arc and leave bits hanging, or you can write a plan for how it should go.

---

I'm not entirely happy with these weaksauce prompts. If anyone tries them, would you mind letting me know how they worked out for you? Would you like something more granular? Did you find anything too limiting? You can just comment on this thread.

Hoping to refine these over time so they'll actually be useful.

[Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍]

Dang. I wrote out an entire prompt then my phone deleted it when someone called me.

Oh well. I'll try to post it tomorrow. Too sleepy now, I don't feel like fighting Swype a second time.