Due to a glitch in our original topic calendar, we Debs ended up with an extra week, this one, with no topic chosen. Problem? No! Opportunity! So we bring you: Choose Your Own Adventure Week.
Sounds like fun, right? Oh ho, not really, not for me. I’m just about 25 days from publication. I don’t have time to choose any adventures, let alone take any adventures. And even in normal, not book-launching times, I really like a writing prompt. I don’t find them limiting. I think they can help focus your creativity.
My creativity? She’s not focused.
But in thinking about all the many many things I might choose to talk about this week, I found this:
Random Writing Topic Generator
Write about your feet.
No.
Write about your first memory.
Sure, I could do that.
And this: Random Quick Plot Generator
Your main character is a kindly 25 year-old man. The story begins in a casino. Someone is lost. It’s a story about vengeance. Your character sets out on a rescue mission.
“Kindly” and vengeance do seem to beg some questions. There’s a story there, sure. Oh, this one:
Random Image Generator. I wish I’d known about this one when I was teaching creative writing more regularly.
Oooo, this one is funnier: The Terrible Crossover Fanfiction Idea Generator.
Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining My Little Pony and American Beauty. The story should use bondage as a plot device!
Probably not? This is fun, though. Gimme another one!
Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Gordon Ramsay and Dance Dance Revolution. The story should use a plane crash as a plot device!
I like it. I won’t write it, but I like it. This, though, is my all-time favorite idea generator:
They Fight Crime!
He’s a time-traveling advertising executive who never leaves home without a Twix. She’s a drug-addicted barbarian haunted by the brutal murder of her family. Together, They Fight Crime!
OK, you get the idea…the many many ideas. Does any of this help you get started writing something? It’s not how I work, because ideas are not the problem. Time is the problem. Selecting the idea that will keep you interested through the long process of writing and (one hopes) publishing is the problem. But who says we can’t have a little fun once in a while, imagining the stories we probably won’t write?
Like, figuring out what our Super Hero name would be? Or our “cool name”?
Fine. Back to my new book about Gordon Ramsay and Dance Dance Revolution. I’m pretty excited about it.
Holy randomness Batman. LOL. These plot generators are hilarious!
I truly love the They Fight Crime one. I don’t use it or anything, but it always makes me laugh.
I like the Terrible Crossover Fanfic thing. I got Indiana Jones and Akira, using time travel as a plot device. That could work (that was my third attempt — the first two involved things I’d never heard of).
Flavor Flav and Les Miserables, with a flood as a plot device? Not so much.
Sometimes for me a good writing prompt is one of those blog posts which lists all the ways you should never begin your novel. My current story starts “It was a dark and stormy night,” and it begins with someone waking up. :–)
Yes, I fear the Crossover Fanfic one knows a lot more pop culture than I do.
At least we’re not blogging about Orange this week…
I *almost* brought up orange.
Omg! All these random topics make me feel like I just got pummeled with spaghetti, hoping something sticks!
I think random generators are fun, but find their value not in the actual topics they generate, but in the way they get you thinking outside of your comfort zone and can often then help lead you to an unexpected place. But any idea I’ve ever felt was worth pursuing had to come from a place that felt true to me, and I’ve yet to find it in a randomizer (thought it often helps get the juices flowing 🙂
Precisely. I’m never getting my next project from one of these things, but they sure make my actual idea a lot more attractive.
I think I’m too old for the crossover fanfic generator — I also didn’t recognize more of them. One of them had using “furries” as a plot device … What is that — like tribbles from Star Trek?
OH, DEAR DON’T GOOGLE THAT.
Dear Lori,
This made me snort-laugh at my desk at work.
Please try not to do that again.
Thanks a bunch,
Your friend, Anthony
🙂
I’m going to have to pull Lisa aside.
Love the super hero generator. I have been using the random generators in different categories like subject, dialogue, among others. I make an attempt at freewriting for ten minutes daily. One of my writing teachers used a copy of a photo from the Victorian era to inspire our writing. I just started reading David Corbett’s Art of Character.
I love photos as idea generators and have used them in teaching for years. I especially like old photos, though I don’t write historical (yet).
These are absolutely hilarious!!
Thanks, Kristy! None helpful, but hilarious is fine, too!