Category: Writing

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(Not so) Stupid Plot Tricks

The (genius) Teresa Nielsen Hayden presents Stupid Plot Tricks.
Best. Tool. Evah.
Here’s what I got on my first run though it:

Main Evil Guy: If I decide to hold a contest of skill open to the general public, contestants will be required to remove their hooded cloaks and shave their beards before entering.
Main Good Guy: If one of the Bad Guys manages to kill my Mentor, I’m clearly not prepared to immediately avenge him; I will retreat and develop my skills.
Aux Bad Guy: While you’re pulling guard duty, if anyone shows up with a prisoner transfer or maintenance job, and you don’t know about it, arrest them on the spot.
Aux Good Guy (true love of the main hero): If I catch the Hero in a compromising situation with another woman, I will give the Hero the benefit of whatever doubt might reasonably exist.
Further Evil: I will never attend an auction of an Ultimate Weapon. If it’s truly as good as advertised, the auctioneer would already be the Evil Overlord.
Plot Twists to Add — from Murphy’s Laws of Combat:
1. Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.
2. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
3. Fortify your front and you’ll get your rear shot up.
4. The most delicate component will be dropped.

Tell me yah couldn’t make a good story out of that.
(via Randy. Thanks!)

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About this thing…

So I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year.
… Except for this one leetle project. Nine of us are doing intertwined short stories in a shared setting, using a little set of ‘rules’ to make sure that the stories are all intermingled. In the end, it should be 50000 words.
We’ve all agreed that we’re not going to link to the site where we’re doing this until (at least) after the thing is over, but that we can talk about it. I’m going to talk about two things.
1. The rules, cuz I think they’re pretty spiffy. This is the Very Simple Summary of the rules.

1. 925 words, minimum, due on the 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th, 23rd, and 28th.
2. In the first turn, you put a link at the end of the story to two new, unwritten story titles that (a) sound like something cool you want someone to write and (b) you want to have ‘touch’ your story in some way.
3. In the second through sixth turn, you have to write a story for one of the titles that someone else created in one of THEIR stories, and do a mix of (a) creating new titles for unwritten stories that someone else will have to write and (b) linking your story back to stuff that’s already been written. ((In the detailed version of the rules, there’s a pattern for this.))
Example of creating a new title: in your first story, you mention ‘the ghosts in room 141’, but that’s all you do with it. At the bottom, you make a link to a story called “141 Ghosts”. It doesn’t exist yet, but it will, because now someone else has to write that story in a later turn.
Then…
Example of connecting to a written story: you have an ornate salt cellar in your story. Joe has an ornate salt cellar in a story that he wrote a few turns ago… you put a link at the bottom of your story to Joe’s story, simply because, in your head, it’s the same salt cellar.

There’s a version that’s a lot more detailed, but that’s pretty much it. I think it’s kinda spiffy (for all that I didn’t really think of it, just tweaked rules from another creative writing thing I’ve done).
2. What folks are writing.
Stuff for the first turn is coming in from the other authors.
Holy crap it’s good. Damn.

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NaNo thing

Okay, for those of you who were thinking about the group NaNoWriMo project that Noelle/Kate had mentioned and I’ve talked about here and there, go peek at a more fleshed out version of the vague idea I had, now written up on writing in the dark.
Commentsesses over there, precious.