First things first, I will not be writing in these myself. Running it will take all my focus, and I have other things I neeeeeed to write first, so just consider me a sort of Chancellor for these events.
There are two events, one that I was planning on running, and one that :iconBurst: came up with that I think is great.
Here's the first idea:
There is a show called Chopped. In it, four cooks are given four ingredients, and a type of dish (Appetizer, Entre, Dessert), and they have a small amount of time to make something using all of those ingredients. That is so easily adapted to writing. :)
So the theory is, these would be writing exercises. You will be given four "ingredients" and a story genre. Space opera, dramatic thriller, coming of age, etc. The ingredients are aspects or components of a story. A simple character template "A hungry tiger" for example, or an item "a loaded gun", or a place "in a bathroom with a leaky faucet", or a twist "Someone is not who they say they are", or an event "a fire breaks out" etc etc etc. The ingredients would be randomly chosen from a list that the participants would create - when you sign up, you'll fill out a couple different fields, ALA Mad Libs.
Then you'll get an hour or half an hour or whatnot, based on how difficult the randomly picked key words are. You're not going to be making a masterpiece, you're just having fun. Everyone has the option of writing together in a shared google document, or you can write privately. I'll post all the submissions (assuming you want as such) for everyone to enjoy. No judging, no prizes, no elimination. Just creative inspiration amongst your creative peers. :)
Comment about it below - just mention "Chopped" so it doesn't get confused with Burst's idea.
Burst's Idea!
In Beachfox's stream. Burst and I were discussing the former idea, and he mentioned how he would like to do a swap where they could use specific characters. I have no problem with that myself, but I do know that having to research a character, they're background, their universe etc and then try to write a story about that and elemnts that MIGHT NOT MAKE ANY SENSE with that character, just would make CHopped a nightmare. So what to do? I don't like the idea of cutting down potentially creative ideas, so we came up with a different version of the above writing challenge.
These would be like Mini-Charnivals. You would submit a character, pick a character you like, and then have a week (or maybe two, probably one though) to write a story about them. They would have a Definite theme. For example, the first one 'session' like this we would be doing is going to be based around the Mind Swapping interest. The character you submit, which can be a new/generic character or a completely developed persona, is going to have their mind swapped with one of the other characters submitted. You would write a story about your character waking up in the body of a different person, in a different life, etc. There will be more stuff and OBVIOYUSLY these stories would be non-canon, meaning that you can take it anywhere you want as an author,a nd you have to be willing to let your character's body be used in the same way. You would have some control over who you land 'in' but not in who lands in you. You have to have an open mind and probably a sense of humor. :)
Why is it happening? You can make all of it up yourself, if you want, and I'll offer some ideas for people who want a jumping board, such as Charn's new "Product Factory, Inc." business that opened up nearby.
AGain,t here is no judging, no awards, no eliminations, this is purely a longer, more involved way to respurigate interest in writing. Anyone is welcome to join, as long as you realize that there is not a 100% return rate. People sometimes flake out, or have bad things happen, or DIE, and there's no way to force it. So really I would join in if you want to write, and wouldn't mind getting a bonus story with your character involved.
Also the mind swap would be the first week(s) theme, but there would be other ones as well, which would have different set ups.
If I can get four people willing to write tomorrow, I may do a version of it while I'm at Chemo in the morning, or run it concurrently with a Beachfox stream tomorrow night. I have this entire week off and I want to have some fun (when I'm not being pumped full of toxins that is ;) )
:)
So what do you think? I love comments. Link to ANY friends who are interested, these writing prompts are NOT going to be castration based (though I am not promising it won't show up once in a while), and ANY ingredient will work. Maybe if there's enough interest we will do multiple ones at once and you can choose which "basket" of ingredients you want. I dunno. Let's have fun with it. :)
