So what’s the next generator planned?

Well, first a bit of a warning – I’m changing apartments so I might get a wee bit busy depending.  Now I’m an old hand at moving, but this time I’ve got a roommate (first time in 4 years) so I don’t know if this means it’ll be easier (help) or harder (more stuff).

But the next generator at least is going to be a food one – a bit more silly than the Reality Show Generator (which at its core involved serious linguistic analysis).  More something to create those ridiculous dishes that we see in experimental menus, or assorted Food Atrocities people whip up and post videos of.  Cheeseburger Pizza and Fried Kimchi on a Stick and so on.

It’s strange I haven’t thought of this as I like to cook (I even post about it at my blog), so it should be fun to build a generator close to my heart.  I might even try some others related, depending!

– Steve

After quite a lot of ups and downs (and a new contract, and a cold, and more), the Reality Show Generator is being worked on.

This is the one, I’d mentioned, involved me doing more in-depth data analysis before building it.  In many cases (not all) I sort of dive into the generator and build as I analyze.  In this case I stepped back and broke the data down – something I usually only do for generators with more obvious patterns like the Magical Power Generator.

The results were:

1. The breakdown was revealing.
2. The breakdown was really boring to do after awhile.
3. The breakdown worked and let me build the generator very fast.
4. Once I started building the generator, I could make it “richer” in data, patterns, etc. very quickly.

Short form – doing an early, organized analysis of data for a generator pays off, but it’s not as exciting as doing it by the seat of my pants.  On the other hand, this was less frustrating than the Plot Twist Generator.

So, anyway, if you want a preview of what this generator will do, here’s some results:

• Best Women Of Vancouver
• Bizarre Stories of the South American Navy
• Brazilian Cop
• Brazilian Teacher
• British Film
• Confirmed Records of London
• Confirmed Women Of New York
• Fish Killer
• France’s Next Top Boy
• Husband Grandparents of France
• I married a Millionaire: Britain
• I married a Star
• Japanese Computer Man
• Miami Scalpers
• North American Sister Change
• Rescue Person
• Sibling Academy
• The Next Best Grandfather
• The Queen of Lawyers
• True Hunters Of France

– Steve

Hello one and all, and hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving where appropriate.  Lots happened (and you saw I vanished a bit).

Twitter – OK I’ve debated what to do with the Twitter.  I do want to post random stuff to it – but that seems to work at Tumblr.  But what I AM doing is, beyond posts and such, promoting a generator a day.  There’s over 170 so you can discover generators you didn’t know about . . . or that I forgot.  I may also add feeds from other cool twitters and sites.

Next Generator – I finished the breakdown of the Reality Show Generator.  This was an attempt to do actually do a full analysis before writing a complex generator – and apply what I learned not to do during the Plot Twist generator.  The analysis was incredibly useful and I will begin working on the generator next.  The issue?  It was boring, though it worked really well.  Maybe I just need to perfect my techniques.

Way With Worlds – The book(s) are back from one of my pre-readers, and pre-reading ends tomorrow.  Time for me to do an editing sweep, line up my editor, and line up my cover artist, as well as put it in front of my writing group.    Still aiming to publish both in the summer as well – but not at the same time.  It’ll be one then the other a month or two later, as well as some followup.

Well that’s it.  How’s everything on your end gang?

A bit of silly fun for the Holidays – and because the Reality Show Generator provided to be deeper than I expected, we have the Class Masher!  Remember all those “X” characters as “Y” RPG class memes (especially Disney Princesses and The Avengers?).  This generator does it for you!

So you can get:

• Arya Stark (Game Of Thrones)-Demon Hunter (World Of Warcraft)
• Big Macintosh (My Little Pony)-Beast (Etrian Odyssey)
• Billy Quizboy (Venture Brothers)-Paladin (Diablo)
• Gomez Adams-Sinner (Disgaea)
• Kermit The Frog (Muppets)-Blue Mage (Final Fantasy)
• White Rabit (Wonderland)-Ninja (Final Fantasy)

Enjoy!

-Steve

And my first generator in awhile is up – the Undead Generator!  I wanted something to jumpstart me a bit, and then I saw a review for the game Cave Evil, which has an amazing “death metal” design and plenty of undead.  That made me think about the various undead in other games and their unique natures compared to garden-variety monsters.  I got inspired to make an undead generator and make monsters a bit more metal . . . and disgusting and rotting.

So you can get monsters like:

• Consuming Ripper of The Sands
• Doomed Slayer
• Dread Shambler
• Enchantment Wraith
• Exhumed Warrior
• Festering Grinder of the East
• Ghoul of Hell
• Hellish Festering Lasher
• Interred Homonculus of The Ocean
• Resurrector of the West
• Rogue Phantom of The Sky
• Rotting Atrocity
• Vampire Atrocity of Stone
• Wind Poltergeist
• Wraith Rock Rakshasa

I consider this a first release – it probably needs a bit of tweaking from feedback (some of the elaborate names seem overly elaborate).  Overall I’m quite pleased, because it’s “on” quite a bit – and when it’s on, it’s really on (Hellish Festering Lasher is an extremely ‘metal’ monster name.)

What was interesting with this generator is that it was reminiscent of others I’ve done.  “Themed” generators often have a mix of words that fit the theme and that are general.  Thus you could have a Rotten Shambler (suggesting undeadness) but a Rock Shambler has no “undeadness” – but a “Rock Ghast” does sound udead.  So getting this to work was a case of mixing words that suggest undeadness and general words to suggest creatures and beings.

OK folks, go to it, and let me know what you think!

Respectfully,

– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

Merry Christmas Everyone!  And for Christmas let me give everyone the Fantasy Metal Generator!

This interrupted the Magical Power Generator and was inspired by the Rougelike game Dungeonmans, which beyond being a fantastic comedy/adventure/roguelike/persistent world game, also has some dynamite (and funny) sounding items and components that made me think “hey, fantasy often has strange metals.”  So in turn, I made a generator for them.  Here’s some samples:

• Demons’ Timemetal
• Dream Glittermercury
• Dream Mithril
• Evil Shadowiron
• Fatal Dream Mithril
• Flaming Bronze
• Ghostly Ice Copper
• Glitterhammer Adamant Of The Past
• Meteoric Orichalcum
• Night Platinum
• Night Windhell Orichalcum
• Phantasmal Windgold Of Arch-angels
• Rottin
• Sand Bronze Of Wizards
• Sapphireshadow Adamant
• Secret Orichalcum
• True Adamant Of The Dawn
• Unknowable Rockiron Of The Rivers
• Wordsilver Of The Swamps
• Zephyrlead

This puts me in mind of a game of fantasy weapon making where the minerals you mine are procedurally generatred.  So you make weapons and equipment out of randomized minerals with different properties, and if there’s one you like you can keep trying to mine it or get ahold of it.
– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

So the Writing Prompt Generator got another upgrade!  Inspired by the famous Dr. Who line ‘I am definitely a mad man with a box,’ I realized there should be more lines qualifying people and dealing with objects, and put in a lot of new vocabulary and sentence structures, as well as fleshing out some old structures with the new data.  The result feels far more inspiring and satisfying than the last version – I think this is coming together.

By my estimates it’s probably around 2/3 done.  I’ve also had to realize, sadly “done” is really in the eye of the beholder – I could go on for ages with this thing (and well may).  So at some point I’ll have to say “good enough” and stop or take a break.

(Also I want to get back to some other generators and projects, darn it!)

I am also thinking as this is one of the most complicated generators sentence-structure wise, maybe at some point I have to just rewrite it and apply my lessons, as I’m literally learning as I make this.

Here’s some of the latest results!

• People call her Isabelle. – Have her meet Ishmael!
• It was Tuesday, and you know what that means. – It’s that last line that gets you as you don’t know.
• Hyperspace distortions, plague, good and getting old. – I imagine someone marooned on a plague-infested world, trying to make it better as he/she comes to grips with mortality.
• Call me William. – Meet Isabelle.
• He was eternally an odd boy. – There’s an intriguing line, I imagine a strange child in a little neighborhood who doesn’t age . .
• She was resting, and that’s when the murders began. – Subconcious monsters of the id go on a rampage – or is she the guard against them?
• All the robot rebellions were her fault. – I imagine there’s going to be displacement of blame here.
• He never wanted to be a supervillain. – Parental or peer pressure perhaps?
• This is a story that concerns a good girl. – I’m pretty sure she’s going to turn out not to be good by the end.
• Getting old is my friend, ambition is my partner. – Your protagonist uses his sense of impending death to drive himself.
• That man, that thing of pure science, with his red statue and his bottle. – I imagine a guy who’s rather religious about his profession and has a statue of a famous scientist – and a drinking problem.
• That boy, that being of flawed good, with his book. – A religious young man who doesn’t quite get the deeper moral issues.
• That lady, that being of total peace, with her statue and her book. – A woman becomes famous and writes one book – and though she doesn’t ask for it, it comes to her.
• I have a story about Thursday. – It’s the next line that would make it.
• The sun was howling, and that’s when the murders began. – Sounds disturbing, as if some person believes he has to kill people to shut the sun up.
• Violet was my greatest betrayer and my worst enemy. – . . . I can’t say much except Violet is a jerk.
• I have a story about Saturday. – I’m sure you do.
• The immoral woman was bleeding all day, which was really awesome. – Disturbing. Sounds like some kind of religious fanatic torturer with teen lingo, which could lead to many stories.
• He was just a boy with a dangerous weapon. – There’s an opening line that could go many directions, and it has a lot of resonance – I imagine the weapon is some magical or technical artifact that isn’t obviously a weapon . . .
• This is a story about political collapse. – A bit generic, sadly.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

Well one big announcement here is that I’m releasing the very crude Alpha of the Writing Prompt Generator.  How crude? Well I’d consider it at best 15% done, but the framework is there.

So this is where you come in – I want feedback and suggestions!  I could do this all myself (and indeed I’m going over famous opening lines of books for ideas), but as this is quite an effort frankly, and could do in so many directions, I thought it’d be fun to get feedback while I worked on it.

So go check it out and tell me what you think it needs!

And now, some examples:

• A plague is just like marriage – he always said that.
• A war was just what I expected.
• And now the the cloud is speaking.
• And now the the ocean is howling.
• Disbelief requires love, and that’s where things get complicated.
• Evan knew that wisdom requires education.
• Famine, wisdom, and it seems the star is giggling.
• He died for faith, that was the problem
• He lived for evil.
• Isaiah was an astronomer.
• It was Wednesday, the day of birth, and that’s when the murders began.
• Mass murder – it was definitely Saturday.
• On Wednesday I became a linquistics expert.
• She lived for ambition.
• The communications officer was speaking.
• There was a case of sudden poverty, he was a starship salesperson, and he was going to be the problem.
• There was a famine, he was a bard, and he was going to be the problem.
• There was a war, but nobody knew that.
• This is a tale about justice and begin a zookeeper.
• We called her Makayla, but we didn’t know why.

OK gang, let me know what else to add, your favorite opening quotes, and more!

– Steven Savage
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

Whew, sorry for the slow update.  Got over my illness, but still had a busy week.  So what’s up?

The Magical Guild Generator is done, and you can use it here.

For those of you not familiar with what inspired it, “Fairy Tail,” it’s an anime I’ve seen that a Sanctum user mentioned – specifically they wanted names of Guilds for wizards based on the series.  In general I think a “band of magical people” generator is a good idea, so I decided to make a Guild generator for Wizards, but also generalize it a bit more to have a diverse set of naming patters.

The end result?  I’d say pretty good.  The names are usable in the majority of cases, and sometimes it gets really inspired stuff.  I think I managed to use both the source material well and make a general generator.

There were also a few insights into language in this case – and for you language buffs, they were:

1. That many names do have a kind of alternating generic/specific pattern – something I explored before, but see prominently here.A guild named Witch Spell or Triton Potion would sound almost “too magical” but something named Witch Gear, Triton Gate, Wolf Spell, or Raven Potion sound find.  “Contextual” language is something for me to explore further.
2. Some terms for people – Queen, Watchman, etc. also act as descriptors/definers, and not just as titles.  Thus you may have a guild like King Triton.
3. I never realized how many names for groups there are – and how important it is to realize some groups are defined by using their number as part of their name.  I mean, there was the Jackson Five – not a guild of magicians by the way – and I believe some Sentai team names had their number as part of their title.  In fact that was part of my Sentai team namer, and again I see now how this is a pattern.

Now that you can go churn out Wizard guilds to your heart’s content, what’s next?  Well I still have the list of what people requested, and a few personal things I want to try.  But with skills re-primed, I think I want to do one of the writing-related requests, like plot twists or writing prompts.

Now I’m formatting a book – and of course always working on Way With Worlds, so as usual there’s no date.  But I admit I’ve got some ideas . . .

– Steven Savage

So what’s currently in the works generator-wise?  Well one of the requests was for a Magic Guild generator, specifically a request for guilds like the anime Fairy Tail (which is a show best summed up as “World Wrestling Federation writes Harry Potter”).  The guilds have some pretty colorful names like Grimoire Heart and Blue Pegasus, so a little tweaking of the core patterns let me great a good Magic Guild generator with plenty of detail.  here’s a beta run:

• Ape Rune Sect
• Ascended Satyr Crew
• Conjuring Blade Unit
• Cyclops Tooth Two-hundred
• Dog Codex Guild
• Dragon Light Guild
• Elemental Vault Guild
• Forgotten Ghost Guild
• Medic Harpy Guild
• Necromantic Hand Gang
• Nymph Staff Guild
• Platinum Djinn Family
• Purple Grave Cult
• Rune Mouth Guild
• Scholar Totem Band
• Smith Ogre Assembly
• Sorcerous Eye Eight
• Staff Hand Guild
• The Banshee League
• The Potion Cult

So, in the future we could see the Purple Grave Cult take on the Dragon Light Guild in a smackdown of epic proportions!

– Steven Savage