OK gang, I’ve finished my updates to the Writing Prompt Generator. Added some new intros, spices up a few basic openings, and added a bit more variance to a common phrase or two.
As for now, I think I definitely need to take a break from it, so I’ll consider it “good enough” for now – to judge by the comments I’ve gotten. However I should return to it in the future.
This is one that was extremely educational. What stood out was this:
- You need to really vary the openings. Openings, even mildly different, really seem to inspire people.
- Slight turns of phrase have big effects. “always,” “almost always,” and “sometimes” are very different.
- You’ve got to have a kind of opening that makes people want to hear what happens next, wonder what happens next, or tell what happens next. The ending is important as well.
- Little changes in tone, time, opening, description can have vast effects. These generators are “multiplicative.”
- The economy of words, the fact it has to be one sentence, really means you have to pack a lot into a single set of words. I appreciate how hard it is to find good opening lines more now – and I write as well. Analyzing it was humbling.
- This was the hardest generator I’ve done because of the mix of psychology, literature, and variability. I figured it would be easier than it was. On the other hand I learned a lot doing it, especially on how to vary language for inspiration.
- Not all generators have to be “done.” From the start. Normally I like to release them complete, but it’s fine to take feedback. In fact, it’s a lot of fun to be frank and I need to do it more.
Next up I’m taking a break, then have some other generators I want to do that are in various stages of design. Ironically one builds on some inspiration from the start of the year when I asked people for advice . . .
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/.
Two updates this time!
First the Seventh Sanctum Tumblr now has a daily random character as well as the random story idea. This way you get interesting character ideas you can share, discuss, and challenge each other to use. I plan to add more in the future.
Next up, the Writing Prompt Generator had another update! I added specific locations as well as metaphorical comparisons to classic stories and legends, plus some tweaks and additions and improvements here and there.
I think one more update and I can consider this “done enough” – good enough for people to use, but something where I’ll return to it to improve it in the future. Frankly working on it because it not only takes work to do, you have to evaluate combinations, viability, maximizing randomness and diversity, and trying to keep it all “sounding” right. In a way it’s one of the most challenging generators I’ve made.
So clearly it will be a work in progress for as long as I’m willing to work on it here and there or make some tweaks.
Now let’s try some results:
- And now the the sky is crying – I like this one, it could be a metaphor for raining and suggests a mood.
- His life is almost exactly like the tale of the Genji, only he was a virtual reality programmer. – Perhaps he’s reliving the tale in a game?
- He died in the epoch of war, all because of that book. – A book of advice for warriors leads a person down a fatal path, assuming they know more than they do.
- I was sure he will be sleeping. – What are you sneaking up on him for there.
- Ambition is a lady, and that’s when the murders began. – One woman eggs on people with promises . . .
- I am a mad lady, with my lanterns and my bottles. – And the bottles have candles in them, a woman obsessed with light – to keep the darkness inside at bay.
- That archer will be the love of my life, but that’s a lie. – One archer saves a prince or princess, and they fake being in love with them in gratitude.
- People call him Owen. – I got nothing.
- We survived the poverty by hiding in her library. – A library designed to be an indestructible repository also lets people hide from a horrible bout of starvation, corrupting its intention – so how do you make up for it?
- It was Monday, the day of injustice, and that’s when the murders began. – A court decision results in someone taking justice into their own hands.
Check it out!
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/.
As you may guess what is up? The Writing Prompt Generator!
Took a bit of a change here, not adding new vocabulary or prompt structures, but jazzing up and extending the ones I’d created. It’s actually made it a lot more interesting and diverse, and made me think about a few things.
Mostly I think of generators as involving a structure and language in the structure when they’re simple, or a kind of “tree of possibilities” when more complex. Superhero names are of the former variety, a character generator where you have certain things that can or can’t happen (having hair) or that relate to each other (“x item produces y occurrence”).
But the prompt generator feels more like a kind of matryoshka doll, a bunch of nested patterns. I need to have the place-word-in-slot complexity on one level, but overall complexity isn’t quite linear, but is a series of elements that can relate linearly.
There’s the overall structure (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”), lower-level components (“The X of times”) and then the words itself (“best”, “worst”). In turn you could also complicated it (By randomly adding “She was sure it was . . .” to the start), or randomly adding something to the end, (“, so said my father”). But in turn I could make those complicated as well, by adding multiple beginnings or endings. You could have “I was sure it was the most disgusting time, and the most glorious age, but who listens to me?” emerge from slotting words and groups of words into a similar structure.
Yet the relation of the parts is a tad tenuous, because I need them to be unpredictable and not connected to inspire the imagination and create diversity. It’s nested randomness.
I’m quite sure the generator will never be perfect, yet at the same time it’s already far better than my worst-case scenarios – enough I can declare it to be out of Alpha and into Beta. I certainly learned a lot!
I’ll probably take a few more stabs at it, get it to at least decently release-worthy, then take a break and maybe get to some other generators. This is one I may have to revisit.
But some results for you with my thoughts . . .
- Then came the mutants, or that’s what he thought. – Not mutants, but aliens, good job lousy space adventurer, now your sidekick has to sort it out.
- Such a common time, this time of science and space wars. – Space combat is automated so people are used to it.
- Terrorist attacks, political collapse, sanity and wanderlust. – Sometimes you have to get away from the chaos to stay sane.
- The crazy girl was weeping all night. – . . . this doesn’t end well.
- I will be a linguist, with my lamps. – A linguist-interrogator, checking others for unlawful language.
- I’ve found that all supervillains lack any understanding of religion – he was the exception as well as my friend. – Your best friend is a religious fanatic supervillain, teenage years just got complicated.
- I have a tale about war, alchoholism, and a king – your story. – The king drank himself into oblivion and amnesia – and now he has to remember who he is as his advisor tries to help – and the story is written as if someone is talking to YOU.
- Like a person, a political collapse is always sleeping. – And always ready to wake and turn over and crush things.
- Everyone predicted there will be a mass murder, and that’s when everything when wrong. – What happens when a group of criminologists make an embarrassing prediction that doesn’t come true?
- It will be the month of scheming. – A very organized supervillain is preparing . . .
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 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/.
