Part of this whole shebang is making sure we’re held accountable for what we promise: if we say we’re going to do something here at Penfolk, then by golly, by witness of the public, we have to do it! If it’s in writing, it’s accountable.
I don’t know to what extent Tim or others might take this concept, but I’d like to give myself reasonable deadlines and challenges that other people might also find useful or interesting. So if you see a set challenge you like the look of, feel free to do it yourself and let me know how it goes!
Challenge: Inspiring the New
Having started writing from making games instead of stories, I tend to get pretty wound up creating settings. I love making worlds and populating them. Flavour texts and short stories only follow once I’ve brainstormed and written entire pages of concepts, feelings, sciences and faiths.
What’s good about this is that I generally have a great base to work from (and there’s very good reasons why setting can be more important than plot for the short story medium, but that’s for another time).
What’s bad about this is that when I get the urge to start something new, which can happen pretty often, I find myself straight away going to a previously established place and just expanding on one of my pre-loved settings. This isn’t necessarily bad if I want to just get some words out, but it can be bad news creatively if I don’t push myself to create outside of my comfort zone, and I’m usually very comfortable by the time I’ve got a workable setting.
Therefore, the theme of my first challenge: New.
Duration is two weeks, and the set piece has to be completely brand-spanking-new on the freshness factor – no repeated characters, ideas or dialogue tidbits.
S’gonna be tough. Wish me luck.
-Anthony
Filed under: challenge
Update: Turns out if it doesn’t involve dudes turning into bears or making things explode with their mind, it doesn’t come easily to me. We’ll see how this goes by the end of the week.
-Anthony
Hey, I kind of had an idear for a Witchbreed story. Mind if I play in your world?
Knock yourself silly my good man!
[...] This is an idea I’ve had sort of bubbling around in my head for a while, and I figured that Anthony’s Challenge on Inspiring the New was as good a reason to get it out there as any. I’m not sure really [...]