Writing Tables

Back in the late 90s and early 2000, there was something popular among fan fiction writers called "Prompt Tables". It was basically a table of 100 random words, and the goal was to write 100 drabbles using those words as a prompt for each one. It could be the theme of the story or a random word tossed in for whatever reason. So, way back when, I went out and found three of these prompt tables and put them together. After removing the duplicate words, I have a very large table with 253 random prompt words, which I have used a few times in fan fiction writings just to see if I could structure a story around this wild and Frankensteined table.

The answer is yes, by the way.

Since I was having trouble getting the sequel to Second Anniversary to work for me, I decided to print out one of these tables, tape it into a notebook, and then armed with a pen and a highlighter, I've started writing little stories that will fall between the main three novels and possibly before the first one. I've only gotten one hand written right now, but I'll probably be typing them up and selling them in an anthology form.

Of course, during the process of writing that first story, the characters have evolved a bit more on me, explaining a bit more about why they were acting a certain way in the first story. Eventually, I'll probably go back to the Second Anniversary and quite possibly rewrite parts of it to polish it even more as well as show the characters as something more than the slightly two dimensional beings they currently are.

In a way, The Second Anniversary was me pushing my limits on my writing as I had never written about an abusive relationship or drug abuse before. I only hoped I could do it justice with the research I was able to do on such topics. I hope further stories will let me push myself as a writer a bit more.

Slight irritations

I haven't been working on the sequel to The Second Anniversary because for whatever reason, it just won't flow. I was having trouble even putting a pen to paper to write even a word, and I couldn't figure out why. Was it one of my other stories wanting to be worked on? Well that wasn't right because I had a distinct lack of enthusiasm for any of those stories, even the ones that I reread in anticipation of working on them.

Then last night as I was starting to fall asleep, I realized what was wrong with the story.

I was rushing everything including the serious relationship in the story.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was my solution. What I have written right now is that Lucien and Abel go to a soiree held by the king and queen, are introduced to someone, and that night, a mere few hours after they met this individual, decide to pursue a relationship with them. And this starts less than a year after the ending of The Second Anniversary.

Needless to say, I'm not going to get rid of the other scenes that I wrote, but there will be some rewriting of them to make them fit into the new story. This will also let me show how relationships have changed and introduce a whole new culture to my readers without it feeling like I've thrown them off the cruise ship with a cannon ball around their ankles.