Sunday, August 27, 2017

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.

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