It’s over. 2017 has passed, and a new dawn is upon us. Welcome to 2018! Here’s to a good year ahead, with many more updates and new Gens!
First of all, thank you to everyone who has been using the site and following along with the madness on Twitter and Facebook; if you’re not already part of the club, come on over! We’re having a great time! đ
And, a big thank you my Patrons on Patreon, including our newest Patron Ellie! Your support is greatly appreciated!
While some people like to use this site just for fun and games, of course its main goal is to help writers and artists gain new inspiration. One group of people who fall into that category are the WriMos, or those who aspire to be one. Many people have wanted to take part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) at some point, but have not known where to begin when it comes to writing their story. I mean, it’s all well and good to just sit down and write, but, what about? How about we address that issue before the dust has even begun to settle from this year’s NaNoWriMo? How about we develop a world, our characters and our stories from scratch? How about a different type of challenge?
Introducing the Worldbuilding Challenge!
Each month, we will be focusing on a different aspect of your story, starting with the world itself and going forward all the way to your future character’s motivations and goals. With some prompts, your imagination, and the help of a series of new generators, by the start of NaNoWriMo 2018, my goal is for us to have nicely developed story worlds, ripe for telling tales.
To start, we need a location for our story to take place, and for that, we can get things rolling with the brand new Solar System Generator, and its sister; the Planet Generator!
While most stories take place on a world very much like our own, the rarely-considered aspect of the solar system and other planet alternatives can have an overwhelming effect on your story as a whole. How does life change if your characters exist on a desert planet or an ice world? What if it has extreme seasonal changes, or none at all? And of course, what kind of creatures can evolve on this world? This month, let’s look at the complete setting of the story and where all future adventures can take place. Let the creativity flow!
This Worldbuilding Challenge will work best for fictional stories of almost any genre, and is intended to encourage expanded thinking; if you’re normally comfortable writing slice-of-life stories revolving around regular humans here on Earth, why not try flexing your creative muscles and testing the limits of your comfort zone with an entirely different style of writing and subject matter?
OR! If you prefer a less/more difficult challenge, why not try the regular writing challenge instead? Or, if you’re feeling really dangerous, you could do both…you crazy person, you!
To start us off, we’ll be using the Quick Character, Plot Device and the Super Power Gens. The goal, is to write a short story or chapter of at least 6,000 words before the 30th of the month using the aforementioned Gens:
Quick Character Gen: Use this Gen to produce one or more characters for your story. They can be your protagonists, antagonists or important supporting characters.
Plot Device: Use this Gen to include some themes, elements and emotions to your story.
Super Power: Use this Gen to spice things up! Only use one result per character (but if the Gen gives multiple powers in one result, that’s fine).
You can write as many stories as you wish in any genres that you choose.
Send links to your stories to RanGen on Twitter and Facebook.
Or if you prefer, you can email your stories to RanGen HERE (please donât send them as attachments; put the story in the body of the email), and write your name (it doesnât need to be your real name) and âJanuary Writing Challengeâ in the subject line. If youâre having trouble sending long stories in one email, split it in two and clearly mark both as part 1 and part 2. Alternatively, you can create a free account on Wattpad and submit your stories there. Donât forget to send me the link!
Be sure to include with your story the results of all the generators!
