With the new year upon us, it’s time for the January Writing Challenge. The theme of this month’s challenge is New Beginnings. Some things remain the same, but some things are due for a change.
The Gens you’ll be using for this challenge are the Family, Job, and Motive Gens.
The objective of the challenge is to use the aforementioned Gens and turn their results into a short story of at least 10,000 words before the end of the month. Use the Family and Job Gens to establish how things ARE, and the Motive Gen to determine how things WILL be. Which force will win out in the end?
The challenge specifications are as follows:
Family Gen (Restricted use): Use this Gen to produce a family for your character. Do NOT reroll the results; stick with the first family you get; your character does not have the luxury of choosing an ideal family.
Job Gen (Restricted use): Use this Gen to determine your character’s current job. Do NOT reroll the results; accept the first job you’re given; the jobs market is tough and opportunities are scarce.
Motive Gen (Free use): Use this Gen to give a goal to your character. This is the main driving force of your story. Choose whichever motive or driving force will allow your character to escape their current circumstances and attempt to gain more control over their own lives, for better or for worse. Do they reach their goal in the end?
Aside from those, you can use any other Gens you like to further flesh out your story.
Upload your stories via your preferred service or social media platform, share the link in the Disqus comments below, with “January Writing Challenge” and your story title, and be sure to include the results of all the Gens that you used in it! (Also, be sure to specify if your story is NSFW or would otherwise have a non-PG rating.)
If you have any questions, you can contact me below or on Twitter. For those taking part in this writing challenge, good luck; let’s see what wacky adventures your characters will be embroiled in.
