(Update: Click here for a table of content page regarding this project.)

The Idea

Personal writing challenges are great. Finding one that suits myself, though, sucks.

Right now, I’m in the finishing stages of the first draft (or 0 draft) of my supernatural action-thriller novel. I’m at the point in the narrative, where I seeded all the cool stuff, blew up a bunch of things, had drama and action and loss and terror, and now I somehow have to tie it all up and make sense of it all. Fresh stories are great because you can do whatever the hell you want. Almost 70,000 words in, you’re committed, and shit needs to fall into place already.

What I have learned about my writing at this stage is that I really don’t have a clue what I’m doing. That’s not a bad thing–really, it could be worse. I’m throwing down words, smithing together scenes and closing chapters. I think–think–the story not a bad overall idea (the truth about the worth of the current story will show in the first real edit I’m already dreading). However, I find myself lacking a certain vision from time to time–especially when I feel that the current point of the narrative is lacking, and would I be the reader, I’d turn away now. You know, the point when you need to hook them again. When you need to make them crave, not starve, but hunger for more. Sometimes it takes me several days of not-writing to just *think* about how to up the pace again. How to make things naughty, make the reader want to look away in disgust, but not able to because of our all too human morbid curiosity.

You know–how to make it twist.

I recently received a product called “The Writer Emergency Pack“, designed by Quote-Unquote Press. It’s a self-help deck of cards to get back inspiration, funded through Kickstarter, and very well designed. I’ll talk about it a little more in a minute.

I also own a copy of the game “Fiasco“. A GM-less RPG, brought to you by Bully Pulpit Games.

So, what’s the idea here? I want to use both Fiasco and the Emergency Deck to create and produce a narrative (length as of yet not determined).

How am I going to do that? Read More »