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Here's round two of my newest ongoing series of articles: Weekly World. The object of this series is an exercise in creative setting and plot building. The goal is to string the randomly generated setting and plot elements listed below into a workable premise for a story.
Here are the setting elements:
Setting: Mystical Orient
Tone: Campy
Things: Blood, Farm
Tech Level: Virtual Reality
Place: Lair
And here are the plot elements:
Opposition: Movie Monsters
Plot Action: Cover Up (Awkward) Animal
Plot Action: Destroy (Funky) Noble
Again, before you read further, I challenge you to take 10-20 minutes to develop these elements into a workable fictional setting and plot, and post your results in the comments below. After you’re done, you can come back and read my interpretation of these elements. If you haven't seen last week's Weekly World you can check it out here for ideas.
My Weekly World: Squatting Tiger, Bashful Dragon: In Virtual Land!
In the future, everyone spends their lives blissfully exploring Virtual Land, the persistent multi-user virtual reality game, while robots dutifully care for the more mundane matters of civilization. Virtual Land is a vast landscape divided into multiple regions, each hosted on separate servers and designed along different themes. In Mystical Orient, players can become powerful kung-fu warriors and test their skill against one another.
Recently though, a tragedy has occurred in Virtual Land. A player has hacked the Mystical Orient server! This results in a band of traveling kung-fu warriors returning to their home village to discover that all of the NPC farmers have been slaughtered by rampaging movie monsters. The heroes immediately set out to avenge the blood of their virtual friends. Their investigations lead them quickly to one of their own friends, a young boy who plays a kung-fu monkey with atomic fart attacks. In real life this kid is a crack hacker. When put under pressure, he admits to doing the hacking, but explains that he was blackmailed by another more sinister player. The heroes decide to save their friend from account termination by covering up his involvement while they search for the lair of the real perpetrator, a snooty kid who plays a nobleman with a funky hat that resembles a Chinese takeout box, so that they can destroy him before he causes more havoc.
What do you think? Be sure to post your own take on the elements in the comments if you haven't already.
I’ve started running. Last week I went down to the river walk in Sanford and attempted to run a mile. I ran a half mile and I felt like someone had punched me really hard in the chest, so I walked the other half mile back. I can’t believe it’s so hard. I must be really out of shape, even more so than I thought. I did the same thing again yesterday. My goal is to run 2 or 3 times a week and gradually build up to longer distances. Eventually I’d like to be able to run 2 miles without too much difficulty. It’ll take a while to build up to that, but I’m sure I can do it.
What got me started on this is that I was watching some videos online of people doing free running, and I mentioned casually to my brother David that I’d like to be able to do that. He commented that a good place to start would be to practice running to build up stamina. So that’s what I’m doing. Once I feel a little more confident in my athletic abilities I’ll start testing out my acrobatics. Even if I never get that good, the cardiovascular workout can’t be bad for me.
March 26-29 I was in Pennsylvania for my friend Jonathan Hauk’s wedding. While I was there I stayed with my grandfather and my brother David, and was able to visit with some other family and friends as well. The weather while I was there was comfortable temperature wise, but very gloomy and rainy the whole time.
Friday I got to hang out with Jonathan for most of the day, helping him run some errands and set up the reception hall before the wedding. I also me his bride on Friday. Her name is Shu-Hui. She is a native of Taiwan, but she’s been living in the US for a while now and she speaks pretty good English. I didn’t get to talk to her too much, but she seems like a really nice person.
Saturday was the wedding. It was very nice – very simple. The reception was simple and elegant as well. Jonathan gave a brief slide presentation of their recent trip to Taiwan where he proposed to her. I was impressed by the degree of attention Jonathan gave to creating an Asian theme at the reception. He even had the chairs specially imported from Taiwan.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend, and a very nice wedding. I wish Jonathan and Shu-Hui the best, and I’m sure they’ll be happy together.
This idea just came to me the other day, but I thought I would mention it here and see if anyone else was interested. I was thinking that it would be fun and interesting to get a few people to collaborate on a fictional universe. The idea is that each contributor would write their own separate stories, but that they would all take place in the same fictional universe. This could work in much the same way that Marvel and DC comics have their own universes home to dozens of authors writing their own stories about hundreds of different characters. The same can be said of the Star Wars and Star Trek universes, as well as a plethora of other fictional universes. I envision multiple people writing separate stories, but borrowing places, characters, and events from each other to create a level of connectedness across the whole project.
I was thinking that one possible vehicle for carrying such a project would be a magazine. I’m picturing about 10-20 pages of short stories and serialized story arcs published as a downloadable PDF file every other month. It seems like that would be a good way to collect different authors’ works and make them available together. Having a goal of publishing 10-20 pages every two months creates a generous schedule that will hopefully act as a motivator to actually do some writing, but not be an unrealistic expectation for a group of people who are no doubt already leading busy lives.
As far as the nature of this fictional universe goes, I’m open to ideas, though I was thinking something with science fiction and/or superheroes might be good as it would give authors plenty of room to work in, with lots of options and ideas to explore.
If you enjoy creative writing, and would be interested in exploring this idea further, please comment below. I’d like to open a dialog with anyone else who might want to collaborate on a project like this so that we can start working out the details.
I’ve had this idea for a while now, but I just recently figured out exactly how I’d like to do it. Here’s the plan:
Organize 6-12 people into 3 groups. Each group needs a vehicle and a cell phone with a camera and the ability to send picture messages. I’ll send to each group a picture of a landmark somewhere in Sanford or Lake Mary. The landmark will be a recognizable one, but the picture may be an odd angle or something that would make it a little more difficult to find. Once a group has found the landmark in their picture, they must take a picture of themselves at the landmark and send it to me. Then I’ll send them another picture of a different landmark. Each group will follow a separate path, visiting different landmarks, but they should all end up at the same destination where I’ll be waiting with a prize.
If a group is having difficulty finding one of their landmarks they can let me know and I’ll text them a clue. I’ll have 2 or 3 clues prepared for each landmark, with the final clue all but giving it away, but you can only ask for a clue every 10 minutes or so.
Let me know if this sounds fun, and if you would like to participate. Also, let me know if you think of anyone else who might like to join.