Anyone interested in a January writer's sketchbook?

[resonant]

I've been enjoying the December Daily, and trying to think of something to do for January. I started thinking about the possibility of the equivalent of a sketchbook for writers, and one of the ideas I had was that you could have one column of prompts and one column of styles, and randomly choose one of each.

I couldn't think of any prompts, but I came up with a whole mess o' styles:

P.G. Wodehouse
Jane Austen
a trite YA dystopia
the Official Policies and Procedures
a Lush catalog
a wine-tasting expert
an old-fashioned bodice-ripper
a Novel By a Man
a literary novel
a perfume expert
a high-end menu
a diner menu
an article in Martha Stewart Living
a sci-fi raygun shoot-em-up
a diet book
Charles Dickens
a Leonard Cohen song
the annual report of a failing tech startup
a spam email
your ex-boyfriend when he's tipsy and nostalgic
a department-store makeup specialist
an advice columnist

Would anyone else be interested in trying to do something like this? Does anyone have any ideas about how to make this better?

Comments

[feldman]

I'm really digging that styles list, speaking as someone with a backlog of prompts *unfolds ragged kink bingo card from wallet*

[resonant]

That would be a cool start for Column A.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

This does sound awesome, but there are some I could write and some I couldn't- I've never seen a Lush catalog or a startup annual report, for example. Doing it as a bingo could work great though.

[resonant]

I'm wishing I knew how to build a random generator that would take one thing from one column and one thing from another column, and then if you didn't like your result you could just hit Reload.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Like this? https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2018/01/31/excel-random-selection-random-sample/ I'm sure someone's built a spreadsheet for fandom kink memes that can do something like that, I just don't know the keywords to use to search for it.

[jesse_the_k]

Those are brilliant---because so many of them include the mundane things that comprise much of the text input to our days, god damn us.

I wonder if the prompt list should be similarly mundane.

- Request to take care of an offspring
- Ask for a loan
- "How to" guide for painting shutters?

[resonant]

Brilliant! Like Column A for content and Column B for style.

How do people do those Your Stripper Name generators? That’s what we’d need to generate the combinations.

[mific]

Okay - so I think I found a way to do this using that pre-programmed team generator thing. It randomizes the entire list in fact. But - even more prompts as a result, so not a bad thing!

I made up a bunch of prompts based on ordinary activities/tropes/kinks - they can of course be edited freely. Fills could be written in a fandom or as original fic.

Here's the link - let me know if it works for you. Anyone with the link should be able to access and download/open it - http://www.mediafire.com/file/ba3ayvchyicsup8/Style-trope_writing_prompt_generator.xlsm/file

How you use it: (has to be on a pc I think. Am unsure if it'd work on a mac)
a) download/open the excel file (it's possible but much more difficult to use it online e.g. as a google spreadsheet - the randomizer arrow-button doesn't work online)
b) check the list and see if any combinations appeal.
b) if not or you want to play, click the randomizer arrow.
c) if there's still nothing that works, just keep clicking it and checking the list.

See what you think!

[mific]

Oh - after downloading when the file opens in excel, you have to dismiss the warning about it being a download, and then click to "enable content". The randomiser won't work otherwise.

[resonant]

Wow, thanks so much! This is terrific!

I have a Mac with Numbers, no Excel -- so I can open it, but I can't use the randomizer button, but I can use the old-fashioned method of closing my eyes and poking the page.

[mific]

Old ways are often simplest. Not all the combos work, but I've already been bunnied by one or two. :)

[ursula]

Those are lots of fun!

Honestly, I think a sketchbook list of nouns would pair well.

[resonant]

Nice! I'm not even thinking of anything very long -- a paragraph or two would be good.

[fox]

I think that sounds like a great challenge, but I’d want someone to do the matching for me - I am not so good at randomly picking things.

[resonant]

Yeah, mific linked to instructions from a random pair generator below, but I think they'd probably activate my Don't Make Me Learn Anything Today reaction even if they weren't in French. Hm, I could have sworn I remembered them being in French, but they're not. Maybe French in the sense of Greek to me?

[mific]

How poetic are you willing to go? Other styles might be cod-Shakespearean blank verse, or a Beowulfian type of epic.
Other ideas -
Mail order assembly instructions for a complicated item.
A Neural network’s attempts at something

This isn’t as cute as those online things but I think it’d work if one list was prompts and the other styles. Have to store the excel thing in the cloud somewhere. https://www.excel-pratique.com/en/downloads/utilities/random-name-pair-generator-no69.php

[resonant]

Finding that kind of intimidating, but Column A and Column B is exactly how I was visualizing it.

And all your ideas are great -- if someone got a prompt they didn't like, they could just go back for another one.

[jesse_the_k]

I finished being an Excel wizard in 1990, but Google Sheets is often touted as a work-alike.

[buddleia]

I love this. How about adding:
Time/Effort Breakdown in Order to Improve Our Efficiency and Service

[resonant]

I've never heard that precise phrasing, but the general concept is familiar and could be really funny.