Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Writing Exercise: On an Adventure with Friends

This writing exercise is somewhat inspired by factual and fictional adventures.  We're going to send out a party and make life difficult for them.  Your setting can be our Earth, an alternate Earth, or a whole different science fiction planet or fantasy world.  Do this exercise with one of your writing-friends.

1) Roll 1d10 and check the list of Top 10 Famous Expeditions. Your intrepid heroes set out on a journey, vaguely similar to this one.  The tone  is up to you: make it serious or campy or pulpy or whatever you like.

2) Along the way, they run into hostile microfauna.  Roll 1d10 on the Top 10 Deadliest Bugs, or invent something environmentally suitable.

3) Violent weather ensues.  You get to pick the type.  Be mean.

4) Suddenly -- and perhaps unexpectedly -- your heroes encounter a settlement of strange folk.  Roll 1d10 on the Top 10 Experimental Towns and Communes.  These nice people help the heroes recover from the tribulations of Steps #2-3 above.

5) And then something goes terribly, horribly wrong.  You get to the pick the complication based on what kind of genre flavor you want -- perhaps an awkward love affair (romance), stolen artifact (adventure), political coup (intrigue), murder (mystery), etc.  By the time you get to this point, you should also know your characters well enough to guess what kind of trouble they'll get into, with or without your help.  Write them up to a cliffhanger.  You can chuck them right over a cliff if you want to.

6) Now swap stories.  Carefully read your friend's story and try to come up with a plausible ending based on the setup.

7) Read and discuss both finished stories together.  Polish as needed.  Now the two of you have a pair of finished collaborative stories to market!
Tags: fantasy, how to, science fiction, writing
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  • 7 comments
fayanora

fayanora

July 25 2010, 06:33:19 UTC 10 years ago

Heh. It wouldn't take much to be horribly mean to a group of humans trying to explore the wilds of Traipah without a guide. I hadn't thought of microfauna before, but that might be fun to play with. Any group of humans foolish enough to go into Traipah's wilderness on their own would be lucky to survive the experience. Even the plants are hostile! And there are things in there like the ny'ah'lah. What is a ny'ah'lah, you ask? Imagine a crocodile, give it warm blood, and make it a large flightless bird with teeth. Faster, stronger, and hungrier than crocodiles; the warm blood means they need to eat more often.

As to *violent* weather, I'm not sure. I'm most familiar with the continent of Tahl'bahn (where the Ah'Koi Bahnis and Shaokennah first evolved), and most of that is rain forest (some tropical, most of it temperate) with a large swamp in the middle of it. If they wander far enough north, the rain turns VERY cold and it can even hail. I haven't done much with the other continents yet, with the exception of Vaish. I know Ah'Bahss (where the Duenicallo evolved) is mostly prairie or scrubland. Hmm... you know, I might set it there. It would be an interesting experiment, and helpful to possible future stories to explore other areas of Traipah.
Yeah, I like that idea. Maybe it only rains every so Better yet: fire. I think maybe Ah'Bahss is where the Morph'Ohnii (Fire Flower) came from originally. *Cocks head* One of my characters is suggesting "Fire, then a flash flood." Ooooh, this is gonna be fun.

Not sure what I'd do for 4 and 5, though. The only continent on Traipah with native people truly hostile to outsiders is Vaish, and I already have my second novel set there. Duenicallo can be intimidating and scary, and if ya piss one off they're liable to scare you shitless, but they generally don't kill sentients. So that kind of limits things.
fayanora

fayanora

July 25 2010, 06:38:12 UTC 10 years ago

I forgot to explain the Morph'Ohnii. They need fire to germinate, and they're also in a sort of symbiosis with a tree that does the same thing; a tree that also discovered the nifty trick of speeding the process up by adding fuel to the fire via fruits whose juices are highly flammable. You don't want to be around when it starts going up.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

July 25 2010, 14:28:06 UTC 10 years ago

That's awesome.

I actually have a race of aliens in my main SF setting who evolved in a fire-adapted forest. Imagine a cross between a pinecone and a pangolin. Overall exposure to high heat is required to render them fertile (and at risk of dying if they don't mate). But more localized heat is enough to render the fun parts temporarily accessible for recreational use. Hence the line, "I'll meet you back at our quarters after I stop at Pandora's Toybox. I just need to pick up a blowtorch and some staples."
fayanora

Re: Yes...

fayanora

July 25 2010, 22:02:11 UTC 10 years ago

LOL! :-D
ysabetwordsmith

Yay!

ysabetwordsmith

July 25 2010, 14:24:12 UTC 10 years ago

I'm glad you found this inspiring.

>> One of my characters is suggesting "Fire, then a flash flood." Ooooh, this is gonna be fun. <<

I live in what used to be a marshy part of tallgrass prairie. Consider a distant (unknown to the characters) thunderstorm starting a grass fire and also dumping enough water to cause a flash flood.

>>The only continent on Traipah with native people truly hostile to outsiders is Vaish, and I already have my second novel set there. Duenicallo can be intimidating and scary, and if ya piss one off they're liable to scare you shitless, but they generally don't kill sentients. So that kind of limits things.<<

There is no requirement for anyone to get killed. A severely awkward misunderstanding could work. Think about it -- a bunch of humans, battered from travel (and probably longer on testosterone than wits), stumble into a Traipah town that seems like a nice place. What are some ways that could possibly go pear-shaped?
fayanora

Re: Yay!

fayanora

July 25 2010, 21:59:27 UTC 10 years ago

LOL, I love that British-ism, "pear-shaped." :-D

Yeah, I worked out some of the details last night. They're not going to enjoy their stay at the enclave of Duenicallo hunters. :-)
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Yay!

ysabetwordsmith

July 26 2010, 06:42:55 UTC 10 years ago

Woohoo! That sounds like an adventure, all right.