Story idea game
Aug. 9th, 2011 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsOn the anime front, I finished Psychic Detective Yakumo awhile back and need to post about it later. I was wondering what to start now that it's done, sampled the fansub of Amatsuki that I'd gotten to see if it looked like a keeper, and ended up watching it.
But right now I wanted to post about the previously-mentioned story idea game. It's kind of a silly little thing, but sometimes I do fall into a trap of fearing that story ideas are something I will run out of (despite the pile of them I have backed up awaiting action), and it's worth something to prove myself wrong, so I came up with this little game. I haven't been doing this literally, just mentally, but it seems to work.
So the game is to take two bins. The first one is for "stories"---from folktales to feature films, just any story you know, at least know enough about to be interested by. It doesn't even have to be things you like, although some spark of potential would probably help. The second one is for "twists"---things that would change the story up; settings, tropes, genres, character types, anything you find interesting. As you no doubt have guessed, the idea is to take one thing from each bin, put them together, and see what happens. At least for me, creativity is more in combination than creation, so often something interesting will come out of it.
The first time I hit upon doing this, the idea I had was "Fushigi Yuugi + Pirates," which I haven't yet pursued very far, but I think it could have been interesting in a pop manga kind of way. More recently I tried again and thought "Beauty and the Beast + the 1920's," and I'm rather liking that one.
So yeah, basically the idea is to enact the "Recycled IN SPACE" trope, but it depends how your creative mill grinds it all up whether and how much the tracks show.
(Sometimes I worry that things like this are just too insultingly simple to share with other people---I also get that with my "one picture after another" comics game, but if I find them useful, why assume no one else would?)
But right now I wanted to post about the previously-mentioned story idea game. It's kind of a silly little thing, but sometimes I do fall into a trap of fearing that story ideas are something I will run out of (despite the pile of them I have backed up awaiting action), and it's worth something to prove myself wrong, so I came up with this little game. I haven't been doing this literally, just mentally, but it seems to work.
So the game is to take two bins. The first one is for "stories"---from folktales to feature films, just any story you know, at least know enough about to be interested by. It doesn't even have to be things you like, although some spark of potential would probably help. The second one is for "twists"---things that would change the story up; settings, tropes, genres, character types, anything you find interesting. As you no doubt have guessed, the idea is to take one thing from each bin, put them together, and see what happens. At least for me, creativity is more in combination than creation, so often something interesting will come out of it.
The first time I hit upon doing this, the idea I had was "Fushigi Yuugi + Pirates," which I haven't yet pursued very far, but I think it could have been interesting in a pop manga kind of way. More recently I tried again and thought "Beauty and the Beast + the 1920's," and I'm rather liking that one.
So yeah, basically the idea is to enact the "Recycled IN SPACE" trope, but it depends how your creative mill grinds it all up whether and how much the tracks show.
(Sometimes I worry that things like this are just too insultingly simple to share with other people---I also get that with my "one picture after another" comics game, but if I find them useful, why assume no one else would?)
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Date: 2011-08-11 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-11 03:42 am (UTC)