This week-end, I went back to sweet hometown and met with friends I hadn’t seen in a few years. Knowing who we are and what our common background is, there was no doubt that it would end with a tabletop RPG session, and no surprise here, it happened. One of my friends had in fact built his own little world, complete with maps and background history, which is the universe we played in. It reminded me of a comment left on this blog some time ago, about handing out my characters to players, placing them in specific situations, and seeing how it goes.

I’m going to come out of the closet for this one and admit that I haven’t been very talented with short stories. Yet.

While working on novels is all nice and well, these take time, and I’m not going to sit on my bottom waiting for the world to go on running. This is the reason why I’ve also been turning to ‘calls to arms’ for short stories, in order to have something else to munch on. A certain amount of French magazines and anthologies regularly hold these, and if chosen, the story goes the publishing road. Sure, it’s not much in itself. However, it seems fine enough for a start, as well as a sort of introduction to being published, right?

It’s a new year, it demands a new, good start in writing, and since I’ve discovered two months ago that planning is a good thing for me when it comes to novels, I’ve decided to invest money into one of these “planning” software for writers. A few demo and trial versions later, after having get out of the way the programs that more or less help in coming up with ideas and not found any free software that would strike my fancy, I’ve come to the conclusion that Power Writer may be my thing. It’s the only one I’ve tested so far that is complete enough, while not leaving me much room to get side-tracked (read: some products leave room to note files, but if I write down ideas this way, I forget half of them along the way, when I don’t forget where I’ve left the note files themselves).

A Newbie’s Guide To Publishing is a blog I follow at regular intervals, and a few days ago, its author, Joe Konrath, has posted an entry regarding his experience in being a judge in a short story contest. In his own words: “I can tell within ten seconds of looking at a story whether it will go on to the finals or not”. He then proceeds to list eleven points that will ensure a story, not to be published, but to go on the junk pile from the start. Of course, this is as usual a matter of perspective, and not every editor/judge/critic will proceed the same way; on the other hand, these points seem quite valid in my opinion, even if I know very well that following them all faithfully isn’t all there is to a good story.

The article is up on Joe Konrath’s blog. Here’s a summary of the points he lists (in fact, a general rule would be: “Present your story well, to at least show that you respect it”):

NationStates is an old site, that I first discovered a few years ago. If I’m not mistaken, it had been put online at first in parallel with the development of the Jennifer Government story. Last week, I found a renewed interest for it, and created a new nation on the server. This is what got me to think some more about it, as a potential source for ideas.

The basis of the “game” is simple: one creates a nation, chooses its name, currency, animal/symbol and type of government, and every day (depending on the chosen settings), one or two issues are submitted to the “government” of this new country. Issues are on various topics, such as cloning research, minorities on television, people demanding a ban on cars due to pollution, and so on. Two or three opinions from imaginary inhabitants of the country are offered, and the player needs to choose one for each issue. Once these choices are input, the nation evolves to reflect the government’s new policy.

Where the ideas may stem from is exactly this: the issues, and the proposed solutions. Some are funny, some are just improbable, some are more serious. In any case, I think that it provides a good ground for imagination when it comes to creating a world for a work of fiction, and dividing said world in countries.

In all likeliness, the game won’t last me more than two or three weeks, as usual with this kind of things, but who knows? Maybe it can give an inspiration boost at times!

Y Tags: countries | nations | world+building | writing