31 days, 31 chapters, 31 specific prompts, all for the fun of it
I came across this photo on a friend's Facebook page. Intrigued, I followed the hashtags to discover that the origin of this project is an artistic contest. Each of these words is designed to inspire artists to draw the aforementioned item, then post the results on a daily basis. That concept rules me out completely, as my freehand artistic talent is less than zero.
But I liked the idea too much to walk away from it, so I wondered if there was any way to approach it from a fiction writing perspective. My Blog Club comrade Jeff South and I have been talking about novella concepts that function as spin-off stories from our respective fictional worlds, and that's when the gears clicked into place.
Beginning on October 1, Blog Club will undertake the Blogtober Fiction Challenge. Each day's prompt serves as the title of a chapter, which must be posted that day. Each chapter cannot exceed 250 words, and at the end of the month, we should each have a 31-chapter novella in hand.
I won't be more specific at this point about my own approach except to say my story will focus on a minor (but memorable) character from Dylan's Treasure who has a much more prominent and important role in The Spring of Llanfyllin, and the story will take place many years before the events of my two novels.
The challenge is daily writing under the guidance of a prompt word, but also limiting ourselves to only 250 words a day. This is about one page, typed and double-spaced. It demands an economy of words and will stretch our storytelling abilities in a direction we've likely not previously explored.
I'd like to invite any of you who want to play along to feel free to join us. You can share your efforts on the comments page here, or you can like my Facebook page "Kingdom of Llanfyllin" and share your blog links there. Let's get to writing!
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