General Journal Prompts - Journal Prompts. CALLIHOO Writing Idea Generators: The 37 Dramatic Situations. The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations Georges Polti says that all stories boil down to just 36 dramatic situations and takeoffs of those situations. Somebody else out there added #37. If you're stuck for a situation, try this. A situation appears below randomly (in bold print). If you'd like more information, or want to see the subplots for the situation, click on its link below. (Note: In several cases, specific gender in the original descriptions has been replaced with non-specific gender.
After all, men aren't the only ones out there having adventures! Your situation: 29. Still stuck for plot ideas? Cosmic Thoughts | Oblique Strategies | Random Science Fiction Story Ideas. Plot Scenario Generator. Rant on putting your characters through absolute hell. Well, this one was the winner by the most votes I’ve ever seen in a poll, so up it goes.
You’ll probably note pretty quickly that all the items on this list are psychological/emotional. Well, yes. I think scenes of physical pain, especially torture, are overused in fantasy, especially because authors have a tendency to forget about wounds whenever they would get in the way and just send their characters pelting off as if they’d never suffered. Also, psychological/emotional methods of putting people through hell mean that you get to use characters’ faults against them, and readers’ expectations for fantasy heroes against them. This is much fun.
(And if I sound like a sadist, I swear I’m not. 1) Create a situation that punishes the character for using his best qualities. The trick here is not to make the situation seem contrived. Fantasy authors create the most extraordinary people all the time. 2) Have him mistake a present threat or enemy for one from the past. So, don’t. 20 Basic Plots For Story Generators - Software Secret Weapons.
The 20 Basic Plots are collected by the Tennessee Screenwriting Association . After you come up with your own system for generating ideas, the next step is to put them in some recognizable story form (the basic plot idea), build your central conflict (the story premise sheet), then build your character and underlying themes (the thematic premise sheet). 1. QUEST - the plot involves the Protagonist's search for a person, place or thing, tangible or intangible (but must be quantifiable, so think of this as a noun; i.e., immortality). 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. (Note: Sometimes #19 & #20 are combined into rags-to-riches-to-rags (or vice versa) of a Protagonist who does (or doesn't) learn to deal with their dominating character trait).
Looking At People Through Their Words illustrates the use of artificial intelligence and data mining for text analysis.