EXERCISE: The Victor Appleton Challenge?
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writercises Original Posting Jan. 20, 2018
I was thinking about starting an outline for a story, and happened to think of this exercise. I guess I’d call it either the Victor Appleton Challenge, or maybe the Tom Swift challenge. I don’t know if you are familiar with the Tom Swift series, either the older ones or the Tom Swift, Jr. ones that I grew up with, but according to what I have heard, they were all written under a house name by various writers, following standard plots provided by the house. So if you were to write a Tom Swift book, the publishing house would provide an outline, you would write it and get paid, and then... it would be published with the author Victor Appleton!
So, the exercise. It comes in two parts.
First, well, what if you (that’s right, you!) were to take a story — short story, novel, movie, anime, song, poetry, whatever story you like and know pretty well — and put together an outline for us. Include whatever you think is important, genre, setting, characters, events, and so forth, but in outline form! Do whatever level of detail you think is needed. Now post that, right here on the list.
Second, of course, would be when you (yep, you! The other one!) take that outline that someone has posted here on the list, and you write a story based on it. Feel free to ask questions if necessary, but mostly, take that outline, and develop your story from it. You may need to add some things, you may want to shift the genre, setting, characters, and so forth a bit, but... try to make it somewhat related, okay? Again, post your response right here on the list.
You might label the first part OUTLINE and the second part RESPONSE to make it easy for us to put them together?
There we go! Two exercises for the price of one! You do the outline, and you write a story from that outline. Go for it!
Write!
I was thinking about starting an outline for a story, and happened to think of this exercise. I guess I’d call it either the Victor Appleton Challenge, or maybe the Tom Swift challenge. I don’t know if you are familiar with the Tom Swift series, either the older ones or the Tom Swift, Jr. ones that I grew up with, but according to what I have heard, they were all written under a house name by various writers, following standard plots provided by the house. So if you were to write a Tom Swift book, the publishing house would provide an outline, you would write it and get paid, and then... it would be published with the author Victor Appleton!
So, the exercise. It comes in two parts.
First, well, what if you (that’s right, you!) were to take a story — short story, novel, movie, anime, song, poetry, whatever story you like and know pretty well — and put together an outline for us. Include whatever you think is important, genre, setting, characters, events, and so forth, but in outline form! Do whatever level of detail you think is needed. Now post that, right here on the list.
Second, of course, would be when you (yep, you! The other one!) take that outline that someone has posted here on the list, and you write a story based on it. Feel free to ask questions if necessary, but mostly, take that outline, and develop your story from it. You may need to add some things, you may want to shift the genre, setting, characters, and so forth a bit, but... try to make it somewhat related, okay? Again, post your response right here on the list.
You might label the first part OUTLINE and the second part RESPONSE to make it easy for us to put them together?
There we go! Two exercises for the price of one! You do the outline, and you write a story from that outline. Go for it!
Write!