I am getting cold feet for ONC. None of my prelim ideas seem solid enough. Once relies too much on the backstory, in another I don’t know who I want the male lead to end up with…
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Hopefully, the prompts will spark something! But I do understand wanting to have at least a rudimentary idea beforehand. Maybe the prompts will crystalize where the ideas you have should go though?
I’m uncertain of my main idea too as I’m tempted to just write something set in the SLB universe (but I don’t think those stories have a great chance to do well as more imaginative stories seem to be premiered).
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Yeah, I will work on it once the prompts are out. Usually I jump straight to writing, but I want to work my way through the outline first this time.
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I decided that I don’t care, and I am just gonna write. The more I think about things, the less likely I am going to finish writing something.
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I finish often, but I have this nagging feeling that if I worked harder, dug deeper, edited more, the story would be better.
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I managed to revise my outline for one of the potentials in such a way that the backstory doesn’t stop the flow of the actual story. It still is in very messy shape, but I feel a bit better about it and the ONC.
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Does anybody have stuff their really hoping for? I have a few I’d be down with but I really want a reaper prompt.
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I wouldn’t mind a prompt for a star-crossed love story with business dealings and the 1990s… I need to have something set in the real world this year.
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I was making some progress on outlines reviews. I think one can now be set aside, but I can touch up another one.
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Superheroes, unexpected hero/villain, classical retelling, something really random.
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there you go.
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I am not sure why are you linking it. I just hope for a prompt that I can write my own story for, not that I want to watch a remake of Romeo and Juliette…
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It was a semi-joke. Saying that it’s already been done, lol. Okay, as a remake, but still done.
Everything has been done before. So long as the take is fresh, it’s fresh.
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Since I’ve been working on my paranormal novella, I’ve got ghosts on my mind. And I have an idea for a retelling of Dziady, a Polish classic.
Dziady was written as a poetic drama that’s a series of vignettes that try to reenact an ancient Slavic ritual. People gathered around the campfire to call on the spirits of forefathers and as each spirit comes along, we learn their story. As a whole, it’s a cautionary tale, different examples of how you shouldn’t lead your life.
So I was thinking that to make that work for the modern audience, I’d have to have a central character that maybe partakes in the ritual and learns a lot more from it than expected.
Maybe I could even use the characters from my current project. Since my MC has just discovered that he’s a medium, that could be his first serious rite of passage or a learning experience. A sequel.
So I’m wondering if ONC will give me an idea for a main plot where I could execute this.
I’m going to have to read the original prior to ONC to get a refresher and to see if it’s a viable idea. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve read it. Or maybe I can find an audiobook recording? It would make a good audio, that’s for sure.
Dziady was also the author’s last project and was never finished. Another possibility is to finish it. 
It’s tricky though since it wasn’t written in order. The first part is the unfinished one.
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ONC doesn’t take poetry if you want to adhere to the form. Structurally, seems to be similar to Decameron or Canterbury Tales, the uncommon form of narrative where multiple characters tell a short story on the same subject. Technically, ONC doesn’t accept short stories anthology, so you do want to make it a continuous storyline.
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Yeah, put your own twist on everything. Make it fresh, definitely. Think outside of the tropes and the box.
Nothing YA for me, heh
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Fair enough lol I’m probably too old for that demographic too.
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I know, which is why I was planning to write it around a central character. Sort of like the Christmas Carol but instead of Christmas themed, it’d be Halloween themed and instead of reliving his own past, present, future, he’d be reliving or experiencing or just hearing the tales of the individual ghosts and in the end, he’ll have learned some main lesson.
I’m hoping ONC will give me ideas for the set up or maybe a specific theme or lesson he has to learn.
Keeping the scope small would be the biggest challenge here.
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