We’re at work compiling our list of tools, resources, and inspiration for authors. We want to do it right! In the meantime, we have something fun for you to play with: the Narrative Builder.
What is the Narrative Builder, exactly?
The narrative builder is a randomized collection of story elements for kick-starting your brain. Some are wacky fun; others, surprisingly brilliant; others still, absolutely absurd. Each prompt looks a little something like this:
How can I use this?
We’ve used this tool to jump-start our own creativity for years. Usually, we pair it with a song or two (from YouTube) or artwork (from Pinterest)! The prompts make fantastic Daily Warmups, and many of those warmups have grown into full-sized projects in their own right.
We’ve also used the Narrative Builder to death for DnD one-shots, and it works great for shuffling genres and esthetics to pair with existing character ideas or disembodied plots.
Also flash fiction. So much flash fiction.
. . . This isn’t AI, is it?
Absolutely not. Each prompt pulls from a hand-crafted list of narrative elements we’ve accumulated over the years.
Each element are intentionally vague—boiled down to as raw a concept as we can manage. We tried to design this tool so that if multiple authors received the same prompt, they would interpret it in wildly different ways. You’ll have to tell us how we did! ^-^
Can I share what I get on social media?
Heck yeah! Tag us on there, too. We want to see what fun combinations you get and what wild things you do with them!
