Idle Fiction Jam - Rumours and Hearsay

[SuperBiasedMan]

Well we have a game jam and now we have cocktail jam, so the natural progression is a fiction jam! (Credit goes to clairehosking for suggesting the jam)
 
The basic idea is to write a little short something with all your thumb friends. I was thinking we could steal be inspired by wizard jam with episode title themes. Have a story inspired by any episode title from the network. You can write about Poopwater, New Mexico, In Search Of (Burnout) Paradise or Brendon Chung. Unlike in wizard jam, everyone writes about the same randomly chosen title. That way we see everyone's take on the same title. This is a lot of fun, see the multiple "Build the Nublar"s and "Shoot That Pizza"s from wizard jams.
 
Basic rules:
We start a new theme every month on the 4th.
We submit our entry every month on the 1st.
Entries should be a maximum of 3000 words.
When you're ready to show your story, you can post it on Medium.com tagged with "Idle Fiction Jam".
Feel free to add other tags you want of course, this tag just allows us to see all our entries together.
 
Our theme for July 2016 is:
A Person-Shaped Thing is a Person
We also have diversifiers, optional constraints for you to apply to your ideas, in the hope that it can generate new interesting ideas. Try one, try five or try none if you want!
 

• 
  Take inspiration from words and phrases of your native tongue[/size]
• 
  Write in any form that’s not just straight fiction. Tell your story through verse, rhyming couplets or facebook statuses.[/size]
• 
  Use no dialogue, rely on descriptions as well as character action and body language instead.[/size]
• 
  Set your story somewhere that isn’t where you live.[/size]
• 
  Write from the perspective of multiple different characters[/size]
• 
  Use formatting to inform your narrative/communicate something to the reader.[/size]
• 
  Write in a genre you don’t normally read/write.[/size]
• Write a protagonist that you disagree with. Maybe you dislike their ethics, politics or taste in music.[/size]

• Make a word map, just a connection of concepts and ideas related to the theme. Remember you don't need to make use of all of them.[/size]

 
The entries for June's theme Space Boss: The Lord of Space are here:

• Space Boss by twmac
• Space Boss: The Lord of Space by ratamero
• SPACE BOSS THE LORD OF SPACE by Wooben
• Space Boss, Ze Lord of Space by Mawd
• Space Boss: Lord of Space by SuperBiasedMan
• Stapler by phill

 
 
 
There's also a #fiction-jam slack channel for anyone who wants to go on there for chatting about how the jams will work, or just chatting when we start writing.
Here's the thread about the Thumbs slack:
https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/10426-idle-thumbs-readers-slack-discord/?hl= discord
I think this is the current signup link for the slack:
http://stingo.infinitebit.net:8001/

[Twig]

I think these sorts of things are most interesting when everyone has the same prompt... so you can see what everyone's take on Poopwater, New Mexico is, for example.

[Cordeos]

The Stench,

the color,

the feel

of poopwater.

[Twig]

no that's poetry ya dope

[Patrick R]

The touch

the feel

of Poopwater.

The fabric of our lives.

[Twig]

guys

you're doing it wrong

[juv3nal]

Possibly only one person would attempt this exacting ritual...not even WInifred, my EX is confidently offering

[Coods]

a misclick of pipes

poopwater, new mexico

i hate living here

[SuperBiasedMan]

Yes I was thinking it'd be one theme to rule them all, I'll amend that to the first post cause I realise I didn't make it clear at all.

 

It builds,

We ignore it, living our comfortable ignorant lives.

   and builds,

No-one bothers wondering about where it all goes.

      and builds,

We just flush and forget.

          and bursts.

The damn flows, and we all remember.

 

Poetry is perfectly fine. Frankly I shouldn't have even locked off nonfiction, it's just that Idle Fiction sounded better in my head than Idle Writing.

[Mawd]

In a town I've never been to 

Is a place you'd never swim

I hear they once had quite the plan

Now they just throw it in!

Poop Water!

New Mexico!

They burned the dump

They blew the pump

and it just goes on in

Poop Water!

New Mexico!

When the council ran they'd quite the plan!

But now they have to swim

[osmosisch]

Poo'p w'ater R'lyeh ftaghn!

[Twig]

Poetry is a deal breaker, I QUIT.

 

i'm kidding i have nothing against poetry

[Badfinger]

I have pooped

in the water

that was in

New Mexico

 

and which

you were probably

saving

to drink

 

Forgive me

I had to drop trou

so fast

and so abrupt

[anarchobama]

Really love this idea and excited to participate!!!

[osmosisch]

There once was a gal from poopwater

Who was such a dutiful daughter

That when dad had to go

and he informed her so

She'd escort him down to the trotter

[Twig]

I'm putting in a formal request that the first prompt not be poopwater. ;_;

[SuperBiasedMan]

Poopwater is just our appetiser for this thread. Bon appetit.

[twmac]

I am totally down for this and I am very much up for the modifiers - I have a very speific style so anything that breaks me from my heavy reliance on dialogue would be more than welcome.

 

Really excited about this, especially as I have tons of free time at the moment - I only need to do a work out, wash the dishes and cook dinner at the moment.

[twmac]

As a modifier - if you are translating from a foreign languge (I am assuming that most will be English) then use direct translation instead of the English equivalent.

 

I speak Portuguese and I love that there is an idiomatic term 'You lie with as many teeth as you have in your mouth'. But Turkish has it beat with the fact that teenager directly translates as 'Crazy Blood'.

 

I like the idea of building a whole story around crazy bloods and other idiomatic language.

[pabosher]

I'll be honest, I'd love to take part but I don't think I can keep coming back and doing more and more. If we were able to dip in and out then I'd be much more likely to sign up!

 

EDIT: Also I really really do not understand slack

[SuperBiasedMan]

I love that idea twmac. You could even just use idioms even if you're writing directly in english. The literal translation of "I'm very hungry"  from Irish is "the hunger of the world is upon me".

 

I'll be honest, I'd love to take part but I don't think I can keep coming back and doing more and more. If we were able to dip in and out then I'd be much more likely to sign up!

 

EDIT: Also I really really do not understand slack

 

Neither slack nor constant participation are mandatory! You absolutely can drop in and out, I just want a good sweet spot time so that a lot of people can be a part of it every time if that is what they want.

And yeah slack is just another communication method, there'll still be regular posts on these forums.

 

 

 

So it is looking like we might be doing monthly. As for where to host it, I was wondering about setting up on Medium. It's free, it seems pretty popular at the moment so maybe people outside the forum/jam community could find it. We wouldn't be officially gathering onto our own special page like an itch.io jam, but we could use a tag so all our stuff can still be gathered in one place.

 

Anyone have thoughts about that? I don't post any writing online at the moment so I'm totally open to suggestions, especially if there's concerns about Medium for any reason.

[Jaraknarn]

im in

[SuperBiasedMan]

Barring any delays or issues we should be good to start this coming Saturday, the 4th of June. I will unveil the theme on the day, and then the writing begins. I'll encourage people to chat about progress or roadblocks as they work, both in this thread and on the slack (a link to where you can sign up is in the first post).

 

In the mean time, I'll brainstorm some diversifiers and have a list ready for Saturday when our first theme and first jam will begin.

[Jaraknarn]

also, word limit? word minimum? or will that be a diversifier?

 

restrictions tend to breed creativity, without them we might end up with 1 or 2 essays and 15 stansas

[SuperBiasedMan]

I'm thinking of making no minimum, especially since people can choose whatever form to write in. But having a 5000 word maximum, that gives a cap to stay under without being too restrictive.

 

I think that's short enough to be readable for people too, since we want people to be able to read the full set of entries without getting fatigued.