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booklover13 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 1:44pm
It's only been a day and I'm having some struggles. Mainly because there's a lot of options with my prompts (Romantic Comedy, Happenstance, Operagoer) but I don't have a tone of experience with the genre. How are all of you doing right now? Feel free to use this as your space to complain. I find it therapeutic to vent sometimes :) 
2nd Place, SS, R1, G161 - We Found Love in an UberPool (RomCom)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote Pages Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 1:51pm
I'm still trying to link my prompts together (ghost story / serendipity / a lawbreaker). It doesn't feel like it should be hard, but I'm still working out how to fit serendipity in there and how scary/funny my ghost story should be.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mrsnetpro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 1:56pm
Mine all go together, spy, war games, professor.  The downside to this is there are way too many things to do with this.

In regards to opera and comedy I LOVE all the things that can go wrong during a performance that would be laugh out loud funny. A proposal gone wrong perhaps? 

And a law breaking dead criminal makes for a fun ghost who returns to haunt someone? 




Edited by Mrsnetpro - 21 Jan 2023 at 1:57pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote Random Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 1:58pm
Originally posted by booklover13 booklover13 wrote:

It's only been a day and I'm having some struggles. Mainly because there's a lot of options with my prompts (Romantic Comedy, Happenstance, Operagoer) but I don't have a tone of experience with the genre. How are all of you doing right now? Feel free to use this as your space to complain. I find it therapeutic to vent sometimes :) 


So, RomCom.  Evil, but not much to do about that.  Mash it up with something less evil, whatever your head does best.  The one rule you can't break (yet) in comedy is nobody gets hurt.  If a building falls on them they get up, dust themselves off, and keep going.  Dark comedy is a different story.

Happenstance.  Autobiographical (Random)l.  According to the Law of Truly Large Numbers (which isn't actually a law, more like a comment) improbable things happen.  The same numbers come up in the lottery twice in a row, which has the same odds as two different numbers coming up in a row, but that's a different story.  Intuitively we think that's less likely, but it happens anyway.

Operagoer.  Someone who goes to the opera.  I've been to a lot of operas and you can't pin that one down, so pretty much anyone who happens to think Pinkerton is an idiot and invariably casting will ruin the visceral effect.

If any of those operas were written today someone would go to jail.  A bit like Disney movies.  The prince marries the princess and gets twenty-to-life.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tyrapendragon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 2:15pm
I only had one idea from my prompts, and it seems really obvious to me, but I'm almost done with my first draft so I'm going with it.

Group 84

Political Satire

Unemployable 

A Spin Doctor


R1 G85 High Tea with Fairies

Thanks for reading!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KJZen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 4:37pm
Piggy-backing here with a related question for anyone with experience in this competition.

I'm group 77: action adventure, rush hour, world-beater.  A/A isn't a genre I've had a lot of practice with except in longer forms--a picaresque/quest novel, for example. 

I know many of the A/A tropes and can work with them, but what happens if your writing naturally bends toward comedy? If your action/adventure is more Deadpool than Diehard?

Has anyone here used comedy in their horror or their drama or their adventure and been bumped for not staying "true" to genre? 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote taaaylor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 4:55pm
Originally posted by KJZen KJZen wrote:

Piggy-backing here with a related question for anyone with experience in this competition.

I'm group 77: action adventure, rush hour, world-beater.  A/A isn't a genre I've had a lot of practice with except in longer forms--a picaresque/quest novel, for example. 

I know many of the A/A tropes and can work with them, but what happens if your writing naturally bends toward comedy? If your action/adventure is more Deadpool than Diehard?

Has anyone here used comedy in their horror or their drama or their adventure and been bumped for not staying "true" to genre? 

Hi groupmate! :) Action/adventure can absolutely be comedic or dramatic or anywhere in between. I've written almost exclusively light-hearted/comedic stories for A/A. The key elements are the fast pace, suspense, and danger to the protagonists. Here's more info from the genre page: https://www.nycmidnight.com/genres

I'm super stoked to read your entry, if you decide to share it when the forums open! :D

p.s. if you ever enter a microfiction NYCM contest, it's defined as action OR adventure. There you could lean more into adventure fic like, say, Indiana Jones or The Lord of the Rings, where a journey to a destination is more the focus.
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SharE View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SharE Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 5:06pm
I’m am totally empty of ideas and I’m thinking of giving up. My genre is A/A, Strongman, Fantasyland. 

I’ll keep thinking of ideas. I think my issue is weaving the prompts together. I can think of using strongman and fantasyland in a romance etc but not action. 

A/A is what is holding me up the most. It’s not a favourite genre for me to read or watch in a movie or tv. I don’t really enjoy it. 

There is my whinge of the day. Thanks for reading if you’ve got this far. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mrsnetpro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 5:32pm
Isn't fantasyland over at Disneyworld? So much adventure for a strongman taking his kids to the greatest place on earth Smile

The best thing about this is there's a week or if you're busy during the week two more weekend days to get it done. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote theinquisitor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 2023 at 5:34pm
Originally posted by SharE SharE wrote:

I’m am totally empty of ideas and I’m thinking of giving up.

You've got all week - it's far too soon to give up. Read some old action/adventures for inspiration, think about the classic A/A films. If you don't like A/A, mash it up with a genre you do like (you mention romance - how many action/adventure stories have a central romance?).
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