Request a Story, Write a Story

[James Worthington]

The other day, I messaged  dvhour with an idea for a story exchange, and he approved of the concept. This thread will hopefully facilitate that as outlined below:

Many of us have ideas for stories that we would love to see, but, at least in my view, writing a story for yourself doesn't really work. I would also guess that there are people who would love to contribute stories, but don't know where to begin. This post aims to address both of those problems while injecting fresh content into the site. It will work in the following way:

1. Comment below with a description of a story you would like to see. e.g. "Sister takes her little brother shopping for cups and teaches him why he needs one..." be as detailed as you like with your description.

2. As requests/descriptions come in, I will take each description and assign another person who commented on the thread to write that story. So for example, if John and Katy both comment story descriptions, Katy might write the story based on John's description and John would write a story based on Katy's description.

This should be a relatively simple system, but hopefully it will work out well. Some basic expectations to make sure that happens: Please do not comment a story description unless you intend to write the story assigned to you. This won't work if people make requests without being willing to fulfill other's requests. If you don't have time to participate in a reasonable timeframe, maybe hold off on participating in this exchange. If it goes well, hopefully more will happen in the future and you'll be able to participate in those. Please put some effort into your story, whether or not it's your cup of tea; everyone will be better off if everyone's story is higher quality.

[DJ]

I like this idea, however I'm wondering if the one-to-one request/story trade-off is truly feasible. I'd bet there are a lot of people who have ideas for stories but haven't written them because they're worried they aren't good writers or just don't have the time. What are your thoughts on opening up the plan to allow people to request stories even if they can't write one themselves? Perhaps they just indicate in their post that they can't do a story and maybe that means their request is a lower priority than someone else? There are also probably people who don't mind writing stories but don't have any to request (I know I like writing stories occasionally, so that's at least one person!), so it might work out.  Anyway, just a thought. It's your idea and your post, so you run it how you see best. Thanks for putting this out there, I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

[James Worthington]

Thank you, that's a fair point. Anyone who reads this comment should know: if you post an idea and indicate that you can't write a story, we can try to find someone who likes writing to write it anyways.

[Willie]

Speaking as someone who does write stories (on occasion) I am not opposed to writing a story based on someone else's idea (If I am intrigued by it), but as was said, they do take time and effort - lots of time and effort. And sometimes when you post a story you might get one comment (or none), so it's hard to get motivated to put in the work if you don't do it because it was your own idea. With that said, if someone posted an idea I liked, I might take a swing at it, but I don't want to feel obligated.

I think this would work better if the stories were flash fiction, with a max word limit of say 500 words  - about 2 pages. One page might be even better.

[James Worthington]

That's a fair point. My perspective is somewhat different. I don't have a ton of interest in writing my own story because it would fall flat to me (already knowing exactly everything that happens). However, I would guess that I'm in the minority and more people might share your perspective. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much more than 500 words or so out of each one, my point about quality probably confused that issue though. What do you think of the concept of combining your idea with Nel Lee's and having flash fiction writing prompts? It might help take any pressure of people who want to contribute but don't have a ton of time without making anyone feel obligated?

[Willie]

I think writing prompt is the way to go. Start a new story thread with the title "Writing Prompt: Idea goes here" and anyone who wants to try it can post it there. Maybe we could ask the story writer to submit the next prompt to keep it flowing.

[Nel Lee]

Could be cool to do like a writing prompt. Someone posts an idea and people could respond with their version of it? 

[James Worthington]

That seems like a really good idea. I had high hopes for this concept, but I'm getting the sense that it might not work out. I'm mildly hesitant to put out another post to that effect because I don't want it to seem like I intend these prompts or whatever to be centered around me. I would happily participate if you, or someone else, were to post a brief prompt. That said, if I were to post a writing prompt, what do you think about the example concept in the initial post (an older sister taking her brother shopping for a cup)?

[Nel Lee]

Lol already working on it