History Became Legend... Or Cool Things You Forgot Existed on the SWG: Random Prompt Generator

[angelica_ramses]

When the SWG turned ten years old, we wanted to give a gift--a mathom, if you will--to the Tolkienfic fandom community that had allowed us to thrive for a decade. And so we created the Random Silmfic Prompt Generator: a prompt roller that would randomly choose a prompt from up to ten different categories, one for each year of our existence.

We tailored our prompt generator to work for newcomers to The Silmarillion to the sort of gnarled Silmfic veteran willing to try a hurt/comfort story about Dagnir set at the time when Elwing finds Eärendil and they pass into the West and featuring seashells and pearls. (Yes, I just rolled that one. Feel free to try it, if you dare!) You can roll one category, several, or all ten. Categories encompass genres, characters, groups, locations, and time periods, as well as prompts featuring story elements and quotes. If taking what Fate serves you isn't your speed, you can roll and reroll to your heart's content, till you get that perfect prompt that begs to be written.

Go ahead ... roll a random Silmfic prompt and see what you get!

October 2018 Challenge: B-Movie

[oloriel]

In the spirit of Halloween, this month's challenge is a Matryoshka challenge based on the predictable plot arc of the hilariously abominable, eye-rollingly corny, so-bad-they're-actually-kinda-good horror films. Your fanwork does not have to be a horror story, but prompts will be loosely inspired by the plot arcs of these films. (Please note that prompts are not horror-specific. Any genre of fanwork can be created based on these prompts, although there may be a special reward for participants who attempt a horror fanwork.)

How a Matryoshka challenge works: Matryoshka dolls, also known as Russian nesting dolls, are hollow figurines that contain progressively smaller figurines inside each level. For this challenge, you will be sent several prompts via email. You will start your story using the first prompt. You will open each subsequent prompt when you reach a predetermined milestone in your story. Your challenge is to incorporate each prompt into your story.

If you want to participate, please comment here with whether you would like an easy (3 prompts), medium (5 prompts), or difficult (7 prompts) challenge. If you want the prompts sent to an email address other than the one you have registered with the SWG site, please let us know that as well. (Comments are screened.) You may also email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org with whether you would like an easy, medium, or difficult challenge. In response to feedback from last year's Matryoshka challenge, there will be no repetition of prompts in the different levels of challenge, so you may request prompts for more than one difficulty level.

After last year's inaugural Matryoshka challenge, we've also removed word counts from all but the difficult-level challenge. The difficult challenge will require a story that is a minimum of 3,000 words.

(If you want to try the difficult challenge without bothering with the word count, please feel free! However, fanworks for the difficult challenge that do not meet the 3,000-word minimum will not receive the special stamp for the difficult challenge. They will receive a participant stamp.)

For fanworks other than fiction: Although we are a writers' group, we always encourage a variety fanworks in response to our challenges. If you want to make fanart or another type of fanwork for this challenge, you may use the prompts in the Matryoshka format (building on your fanwork with each new prompt) or you may use the prompts individually to create a series of fanworks (flash fanworks are fine for this) or you can open all of the prompts at once and create a fanwork that addresses all of them using either the prompt, the prompt title, or a mixture of both.

Credit: TVTrope's slasher movie entry was an invaluable source of inspiration in designing this challenge and titling some of the prompts.