Here’s what I posted in my forum:
Okay, Nanos, ask and ye shall receive. I’m not going to claim brilliance, so this may be totally cheesy. I’m just trying to think of a good way to get the old neurons floating.
Here are the rules of this challenge:
1) It must be precisely 2,000 words. No more, no less.
2) You must write it in one day. You’re gonna need to be writing about that much every day in November anyway, so this should be child’s play.
3) Doesn’t have to be coherent. 
Nanovels rarely are.
4) Format: Doesn’t matter, provided it can be mistaken for prose. I recommend against script format, since it robs you of valuable word counts.
I’ll give you a couple of choices:
1) Your characters think you’re nuts, and are trying to talk you out of this insanity. Explain to them why you must write their stories in only 30 days. Bullshit is highly encouraged.
2) No characters yet? Interview a few. Ask some of your past characters if they’d be willing to work with you, or invite some new applicants. Arguments may arise between characters wanting the story to be about them.
Posted by Ceara as Writing Prompts at 9:38 PM EST
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from Cass:
I’m sure most of the folks here have heard this one:
“There are three rules to novel writing. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are.”
At our kick-off party, I handed my Wrimos some index cards and told them to each come up with their three rules for novelling. Then I mixed up the index cards and had everybody read them aloud. It was a hoot! Some of the rules were practical, some of them quirky, some of them downright silly, but we had a great variety of them, and everybody really enjoyed this activity. It’s a simple, cheap, and fun ice-breaker.
Posted by Ceara as Writing Games at 9:38 PM EST
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I love being able to swipe things from fellow WriMos!
BERaven and NewMexicoKid are giving out NaNoWriMo hispter PDA’s as goodies for our flock. These are bound sets of 3×5 index cards (some empty, others filled with writing tips and tools). I was thinking it would be cool to use 3×5 index cards in an ice-breaking event as a neat tie-in.
So here is the ice-breaker idea (comments and suggestions for improving this are very welcome):
1. hand out two index cards and a pencil to each participant
2. everyone writes down a paragraph on each card. One card will have a story snippet from that person’s life but without using any names. The other card will have a similar story segment summary from a favorite novel.
3. when everyone is finished writing, the cards are mixed up and then handed out to the participants. People take turns reading the cards one by one to the group.
4. Group members try to decide if what is read is fact or fiction. If it is fact, they can try for extra credit to try to guess who the card belongs to. Of course, one cannot guess one’s own card.
Haven’t thought about what the winner gets… perhaps I’ll make an extension pack for the hipster PDA cards…
Posted by Ceara as Writing Games at 9:38 PM EST
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Random generators give the best ideas sometimes!
Fight Crime
Posted by Ceara as Resources at 9:38 PM EST
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Cut 4×6 index cards in the middle, so you have 4×3 inch cards.
Cut as many as you need for each player to have 5 cards.
Hand out 5 blank cards to each player.
Each player is to fill in each card.
On one card the heading is Character. They give a short one line character discription. (IE: Woman with 1000 tattoos)
On second card the heading is Obstacle. They give a short one line obstacle. (IE: out of ammo!)
The third card heading is Plot. They give a short one line plot. (IE: save the world!)
Fourth card heading is End. They give a short one line resolution or end. (IE: Lover concers all)
The fifth card doesn’t get a heading, but has a short one line discription that can be of any type of the above.
Have someone collect all the character cards, someone else the plot, etc, keeping the heading cards in different stacks.
So once all the cards are back, you have 5 seperate stacks. Shuffle each stack.
pass out 1 card from each stack, except the ‘no headers’, which are kept back. So, each player gets 1 character card, 1 obstical card, 1 plot card and 1 end cards.
They look at what they have. They can trade in ONE card. Those who want to trade in a card, put their card in the ‘discard’ pile in the middle of the table. They are given 1 card from the ‘no header’ deck.
Give them 5 minutes to look at their cards and come up with a story that matches the prompts.
Going from dealers left, each person tells the story that their cards prompted. Put a time frame on how long the story can be.
Posted by Ceara as Writing Games at 9:38 PM EST
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With NaNoWriMo winding down quixkly, I wanted somewhere to store a lot of the neat games and ideas I’ve been seeing on the off chance I might want to be a Municipal Liaison ever again. The idea is that each will get its own post, and I’ll kick Rebecca to get her to add in categories so these are more easily located.
The first is a game called 1000 Blank Cards. Good concept. Simple. Definitely worth checking out sometime.
Posted by Ceara as Writing Games at 9:38 PM EST
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