HOL

Please turn in your Lesson 1 homework and extra credit here. Should you prefer to email your work, you may do so at: owl@sollarna.com

IMPORTANT: Emailed assignments must include your HOL name & house. The subject line should state the class name and assignment number.

Assignment #1 (required) – Choosing Your Story
Worth 30 House Points
Due September 30

• 1) Using any combination of the methods listed in Lesson 1, work out three possible story ideas. Choose one idea from the three to use as your class project. Ask yourself which you’re most comfortable discussing and writing. If you are new to noveling, then try not to choose a concept that would feel unnatural or difficult to write. Which story did you choose, and why did you choose it? Please provide a brief summary of your idea. Try to keep your answer between 100 and 300 words. (10 points)

• 2) Who do you imagine your audience will be? On other words, who do you imagine reading your story? What is their age(s) and interests? (6 points)

• 3) How will you tell your story? Is it a full-length novel, short story, children’s book, poem, comic book, or some other format? (2 points)

• 4) From what perspective do you plan to write your story? These are explained in Lesson 1 under Resources. (2 points)

• 5) What is your writing goal for this term? How long do you want your story to be? For this assignment you have two options. Option 1) You may complete this step with me. Email me or post in the forum if you’d like me to help calculate your Project Goal. Option 2) You may calculate your goal alone by estimating: how many days per week you can write, how long you can write each day, and your writing pace (Example: Can you write 300 words per hour? 500 words per hour?). If you can write 300 words per day, then multiply 300 by the number of days you hope to write. The product of these two numbers is your goal. If you are creating a graphic novel, you will need to devise a daily or weekly illustration goal as well. (10 points)
  You may change your goal by adding or subtracting from it at any time, so long as your overall effort isn’t sacrificed. Please contact me should you change your goal.

Extra Credit #1 – Planning Ahead
Worth 30 House Points
Due December 31

• 1) Identify and describe three characters in 150 words, total (75 words minimum per character). These may be main and/or minor characters. You do not need to name them yet. Some authors write their first draft without naming a single character! (15 points)

• 2) Provide a brief summary for the other two story ideas your crafted in Assignment 1. In your summaries, identify each idea’s the source of inspiration (dream, story dice, epiphany, etc.). Each summary needs to be a minimum of 75 words (please try not to exceed 150 words). (15 points)
  (These story ideas might develop into full novels in the future. Or, they might provide inspiration for a sub-plot in other story. I recommend collecting these valuable ideas and hold onto them.)

ASSIGNMENT 1

I fooled around with some generators to throw my imagination some wildcards, but in the end, I chose the idea that was more closely modeled from my own experiences. Story cards helped me to marry details from real-life experiences to supernatural elements.

Summary: A kid and their father journey to the family land in Louisiana to check on the property and reconnect with their roots. While there, the kid meets the ghostly Night Frog spirit, and tries to work out a full picture of their family history from patchwork pieces gathered from their father’s stories, belongings in the old family house, and the memory of the Frogs who live on the land.

I suppose I envision young adults reading this story, perhaps between 12-18. If they’ve read and enjoyed Coraline or The Graveyard Book, I feel like they might be interested in this story, as well.

I’m aiming for a short story, but on the longer side of short stories than what I’m used to writing.

Probably, this story will be told through third person limited, with narration that’s very close to the main character’s mind and speech patterns. I’m not closing myself off to third person multiple, though, should I want to get some frog or fatherly perspective in here.

Due to my workload picking up later in the year, I’m giving myself a weekly writing goal, so I can be flexible about when I’m writing. By the end of the course, I hope to have 4,000 words of story, or about six pages.

EXTRA CREDIT

1.
KID: Lonely. Makes up rituals and meaning to give structure to their life. Imagines that frog spirits are dead family members. Pull between spending time with father who is there with them and spending time with frog spirits. Feels disconnected from their own history. Went with dad to get away from mother and sister, who fight a lot

FATHER: Affectionate, but busy and distant. Came back to childhood house to survey land, brings kid along to experience the homestead. Has patchwork stories of old family relations. Grew up on land, but left as soon as he was able.

NIGHT FROG: Large spirit in the woods. Jolly and august by turn. Has watched over generations of frogs as they lived and died on the same land. The frogs have inherited the land more than the people have, the people are always leaving the land and leaving each other.

2.
Story B: A college student moves into a supposedly haunted campus house, and discovers that rather than ghosts, the house holds a lonely werewolf who’s been staying behind a trapdoor in the basement. I never settled on whether the "haunting" was something that originated with the student, or whether there were rumors, and how long ago those rumors started. Elements of this idea were generated by randomly choosing from the story prompts in the lesson.

Story C: A straight-laced schoolgirl and a student librarian with vast knowledge of obscure and occult books team up to steal an old high school trophy in order to peer into the past and discover the truth about an old school scandal that affects their present day lives. This idea was started by the prompt generator on Seventh Sanctum. The thing that intrigues me most is that the prompt specified that the genre was "wacky crime" and ended in "surrender", and I was wondering all the ways I could interpret that surrender.

Fantastic work. You've received full credit.

1. Three Story Ideas:
Idea 1: Someone buys a house to “flip” only to discover that it is haunted due to it's grim past.

Idea 2: Friends that come from different cultures, skin tones, etc but no matter what are good friends. Till one family gets fearful and tells one of the them they can longer be friends. How will the two work things out to help not just the family understand and accept those who are different but the world around them.

Idea 3: Using a method from the lesson, with the word lists. I printed out and numbered in a word doc program (1-whatever number) then rolled a 20 sided die to help me find words per category. I got Archaeologist for the Hero. Dark Sorcerer for the Villain. School for setting. Tarot Cards (my add on) for Props. Lost as the Obstacles/Challenges. Betrayal for Twists. Help for Prizes. Reunion for Endings.

I am going to work with story idea 1. I love watching house flipping shows and ghost hunting shows. So I'm going to try that first. I love the other ideas. Especially number 3 as the word Archaeologist kept coming up in every pull for a hero to use. 4 times! I think I need to work that idea out for later.

Meet Brandi Reyes, a house flipper from Southern California. Brandi has flipped a couple of houses and enjoys the process very much. She has her go to teams that help her out from demo days, to construction and putting the house on the market. Sometimes Brandi is known to stay in the actual house if it is in good shape. Her friends and family get concerned, but she always tells them she'll be fine. She's not had any issues until this one house. Brandi seems to have found herself involved in a haunted house to flip. She never believed before. Will this stop her from flipping the house?

2. I imagine my audience will be teens and up who like a good ghost type story. A little scare, but nothing too scary. Some mystery involved.
3. I'd like to maybe write it up as a novel. Or a series of short stories.
4. My writing goal for the term is 300 words a day, 3 days at least a week. 900 words a week.

[Will edit to add my EC when complete. Also, I have a great story/generator site I use for names, props, etc. I don't want to just link it until you approve. I've been using it since 2004. By the way...I really do like how I used my 20 sided die to help me decide.]

Sounds excellent and fun, Pezzie! Full credit.

How many weeks did you calculate for the 900 words per week? I believe it will be a short story or novella? Let me know and I'll add that to your student file.

Assignment One
1. A. I used a randomizer! Actually, I used what was in the class as an inducement to get me out of any possible rut and yeah, well, these are NOT what I'd write about! I took the 6th word/term out of all the categories. knight werewolf science lab potion trapped lost magical power treasure
1. B. This is from the siggy of Reggy Faraday. This is what I'm going to write the story about.
"'I wish somebody would write a story sometime about the people who warm up the heroes afterward.'" - Moominland Midwinter
I had read this quote and realized ... that is something which is so important. I don't know why I chose it, I just know that, of a sudden, I had the story pop into my head and that I am going to write it.
1.C. This is from a 'dream' which I had again, last night. So it woke me up and I started writing about it. [snip]

2. For the story I'm writing, my audience is probably anyone ages 10 and up. Maybe lower. I was a precocious reader and was reading anything I could get my hands on from an early age. It's just a story about someone enjoying their life and accepting that their own abilities are not that of those who get the attention and that's just fine.

3. Currently it's a short story. Who knows what will happen? These things take on a life of their own.

4. Third person limited - as of this time. (Already, though, I have another character poking its way into my head, saying -- tell it THIS way. So it might end up being Third Person Limited or Third Person Multiple.)

5. My writing goal for this term is to write and finish the story. I don't know how long it will be or how many words it will be. When I did NaNoWriMo, I found that setting 'so many' words to write a day didn't work for me. What was important was that the story got written down. Then to go back and look for obvious errors, spelling or whatever. THEN to let it sit for a bit. At least this way I have the option of letting it sit for longer than a day or two.

Extra Credit
1. Support person - a cook who works in the cabin or camp out in the wilderness. It's a female character (which might change but probably female). She's in her early 20s, has a degree in some sort of esoteric field (like history or paleontology) which is fascinating and she loves it but quite frankly the jobs don't just sprout on the ground and she needs to earn a living. Declining to work in the fast foods areas or other things which fall to those gifted with a fancy diploma and nothing to do, she learns about a job working as a support person for fire fighters. I don't know yet of her personal life (ie special relationships) but have a feeling that there is something unresolved somewhere. Average looks, average height, average weight, wanting to DO something with her life, and not wanting to be stuck in a rut.
Supporting characters -- firefighters for whom she prepares meals and cleans their living quarters. I don't know yet who they are, except that there are about 8 - 10 of them in this unit. One will be the 'leader' and there will probably be some sort of butting of heads as to who leads sometimes. They will have a variety of skills, all needed for their job. Those will be allocated so that no one person is especially talented in anything but maybe one or two skills.
Cat - This is where the point of view comes into oh oh what is happening here!? to my story. The setting of this story is a group of dwellings/cabins/living units on the outskirts of a forest, halfway between town and their general region for which they are responsible. The cat(s) are also support persons in that they find and catch the rodents who would be otherwise eating the food supplies and destroying equipment. One of the cats is someone who roamed in, drawn by the activity, and stayed to 'freeload'. (See? even here she/he is butting in! I HAD MY STORY and it's being rewritten. alsdfjklsdfjk)

2. (Of 1.A.) With these words, I come up with a story about a scientist who happens to be a knight in the Society for Creative Anachronism. That said, she is true and chivalrous and wishes to be of help to others -- that is part of what knights are. While she doesn't believe in the existence of magic, she does believe in the ability of potions, created by her in the lab, to give the appearance of things which are magic. Then one day she meets a werewolf and has to reconsider her ideas and beliefs.

Note: this was sent to Fumbly in an email. Am editing for this forum as we discussed.

Tarma, this is most excellent! I also received your emailed version of the full assignment. Thank you so much for sharing what you can here!

1
A. I came up with this story through a generator.
A young woman lives in a village near a forest with her merchant father, herbalist mother and siblings. Much to her fathers annoyance she is timid. He plans to marry her off to a knight from the nearby castle, taking advantage of how timid she is. Upon learning about the impending marriage she flees into the forest to begin the journey for her freedom and courage. Chased by the man her father has betrothed her too. On the way she makes friends and tries to find a place for herself.
B. I used cards with the suggested words from the class page, a die and a coin to determine this plot It came out a bit convoluted, but looks interesting anyways.
A cow girl, her astronaut father who she hasn’t seen in years, a strange piece of rope given to her by a dead grandparent that has telepathic abilities, a vampire prince, an elf and his forest home find themselves persued by an alien and a criminal psycho who together can destroy the world through natural disasters. They must race to keep their foes away from the magical mirror that will amplify the powers they have. Facing challenges along the way.
C. This is from a dream I had years ago that stuck with me.
A young dragon halfling is unaware of their status. It isn’t until wings burst from their back and hunters are after them that they become aware of what they are. Only through instinct are they able to escape. They must use instinct and wit to avoid the hunters while looking for ansers. Are there any more like them? Are they adopted or is it a gene that passed generations?
I chose to work with option A.
I>
She is the timid daughter of a merchant and herbalist. She prefers to spend her days in the forest that surrounds the cottage she grew up in. Her days are filled with learning about the plants her mother uses and watching the wildlife persue their own lives. When she hears her father plans to marry her off to the local knight she decides to leave and find her own future.
II.
He is the local knight. Well known for his recklessness and bravery. He can have any girl he wants and often is accompanied into town by one or another. During a trip into town he sees the herbalists eldest daughter and decides he wants her as a wife. He thinks with her timid nature she would be easiest to control. Not many know he is demanding and he wants it that way.
III.
He is torn between his father’s and mother’s worlds. His father is a prince of the Ceelie court while his mother a human the prince found himself fascinated by. The humans torment him for his parents not being wed, the Seelie Court torment him for being a Halfling. He finds an escapte in the forest and tends to the creatures who need it. When a merchant he aids breaks his word he seeks to destroy his status.
2
I imagine those who would read my book would be preteens or teen girls; possibly young adult women. That is the range I am most familiar with. They would be interested in fantasy as that is where my love and inspiration originates. Though option B seems more of a SciFi Fantasy clash.
3
I am uncertain about the length of the work. My pinultimate goal would be to write a novel, however I would settle for a novella.
4
I will try to write in either third person limited or third person multiple. I’m not sure yet which though as my stories tend to gain a life of their own
5
At present my goal is a minimum of 24,000 words: 500 words a day 3 days a week. However that is a loose estimation as I know I tend to write quite a bit when the imagination gets going.

Arlynn, this is an excellent start! I see that you also answered the extra credit, and you'll be getting full credit for both parts.

Lesson 1:
1. Of my three ideas, I decided to choose a mix between two of them. I usually come up with story ideas based upon a single concept or phrase(which usually ends up being the title), in this case the phrase was “A Hand To Hold”. 13 year old twins Micah and Maxine are complete opposites ever since their father moved them to New York City for a job opportunity, they used to like similar things, but while Micah still holds on to his old memories, Maxine tries to move on and become a city girl. All is fine, until a tragedy kills their mother, Lauren. The twins feel lost, and only find comfort in each other, trying to find a happy mix of new and old.

2. The audience for this project is probably the 13-21 range, especially people who have recently lost a loved one, or are experiencing loss in another way.

3. I imagine this as a full length novel, similar in length to “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”

4. The story will be told from the point of view of Micah, a 13 year old boy lost in his country past while trying to live in the city. He already feels as though he has lost his father because of his father’s work, and he has lost his childhood home, so his struggle would be the greatest of the family, and the easiest to communicate.

5. My word goal is between 35,000 and 45,000. You never know what could happen though, and in the past there were single days where I wrote almost 1,000 words


Extra Credit:
Characters:
1. Micah: A boy trapped in his past, Micah is a country boy at heart who was uprooted from his childhood home to move to New York City, due to his father’s work. He often resents his father, who is almost never around anyway He enjoys reminiscing about his friends back home in Texas. He tries to write down as much as he remembers about Lauren, so that he never forgets her, or his true home in Texas. Overall he is fragile, and can’t handle much more.

2. Maxine: The tomboy twin sister of Micah. She decided to move on from her past, and doesn't understand why Micah can’t just forget about it. When her mother dies unexpectedly, suddenly she understands, and often asks him to tell stories of their past. Her mother was the closest thing to a sister Maxine ever had, as she was a teenage mother, so they were closer in age than most. Losing her meant losing a part of herself.

3. Lauren: The caring, but unfortunately dead, mother of Maxine and Micah. She is often seen in memories, playing with the children, sitting in a hammock. She was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer shortly after the move to New York. She always stayed positive, and often made jokes about her condition to make herself feel better about it. She was a teen mom, and was always very close with Maxine, who she called “ her little Maxi”.

Other stories:
1. A school shooting kills all of the members of the jazz band, except one, who then lives with survivors guilt for the rest of his life. As the survivor comes to terms with it, he makes it his mission to carry on the legacy of his lost classmates in and way possible. He starts work on a memorial to take place in Classroom 302, the class that the band was in. When he starts a kickstarter to fund the memorial, he finds that the support is overwhelming, and Room 302 is quickly a museum of information about the lost.

2.An ordinary girl finds out that her lineage might not be so ordinary after all, when she discovers a necklace in the shape of a crescent moon, that leads to an unpleasant transformation. This girl is a werewolf, destined to be the leader of the werewolf kingdom, an organization of packs under one leader. While still getting used to her new abilities, the girl has to balance life and the confusing world of werewolf politics.

1)
As mentioned in my intro, I already had a story in mind when I saw this class. My class project will be working parts of the first book of Willerverse, Willer Flame. It's a revisit of a previous NaNo/Camp NaNo project written as interconnected short stories focusing on a dystopian modern superhero universe. It happens to be a pyrokinetic empath's mental health recovery story and the supports she meets along the way when she stumbles into one of the members of a local safehouse for super-powered individuals. I kind of was crossing some characters who developed out of a Gundam Wing roleplay in high school, crossed with the underdog stories of the Ender's Game series, and a friend's original fiction superhero universe that deals with Real Life Themes as kind of an counter to the stories currently being told in most of the current superhero media with a few exceptions. (Also I really wanted to make UNUSUAL superheroes Most of the characters in the story are queer or nonbinary superheroes.)

2) It's probably adult for an audience (maybe new-adult [19-30]). I'm looking at people who like dark gritty stuff that deals with mental health recovery and a People Need People/Hope is Real theme. However it's also a family-of-choice story in parts too. That's probably the pieces that will show up in this forum: the family of choice story subplot.

3)
It's going to be at least a novella or maybe a short novel, however it will be written as interconnected short story episodes.

4)

I'm honestly not sure what perspective I'm planning on writing it yet. Originally it was in third omniscient and then third multiple, but I'm still considering what perspective I want to try this time. It might still be third multiple again this time, but I'm not sure.

5)
I'm planning on having 31 hours of story-prep writing time (idea jotting plotting/quilting, character sketches, setting sketches, etc) plus 30 hours of writing time with a tentative wordcount goal of TRYING to meet the nano wordcount of 50k during november (or by the end of december if i end up also carrying it forward to finishing month because my trackrecord for nano leaves a lot to be desired).

(I'll post the EC at a later date).

Soren, your summaries alone are engrossing and I am certain the final story will be poignant. Full credit on both the assignment and extra credit. Thank you!

Soren Farmer wrote: ↑Thu Sep 27, 2018 4:38 am Lesson 1:
1. Of my three ideas, I decided to choose a mix between two of them. I usually come up with story ideas based upon a single concept or phrase(which usually ends up being the title), in this case the phrase was “A Hand To Hold”. 13 year old twins Micah and Maxine are complete opposites ever since their father moved them to New York City for a job opportunity, they used to like similar things, but while Micah still holds on to his old memories, Maxine tries to move on and become a city girl. All is fine, until a tragedy kills their mother, Lauren. The twins feel lost, and only find comfort in each other, trying to find a happy mix of new and old.

2. The audience for this project is probably the 13-21 range, especially people who have recently lost a loved one, or are experiencing loss in another way.

3. I imagine this as a full length novel, similar in length to “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”

4. The story will be told from the point of view of Micah, a 13 year old boy lost in his country past while trying to live in the city. He already feels as though he has lost his father because of his father’s work, and he has lost his childhood home, so his struggle would be the greatest of the family, and the easiest to communicate.

5. My word goal is between 35,000 and 45,000. You never know what could happen though, and in the past there were single days where I wrote almost 1,000 words


Extra Credit:
Characters:
1. Micah: A boy trapped in his past, Micah is a country boy at heart who was uprooted from his childhood home to move to New York City, due to his father’s work. He often resents his father, who is almost never around anyway He enjoys reminiscing about his friends back home in Texas. He tries to write down as much as he remembers about Lauren, so that he never forgets her, or his true home in Texas. Overall he is fragile, and can’t handle much more.

2. Maxine: The tomboy twin sister of Micah. She decided to move on from her past, and doesn't understand why Micah can’t just forget about it. When her mother dies unexpectedly, suddenly she understands, and often asks him to tell stories of their past. Her mother was the closest thing to a sister Maxine ever had, as she was a teenage mother, so they were closer in age than most. Losing her meant losing a part of herself.

3. Lauren: The caring, but unfortunately dead, mother of Maxine and Micah. She is often seen in memories, playing with the children, sitting in a hammock. She was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer shortly after the move to New York. She always stayed positive, and often made jokes about her condition to make herself feel better about it. She was a teen mom, and was always very close with Maxine, who she called “ her little Maxi”.

Other stories:
1. A school shooting kills all of the members of the jazz band, except one, who then lives with survivors guilt for the rest of his life. As the survivor comes to terms with it, he makes it his mission to carry on the legacy of his lost classmates in and way possible. He starts work on a memorial to take place in Classroom 302, the class that the band was in. When he starts a kickstarter to fund the memorial, he finds that the support is overwhelming, and Room 302 is quickly a museum of information about the lost.

2.An ordinary girl finds out that her lineage might not be so ordinary after all, when she discovers a necklace in the shape of a crescent moon, that leads to an unpleasant transformation. This girl is a werewolf, destined to be the leader of the werewolf kingdom, an organization of packs under one leader. While still getting used to her new abilities, the girl has to balance life and the confusing world of werewolf politics.

Oh wow, this idea sounds so great! I can easily "see" your audience (which would likely include me and my husband!). I'm so glad someone else will be participating in NaNoWriMo! I'm janukanu on that site, if you'd like to be nano-buddies!

(full credit, by the way!)

Brighid Katz wrote: ↑Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:21 pm 1)
As mentioned in my intro, I already had a story in mind when I saw this class. My class project will be working parts of the first book of Willerverse, Willer Flame. It's a revisit of a previous NaNo/Camp NaNo project written as interconnected short stories focusing on a dystopian modern superhero universe. It happens to be a pyrokinetic empath's mental health recovery story and the supports she meets along the way when she stumbles into one of the members of a local safehouse for super-powered individuals. I kind of was crossing some characters who developed out of a Gundam Wing roleplay in high school, crossed with the underdog stories of the Ender's Game series, and a friend's original fiction superhero universe that deals with Real Life Themes as kind of an counter to the stories currently being told in most of the current superhero media with a few exceptions. (Also I really wanted to make UNUSUAL superheroes Most of the characters in the story are queer or nonbinary superheroes.)

2) It's probably adult for an audience (maybe new-adult [19-30]). I'm looking at people who like dark gritty stuff that deals with mental health recovery and a People Need People/Hope is Real theme. However it's also a family-of-choice story in parts too. That's probably the pieces that will show up in this forum: the family of choice story subplot.

3)
It's going to be at least a novella or maybe a short novel, however it will be written as interconnected short story episodes.

4)

I'm honestly not sure what perspective I'm planning on writing it yet. Originally it was in third omniscient and then third multiple, but I'm still considering what perspective I want to try this time. It might still be third multiple again this time, but I'm not sure.

5)
I'm planning on having 31 hours of story-prep writing time (idea jotting plotting/quilting, character sketches, setting sketches, etc) plus 30 hours of writing time with a tentative wordcount goal of TRYING to meet the nano wordcount of 50k during november (or by the end of december if i end up also carrying it forward to finishing month because my trackrecord for nano leaves a lot to be desired).

(I'll post the EC at a later date).

Fumbly wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:24 am Sounds excellent and fun, Pezzie! Full credit.

How many weeks did you calculate for the 900 words per week? I believe it will be a short story or novella? Let me know and I'll add that to your student file.

I'm thinking about short stories, but like spanned out? I'm also having trouble...how to start it. I've asked RL friend and suggested to start with how it ends then build it up from there.

Pezzie Wolfe wrote: ↑Mon Oct 01, 2018 6:27 pm I'm thinking about short stories, but like spanned out? I'm also having trouble...how to start it. I've asked RL friend and suggested to start with how it ends then build it up from there.

Stephen King has suggested beginning at the end. I'm not good at that. I find that I freeze more trying to start at the end rather than the beginning. I can, however, begin in Chapter 2. Also, if it's a scene I've already imagined a lot, then I am best writing that first. Just play around with different starting points and see what's easiest.