I’ve come across two random story element generators that you might be interested in. Both are card-based, and come with multiple card types in each deck. Will they create a story for you? Absolutely not! They’re only good for providing a basic structure – one you’re free to embellish into a short story, or even a novel.
The first is something called The Story Engine. The set (and the boosters & expansions) come with 5 different types of cards:
- Agent cards provide characters for the story
- Engine cards provide motivations
- Anchor cards provide locations, objects, and events of interest
- Conflict cards provide obstacles and consequences
- Aspect cards provide details and descriptions that modify other cards
Drawing cards, with each card providing 2 or 4 prompts, allows you to either accept a random series of information, or construct your own. The story outlines are strictly bare-bones; you need to develop characters, plots, and emotions. You can force yourself to use exactly the elements you’ve drawn, or feel free to toss out what you don’t need or want and replace the elements with your own imagination. Again, these tools are only meant for sparking your creative processes. They will not write the story for you.
Another tool coming out in a few months is a tarot-sized card set from Nord Games. The Oracle Story Generator (the Kickstarter just finished a couple weeks ago) has five decks:
- Contracts & Bounties
- Epic Adventures
- Political Intrigue
- Relics & Artifacts
- Simple Sidequests
With names like those, you can guess that people who play tabletop roleplaying games are their primary market. However, if you write in the fantasy genre, these cards will also be a sparkplug for your imagination.
Each card has a general keyword and a description, plus four specific versions of that keyword. As an example, they keyword might be “magic item,” with the four specifics being amulet, sword, breastplate, and birdcage. You can pick one of those four yourself, or roll a 4-sided die (aka a d4) to randomize your choice.
As with the Story Engine, there are five types of cards in each deck:
- Actors are the main character of the story
- Actions are what that character will do
- Subjects are who or what the main character’s action will have an impact on
- Intents are what the main character intends to accomplish through their actions
- Developments are extra elements of the story that add intrigue
By dealing a card of each type, you can “connect the bones” into a simple story structure that you’re encouraged to fully develop.
I’m sure there are other similar creativity-jogging tools out there. These are just two card-based creative tools I’ve stumbled across this summer.