The DARIL Project: Your Contributions

Example Lists:

Red - Relationships

1 - MC (main character) has a conversation with his/her/its best friend
2 - Secondary character reveals a secret lover
3 - Anecdote is told about childhood mistake and parents' reaction
4 - A long-time pet is introduced
5 - Character's boss gives a speech
6 - MC/Secondary character has a conversation with/about God
7 - Two characters of the opposite/same sex have an awkward romantic moment
8 - An ex is introduced by means of a flashback
9 - MC considers his/her/its self-image

Orange - Random Sentences

1 - "Or is it?"
2 - For once, there didn't seem to be any reason not to.
3 - "If this damned shoe had a phone in it, would we be in this mess?"
4 - All of a sudden, the piercing scream of a train whistle filled the air.
5 - Life was never like a box of chocolates, no matter how many Oscars that Gump movie won.
6 - "Haven't you ever dreamed the impossible dream?"
7 - He/She/It sat slouched on the stoop and tried to remember what life was like before the world had turned upside down.
8 - The smell of hot, spicy tea permeated the room, filling the nostrils with a pleasant tingling sensation.
9 - "I don't know about you, but my feet are killing me."

Yellow - Dream Sequences

1 - In the dream, he/she/it was stuck motionless by the sudden appearance of the doppelganger, standing a few feet away, dead ahead. There was no possibility of movement in that moment of as, with mounting terror, he/she it watched the familiar face stretch into a sinister smile.
2 - He/She/It had never had this variation of the 'walking naked through the streets' dream before.
3 - Mountains of foil-wrapped chocolate coins rained down from the geyser's explusions and tinkled incongruously on the polished marble tiles. More interesting than this, however, were the words that they were forming on the floor, glinting garishly like the lights on the Vegas strip.
4 - He/She/It rounded on the hapless office worker with the fury of a deranged pro-wrestler whose work had just been denounced as "fake BS". If staplers could scream in protest, this one would have roused the entire community in a twelve block radius.
5 - He looked like a constipated vaudeville actor from the '20s crossed with Uncle Fester Addams, but he/she/it knew it was his/her/its baby brother - in dreams you always know. There was something about the way he raised his eyebrow and looked at him/her/it askance that seemed to ask the question, "Do you really want to mess with me right now?"
6 - On the face of the clock where the numbers should have been were a series of symbols that it took a few moments to recognize. When it had become clear at last, he/she/it looked around and remembered. This was where it had happened. This was that very day.
7 - With a sign of supreme resignation, he/she/it stepped out of the lavatory and glared at the Out of Order sign on the door, which sported a cartoon picture of a toilet with a broken pipe gushing water. For once, he/she/it couldn't complain about false advertising. Dripping wet, he/she/it feverishly scanned the immediate area and headed off towards a promising-looking restaurant.
8 - The tall, dark, and handsome stranger brushed his warm hand against his/her/its cheek. A tingling sensation started at the tips of his/her/its fingers and toes, accompanied by a flutter in the chest and a warmth in the stomach. The compelling stranger leaned forward into the candlelight, lips pursed ... and horror struck him/her/it as the face of his/her/its mother glowed yellowish before him/her/it.
9 - "Uh, cat's don't talk, you know. There only supposed to meow." The statement floated lazily in a speech balloon above his/her/its head. The cat regarded it and wryly replied,
"Incidentally, your spelling's atrocious."

Green - Plot Twists

1 - MC comes down with a case of food poisoning
2 - Distracted character suffers a clothes-ironing accident
3 - Character goes on drinking binge and is incapacitated
4 - Characters go to the movies and have a revelation
5 - There is an unexpected solar eclipse
6 - Villain turns out to be wholesome and misunderstood
7 - Dream sequence turns out to have been real
8 - MC loses their eyeglasses/inhaler/cane/cell phone for remainder of novel
9 - Character gets arrested and imprisoned

Blue - Character Details

1 - MC reveals a phobia
2 - Character demonstrates proficiency in a foreign accent/language
3 - MC displays ignorance of a common custom like shaking hands
4 - Old 'war wound' acts up
5 - Chracter reveals a unique talent
6 - Character has a long-standing grudge against the makers of Pepto-Bismol
7 - Character has an odd belief about the afterlife
8 - Reveal of a hidden scar
9 - MC can't whistle

White - General Dares

1 - Kill your MC and introduce a new one, bonus points if they're named "MC"
2 - Introduce a caricature of one of your MLs. Bonus points if said ML is not offended
3 - Write 250 words about your favourite author and work it into the story. Bonus if that author is C.S. Lewis
4 - Have someone undergo a religious conversion because of a walnut
5 - A scene takes place in the mind of a cat
6 - Create an accident involving Poly-Grip or a generic equivalent
7 - Incorporate an original song. Bonus points if its a Weird-Al-esque parody
8 - Introduce a Dorian Grey whose painting is kidnapped. Triple bonus if the two are reconciled believably
9 - Write by hand for 1 hour if you usually type; write in cursive/CAPS if you normally work on paper

Incomplete Idea Lists

If you just want to contribute an idea or two, rather than a whole list, please do so and indicate which heading it would fall under. For example (inspired by our first pre-NaNo meeting conversation):

- Character claims a genetic factor in his/her/its inability to stop switching tenses (Character Details)
- Hippies are introduced into the novel (Plot Twists)
- Write a short interlude from the point of view of a bug who happens to be witnessing a particular scene (General Dares)
- Character falls in love with a typewriter who 'speaks' in melodious keystrokes and has a wise message to impart (Dream Sequences)
- A piece of long-expired food comes to life and attacks (Dream Sequences OR General Dares)
- MC fasts for a period of time and this has unfortunate results (General Dares)
- MC routinely eats something unusual (Character Details)
- Insert a running joke between 2 of more characters (General Dares)
- MC is discovered in the midst of an unusual daily routine involving their pet plant(Relationships)
- "I need to get the taste out of my head." (Random Sentences)
- Character frequently interrupts themselves in order to address an inanimate object (Character Details)
- Character is reminded of a personal interest topic and shares some obscure knowledge (Character Details)
- MC is the unfortunate participant in a Chaucer story (Dream Sequences)

I hope this link will be able to help with DARIL. There's 302 prompts on this website so there should be something in there that can help right?

http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/

Also for relationships:
(this will probably fall into #2 but alas I like it:
"At a party, two of your friends get very drunk and end up kissing. What would their reactions be when they found out about what happened?"

For those of you who haven't made the meetings, here's a copy of some more example idea lists:

Red - Relationships

1 - Character makes an unexpected new friend
2 - Tell the story of the first meeting or falling out between 2 friends
3 - MC meets one of their idols
4 - MC and villain share a common past
5 - Character is impelled to an act by his/her/its deity
6 - Sibling rivalry creates tension at an inopportune moment
7 - Character's pet steals the spotlight
8 - Lovers break up
9 - Friends reminisce about a bonding moment

Orange - Random Sentences

1 - Any variation of, "I'm a doctor, not a ___"
2 - "Just pennies a glass."
3 - "If you put that in your mouth, I'm going to be sick."
4 - "Well, what did you THINK would happen?"
5 - "I wish you hadn't said that."
6 - The words seemed unintelligible, but somehow the meaning got across all the same.
7 - The dazzling spectacle could not help but attract the attention of everyone present.
8 - "Words are not my forte."
9 - He/She/It stared blankly for a long, long moment.

Yellow - Dream Sequences

1 - Dream version of dead friend or family member imparts wisdom to MC
2 - Character attends his/her/its own funeral
3 - Character can't find a suitable bathroom
4 - Mundane dream about the character's profession
5 - MC is a participant in a famous movie/book/play
6 - Dream conversations are all in rhyme
7 - The desk in front of him/her/it was cluttered now, unlike a moment before. The myriad items seemed to grow in number every time he/she/it blinked and would very shortly rise in a monstrous pile and consume him/her/it. Was there the semblance of a face in the current mountain? Was that a mouth?
8 - Song lyrics pervade the dream and seem to be communicating a message
9 - Character revisits a childhood memory

Green - Plot Twists

1 - An accident occurs that takes someone out of commission
2 - Villain has a crisis of conscience
3 - MC's failure in a school subject leaves him/her/it at a loss at a critical moment
4 - "Technical difficulties" disrupt an important event
5 - A sudden weather change foils plans
6 - A monumental secret is discovered about one of the major characters
7 - Premature deus ex machina
8 - Character loses his/her/its voice
9 - Apocalyptic natural disaster occurs

Blue - Character Details

1 - Character suffers from a mental illness
2 - Character has a lost body part (eg. missing toe, false tooth)
3 - Character has a humourous/ominous nickname
4 - Character suffers from an addiction
5 - Clothing creates a mistaken impression
6 - Character has a terrible singing voice
7 - Character is ambidextrous
8 - Tattoo/piercing/birthmark is revealed
9 - Character is illiterate

White - General Dares

1 - Apply Murphy's Law to the next chapter
2 - Character is plagued by a persistent fly
3 - Croutons play a role in an offstage death
4 - Insert a news broadcast/journalism piece of at least 500 words
5 - Create an original list for every DARIL category {shameless plug!}
6 - Write a scene as epic poetry
7 - Let loose the inner editor for 30 minutes
8 - Post an excerpt of your unedited work on the forums
9 - Write a scene that's obviously meta

Okay, so apparently DARIL hasn't been as great a success in creative collaboration as I had hoped by this point. Nevertheless, here's another set of idea lists that I welcome you to take advantage of once/if you get stuck in the coming weeks when we're all actually writing. And, as ever, feel free to volunteer some contributions if the mood strikes. You don't need to consult DARIL in person; you can roll your dice (or use some other random number generator that goes at least up to the number 9) at home and pick a suggestion too.

Red - Relationships

- MC is discovered in the midst of an unusual daily routine involving their pet plant
- Family members disapprove of a characters's friend or romantic partner
- Character purposely embarrasses his/her/its friend, much to the friend's chagrin
- Romantic partners have an old, bitter argument
- Friends share the truth about their opinion of the other
- "Does this make me look fat?" conversation
- "We need to talk." conversation
- A birthday is celebrated with family and friends
- A mother (or mother-to-be) talks to her child about life

Orange - Random Sentences

- "It was a terrible read. Now I need a new book to get the taste out of my head."
- With a sharp and sudden crack, the seat beneath him/her/it collapsed and he/she/it found him-/her-/it-self unceremoniously sprawled on the ground.
- "How sweet ... is that your bf's name, dear?"
"What?"
"There, on your shirt."
"..Tommy Hilfiger?"
- "Magic Schoolbus Massacre."
- "When your mouth says yes, but your stomach says no ..."
- "You sound like a banshee when you do that, you know."
- It was his/her/its favourite euphemism.
- It was the sound of silence. Or was it?
- While this seemed like the most unlikely name that a parent could give a child, somehow it just seemed to fit.

Yellow - Dream Sequences

- Character falls in love with a typewriter who 'speaks' in melodious keystrokes and has a wise message to impart
- A piece of long-expired food comes to life and attacks
- MC is the unfortunate participant in a Chaucer story
- 'If you were an animal, which animal would you be' dream
- Character dreams about waking up several times, each time believing they've actually gotten up and out of bed before truly waking
- A dream in which monkeys rule the world
- Oedipal activities occur
- Character dreams that they are in their ideal profession
- The dreamworld is made of candy and chocolate

Green - Plot Twists

- Hippies are introduced into the novel
- Plot point hinges on an encounter with a door-to-door salesman
- It is revealed that one character has been impersonating another one
- Opposing characters are revealed to be related
- A missing clue is found
- Two characters get together romantically
- A challenging trial turns out to have been merely a test
- What was thought to be reality was actually a dream/hallucination
- A mistake costs a character more than they imagined possible

Blue - Character Details

- MC routinely eats something unusual
- Character frequently interrupts themselves in order to address an inanimate object
- Character is reminded of a personal interest topic and shares some obscure knowledge
- Character claims a genetic factor in his/her/its inability to stop switching tenses
- Character quotes unbelievable statistics with firm belief that they're true
- Character goes by a short form of their name that has no relation to the longer one eg. Bob, short for Jen (thanks jenthesuperone)
- Character repeats an "urban legend" about the origin of some practice they've just witnessed
- Character has an obnoxious habit
- MC has many of his/her/its articles engraved with his/her/its name

White - General Dares

- Write a short interlude from the point of view of a bug who happens to be witnessing a particular scene
- MC fasts for a period of time and this has unfortunate results
- Insert a running joke between 2 of more characters
- Work the brand name "Chocolate Paradise" into your novel
- An inanimate object is used for comic relief
- Work a cannibal into your story
- Take a break from writing and do something else. Then come back and insert a section where the author takes a break and write about what you just did
- Work one of your fellow NaNo-ers into the story
- Create an amusing acronym for something in your story and have the characters henceforth refer to it as such

cjel wrote:

>> Character dreams about waking up several times, each time believing they've actually gotten up and out of bed before truly waking

It's bad when this happens and you need to pee!

>> The dreamworld is made of candy and chocolate

I used to have this one as a recurring dream when I was in high school. My whole school was made of chocolate. The walls, the floors, the stairs, the desks, the books. Everyone sat in their classrooms all morning, nibbling on the furniture. By the time lunch came around, they were all sick from all of the chocolate (save for me -- I alone had the stamina and the stomach for our new environment) and desperately craving some real food to help balance out their blood sugar. Alas, when we got downstairs, we found that the hallway to our cafeteria (30 feet long and the only way in) was not the chocolate frame of the rest of the school but solid chocolate all the way through. My schoolmates elected me to eat a path through for them.

If you want crazy dream fodder for your stories, I could cough up some doozies!

I perused my little idea notebook, and found some things to contribute. (Hurray!)

Random Sentences:

- "Behold! I hold in my possession - a white rabbit!"
- "Do you want to buy the rainbow?"
- "Free donut if you have cancer." [I swear I just heard someone say that in a commercial just now.]
- "TWELVE?!"
- "It's like riding a bicycle, you fall off and get on a horse." (Bonus points if it's used in a Shakespearean context. Extra bonus points and a cookie if you know where I stole, erm, borrowed that from.)

Plot Twists:

- A letter arrives addressed to the MC and it's dated 80 years previously.
- A book-burning.
- a found suitcase

Character Details:

- a very sweet grandmother who deals drugs
- someone who lives in a cemetery (and isn't a gravedigger)
- someone who collects spoons, and not the souvenir kind.
- never goes anywhere without knitting needles

General Dares:

- Have an insignificant character keep popping up - and he's digging to China.
- have two characters debate the proper use and definition of "irony" (and they're both wrong)
- use Roman numerals every time a number is mentioned. (note: space them out for those extra words. ;) )

I have nothing to contribute except the following:

"- "It's like riding a bicycle, you fall off and get on a horse." (Bonus points if it's used in a Shakespearean context. Extra bonus points and a cookie if you know where I stole, erm, borrowed that from.)"

That sounds like some Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged! to me! Macbeth and audience participation, ne? I get a cookie?

However, I will say that this thread has been uber useful, since I have absolutely zero ideas. It's getting my brain to start working and come up with something of its own. There's still a little sand in the gears . . .

Hurray! You win a cookie in the shape of a Shakespeare play of your choice!

And to keep this Daril-related, a few more: (apologies if some are already mentioned)

Relationships:

- Insomnia either strengthens or weakens a friendship
- Additional to the above: Insomnia creates a new friendship

Random sentences:

- And so it was learned that nobody was right about anything anymore. Not even myself when I wrote that. Or that. Or that. Or that. (etc... continue until you reach 50,000.)
- "I knew it was him all along! It was so obvious. He was wearing a hat."
- "Well. This is sticky, isn't it?"

Dream sequences:

- Recurring nightmares of the worst-case scenario in the real-life sticky situation your MC is in. (for example, in my story, my goalie's nervous of the fans booing him and has nightmares of them throwing rocks and glass bottles at him.)
- Your MC dreams of a romantic involvement with their mortal enemy. (Bonus if they wake up next to their mortal enemy.)

Plot Twists:

- A sword fight with ninjas. (a staple to every Nano story, I think. Remember people - quantity, not quality or relevance.)
- A dry-erase board with a mysterious message one it. (to be wiped off by the idiot character, of course.)
- Oh no! All the good characters turned evil, and all the evil characters turned good! (see general dare about cliches.)
- A postcard arrives.

Character Details:

- someone quotes very obscure tv shows and movies all the freaking time. (or quotes very obscure/irrelevant lines from well-known shows/movies)

General Dares

- write every cliche in the book in as little space as possible. (Bonus points if you cross numerous genres.)
- write an entire chapter where every sentence is in question form.
- write a chapter in a language you don't know. Without the use of a dictionary.

"- someone quotes very obscure tv shows and movies all the freaking time. (or quotes very obscure/irrelevant lines from well-known shows/movies)"

Ha, I read that without seeing who posted, and I was about to ask Carrie if I was starting to annoy her. Which is to say, a fair chunk of my brain is set apart for obscure quotes from various things, though I try to make them relate to the situation. I don't just shout them out for no reason (except for "There is no Dana, only Zuul!" which, really, needs no context).

On the offshoot of that, I'll add my own paltry contribution -- character who is obsessed with metatextual references in films, i.e., "see that person who just appeared for 5 seconds? He appeared for another five seconds in the background in [name of other film] ..." and, if he/she recognizes someone but can't remember where the actor's from, can't enjoy the movie until it's figured out.

I don't do that, either. Nooooo. (Perhaps I should have pointed out in my intro post thing that I'm rather OCD. If by "rather" you mean "quite a lot", and I do.)

Random Sentences

"Could you pour me a coaster, please?"

*gives the DARIL cube some loving* :D I needed an idea and found one off the lists! Thank you! ^_^

Glad it could help :)