Cosi's Scribbler · 12:53am Jul 1st, 2020
That went well! 
Read on for details and a proposal at the end.
So yeah, Story Shuffle 2 is in the books. I don't think I've ever had such a productive month in terms of writing. It also gave me an excuse to look back at the previous Story Shuffle wrapup blog, and...
And finally, I am never doing that again. Ever.
Oh, past FoME. You should know that nothing's impossible.
Mind you, not going to provide a bulleted list as I did then. I haven't had the time to take notes on the ongoing sociology experiment that is my reader base. Still, very happy with how this turned out. I didn't expect so much inter-minific continuity, but I liked the ideas too much to let them go after just one use. The vampire minotaur conquistadors alone gave me way more material than I'd first anticipated.
The two-card prompt design did do a lot for getting me to take the prompts in some lateral directions. Some of the later stories took weeks for me to puzzle out a workable solution. "Alone in the Dark Age" went through at least three different outlines before I settled on the final form, and "Shades of Gray" only came together when I looked for something I could rework into a RariTwi story. Others were low-hanging fruit that I either plucked immediately ("Wartime Industry") or ended up sidelining anyway because my muse latched onto other ideas first ("Zen and the Art of Draconequus Discourse.") That's the fun of leaving your story prompts to RNG; you get a fun mix.
On that note, I doubt I'll put it together right away, but how does everyone feel about a Story Shuffle-style contest? I assign you a card and some spoiler-blocked further context. You can either use that additional context or just riff off of whatever's happening on the cardboard. Maybe do two or even three cards. Heck, we can fully rip off Shrink Laureate, assign five per person, and award more points the more you can work into the story... though that may be a bit much. Fabulous cash prizes go without saying. Thoughts?
I'd be down! Though I am halfway through another one-shot at the moment.
I'd be willing to give it a shot.
I always love a good prompt-based writing event.
I don't think I'd participate, but it does sound like fun.
As a completely unrelated thought, I now wonder what it would look like if I took five RoboFoME cards and made sure every detail on all of them were worked in somewhere.
I like the idea.
Sounds like fun.
That could be interesting!
Could be interesting, though I don't know about doing five cards. That sounds like it'd lead to a bit too much chaos within any given story, with people trying to shoehorn in every last one.
Sounds like fun! Count me in.
I'd sign up... maybe even write something but I've got so little time these days... .
I would definitely be interested in that contest.
A ponyfic contest based around Magic cards? Delightful plan. Two or three cards seems like the right count; I think five is too many when the prompts are not actual pony characters/concepts but things that need some effort to turn into pony in the first place.