Seven posts in, and somehow we have a story.
Not a planned story. I didn’t sit down with an outline and decide who these people were, what secrets they were keeping, or what kind of trouble they were going to get themselves into.
I spun a wheel.
Then I rolled some dice.
And things got weird.
That’s kind of the point.
When I started this experiment, I wanted to see whether random generators could actually help build a story without taking over the writing. I don’t want a tool to write the story for me. Where’s the fun in that?
I want it to throw something at me and make my brain go, Okay…what the hell am I supposed to do with that?
And after seven posts, I’m starting to see how that works.
The Dice Aren’t Instructions
This might be the biggest thing I’ve learned so far.
A generator result isn’t a command.
I don’t have to use every result exactly as it appears. I don’t have to cram it into the very next scene. And if something doesn’t work, I can toss it aside or save it for later.
Sometimes I know immediately what I want to do with a roll.
Other times?
Not a damn clue.
And that’s okay.
The result can sit there until something clicks.
Sometimes the Story Gets There First
The second Character Complication roll was probably my favorite example of this so far.
The dice gave me:
🎲 Stubborn
🎲 Values honesty, hides the truth
🎲 Doesn’t see what’s right in front of them
🎲 Emotional trigger: Betrayal or deception
🎲 Refuses help even when needed
🎲 Change or the unknown
I decided the roll belonged to Miss Alma.
Then I started writing.
I didn’t make a checklist and try to work all six results into the scene. Actually, I started with Miss Alma teasing Marla about Zack spending the night.
Because apparently Miss Alma had other plans.
The conversation wandered.
Pete came up. Then a grandson Marla had never heard about. Then Miss Alma started dodging questions. The phone rang. Something was happening with a thirteen-year-old. Miss Alma refused Marla’s help and practically threw her out of the house.
Marla agreed to leave.
Then peeked through the window.
Miss Alma caught her.
And suddenly that betrayal or deception trigger made perfect sense.
So did refusing help.
So did hiding the truth.
So did being afraid of change or the unknown.
Even doesn’t see what’s right in front of them started to take shape. Marla is trying like hell to help this woman, but from Miss Alma’s perspective, Marla said she would leave and then stood outside watching her through the window.
Same moment. Two completely different ways of seeing it.
I didn’t plan any of that before I started writing the scene.
The roll gave me some ingredients.
The characters decided what to do with them.
And Some Pieces Still Don’t Fit
We’ve already generated things that haven’t found their place yet.
I’m not worried about them.
Maybe they’ll make sense five scenes from now.
Maybe twenty.
Maybe I’ll eventually decide they don’t belong in this story at all.
That’s still me writing the story.
The generators aren’t in charge here.
They’re just tiny chaos machines sitting beside me occasionally yelling, “HEY, WHAT ABOUT THIS?”
Sometimes I say yes.
Sometimes I say not yet.
Sometimes I tell them to shut the hell up.
So…Now What?
At this point, we’ve spent seven posts throwing people and problems onto the table.
We’ve met characters.
We’ve discovered pieces of their pasts.
We’ve created complications.
We’ve stumbled into secrets I didn’t know existed until the characters opened their mouths.
Now it’s time to start looking at all these pieces together.
What connects?
What doesn’t?
What have we accidentally set up?
What happens if we start pushing on some of it?
Because creating characters and giving them problems was the easy part.
Now we get to make everything worse.
Welcome to the messy middle
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