I can’t believe believe it was six months ago, back in December 2017, when I first started the ScottWritesStuff creative writing livestream.
I had no idea what to expect back then, but I couldn’t be prouder of what the stream has grown into. I’ve learned so much in these six months, and I’ve had a ton of fun with everyone in chat. Here’s to hoping for an even more awesome six more months to come!
To celebrate our stream-iversary, I decided to try out some things I’ve always wanted to do. For the exercise section, I wanted to see how well I knew my viewers’ writing. I invited anyone in chat to write an (anonymous) seven sentence story in a Google Doc, and then when everyone was done, I went in and tried to guess who wrote each one.
How did I do? Here’s my score:
I got 1 out of 10 correct.
Well, it looks like I need to get to know the chat a little better!
To be fair though, everyone had to start with the same sentence (“I was talking down the street when suddenly…”), and with only seven sentences, it was hard to really get a feel for the style. I’d also like to point out that I got it down to a 50/50 guess on three of them, and would’ve gotten it right if I’d gone with the other choice. Maybe I should just flip a coin next time!
After that we tried something new for the writing prompt. Instead of just me writing the prompt, we did a COLLABORATIVE prompt.
After voting on a prompt, I divided up the story into sections, and anyone from chat who volunteered was assigned a section to write. There were seven sections in all, and we all wrote them at the same time.
The prompt we chose was submitted by ProgrammaticallyLie7: You come home and you see a trail of footsteps in blood, leading to the kitchen sink….
This was pure chaos, and I loved it! Each person brought their own style and flavor to their section, and they’re only barely connected together.
It may look like a mess to anyone outside of the stream who reads it. But we created it together, and I couldn’t be happier with how our crazy, communal story turned out.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published, the writing exercises, or the writing prompts on YouTube, or watch the full stream reruns until Twitch deletes them.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming November 2018.