#AuntyPDoingScience

[astramthetaprime]

The Story Tarot

Okay so I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and in an effort to escape my current life situation this seems like a good night to do this and not think about the impending doom for a couple hours.  So here goes.

In accordance with the Standard Rules for Science-Fiction Writing, when asked ‘where do you get your ideas’, the Standard Answer is ‘a post office box in Poughkeepsie”.  This Standard Answer was used even by Isaac Asimov himself.  I have, on occasion, used it myself.  But now I will share with you what method I actually use.  

This method can be done without needing to use cards, you could do this simply by listing the various items on a numbered list and either using a random number generator online or using dice to determine which items to use.  I have found actual cards to be helpful in that one can lay them out, move them around, and have them all laid out in relation to each other.  It’s more tangible, y’know?  

You will need:  

A deck of blank cards of some type.  Index cards can be used, but you can also find blank playing cards on Amazon.  

A Sharpie.  

A box or other container to keep them in.

A scratchpad and pen.

For Science-Fiction, you will also need this website, Speculative Fiction Tropes

(There’s also other trope lists on the Genre Tropes section of the same website if you’re wanting romance, adventure, etc.)

I started out with these tropes but later removed a lot of them from my deck and replaced them with other things such as “gray goo”, “alien abduction”, “wandering planet” and other more scientifically based things.  You can add elements from other genres -- romance tropes, ancient history tropes, horror tropes, whatever suits your fancy.

Break out your cards and your Sharpie and start writing the tropes one per card.

Once done, gather them up, shuffle several times, and start dealing out cards.  My usual method here is to deal out 5 cards, then spread them out and sit with them to see if anything sparks interest.  If a card or two just doesn’t work for you, deal two more and put the first two back in the deck.  Keep doing this, thinking and dealing out cards, moving them around to relate them one to each other.  You might start with 3 cards or 10, or any number that seems good to you.  What you’re looking for here is ideas, not sticking to a method.  Does anything stand out that you feel needs to be the centerpiece of a plot?  Are any of them something the antagonist might use as a weapon, or as their secret weakness, or as the one thing that scares the protagonist beyond all reason?  

Whatever you find in the cards, write down your final card list and notes on your ideas on your trusty scratchpad.  You can either set it aside in an “ideas” file or use it straightaway, either way you’ve got it salted away for future use.

As stated above, if you don’t have the means to get blank playing cards or blank index cards, you can always just do them as a numbered list and either use dice or a random number generator to choose your prospective idea chunks.  Maybe write them on post-it notes so you can move them around as you would with cards, or just copy them into a text file and move around as and when needed. 

Anyway, that’s the Story Tarot.  It can be as elaborate or as simple as you want.  I’m still using a subset of my original hand-written cards, I narrowed mine down to a deck that’s only slightly more than a standard deck of playing cards.  But I can add new cards at any time since I still have two or three sets of blank cards in reserve.  The deck I have now includes astronomical phenomena, futurist concepts, space technologies, cyberpunk tropes, and character actions.  But you can do a deck with Wild West, Age of Sail, Cthulhu Mythos and Indian Mythology if that’s the stuff that you want to write.  The Tarot is infinitely adaptable and can change with your tastes and interests.  

Have fun!  Let me know if you find this useful!  And thanks for listening!

[astramthetaprime]

Time to Think

So I’ve been off yesterday and today.  I’m not writing anything at the moment, but the last few days I’ve felt kind of burned out so I’ve been just chilling.  Not pushing myself to write anything, just sort of enjoying not writing if you get my meaning.  Sometimes you just have to take a step away and let your brain refill itself, y’know?  

So this morning I’ve done a couple more Autism tests on Embrace Autism .  I did the Empathy Quotient and the ASRS-5 which screens for ADHD.  I scored a 13 on the ASRS and the cut-off for if you have ADHD is 14+.  So likely I’m sub-clinical on ADHD, if I am at all it’s likely Inattentive type.  But the EQ, I scored a 14, where 30 and under indicates Autism.  So yeah.  Hit it out of the park again.

I’ve been thinking lately I want to get some specificity on what exactly are my problem areas.  In that respect the Aspie Quiz is probably the best place to start. It goes into details other than a binary yes/no and I took it at the same time I took the RAADS and the CAT-Q.  I went through the scoring PDF and copied off what it says I have as strengths and weaknesses.  I want to be able to have a list, okay here’s what I need to deal with and here’s the strong points I can work with.  With a list, I can look into each one and start trying to figure out how to improve them.  If they can be improved at all.  

The Internet has to be good for something, right?  It’s not all cat videos and movie trailers and fluffy TopGun hurt/comfort fanfic.  It’s the sum total of human knowledge.  Therefore the information I need is out there if I can figure out where to look.  I can make my life better.  It’s all a matter of research and application.  I may not ever have the wherewithal to go to therapy but I can get myself most of the way there on my own.  

The world won’t be any more comprehensible, but at the very least I may be able to understand myself.