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Robert D. Reed Publishers News — plot development

Re-calculating “Deal a Story”

Cleone Reed archetypes character development Deal a Story Improvisational group Mathy Jokes 4 Mathy Folks Patrick Vennebush plot development story line Sue Viders writers' conference writers' group writing class writing coach writing teacher

How often have you missed a turn and the GPS said, “Re-calculating?” Obviously I heard this many times as the voice so clearly reverberates in my head. When it comes to knowing how many possible hands one can draw from Deal a Story by Sue Viders, is it really important? The only reason it is important for me to write about again is to be in integrity. After doing some re-calculating, Patrick Vennebush, author of Mathy Jokes 4 Mathy Folks wrote to me, “The downside is that it's significantly lower than the number I previously gave you. The upside is that it's still...

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Five-Quadrillion Combinations with "Deal a Story"… or MORE!?!

Cleone Reed character development choosing a plot comedy writers conferences for fiction writers conferences for writers Deal a Story Deal a Story combinations fiction writers Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks memoirs overcoming writer's block Patrick Vennebush playwrights plot development screen writers screenwriters Story development Sue Viders Tool for Writers villians and heroes and heroines writers block writers conferences writing coaches writing groups writing teachers

Our brainstorming card game, Deal a Story, by Sue Viders, boasts on the box top that there are 101 cards and 1,000,001 story ideas. But how many ideas really can come from this game? Even though I was really good at math and statistics when a student, over the years I have lost so much mathematical know-how.   So I wrote to our author, Patrick Vennebush, who wrote Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks, (and has a blog of jokes and other fun math stuff) and asked him how many combinations were really possible with Deal a Story. A million and...

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Deal a Story and GO WILD with ideas!

Cleone Reed Adding twists to novels Card game for writers Character development choosing a genre choosing a plot Cleone Reed comedy writers Deal a Story overcoming writer's block playwrights plot development screenwriters Story development Sue Viders surprise endings Tool for Writers villians and heroes and heroines writer's block Writer's Tool writers groups writing coaches writing teachers

When I play with the Deal a Story Brain-Storming Card Game by Sue Viders, I end up with a wide variety of emotions. Today, the first hand I drew made me literally laugh out loud! Another one made me totally puzzled. Another one had me intrigued. I think the reactions and feelings are as endless as the possible stories that can come out of using this game, or as we refer to it, this writer’s tool. (Here is a sample random draw:) The idea is to pick one of sixteen cards in each group: Hero, Heroine, Villain, Plot, and Genre; and...

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