Hmmmm.... Interesting. I'll have to try it on my next story (out soon).
Inflation stories as Wordles
Here's an interesting idea that my wife suggested. First go to this site:
http://wordle.net/create
She said, "You've got to put some of your inflatable stories into this thing and see what happens." So I did -- I cut and pasted stories from my collection.
I ran a few of my stories through it and found, if nothing else, that I repeat certain words too much -- like "said." I should work on more creative attribution of dialogue! Main character names come up a lot too. It's actually a pretty analysis of your story after you've written it, to show you what and how you wrote from a completely different perspective.
It's funny, because stories with a greater vocabulary will not come up with the most titillating layouts -- the stories with less change in language will arguably make more exciting Wordles. I expected lots of "balloon" and "swelling" and stuff like that, but it turns out those words are the money shots in stories and generally aren't overused.
Try choosing "Maximum Words" under Layout and changing it to 75 or 50 words for a few stories; it gives the main words more impact.
By far my best story as a Wordle was Eating Light, which was my first and worst story. But as a Wordle, I liked it because it was just super obvious:
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/67086/Eating_Light
Try it with your favorite stories and post your results.
Mon, 07/14/2008 - 05:29
#3
SvenS
Mon, 07/14/2008 - 17:01
#4
Hmm I like. I don't know what would class as overusing words though... I mean you'd expect character names to crop up a lot.
I tried it on Black and White Butterflies, it's interesting finding out which words you use a lot. Having read I123's post I expected that the money words like pump and inflate would only be medium but I still discovered a lot about my style of writing which I hadn't really thought about before.
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/68421/Black_and_White_Butterflies
Inflated, balloon and pressure appear there at a medium size, and the character names are biggest, but interestingly, between those are the words felt, eyes and hands.
Just and like and perhaps words I shouldn't have been using so much. Although I guess like means I used a lot of similies.
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/68444/Concrete_Sauna
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/68453/Remotes_1_&_2
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/68462/Miniflation
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/68473/Bursting_with_Gossip
These are some of my favourite of my own stories... they seem to follow a simiar pattern. Although one inflation related work in particular in Bursting with Gossip stands out ;)
Mon, 07/14/2008 - 20:08
#5
LutherVKane
This is a fun little toy.
Most of mine don't seem to make very interesting Wordles. Eating Light makes an awesome Wordle, but mine tend to have the character names in very large letters and little else interesting. Stories that use longer names come out odd-looking. I tried Donna's New Look, but Vanessa and Grandenberg really screwed with the formatting.
I think that's why Eating Light works so well. In most stories, the character names dominate. Take those away, and the more entertaining words can come to the forefront.
Here's how a few of mine came out:
The Pageant, my first story: http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/67499/The_Pageant
Hard Lessons, my most recent:http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/67507/Hard_Lessons
Apparently after all these years I still use the word "just" a lot. Interesting.
And just for grins I did Changes, my first and never finished attempt at an inflation story:
Mon, 07/14/2008 - 23:19
#6
JSK00
EDIT: Never mind the Java problem, I got it fixed. And here is my only BI story to make it into dA, Free-Will BI.
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/80505/Free_Will_BI (BTW, may not show up properly, so original story here:
Part 1A (This was supposed to be a series, but things got in the way.): http://josephstaleknight.deviantart.com/art/Free-Will-BI-1A-73945347
Part 1B: http://josephstaleknight.deviantart.com/art/Free-Will-BI-1B-74058881 )
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 05:55
#7
well here is mine. I posted it on writing.com because I can't think of how to continue the story if anyone wants to contribute.
http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/539993/Ann%27s_Expansive_Day
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 07:36
#8
Auriga
Looks like I'm using "though" word a bit too often.
However, no huge character names. I've done my best to avoid repeats.
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 20:21
#9
It is...intricate to me. I rather stick to the ye ol fashion MS Word made stories. (odd that in Word 2007, they used the crappy font called, "Calibri" instead of "Times New Roman" or "Arial").
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/67484/The_Interview
Huh. Gives you an odd Idea.
Apprently, I use "bit" too much...