Dawn's Dictionary Drama
Start with the Introduction, then read the first story, "The Manly Man and the Super-Sweet T-Shirts"
Introduction
What the heck is this?
Dawn's Dictionary Drama is a thrice-weekly (Monday/Wenesday/Friday) webcomic based on the principle of "forced creativity." For each of the 110 comic strips in each story, I was given a random word that I needed to incorporate visually into the comic — either by having a character say it, having it appear on some object, or having it be a sound effect for the comic.
In the original story, The Manly Man and the Super-Sweet T-Shirts, where did you get the random words from?
From the Watch Out 4 Snakes Random Word Generator (Plus). It gives you a lot of flexibility in the kind of word you want and its level of common usage.
And after that, for, say, Smash Another Plate!?
At every comic convention I go to now, I pull random people over to my table and have them give me a word, no matter how simple or difficult, but with three restrictions:
- The word has to be PG-rated (my determination).
- It can't be a proper noun.
- If it's a made-up word, it has to have a sensible definition.
How about the dictionary entries on each post?
Those I did get from something with an API for programmatic access — WordNet from Princeton University. I have some custom code that looks up the definition I used from a local copy of WordNet database and displays it on the page.
Why "forced creativity?" Why not just plan out a proper story for these fun-loving characters?
This method of writing gives me a lot of exercise in:
- thinking on my feet. I don't "look ahead" and plan out the strips too far in advance. I try my best to take what's been given to me and work with it. This exercise helps in many other parts in life.
- acting quickly. The mere act of forcing me to work with a word gets my gears turning, and for some reason makes me able to think on my feet even faster than normal. Even if I make a less-than-ideal decision about word choice or plot or character poses, it's most likely still better than having not drawn the comic at all.
- going with the flow. The story develops as it develops. My control over it is limited. I won't go back and modify old comics, except for maybe tiny dialog tweaks. As long as I roughly adhere to one additional restriction, I know I'll write something coherent.
One additional restriction? And what's that?
Try to stay as close to the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet as possible. Each Dawn's Dictionary Drama story is 110 strips long, which, conveniently, fits an unmodified Beat Sheet quite nicely. Yes, this is probably not the use that it was intended for, but since it quite nicely outlines the points in the story when I need to start moving in a different direction, it serves a useful purpose. By the way, I'm a big fan of the "Save the Cat!" series. ;)
What age range is this for?
If you were shelving this at your local library or book store, the age range would be for 12-16 year olds. If you let your kids watch Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy (one of my favorites) then you should probably be all right with this comic.