Word Crawl

For the last few years, we’ve held a one-off event each November called a Word Crawl. Everyone loves it so much we keep doing it, and here’s everything you need to know!

What is a Word Crawl?

A Word Crawl is a chance for you to control how a group story turns out by writing your novel. It’s a bit like a tabletop RPG, or a gamified way of writing a story. Sound weird? Let me explain…

Wait, where is this?

We hold the Word Crawl at our favourite Coffee Club, the same place all our Central Write-ins are held. Check out the write-ins page for all the info about how and where to find us!

What happens when you get there?

First, you’ll be given a choice of what type of story you want to join in with. These stories are worked on by a group, so you’ll join the table doing the post-apocalyptic survival journey, or the murder mystery, or the scifi space romp, depending on what we’ve got lined up for you all.

Join your group, plug in, and make yourself comfortable. You’ll start off by doing a short writing sprint, to get us all limbered up and running.

How does it work?

One of the MLs runs the Word Crawl stories. They will come around, give you the scenario and setup, and walk you through to the first decision point. Your group decides what you want to do, and then you’ll all do a writing sprint (5-15 minutes) to see what happens next.

When the sprint is done, we work out the group’s average and then see what impact that has on the story. If we’ve done well enough, our stories progress as planned! If not, who knows what might happen.

We repeat this process until our group’s Word Crawl story is complete! (Tip: this can take all day, so make sure you have plenty of time to stick around.)

Does this mean I can't work on my NaNo novel?

Not at all! During the writing sprints, you’ll be writing your NaNo novel. This is a way of chaining together a lot of concentrated writing on your story and is a great way to blast through your word count goals. Everyone who comes along is surprised at how much they get written during the event, so don’t underestimate how much it could help you.

What do you think of this post?
  • Awesome (1)
  • Interesting (1)
  • Useful (2)
  • More pls (0)
Share

Comments are closed!