Show HN: WriterKata – a site for writers to practice their craft

Post by willstepp » Mon, May 05, 2014, 4:08 AM UTC

sakai wrote: post #13

willstepp wrote: post #2

I am a (web) programmer by day, writer by night. I've written a couple novels, unpublished so far. A few weeks ago I sat down to sharpen the saw and after struggling to come up with something to write about, I realized I could use a tool to give me random writing exercises so I can focus on the writing itself. Something like a writing prompt, but more compelling and interactive. Inspired by the practice of coding kat…

Very cool. One question – I noticed that you're doing some validation of the inputs (i.e., I can't seem to submit a sentence without a period) – could you explain the reasoning for this? On the one hand, it seems fairly constraining (and probably comes with a few unfortunate edge cases). On the other, perhaps that's the benefit of the kata philosophy.

Post by willstepp » Mon, May 05, 2014, 4:41 AM UTC

fumeboy wrote: post #14

For someone that excelled at writing at school but never took it any further than that, this was an excellent experience for me to get me thinking about writing creatively again. What would be amazing is to let me not progress until I successfully met some of the grammar conditions that were placed upon the sentences/paragraphs (eg. I had to google what an appositive was) but was not sure if I successfully used it co…

Post by jjallen » Mon, May 05, 2014, 4:55 AM UTC

willstepp wrote: post #2

I am a (web) programmer by day, writer by night. I've written a couple novels, unpublished so far. A few weeks ago I sat down to sharpen the saw and after struggling to come up with something to write about, I realized I could use a tool to give me random writing exercises so I can focus on the writing itself. Something like a writing prompt, but more compelling and interactive. Inspired by the practice of coding kat…

Post by angersock » Mon, May 05, 2014, 5:15 AM UTC

willstepp wrote: post #2

I am a (web) programmer by day, writer by night. I've written a couple novels, unpublished so far. A few weeks ago I sat down to sharpen the saw and after struggling to come up with something to write about, I realized I could use a tool to give me random writing exercises so I can focus on the writing itself. Something like a writing prompt, but more compelling and interactive. Inspired by the practice of coding kat…

Post by jonnathanson » Mon, May 05, 2014, 5:25 AM UTC

greatzebu wrote: post #24

jonnathanson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cool idea. It reminds me of a writing exercise we used to do in a journalism class in high school. The teacher gave us an assortment of facts about a story, and from those facts, we'd compile ledes (opening sentences and/or paragraphs).[1] As many strong ledes as we could muster from the same pool of information. A strong lede is compelling, informative, and brief. Those goals are tough to reconcile. You'd spe…

"Lede" is supposedly a holdover from the time when news was printed using actual metal lead type, and "lead" was accordingly shorthand for type itself. The alternate spelling avoids a potentially confusing homograph.