#52Tech Week 48 – Some Random Generators and Quick Fix Tools

Today’s Week 48 post for the #52Tech series provides 100+ random generator resources for writers in need of some inspiration or stuck for ideas to complete off their NaNoWriMo efforts.

For those doing NaNoWriMo, at this point in the last week, we should have established our main plotlines and characters and be heading towards the end zone. But when you’re writing fast and dirty, at this point it can be too tiring to come up with new ideas. Sometimes you just need to pull a plot device or even a new character out of the hat, and be prepared to go back and clean up later.

Which is when, with little time to spare, one of the many web-based random generators on the web comes in handy. Permission to open the Internet – just really really quickly, okay? Granted.

Need a Quick Character?

1. Quick Character Generator (age, traits, birthdate, relationship status and more)
2. Character Archetype Generator
3. Character Personality Generator
4. Character Appearance Generator (simple or detailed)
5. Character Motive Generator
6. Superpower Origins Generator
7. Character Flaws and Weaknesses Generator
8. Character Secret Generator
9. Big Bad Generator – for villains
10. Quick Character Generator
11. Moods Generator
12. Body Mass Index Visualizer
13. Random Young Adult Character Generator

The above first five generators reside on the Rangen UK website. Explore the site for more randomness – character’s superpowers, family tree, or love interests can be found there. Also, check out the Name section to find a random Name generator, and novel title generator.

The next four above come from Springhole.net where you will also find many More character and other random generators like a Realistic and Semi-realistic name generator, a speculative fiction/fantasy/scifi name generator, a setting and object name generator.

Ten and eleven above are from well-known random generator site Seventh Sanctum, where you will find many more.

The rest listed above are random.

Bonus note: Springhole.net is also home to one of the best collections of explanations and surveys to take to test whether your lovely new main character created through NaNo isn’t a Mary Sue character.

Need a World or Small Piece of Setting?

The Springhole links above will also open up several world-building generators such as a random town generator, landscape generator, house, setting, diety and fantasy Kingdom name generator.

And Seventh Sanctum also has many fantasy orientated setting or world-building generators.

Or try these –

• Dave’s Mapper – generates a map of a town or dungeons, based on several hand-Drawn maps.
• Inkwell also has several random map generators, some I can get to work, some not.
• E-Plans – once registered you can go through the American houseplans on site and select one to match your urban setting. Some have interior shots also. ( this is one example, there are several other houseplan websites as sources for modern settings).

Lost the Plot?

It happens, especially through a writing marathon like NaNo. If you need a little something for your characters to work through, give these a go:

• Huge list of plot generators. 1
• Another huge master list of all sorts of generators 2

Note: these two are posts I reblogged on my Everything for Writers Tumblr blog. Many of these master lists on Tumblr are reblogged for months, and subsequently contain dead links (such as the Scriptfrenzy one on the first list, or anything found at the defunct archetypewriting.com site). I have not checked all of these links, but the lists contains mention of the many plot generators on Springhole, and Seventh Sanctum.

• Big Huge Lab’s Big Huge Thesaurus Story Plot Generator – 5.1m of them, apparently.
• A few plot and plot twist generators at Pantomime Pony
• Plot Generator org has several genre-themed plot generators – choose from Romance or Horror, Crime, Mystery and Teen Vampire (apparently a genre unto it’s own now).

More Generator Sites

For even more, explore further on -

• Chaotic Shiney
• Seventh Sanctum
• Serendipidity
• Rangen
• Writing Exercises
• Pantomime Pony
• Plot Generator org

#52Tech: This was Week 48 post in the #52tech goal – to investigate and share one technology post once a week for 2014. You can find all the posts indexed via the #52tech tag, or top menu option at hunterswritings.com