a different sort of bingo

[asakiyume]

You know how people make up bingo boards for various dislikable or problematic things, putting in all the typical elements you can get with those things? One of the first ones I remember seeing was a handmade one about hipsters (the kind of bingo board a hipster would make--ohhhh!)

But the bingo-board format is a great way for arraying visually elements in a novel, if you want to tell people about it and maybe intrigue them--which I do. And so . . .

Behold! Pen Pal Bingo!


Would you like a helping of messenger crows, hurricanes, and visions? How about the Lady of the Ruby Lake, legends, and separatism?

Fun, right? All my writer friends out there, I would love to see you do something like this for your own works! Yes. All of you. I want to see yours! Heck, for some of you, I'd like to make one up, myself. Seriously, this should be a thing.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

What an awesome idea! I love your bingo board. It really brings together the elements in your story on a visual level.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You should do it for one of yours! It's fun.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

This is a totally stupid question, but...did you draw the board yourself? Or is there a graphic for it that can be filled in?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Not stupid at all! There are ones you can download if you search on "bingo grid," but what I did was just make a table in MS Word.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thank you!

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

That looks like fun!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Dooooo Iiiiiiit!

You make bingo boards--this will be a snap for you.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I may just diagram my handful of longer stories this way. This looks extremely fun and also informative!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

If you do, and if you feel like sharing the results, I'd love to see!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed looking at your bingo entries, and thinking about which ones I would have put. Like significant objects from the book instead of abstracts. (Not that I disapprove of abstracts, I just wouldn't have thought of them.)

I signed up for the Goodreads giveaway to get it to show up on my Goodreads list. I don't actually expect another copy!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What concrete things would you have put in?

I think this would be great to do for other people's books--like I could totally see doing it for Banner of the Damned! Or I'd love to do it for Ancillary Justice, or for Janni's Tiernay West, Professional Adventurer.

Hee, thanks for signing up. If you win, maybe you can donate the copy to the library or something (I've paid someone to create a WorldCat catalogue entry for it, so libraries can catalogue it.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I'd go through the book and find significant objects--bottles, letters, sea shells, lava rocks, a crow, like that.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Oh! I had a great idea for you! I'll email you.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I *love* your idea ♥

[sovay]

Yay, book!

I like quite a lot of those things on your bingo card; others I don't, but it's still important to have books about them. But, also: seagifts.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess it would be kind of weird to claim to actually like ethnic conflict or prejudice . . .