The Bonsai Story Generator takes any text fed to it (up to 6K) and randomly rearranges the text to produce new sentences. As you might expect this creates a small mountain of nonsense, but it also produces some interesting word pairings and clusters, a few of which can work as titles, prompts, scene ideas and more.
I took about 4K of my NaNo novel and Bonsai'd it, and then weeded through the results, deleting out the gibberish and whatever else was useless. Here's what I kept, along with some of my thoughts in italics:
Driving through the lionsgate to be ruined
But he should hurt a little as my son-in-law. (Beautiful line for a mean mama-in-law.)
She caught her ladyship's feathered bonnet.
She would have had a traveled veteran.
Tell the wound.
The man looked down into our society, Lady Hardiwick said.
Greville would send Prudence into tarts (I love this as a description of a compulsive eater)
Well, he beheld the mare.
Agitation kindled a gentleman.
The fact that she would do no longer.
She heard a kindly older brother.
As a girl she'd been silly enough to cross their path. (This sparked a new scene for me)
No man had fainted from her.
I haven't a groan.
You are a morning salon, abundantly furnished. (What a nervous man might say while trying to compliment a beautiful, well-endowed woman, maybe)
He is not indulging in the company as yet
the great house at Netherfield Park stood like a spinster (You can't imagine how helpful this was to me. Honestly. Hugely.)
Stand back, she can make himself sick again. (Instant, hilarious imagery)
Julian with no other sound.
He will look at the most generous good enough to be ruined (is there any better description for a penniless rake?)
Lady Maycott released a ridiculous fiction (A lot of us are prone to doing that.)
Miss Maycott, please allow any callers.
I don't care how often he will have us.
It will likely turn the decanter.
It is not the makings of our invitations
Built in pieces, Miss Maycott.
your kindness has no other sound. (I just loved this.)
You have a bloody clue. (as opposed to the cliched haven't)
I feel so dreadful for her, much of her too.
She sat back on her own feelings
The roads are recovered
I will cut open your hopes (this one gave me shivers, and is definitely going in the story as part of a rant.)
You can also feed poems, song lyrics or any other type of text to the generator to be bonsai'd; I do this sometimes with long, imagery-rich poems to get title ideas.
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I love this! Thank you so much for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteVery cool! Some of those lines don't sound at all random.
ReplyDeleteI had fun trying this, though my one-liners aren't nearly as good as yours. No doubt that's due to the writer... ;D
ReplyDelete-- The afternoon sun had history
-- You might be bloodshed
-- Heat flared between my privacy and his (well, that's one way of putting it!!)
-- I've yet to do the impossible
-- You're trespassing on her resolve
-- Don't be tasting every direction
-- She was flirting with fury
-- Good at surveillance, better at lips
Oh my word! Some of the things that came out of mine just don't bear repeating!
ReplyDelete- When next he was thrown into the wind he was just an overly cloudy sky (This sounds like a metaphor for something. If only I can figure out for what! )
- I better make Sirralen pant. (This one made me laugh right out loud! Yes, you silly boy. You just go right ahead and make Sirralen pant. He's been wanting you to do that for the longest time!)
- and high winds could blow for many hours (I like this like. Cape Horn, anyone?)
- Sirralen was shouting something over the gale, but the wolf abruptly came back to die. (This freaked me out a little. It sounded so prophetic...)
- but the Piteraq seemed to offend Sirralen’s nose (Who knew? Katabatic winds can stink!)
- no I’m not a boy or neither of those.
- We’ve been on the mountains above the ideal spot for bathing (Romatic, huh?)
- Broken claws and bloody finger tips spoke volumes about his realisation during the night.
- Deciding to be pleasantly warm. (Have you even encountered this person, who can just switch their moods on and off.)