Blog Swap!

Oya everyone!

Have you ever watched Build Swap?

If you have, we are automatically best friends. Hallo new best friend.

If you haven’t, you totally should. It’s a fantastic thing.

But you are probably very confused. Let me explain.

Build Swap is a series on YouTube that was around a few years ago run by Grian, one of my personal favorite YouTubers, and his friend Taurtis. In this series, Grian and Taurtis would have to build crazy things in Minecraft based on themes chosen by some of their friends. They would have a time limit to build said thing (for example, a cuttlefish, or a video game character, or a living rustic house) and then when the time limit was up they would swap builds. When they swapped they would receive more instructions (such as holding a rocket launcher, making muffins, fighting a milkman) and build that on the other person’s build. Then they would swap AGAIN, back to their original builds, and with one last set of instructions make something absolutely ridiculous. Then their builds would be judged by their friends and whoever won got fireworks.

It’s a little confusing but incredibly entertaining.

And I was rewatching some Build Swap the other day, as one does when one is sad, and a Thought came upon me.

I could totally do that with writing.

And so Blog Swap was born.

I explained the Thought to my friend Ariella, who is also a Grian and Taurtis fan, and she wholeheartedly agreed that this Thought was in fact a Good Idea.

So

BLOG SWAP!

(I’d like to draw your attention to the somewhat-legit photoshopped thumbnail at the top of the post)

(I know, I’m extremely skilled)

Here are the rules of Blog Swap. And don’t worry, even if it seems kind of confusing at first, it will all become clear as it progresses.

The Rules of Blog Swap:

Each participant will receive three specifications at the beginning of Blog Swap supplied by a third party. These will be 1) a character, 2) a setting, and 3) some object or phrase that must be included in the story. Each participant will write part of a story using these specifications, leaving the segment on a cliffhanger.

Blog Swap will continue in two weeks, when the participants will swap stories and continue what the other has written with three more third-party specifications; 1) a Bad Thing that happens, 2) an object or phrase, and 3) an additional character to be added. They will continue the story and end on another cliffhanger.

In two more weeks Blog Swap will conclude with participants swapping back to their original stories and finishing them with three final specifications; 1) a Good Thing that happens, 2) a phrase or object, and 3) a scenario based on a song chosen by the third party.

Each participant will post their full story on their own blog at the conclusion.

See? It’s just like Build Swap, but instead of cobbling together random ideas to make something in Minecraft we will be cobbling together random ideas to make a story! And already things are looking pretty fun. Ariella and I have received our specifications from our friends and we are ready to GO.

Here are my three things:

1. Person named Sage Raven
2. A cave at the base of a volcano
3. “Why so many acorns?”

Without further ado, BLOG SWAP!

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Uncomfortable warmth radiated from the torch blazing in Sage’s hand. She held it out as far as she could, her arm starting to tire already. It didn’t even cast that much light. It cast more shadows than light, flickery shadows, disconcertingly solid-looking shadows always at the corner of her vision.

Pfft. Sage Raven wasn’t afraid of the dark. Sage Raven feared nothing.

Seeing nothing, she thought with a twinge of humor. I fear seeing nothing.

“Oooh, look at that stalack-thing! It’s like a whole blummin’ tree!”

Ah yes. Him. Sage sighed as she looked over her shoulder at the boy behind her. Fire light reflected in his wide eyes as he gaped at the rock formations. As she watched, he reached his little hand into his pocket and dropped something on the ground. It made a quiet clicking noise against the stone floor. Come to think of it, she’d been hearing that sound for a while . . .

“What are you doing?”

He blinked and focused on her. The stark shadows made him look a bit spooky. “I’m leaving a trail. We are in a cave, y’know. Easy to get lost. See?” He held up one of the small objects.

An acorn?

“Why do you have so many acorns?” Sage’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet. Ridiculous, of course, but something inside her insisted that raising her voice could cause some catastrophe like a cave-in or eruption from the volcano they were currently inside.

“For leaving a trail! Weren’t you listening?”

Sage huffed and faced forward again. The hand that wasn’t carrying the torch slipped into her satchel, caressing the smooth, glassy, cool-to-the-touch orb. It just sat there, acting like it hadn’t recently caused a war, like it really was just a harmless little globe and not an ancient instrument of destruction deserving to be tossed maliciously into a pit of molten volcano juice.

That was the plan, of course.

Another little click as an acorn hit the cold ground. But the next sound Sage heard was much louder, and much more indicative of imminent horrible death.

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And that is the first part of Blog Swap! Go check out Ariella’s post to see how her story starts, and what I’ve got to work with next time. But before you do that, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down there somewhere. That way, you’ll get a handy email every Monday when I post, and unless you leave your email unchecked for weeks like I do there’s no way you’ll miss the next part of the story! And why not give this post a like while you’re down there? It’s the tiny star button.

Anyway, I’ll see you all next week (or you’ll see me, I guess) so until then BYE! Go watch Build Swap!

~Ace