Summer Camp Reading Fun 2023

Happy August! We made it! Congratulations to everyone who wrote something in the month of July.
I made full use of The Plan for Summer Camp 2023 for brainstorming, and ultimately was able to complete all 42 prompts, including those last two when I thought I was already done and really should have switched over to working on my Camp NaNoWriMo project fully. Oh well. Not everything was useful (this world didn't really need any new species, let alone 6), but there were a few prompts that ended up shaping the core of this story world in some crucial ways that I didn't expect.
So those are the prompts I'm going to look at for this challenge! I'm happy with what I did, even if I didn't do any editing at all, so I'll be looking less for inspiration for my work and more just to revel in other people's creativity and see what more technical ways I could spruce up my own work.
Articles were chosen largely at random, from those in the category that didn't have any likes. I wanted to spread the love! Unless there was something that really bugged me about an article or it was inaccessible, I stuck with the first three that stuck out to me.

Prompt #1: A Conflict Between Two Unequal Powers

The theme for these three seemed to be detail. Highlighting elements to make things easier to see, plenty of links, lots of background, looking at the lead-up or the aftermath, etc. Military conflicts in particular can have a lot of moving parts and background complexity and it's important to show what's going on or risk confusion.
1. Battle of Egrym's Dell, by Gnolli.
A really solid, basic article. It's a good showcase of how to make an article readable without having to get too crazy fancy. Great use of links, bold for important concepts, headers, paragraph spacing, and a map on the side. Plenty of solid information laying out the whole conflict and I loved that it ended in a truce instead of a decisive victory either way. Only thing I would really want changed is that I wanted the article previews to pop up when I moused over a link, to get quick snapshots of the important information.
2. Siege of the Silent Spires, by ParadoxicalLemon08.
Oof. Like, did this person write any other articles for Summer Camp?! (Further investigation shows that yes, they did write fourteen other articles.) Wow. The detail on this article is immense. A few more article links would be good, but by itself this article has plenty of information. Standout moments include the multiple journal entries from participants in the sidebar, and the Legacy of the Siege section, showing how the people developed after this fight in logical and interesting ways.
I loved how formative this conflict seemed. I'd expect this fight to be a crucial part of the world lore. I also enjoyed the twist on the prompt. The inequality is interesting because Thalengard is represented as a strong kingdom, but the Silent Spires are powerful in how much of an unknown they are. Very cool.
3. The Sacking of Crila, by niterune.
Nice little summary at the start. Sometimes it's nice to have suspense, but for a world building article I do prefer to know exactly what I'm getting into from the beginning. The setup for the conflict was logical, with the larger nation slowly encroaching and pushing at the smaller, even using propaganda to influence the common citizens. The article overall could use a few links and a bit more polish, but it's solid. Also, the ending absolutely ran into the 300 word target so it's a bit abrupt, but that's less of a flaw and more of a "will fix later."

Prompt #2: An Important Public Announcement Addressed to Many

Two things really stood out to me for this category. First, the variety of announcements. A seemingly innocuous tournament introduction, a warning to turn over a fugitive, and an entire treaty. So many prompts can be used for such diverse things, and it's so much fun. Second, how cool it is when the actual "document" is included. Whether that document is a speech or otherwise recorded, it's nice to have the actual copy, and not just a summary of events around it. I certainly didn't include it in mine, but for this template it's just so nice to have, and as the treaty article showed, you can get really creative with it if you want.
1. The First and Only Commencement Speech for the Grand Melee on Serpents Bay, by drunkenpanda951.
This is why we don't trust massive arena events in stories. Ever. It always ends badly. A fun article that includes the full speech, which I like. I think this prompt is uniquely able to make use of that and I regret not attempting to write out the speech for my own article. I wanted there to be more links to the people mentioned (like the druid who saved some people) but there were still a couple and enough to keep me reading for a minute.
2. Think, Nasgovia, by Nanotide.
A nice short piece that covers a quick snapshot of the background of the event and the results of it, with a few well-placed quotes for detail. My one complaint is that "Nasgovia" isn't actually mentioned by that name so it took a bit of checking the links to figure that out, but luckily there were plenty of links. Also the visual theme is fantastic. I liked this article for how tantalizing it was. Ran out of time to actually read, but it looks like an interesting world and I wanted to know how the civil war presented was going to turn out.
3. Alphega Accords, by CTEJedi.
This person wrote an entire treaty, complete with references to previous sections and legalese. Fantastic. So dense I couldn't read it, you know? Also included a long list of those countries that signed the treaty. The side notes and the document were larger than the details of the article proper, and I don't mind this in the slightest. Very cool.

Prompt #3: A Character Who Prefers to Lurk in the Shadows

My selections for this prompt were hampered by it coming out with the Diamond batch of prompts, so there was less time to develop the articles. On the whole, a little less polished than the previous articles I read. I found it interesting how all three articles featured characters with attributes that would very much put them in the spotlight without active efforts to remain in the shadows.
1. Emma Brightheart, by ENEMYQ.
A little dense to read, but Lady Gold is an interesting character. When she's in public, she wears ostentatious and even gaudy clothes, but usually she stays out of sight. Really liked the twist on the prompt, showing there's more than one way to lurk.
2. Dragon of the World, by ThatMomFriend.
Another nice little article featuring a character whose natural appearance (a dragon with gold scales) puts them at odds with needing to stay hidden. I liked the use of the relationship details, and need to remember to use that more myself.
3. Zemparlys of Whispers, by Lyveana.
The second dragon I chose, completely by accident. The physical descriptions were vivid, and so were the personality details. Of the three I chose, this was also the only character not to be somehow forced into the spotlight, contrary to their own wishes.

Overall

Some very interesting things to look at and to consider for my own worldbuilding, particularly how I make use of World Anvil. Using links, really diving into the functions of each template and filling those out, describing the various aspects of a character, there's lots of space to develop these things.
Lots of really fun articles, and I'm glad to have taken the chance to read nine of them. I would read more but if I procrastinate much longer on my book it'll never get done.
Speaking of...

Goals for the rest of 2023

Erm. Yeah. I should probably have some of those. And I will! But I'm not planning on holding to them quite so tightly as I might have in the past because my regular life is going to go through some interesting shifts and there might just not be any time for some of these things. We'll have to see.
I have a few things that I would really like to see done, if at all possible.

• Start submitting a long-finished fairy tale adaptation to agents, or officially shift over to the self-pub route
• Edit a different story using feedback obtained from a recent beta review
• Finish writing my current WIP (most likely to be completed since I'm in the final stretch)
• Complete all World Anvil challenges between now and the end of the year, which should just be the challenge in September and then World Ember (so this one is also likely to be completed)
• Win NaNoWriMo (less likely but also less optional since I'm on a decade long streak and I don't want to lose it)
• Evaluate the books I have and figure out what's important to me to develop and publish (I have so many series that need to be pruned before I waste too much time)
• If I finish everything else on this list, start a rework of Ruby Gray's story and get that written so I can start this series I'm excited about

So that's my goals. I don't anticipate completing more than two or three of them, and that's fine. I'll at least likely get through a few stages of each item, even if I don't finish them.