What is Writing Quests?

Delve into how Writing Quests began...

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Jun 17, 2024

Writing Quests is a writing community that strives to connect writers with writing challenges to foster a continued flow of words for your preferred genre. Not only is this self-motivated or group-motivated, but it is also easy to differentiate by the scale of your writing needs (large or small) as well as style (noveling and script writing, illustrating, or editing). Read on to find out more!

Writing Quests Origin Story

Writing Quests’ mission is to provide writing groups with a flexible framework that can be used to generate writing challenges at any time of the year. Our unique framework is designed to ignite the spark of creation in individual writers and collaborative writing groups. It’s a modifiable, shareable structure that will motivate writers to articulate ideas, build worlds, and bring them to life in a supportive way.

While our name implies this is geared toward writing, it can also be adapted for other endeavors that tell a story, such as illustration and other artistic challenges. Some challenge rules will universally apply across various international contexts, while others can be tailored to meet specific details and requirements. Furthermore, it is meant to be accessible and shareable; Writing Quests offers this framework under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 4.0 Licensing .

One of the features Writing Quests offers is awards. Writers and other artists can be motivated by tracking their progress. They can feel validated, and share their awards on social media. There will be certificates of completion, as well as badges to showcase milestones, skills, and community involvement.

Writing Quests also supports the people we call Guides. Guides are community organizers or motivators who are willing to lead others through the creative process. They might be writing enthusiasts, educators, content creators, and/or community leaders. An open-source cookbook with recipes is available to help guides use our framework.

We are so excited to aid in your quest!

Call out to Beta Users/ International Help

With any creation story, there is always a need to iron out the kinks. Our new website needs beta users to assist us in making our site the best it can be. If you are interested, please get in touch with us and become a Guide. The intent would be for you to run a challenge in July with your writing group and try out the features. We are looking for what works and what needs adjusting.

We are also looking for more members of our international community to join our team in planning and building Writing Quests. We strive to be inclusive of all communities and need more members to answer questions only those who live in other countries than the US can answer.

Finally, if you have a passion for writing or illustrating and want to join, reach out. We specifically need tech-savvy people and those who can create graphics.

Please fill out this form to join our team.

Volunteer Spotlight (Tim)

Tim Yao became a Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month in 2003, the first year they had such a position. He later took that training and experience to develop his region in the Writing Journey as a way to keep people close to their writing all year long.

In his post-NaNo life, he gathered a motley bunch of regional writing leaders together and has been the lead facilitator in getting Writing Quests up off the ground. His leadership skills, flexible mentality, and openness to new ideas provide a steady hand at the helm of this quest. We would like to thank him for bringing and holding us together as we start this new writing adventure.

How to volunteer/contribute

We have three different ways to get involved:

Quest Guides- The people who host the Writing Quests are called Quest Guides. They help creatives through the process of setting goals, prepping for the quests, and providing encouragement during the event. Click on Get Involved> quests to get started.

Participants- Anyone can participate, even if you are not a writer. Visit our website to find a participating group near you.

Volunteers- Writing Quests is an all-volunteer organization. If you want to volunteer, please email info@writingquests.org and let us know your experience and if applicable, what you want to help with.

Upcoming events

We have some exciting new changes coming in July. On the first, we will open up for Alpha testing and we are excited to get feedback on The Framework, The Quest Tracker, and The Guidebook. Then in August, we hope to start Beta testing and will have a mini unveiling event where we will walk through The Framework. This event will be open to all, but will be primarily for Quest Guides to understand how to use The Framework.

Coming July:

July 1: Alpha Testing Starts

July 1: The Framework is Live

July 1: The Quest Tracker is Live

July 7: The Guidebook is Live

Coming August:

Aug 1: Beta Testing Starts

Aug 1: Framework Walkthrough Event