Planning - Death of a Magician

Part 1

After how easily story #2 came to me, this dice roll caught me by surprise. I'm sure this is why my wife keeps telling me that I don't need to use all nine dice, but I think I will continue to force myself to work them all into each story. The whole point of his blog is to challenge myself in order to find my voice, and I don't think I can do that effectively if I just write stories that are easy to write. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. Another roll like this and I may change that...

When I started my fifteen minute timer and saw these dice, I stared at them in silence for at least three minutes without a single thought. I had no idea what to do. How could I tell a drama (masks) or mystery (question mark/magnifying glass) with an opening, character introduction, story development, and an ending that involved all of these dice (especially that tree and lightning bolt) in only an hour?

So, I shifted. Rather than tell a complete story, I decided to focus on the part of my book that I've been struggling with the most: the opening image. Once I landed on just creating a world that introduces a larger story, it all fell into place.

As a side note, I'm also trying to play with points of view. I think I'm going to stick with past-tense, but I don't know whether I want my novel to be from first- or third-person. Please give me any feedback in the comments, positive or negative. Really looking to improve without going back to reread, because seeing my work will make me devolve into a spiral of rewriting and editing that I am trying to avoid.

Part 2

My wife rolled the dice again this time. She finds that part to be more fun than actually reading my writing (I kid. Sort of. Love you, babe). At first glance I saw a few repeated dice, but figured it would be alright because coming up with new stories is part of the challenge.

Unfortunately, as I started the 15-minute planning timer I immediately realized that 3 of the dice were the same as the first Death of a Magician. As I tried to think of a different way to apply them, my brain was already locked in to that story since it was left open-ended. I even attempted to re-roll some of the repeated dice, just to see if it would make my mind think differently, but it just wasn't going to budge.

"Death of a Magician" was my first short story that had a guided purpose beyond just finding my tone and I felt that it would be worthwhile seeing if I could continue the opening image despite having walked away from it for a week. I felt more comfortable writing this time around, but it is very clear to me that I am not thinking very deeply about these stories as I have no idea what anyone's first name is, what that key is meant for, or even why the magician is german. But, it is what it is.

Maybe a future dice roll will tell me?