Writing Club - July 2026

It's about a shapeshifter. Not your usual, "they can turn into animal(s)" or "can become whoever they want" shapeshifter. No.

This shapeshifter uses their knowledge of biology (from their past life) to manufacture stuff using their body.

I've seen and read so many stories with shapeshifters in my years and I always wondered, "if they can change their body however they want, why can't they just make shit with it?" Hehe.

I mean, imagine how cool it would be if you could pop an entire set of bone keycaps off your arm? Complete with enamel or nacre (mother of pearl) coatings.

My story is fantasy isekai, so keycaps aren't going to be a thing, but I thought it was a good way to demonstrate what I'm talking about.

This character unlocks a whole lot of skills that let them produce just about anything that an animal can produce and shape these objects (if they're solid; no need to shape oil or poison, hehe). Ultimately, they also end up unlocking a skill that lets them shapeshift other people—which probably sounds overpowered—but shapeshifting isn't exactly the fastest skill, hehe. Not early in the story anyway.

It's a comedy, though!

The MC joins up with some other folks and one of them—a [Warrior]—ends up with the [Hot Rod] subclass because the MC is constantly tinkering with her biology.

My previous method was to just fill in a plot outline template for a 3-act story. Then I tried a Save The Cat! Template and both seemed like they don't map very well to a web novel style of writing.

They (those outline styles) are obviously tied to the traditional publishing model, where every little thing is meant to conclude by the end of say, 80,000-120,000 words. With zero consideration of things like world maps, systems (so you can keep track of say, leveling), etc.

For litRPG, I want more. In fact, I need more. Otherwise I'll write a chapter and realize that character X hasn't even earned the skill necessary to complete the plot yet!

I plan to use a new publishing platform that I invented/coded to publish this story too, which accepts Obsidian export. So when the story is complete, I can export the parts I choose and it'll sort of have a built-in wiki along with notation for a world map (so the reader can check the progression while reading the story; it's in the sidebar and reveals more of itself as the story goes different places).

I already wrote the publishing platform, so now I'm working on "the example story" that shows off the features. The biggest one is being able to pull up the sidebar to view the characters current profile info (which includes their stats, levels, etc).

Example: When you read that a character just leveled up [Screaming Internally], that will be reflected automatically in the sidebar. In the text, it just uses Obsidian call-outs for that so it's pretty native/natural.

I applaud the research! At first glance that actually sounds like it might be a bit overkill depending on what kind of forging they're doing - a single solar concentrator made from a fresnel lens from a large rear projection TV is enough to burn a hole through a skill saw blade on its own. That wouldn't be a great experience for forging (though I'm still planning to set one up and try it out) but if you can burn steel you can technically do forge welding. It's just that the concentration of heat on such a small area would be really unpleasant/impractical to work with.

I'd be interested to see the math if you've still got it, it's extremely possible I'm way off and you'd need way more light for a really effective forge. I would have figured even a dozen mirrors would be sufficient.

Wait are they smelting steel too? That would be closer to those molten salt solar thermal towers out west or the big parabolic mirror/heliosat combo the smelters use IRL.

When I was learning from a blacksmith we used coal, he favored it because it was traditional and you could do forge welding (propane forges don't get hot enough) - I couldn't really manage the temp on my little diy forge well enough to do do it often but he had a full out smithy with the big brick forge, bellows, and everything, and I learned there. Mostly I made basic stuff with thin stock I found at the dump, hooks and shelf brackets and such. At his forge we made andirons, trivets, railings, and all sorts of heavier or fancier stuff.

I'm between forges at the moment but I'd really like to get into blacksmithing again. If I ever build my solar forge I figure it'll probably be a single big screen fresnel lens on an adjustable frame, with a brick lined fire pot laid out so the focal point isn't concentrated completely on the work but instead diffused over a wider area. I don't expect it to work anywhere near as well as even my rickity old coal forge but as long as it's equivalent or better than a burnzomatic propane torch will no shielding it'll be a step up from where I'm at now.

One of my British friends was kind of horrified at how we do things over here, especially in rural areas. The houses I grew up in only had electricity and phone lines (and eventually cable tv/internet) run to them. Individual wells and septic tanks/leach fields is very much the norm, even in planned developments. Lots of redundancy and you need to get your water tested occasionally to make sure the groundwater hasn't been contaminated by industry or neighbors (and basically no recourse if it has).

Once you get into adding rainwater collection for showers/toilets and switching to small scale solar, especially stuff like partial or whole house conversions to DC power to reduce conversion loss, things get complicated enough that a houseguest probably can't safely assume things work the way they expect. It's possible not every outlet is lit the usual way, or maybe they can only charge a device when the sun is out, or maybe you need to know the right valves to open to draw water from a cistern.

IRL building codes and consumer mindsets in first world countries have standardized a lot of things and offloaded/hidden a lot of the complexity that underpins our day to day existence. For many of us our power and water are handled by specialists in dedicated facilities, and the equipment which goes into our homes have strict codes and expectations to keep the experience of using them fairly standard.

But in a solarpunk world, especially one that's rebuilding, and relying on salvage and diy, I think we'd see many more retrofits and 'bespoke' solutions which are more efficient but leave the complexities of filtering water or generating electricity or disposing of sewage more exposed to regular people. I think there's some cool worldbuilding potential in that.

That's so interesting! I grew up on well water. When my family moved to the city I was like "what do you mean we have to pay for water it's water it comes out of the ground"

Wouldn't it be so fun if it was an external force? I choose to believe some of my friends (perhaps you) are secretly witches, and they cast spells upon me that cause me to have these revelations!

Now I'm imagining what Doom mapping would seem like to someone who isn't familiar.. maybe like divination but just of bad portents ^^ hehe

But to answer your question, Doom mapping in my context is making custom levels for the old video game Doom from the 90s. For some reason a super supportive community has formed around this activity, that I would liken to a more approachable version of game development and level design.

If you've ever played the Sims and got obsessed with designing a house from scratch, the feeling is very similar.

I relate very much to having other hobbies and skills that you want to practice (looking at my beading supplies, sewing studio, and language-learning books)

All my life >_< yes, exactly. You get it. Sometimes I feel like I just flit between activities. Lately I've been trying to stop feeling bad about it and view it all as part of one big creative practice. I wish I could force myself to focus on just one at a time, but that hasn't worked for me in decades, lol, so now I just follow the butterfly of inspiration and just try to be thankful when it alights anywhere.