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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerakSpielman" data-source="post: 1173645" data-attributes="member: 7464">It does seem that some ingredients natrually fit together. "Filthy Nursery" and "Zombie Swarm" fit because filth is associated with zombies. "Crippled Aboleth" and "Dragon Turtle" are both ocean creatures. "Bhargest" and "Nightmare" both lead into a Fiendish plotline. The first set of ingredients didn't seem to have any clear correlations, though, which is perhaps why Dave in particular thought it was difficult. I don't have much experience participating with these contests, but the common method seems to be to fit together two or three ingredients that the writer can think of something REALLY good for, and then work in the rest as best they can. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The more clear correlations between ingredients the easier it is to come up with an initial plot and the more likely it is for the two entries to be similar. Recommendations: It's hard to consistantly estimate the difficulty of the ingredients, but the only way I can see to do it would be to consistantly try to avoid ingredients that look like they go well together. Example, change the "filthy nursery" to the "Tidy nursery," except that would go well with familial love. But I think you get my point. This makes it more difficult, but at least it's difficult for everybody.</blockquote>