Games writers play

Photo: Scrabbable by sparkypics

We live in a world of writing games.

Standard board games like Scrabble, Balderdash, and Pictionary effectively exercise our writing muscles.

Some of my favorite games are those we find or make ourselves. Here are a few that I play:

- Photo Captions. Find any photo that interests you. Set a timer for 10 minutes. Start writing one-sentence captions for the photo. Stop when your time is up.

- People Writing. Based on the classic cafe game People Watching. Sit in any public establishment which serves beverages and will let you linger. Find a person who intrigues you. Set a non-annoying and unobtrusive timer for 10-15 minutes, and write your imaginings about his or her life story.

- Train Station Poetry. While waiting for a train, look around. Observe advertisements, billboards, newspaper headlines, graffiti. Grab a few phrases that strike you. Write them down in your notebook. Re-arrange them. Add words to connect them. Is anything forming?

The key to all of these: PLAY! Have fun. Be light. Don't judge your work. Let the words flow out of you and onto the paper. This stuff doesn't even qualify as the first draft of anything, though you may really like what you create.

What writing games do you play?

Comments

[rel]

Kristin,
These are good ideas. I'm going to try at least two today.

Thanks for the comment over at Jason's clarityofnight.
rel

[Yehuda Berlinger]

Technically I would call these "exercises" or "activities" rather than "games", but they are good ideas.

You might enjoy the "Why Did the Chicken?" game.

Yehuda

[Nienke]

When I first moved out on my own, I used to sit in outdoor cafes and write stories about people I saw. I just mentioned this to a friend of mine this week and how much I missed it. It was back in the days when I wrote for fun - what does that tell me?

[KG]

rel — Let's us know how they go for you. And you're welcome!

Yehuda — What's the "Why Did the Chicken?" game? I'm interested. And you're right: these are absolutely exercises. I call them "games" to emphasize the playful, light aspect, which I feel is so important. And welcome!

Nienke — I hear you. I used to do the same thing. It seems it takes a lot of work to keep that playing/fun energy in our creative expression as time goes by.

[Yehuda Berlinger]

Why Did the Chicken...?

[KG]

Fantastic, Yehuda! You've introduced me to a what looks like a wordy, silly game. Many thanks.

[Bhaswati]

Great ideas there! I will have to try them some time. Especially like the People Writing one. Thanks for sharing!

[KG]

Bhaswati — You're welcome! Let us know your results with People Writing.