Thank you for joining us in The Writer’s Playground series!
Here we run through writing games to spark imagination and sharpen your craft.
Today’s Exercise is
The Artifact
- Objective: To build a world’s history through a single object.
- How to Play:
- The facilitator presents a simple, mysterious object (this can be a real object or just a description, e.g., “a tarnished silver locket that won’t open,” “a gear made from an unknown metal”).
- The first person writes a paragraph about the object’s creation or its first owner.
- The next person writes a paragraph about a later point in the object’s history—how it was lost, stolen, or passed down.
- Continue this for several rounds, with each contribution adding to the artifact’s journey through time. The story of the object becomes the history of the world it inhabits.
- Best for: Historical world-building, creating a sense of depth and legacy.
You may use one of the objects from The Prop Bag game, add your own twist, or come up with something completely new.
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