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
Story in Reverse
- Objective: To understand cause and effect by deconstructing a narrative.
- How to Play:
- As a group, decide on a powerful or intriguing final sentence for a story (e.g., “And that’s why the moon is now made of cheese,” or “He never saw his beloved parrot again.”).
- The first person then provides the sentence that came directly before that.
- The next person provides the sentence that came before that, and so on. The group works backward, collaboratively discovering the chain of events that led to the foregone conclusion.
- Best for: Understanding plot logic, practicing causality and narrative structure.
This game can start on a very emotional, or sometimes unhinged, note. This is one that’s best left to the imagination to start. Feel that final sentence tug at you from the inside and build back from there.
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