Party (or Club Meeting) Games for Writers
Writer in the fishbowl, Miss America style
Put cues (such as “What’s your favorite writing advice?”and “How do you trick yourself into working when you simply don’t feel motivated?”) on slips of paper. Fold them up and drop them in a hat or bowl. Have each participant draw one and give a two-minute impromptu answer. To envision this, think of the impromptu speech portion of the Miss America pageant.
Writer in the fishbowl, Second City style
(inspired by the legendary improv troupe)
This requires three fishbowls. Have everyone call out places, professions, and opening lines. Have as many of each as you have participants. Write them on slips of paper and put them, by categories, in bowls. Participants draw one of each and have ten minutes to create 500-word stories that combine all three elements. Take turns reading them aloud.
Picture of Us
Cut pictures out of magazines. Paste them on index cards (this goes faster using a glue stick). When you have a big stack assembled, shuffle them, deal three or four to each participant, and direct that everyone to write a 500-word story employing each card that he or she drew.
Add a period
Now have them recast the same story in a particular historical era. CWC South does this with the general public at the Riverside Dickens Festival each February. One year, a little boy provoked gales of laughter by converting his yarn into Victorian times by starting it with, “Rufus, a chimney sweep….”
Mad Libs™
Leonard Stern and Roger Price brought us Mad Libs ™ over a half-century ago. The series then appeared in book form and never went out of print. Buy a few or construct your own. To do this, write a short tale or poem but replace key words with blanks. Without revealing the story, ask partygoers for “a piece of furniture,” “an adjective,” “a famous monster,” “an emotion,” and so on. Insert the words in the blanks, then read the result out loud.
Charades
Nobody plays charades anymore. What a loss. If you’ve forgotten the rules, look them up. Revive this wonderful game and immerse yourself and your friends in it, regularly and often.