Writing Games #2

Take a group of writers, give them a selection of words, and what do you get?

At the Drabble launch event I attended recently (see previous post Awards versus Rewards), the tables were each covered in a series of slips of paper. Like Fridge Poetry, each slip contained a word (or occasionally a word-ending like “ing”) and could be shuffled around to make sentences, poems or even full drabbles.

Within minutes of arriving, people had drifted towards the tables and were frantically / intently / happily rearranging the words. It broke the ice – people were bonding over the hunt for a verb before they even exchanged names – and it was a lot of fun. Maybe other groups wouldn’t have found it so absorbing, but writers are wordsmiths; playing with words is what we do.

Occasionally, a little squeal would go up – “Gourd! We have to use gourd!” or “Can you have a stoned earwig?” or simply “I need a ‘which’ or a ‘who’!”

The results were funny, “Why are gourds bananas and a kiwi following us”, and profound “Love said little many times never heard” and downright bizarre “always follow your second best pedagogy”. It’s made me think maybe I should invest in some magnetic words to aid my procrastination. Off to www.magneticpoetry.com methinks!