12 Days of Prompt Tools for Fiction Writers
Day 8: Party Games
I love all different types of games — video games, board games, card games, made up games — you name it, I’m usually here for it. So many games have a story their play hinges upon, but lately, there are loads of games coming out on the market that are asking players to use their own storytelling skills to play along. Each time I stumble upon one these games, the writer in me abandons the restrictions of the game and finds paths to full length stories. I can’t tell you how many games I have stolen from my family’s game closet to now store in my office. This post will share just a few of my new found favs!
*Many links in this series will be affiliate links (any that direct you to bookshop.org), so if you use these links to make a purchase, please know that the shop itself will pay me a commission as a result of your purchase.
Day 8: Party Games
The games I gravitate toward in this unintended writing prompt discovery have been card games. Card games are popping up all over, each with various challenges to either crack up your family and friends, stump them, or seriously impress them all through your own creativity and on-the-spot storytelling. The thing that I can’t ignore is that given time, space, and something to write with, all of these challenges can inspire full fictional stories! For some of these games, the leap to a writing prompt is a simple hop that anyone can see, for others, I’ll admit, I am stretching it a bit, but, for me, that’s half the fun of it!
Here are three games that are clear writing prompt tools:
^ Purchase at the links above ^
I decided to limit this post to only three recommendations, to give you a sense of how party games can easily become your new favorite writing prompts. Each of these games literally ask players to create a story (or story idea) in order to play. All I then do with them, is take this challenge to notebook and keep writing until I hit “the end.”
How It Works
All three of these games have cards that contain the building blocks for story:
In Murder We Wrote we have three types of cards: a victim/suspect card, a cause of death card, and a witness card. As a writing prompt, I simply take one of each of these cards and use them as my prompt to write a story. This game is great for writers looking to practice their mystery writing.
In PitchStorm we have 2-3 cards: A charater card, a plot card, and an optional “notes” card. Putting the character card and the plot card together you get a traditional writing prompt for a movie idea that, for me, becomes my story idea. The “notes” card is the challenge part of the game meant to derail your story, so I leave it as optional when writing because sometimes the challenge of including it is just the right amount of ridiculous I am looking for and, other times, it will just destroy everything. This game is great for writers looking to write all types of stories with (in my experience) challenging characters.
The Story War deck is split into three types of cards: Warriors (red), Items (blue), and Battlefields (green). I grab one of each and start writing. Sometimes I will select a second warrior or item to add an antagonist or a Mcguffin, but three cards is all one really needs to get going. This game is perfect for writers looking to write fantasy stories.
How I Use It
As I described above, what I tend to do with all of these card games when converting them into writing prompts is to take their cards and throw out the game instructions. It’s that simple. Below I will share two videos where I share the cards in this way. (I do not have a video of Murder We Wrote, as this game was a fairly new addition to the collection!)
PITCHSTORM:
STORY WAR:
What I’ve Written With It
Oops, I’ve done it again.
I’ve decided, as of this writing, that one of my goals will be to get more of my prompt-tool-inspired stories out of my hoard. It looks like I stumbled back into my old habit of hoarding stories in notebooks instead of sharing them on my Story Hoarder Substack page (any guesses how I came up with that name?!).
Why I Love It
As I said at the top of this post, I love games. I was an infamous abuser of edutainment in my classroom as a teacher, and I am still always looking to play, so why not use games in my writing?
As a second point, many of these gmes are created with a curveball tactic (like the “notes” cards in PitchStorm, for example) that you simply do not find in traditional writing prompt tools. As most writing prompt resources are created to only encourage your creativity, this kind of pushback built into these games creates a new kind of resistance in our writing process. It has been my experience that both resistance and restriction are often exactly what we are writers need to elevate our writing.
Where To Buy It
Many of these cool card games are made by independent designers, or birthed on places like Kickstarter, so you may be hard-pressed to find them in a local store. I have shared separate links for each of the games discussed in this post, but I will also encourage you to keep a keen eye open for the next cool deck of cards to come onto the market. Look closely at the small boxes on the shelves of your local shops and if you get a chance to hang at a convention, stop and chat with the indy game creators in attendance — that’s how I found PitchStorm!
The List
Just in case you do not have the time or patience to wait out all 12 days to see the tools I will be sharing this season, here’s a bit of a master list. You can come back when it suits you to check out the reasons I love these tools and how I use them. As the posts go up, I will update this list with the links to those posts.
Games that are great prompt tools (You’ll have to check the post out for these links!)
Now Write! Books
Stop Writing Alone Paid Subscription (you really can’t blame me for this! With this option, you have access to all of these AND MORE all the time!)
Nicole, I completely enjoyed the "12 Days of Prompt Tools" article. My brain tends to team with idea, but I just might grab one of the games you mentioned, because who knows what they'd add to the mix (mix? I should have said "mess) that is my mind. Thanks again.