Description Long

Participants write individual continuations of a given story opener, incorporating three randomly assigned keywords that are essential for both creativity and the story’s context.

Each participant receives a short, open-ended story beginning (one to two sentences) that sets the theme. In addition, they are assigned three keywords from “Opening 2”, which must be woven into the continuation. Participants have 20 minutes to write their stories. Once time is up, the stories are read aloud in turn, followed by a group discussion of the different narrative approaches.

Preparation

• The opening sentences of the story need to be prepared in advance and ideally written out in a Word document. This allows participants to download the document and start writing straight away.
• It is also important that the three words from the “Opening 2” method are assigned during the break. This enables the facilitators to subtly guide the direction of the story, depending on the combination of the three words.

Execution

1. Three words are displayed for the participants to copy down, so they don’t forget them.
   In the second step, the task is explained, and the beginning of the story is revealed. Clear instructions are given on where to find the working document and where to save it again after the allotted time.
2. The writing time for the story is announced, and participants may begin.
3. The facilitator keeps track of the time and, if necessary, gives a reminder five minutes before the end.
4. After the 20 minutes are up, all stories are read aloud in the plenary session (approximately one minute per person).

Hints from experience

• Choose the assigned keywords carefully to ensure that a coherent story can develop.
• The opening of the story should be written in a very open-ended manner to avoid limiting participants’ creativity.

Tools list

• Stopwatch

References

This method is based on the Follow-on Word Technique and has been adapted for creative writing.