Story on a Wall

Writing can be unpredictable. How would your story turn out if you only knew exactly one line of the story before you write the next one? This activity will expand upon your imagination so that you get a piece that might be a bit wacky, but 100% inspired by your own work with every line you write. When you place your paper up, go ahead and write about the first thing you see. From there on, feel free to let your own writing inspire what comes next.

Steps:

1. Choose a spot in your house and tape a piece of paper there.

2. Go ahead and write one line to a poem or story. Walk away.

3. The next time you see the paper again, read the line and write a line that either responds to or continues on from that line.

4. Then fold the paper so that you can no longer see the first line, but can still see the second line. Leave it again.

5. Whenever you see the paper, write a line that responds/continues the line before it, and keep folding the paper so that you can only see the immediate line before the one you're about to write. It is your choice how often you decide to add to the piece. You can do this over the course of a day, several days, or week!

6. At the end of your time, go ahead and unfold the entire paper and read what you wrote. Does it all make sense together? Or did it take a weird turn?

7. If you want, you can go ahead and create a fuller story or poem from what you wrote. You can either use the entire piece or just take specific lines.

Example:

1. There were a bunch of scattered coins placed in front of the TV.

2. It was a rather inconspicuous spot for hidden treasures.

3. Nobody noticed anything was amiss; they didn’t realize that there was treasure in plain sight.

4. The treasure was placed there on purpose.

5. If a robber came in, they’d probably just overlook it.

6. Robbers did come in. Many robbers. The house was not a secure one at all.

7. At one point, the owner thought it might be a good idea to get some sort of security system.

8. He felt as if security systems were kind of a scam though.

9. He didn’t really know too much about security systems so he couldn’t say for sure whether they were a scam or not.

10. He decided to play it safe though and not waste money on one.

11. He wasn’t hurting for money, but he was a notorious Scrooge.

12. Because of this, his family hated having him over for Christmas.

As you can see, for the most part the story kind of makes sense, but it changes quite a bit from beginning to end. With each line I wrote, I only had the line before it to base my new line off of.

By Angela Vu