Larry M. Coleman

Remember back in high school when you had to take science class and you had to do experiments? Maybe you liked them, maybe you hated them, maybe you found them pointless. But they had a point, and it wasn’t to make a beaker change color. It was to teach you to say, “What happens if…?”

You don’t have to be a scientist to write, and you can also be a scientist who’s a good writer. The two have something big in common: they’re both fields where the biggest tool and their highest purpose is to say, “What happens if…?” They branch off after that, but they stay within shouting distance of each other as they go down their separate paths. The scientist looks at what happened and draws conclusions and ideas for further research. The writer makes up what happened and takes that as a direction for further writing.

If science doesn’t excite you, then let’s play a game instead. I call it the “So… But” game. I came across it in Scott Smith’s novel The Ruins where two characters play it with each other for no other reason than Smith got paid by the word. (I’m only venturing a wild guess with that. If Smith got paid at all for that novel, it was too much because—and I’m not being hyperbolic here—The Ruins is possibly the worst novel I’ve ever read.) It’s similar to the famous improv comedy exercise “Yes, and…” and it goes like this (on page 44 of The Ruins):

“So…” Stacy said. “There was this girl who bought a piano.”

“But she didn’t know how to play it,” Eric responded.

“So she signed up for lessons.”

“But couldn’t afford them.”

“So she got a job in a factory.”

“But was fired for being late.”

We’ve built a story, but not a particularly exciting one. Still, you can’t edit a blank page, so some progress is better than nothing. But the magic starts to happen with the next response:

“So she became a prostitute.”

Wow, what a change of direction. It’s beginning to get interesting. But one of my best story-building techniques is “But wait, there’s more!” and this one gets more:

“But fell in love with her first client.”

It goes on, but you get the point. This game is a lot like chess: it’s probably more fun to play with another person, but it’s possible to do it alone if you’re willing to exert the extra mental energy required to imagine how someone who isn’t like you would respond. You can take turns being the “So” person for one story and the “But” person for the next. You can move on and start a new story when it seems to be falling apart or after a certain number of lines, such as 10.

If you need prompts for the first line, try doing it Mad Libs style with something like this: So, there was this [noun] who [past-tense verb] a/an [noun]. And if you’re really feeling uninspired, here’s a random word generator that can give you any kind of word you want.

Here’s my solo attempt (playing by the “end after 10 lines” rule):

So, there was this weasel who gnawed on a lamp.

But it didn’t kill him.

So he became addicted to electricity.

But it made him start rubbing his paws on the carpet for more.

So he ended up burning the house down.

But the house was the Helen Keller home for the deaf and blind.

So a hundred orphans burned to death.

But it was a state-run institution which meant no one cared.

So the weasel won an award for government efficiency.

But he only made it to Vice President.

Have fun, and if you come up with one you’re particularly proud of, leave it in the comments!