Everything’s a Writing Prompt Part 1: Board Games
I love a good writing prompt. Or even a not so good writing prompt. Honestly, anything that gets my creative mind going and takes it into a new place is a winner in my book. And starting from something that’s inherently entertaining, like a board game, can be especially valuable, in my opinion. It shifts your mind out of work-brain and into fun-brain, taking away some of the pressure of producing words and helping to silent the inner critic so you can just enjoy the process.
Because that’s what writing should be, even if you’re writing about a serious topic, even if you’re a capital-A Author who does it for a living: joyful. If you’re not engaged by your own writing, no reader is going to be, either. When the writer takes joy in the creation process, that comes through on the page.
So what games can you prompt-ify to help get into that fun headspace? Probably any of them, if you put your mind to it, but here are some that work especially well, in my opinion.
Boggle
Prompt is for: 2+ writers
A word creation game is an obvious choice when you’re thinking about writing prompts. Of the various word games out there, Boggle is the best for this, mostly because it’s much quicker at generating words than something like Scrabble.
For those unfamiliar with Boggle, the “board” is a grid with various dice that have letters on them. To start the game, you shake the board to randomize the letters showing. Players then have 2 minutes to find as many words as possible. At the end, they compare their lists, and each player gets credit for the unique words they’ve found.
How to turn this into a prompt:
Play a round of Boggle in a group of 2 or more writers.
If you have 2 writers, circle any words that both of you found. If you have 3 or more writers, list out all words found by the majority of players (e.g. if you have 6 people, list words found by 3 or more of them).
Those words are your prompt. If you collectively agree it’s too many words (which may happen a room full of writers), go around the circle and have each player veto 1 word until you’re down to around 5.
Reset the Boggle timer and start writing, without removing your pen from the paper.
Apples to Apples
Prompt is for: Any number of writers
You can do this with similar card-based games like Cards Against Humanity, too, but I find Apples to Apples is best because the words are a bit more general. It’s more about making fun parings than making jokes, and that translates better to a creativity tool.
There are a lot of ways you can approach this game as a prompt. Here’s one I’ve used to fun results:
Split a piece of notebook paper into 4 sections, then label them Character, Setting, Image/Object, and Action/Conflict.
If there’s just one writer, lay out 10 red cards and 10 green cards face up. If there are 2 or more, have each writer take 5 red cards and 5 green cards.
For a single writer, look at the cards laid out and move 1 red card and 1 green card into each of the 4 sections. For 2 or more, go around placing cards on the paper until there is 1 red and 1 green in each space.
You’ll end up with something that looks like this:
…which you can now construct into a prompt: Write about frivolous feminists taking an elitist vacation in a clean dump, using fuzzy castles as an image or object. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write something that incorporates those elements, as close to non-stop as you can manage.
Multi-Game Mashup
Prompt is for: Any number of writers
For this prompt, you’ll need to have at least 2 games that have cards for characters, objects, or places. Examples of games you could use:
- Clue (character, room, or weapon cards)
- Monopoly property cards (any version)
- Guess Who characters
- Life career cards and house deeds
- Risk territory cards (any version)
- Settlers of Catan resource or development cards
- Munchkin, Magic, or a similar card-based tabletop RPG
…I’m sure there’s plenty I’m missing but you get the idea. From the games you have available, choose 2-4 contrasting sets of items. So, for example, you could use the characters from Guess Who and the properties from Monopoly, or use a Life career card as the character and put them in a landscape from a Magic mana card with one of the weapons from Clue.
From there, it’s probably pretty obvious how this becomes a prompt:
Choose a random card from each set you’ve pulled out to serve as the setting, character, image/object, or conflict/action. You want to put something in at least 2 of these categories—the goal here is to bring together seemingly disparate things to jumpstart your brain in a new direction, so keep that in mind when you’re choosing your source games.
Write something that incorporates those elements.
As a last thought, in my experience a prompt can be very valuable for the initial starting stages of a story, but you don’t want to let it become a hindrance. If you feel the story pulling away from the initial prompt as you work on it, follow where it’s leading you, don’t try to force it to fit the shape of the original inspiration. Prompts are best used as a push to get you moving when you’re stuck, and if you use them in that spirit, they can lead you to writing some stories you never knew you had in you.
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