Monday, July 30, 2012

Mystery Monday #34

It's Mystery Monday -- time to stretch your creative muscles with a writing exercise!


This week's prompt is inspired by Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Paula Vogel's "Bake-Off" writing game. She'd send writers off with a list of "ingredients" and give them twenty-four hours to compose a one-act play using all of them. A day later, they'd reconvene to share plays featuring, say, silver boxes, bifocals, and Christmas trees.


It's amazing how constraints can spark creativity. Try taking twenty minutes to freewrite the beginning of a mystery that includes all of the following "ingredients":

  • locket engraved with the initial P.W.
  • a matchbox that contains a single, already burnt match
  • old ripped, black and white photograph of a man wearing a hat
  • two foreign coins

If you have more time, go ahead and try Vogel's approach of taking 24 hours to complete a full story. Happy baking!

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