Games: Pen-and-paper sentence games

If you're with a large group of friends, one awesome thing to do is to play a pen-and-paper sentence game. There are no winners, no losers, and it gives a chance to showcase people's different ideas and writing abilities.

The way these games work is simple. Each person gets a pen and a piece of paper. Before playing, decide on a list of items to write about. There are a few different formats to choose from. I will give outlines for Who, What, Where, When, Why and The Dating Game.

Let's assume we're playing Who, What, Where, When, Why. The first item in Who, What, Where, When, Why is the "who," or the topic of a sentence. So, first, everybody sits in a circle. Then each person takes their pencil and paper, and writes the name of a person. It is important to not let the other players see what you are writing! When you are done, fold the paper over so that your writing is not showing, then pass it to your left. The person to your left should have the piece of paper that you wrote on, and you should have a piece of paper that the person to your right wrote on. Then, on this new sheet of paper, write down the "what," or what the person did. It should include a verb and act like a part of a sentence. When you're done, fold the paper over and pass it to the left. Get new piece of paper. Write down the "where," where the person was. Fold over. Pass to left. Then write the "when," when this happened. It can be a concrete time, or start with words such as "before, after, during," etc. Fold, pass to left. Write down the "why." This is the end of the sentence and usually starts with "because." Fold over, pass to left. Finally, have each person open up the piece of paper they have in their hands and read it out loud. The results are often hilarious.

Here is an example of a Who, What, Where, When, Why sentence:

Joan of Arc

accidentally called Domino's Pizza

on a box

while the Large Hadron Collider made electrons go weeee

because sharks cannot play ping-ping in a competitive manner.

I like this game. I like this game because the goal is to be as off-kilter as possible.

Anyway, I mentioned The Dating Game. The Dating Game has a different format than Who, What, Where, When, Why, (or W^5) and is better played with larger groups of people. The things you should write down, in order, are:

The boy's name
The girl's name
What the boy wore
What the girl wore
What the boy said at the beginning of the date
What the girl said at the beginning of the date
Where they went
What they did
What the boy said at the end of the date
What the girl said at the end of the date

Whoof! That's a lot of stuff. Example? Example. Here is an example of a condensed version of The Dating Game:


This is missing a couple things. It's missing the beginning-of-the-date part (because of some people who wanted to do karaoke) and I messed up the boy/girl order, but it's all good. Note the lines where the paper was folded- the goal is to get all of the statements on the same side of the paper. Also note the different pen colors and handwriting. You can learn about people this way- it makes a great icebreaker.

The Dating Game is also read in a different way from Who, What, Where, When, Why. Instead of reading straight off the paper, it has to be put into a coherent structure. You can designate this job to one person to make it easier. The Dating Game example above reads as:

"Zlata and Temeraire went on a date. Zlata wore a medieval dress, and Temeraire wore a Spiderman suit. They went inside a church of scientology, where they ate cheesecake. At the end of the date, Zlata said 'Ya know, when I was a little girl we lived outside Calcutta in a little wooden house' and Temeraire responded 'I AM A DIGLETT.'"

Hold on- the game showcases different ideas? Hot steamin' metadiscourse! That's what this blog is about!

Let's analyze the above responses, which all demonstrate common ways that people come up with ideas.

ZLATA: Zlata is a person who was in the room, playing a game. Picking a person in the room or someone that people know is a good way to make people give strange looks to that person.

TEMERAIRE: People love books. Book references to a favorite character are also common and fun to people who recognize the character.

A MEDIEVAL DRESS: Something that someone would not normally wear. It's boring to have them just wear a bikini, or "nothing."

A SPIDERMAN SUIT: Same thing.

INSIDE A CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY: Relating to current events. Some people are more entertained when they recognize references to the news. It makes us feel special.

EAT CHEESECAKE: Boring.

YA KNOW, WHEN I...: This both relates to something that happened earlier in the night, and is also an in-joke! Two in one.

I AM A DIGLETT: This is a perfect example of... darn it! I remember the term as 'apostrophe.' Any English people want to help me out on this? It's a word that means "a completely unexpected statement, usually in satire." In other words, randomness.

At this point, either your eyes are hazing out from reading words words words, or you are intrigued. How to make this game better? How can I make it more fun for everyone?

Oh no.

More words.

1. BE OVERLY SPECIFIC

Use adjectives. Use interruptions. Give too much information.

Looking back at the first example for W^5, the person given is Joan of Arc. How can we use these ideas to make Joan of Arc a more amusing response?

Why not tell us a bit more- "Joan of Arc, a woman not particularly known for her crabcake recipes..."

Point out the obvious- "Joan of Arc, a famous historical figure who fought for France and whose existance is debatable..."

Give her a title- "Joan of Arc: The Life, The Legend..."

Give too much information- "Joan of Arc, who was probably not into bestiality, maybe..."

Wow. Seriously. This makes everything so wonderful.

2. WRITE A FRIGGIN' NOVEL

This was inspired by a wonderful fiction writer. For each of her phrases, she would spend about two minutes coming up with something. The results were very, very entertaining.

We were given "accidentally called Domino's Pizza." I bet we can write a friggin' novel about that, yes?

"sat on the couch, staring at her feet. It had been a long day, and she was ready to close her eyes and drift off to sleep. She relaxed her shoulders and leaned back. Just as she was getting comfortable, a sharp pain in her stomach reminded her that she had not yet eaten dinner. Eating had just become another chore, since she had lost enjoyment in eating long ago. 'Uuungh,' she remarked, reaching towards a stale box of satay noodles. As she shifted, she felt her weight pushing down on an uncomfortable hard object. Upset, she searched under her behind to remove it. It was her cellphone, proudly broadcasting a little green phone next to the words 'Domino's Pizza.' It was ringing softly, as if it wanted her attention, but was too shy to ask. 'Crap,' she remarked."

Wow. Thanks for the idea, sunmoonandspoon.

Don't worry about gender agreement, the reader will usually fix it. You can also ask what gender the character is, it's legal.

3. PLAY A CHARACTER

It's exactly the same as the Halloween idea. Pick a character, give the character a voice, write through the character. Iambic pentameter, pirate, medical textbook writer, and the like.

We have "On a box." My roommate tells me this was inspired by Dr. Seuss. Writing like Dr. Seuss? That's a great idea! We can just expand that as is:

"On a box, with a fox, on a house, with a mouse..."

Just make up any kind of vernacular. It'll work.

4. KILL THE SENTENCE

Structure? Verbs? Who needs it! This idea comes from the hilarity of the boy's final sentence in GI JOE: Pork Chop Sandwiches.

We have "when the Large Hadron Collider made the electrons go weeee."

There is so much potential to kill the sentence with this one phrase that it is not even funny.

For example, just take a noun from the phrase, such as "Large Hadron Collider" or "electrons."

Or take a phraselet, like "electrons go weeee."

Or simply say "Hadron" or "weeee."

That will kill the sentence, yeah.

5. METADISCOURSE OR WORDINESS

Remember when I said 'metadiscourse' earlier? That was foreshadowing! It actually turns out to be funny when you also adopt a persona, such as a wordy essay writer or a stoned person.

Here are examples on the last part: "because sharks cannot play ping-ping in a competitive manner."

You get: "because, in fact, verily, in my opinion, the animals known as sharks, which live in the ocean, cannot play ping-pong, a game which, in my opinion, is enjoyable, in a competetive manner, in the way 'competitive is defined.' Yeah."

This truly is an awesome game and you should all play it.

Anyone want to share some particularly memorable responses to this game? Any more ideas? Tell us about it in the comments.