I have had the pleasure over the past five years now of contributing to an annual ‘story’ in the form of a writing game with two friends of mine. The concept is simple; one person writes and thousand words or so then hands it on to the next person to continue, who does the same and passes it on and around in circles. Not allowed to discuss the plot or anything about what is going to be written along the way. As a result you end up with a year long story, usually around 30,000 words or so (with 3 different endings revealed over a christmas get together) that is sometimes funny, sometimes appawling and sometimes entertaining. The point is not the final story, which is always bound to be filled with inconsistencies and errors due to it’s creation, but the process that is used to create it. It’s good fun, you have the power of life or death over your colleagues characters…
… and never more so than highlighted last month by myself. During an office debate with Jason I threatened to write him into the story, if only to meet an untimely end, and I am ashamed to say I did just that. Sorry Jason, I meant no harm, but I just needed someone to kill off in order to advance the story line, and you just happened to come to mind…