Teaching Narrative Writing with Frankenstories

Transforming an uninspiring prompt

What do you do when you get a "meh" prompt?

One option is to say, "Life's too short!" and get a new prompt, which is fine.

However, there are downsides:

  • we can spend a lot of time looking for a perfect prompt
  • we might never find what we think we're looking for
  • great prompts don't always create great stories
  • sometimes the best stories come from seemingly impossible prompts, and
  • being able to make something great from a dud hand is a valuable life skill.

When life gives you lemons

You can use the argument above to explain why your students should engage with a prompt, no matter how dull, obscure, or boring it might seem.

However, it's hard to make lemonade if you don't have a recipe, so they will need some skills.

All the story-level skills we explore in this lesson can be applied—introducing, developing, combining—but here are some more tips that are especially useful when you're first responding to a prompt.

Turning lead into gold

Let's work through this using an example prompt.

This prompt is probably not super-appealing to many students:

FS Prompt Write like you are having to search this person's house

List the elements you have been given

  • Search
  • House
  • Old man
  • Sheet of paper
  • 'You'

Describe the qualities of those elements

  • Search: could be mysterious, criminal, secretive, authoritarian
  • House: image suggests gloomy, dark, quiet, possibly large
  • Old man: bearded, wealthy(?), thoughtful, focused
  • Sheet of paper: folded, white, thick, blank(?)

(Elements in the image will have more obvious qualities, whereas elements in the text are more open to interpretation.)

The opportunities of 'you'

If it's a first-person prompt, who might you be in this story?

  • The real you? Someone similar to you?
  • Someone different? If so, how different?

One way to approach this is to compare and contrast to the character in the image.

  • Are you the same age as the character or different?
  • The same gender or different?
  • The same emotional feeling or different?
  • And so on.

Once you have noticed what you actually have, the next step is to find a hook that pulls you or a thread that you can follow into the world of the story.

This can be a flash of insight or it can require some mulling, self-talk, or rapid note-making. For example:

  • Why would I search this old man's house? What could he have that I want?
  • Money? Antiques? Secret plans? 
  • What might be on that piece of paper?
  • Names? News? A map? A code?

You'll quickly realise that you need to introduce more elements in order to get started.

This is a huge opportunity! Because based on what you introduce, you can completely transform a dull prompt into something you actually care about.

For example:

  • This man is a school principal and he has the exam results.
  • He's a kidnapper and he has kids locked in his basement. The paper could be a list of names, or his draft ransom note, or a map to the money drop-off.
  • He's an old treasure hunter and this is the map to an ancient fortune.
  • He's an old boomer who is trying to remember how to access his crypto wallet.
  • He's a colonialist who has a mansion full of stolen artefacts.

Which of these is more hook-y or appealing? That's up to the player!

But the point is that a player can transform a boring element by introducing interesting elements and combining them to make even more interesting relationships.

Once you have found an interesting way into the prompt, you're faced with the task of writing it down and putting the story in motion.

If this is intimidating, ignore the 'plot' and focus on developing the platform:

  • Introduce the elements (use being verbs if necessary)
  • Develop each element
  • Combine them to develop relationships.

For example:

"Haratio Monument is an old man who sits in the gloomy front room of his mansion entertaining his many official visitors throughout the day, until nightfall, when he reads the reports that his spies bring to him, detailing families whose children might be profitably kidnapped. 

He is reading right now, while I stand here in the shadows of the staircase, my heart beating."

If the prompt is still feeling dull and lifeless, then find ways to introduce contrast. Almost any source of contrast will create interest and motion:

  • It's warm outside but the man's house is icy cold.
  • His house is silent but I bump a vase which makes a rocking sound on the timber shelf.
  • He presents himself as a respectable man of the community but I know he is an unspeakable villain.
  • I'm trying to hide, but I think he knows where I am.

Here's a preset game template that incorporates some of these steps:

Building material for a compelling story

The power of transformation

The transferable life skill here is realising that we don't have to blindly accept what we have been given.

Rather, with some attention, effort, and imagination, we can transform the world around us into something more interesting, beautiful, rewarding.

(That said, there's an important caveat: transform doesn't mean destroy, derail, or reject. Transformation relies on a genuine engagement with the thing being transformed.)

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