Teaching with Frankenstories

This is a surprisingly useful experience.

The game forces the player to write to the prompt and keep moving.

Some of the best Frankenstories have been 1-player games:

• Fly Away Home
• Forestborn
• Overnight on the open ocean
• Where did she get all those followers
• Space Secrets
• The Best Best Man

If you save a Frankenstories prompt as a game template, you can assign it to individual students as a "homework" activity.

This is another surprisingly useful format.

The key to success is players discussing which entry to vote for:

• If they both prefer one reply, then that player should vote for themselves
• Otherwise players can vote for each other and let the bot decide

Again, there are many great examples of 2-player Frankenstories:

• Stoking the Flames
• Braving the Storm
• Acestes is an Acesthole
• The Sword In The Air
• A Lotta Lottery Paints

You can easily create pairs by dividing the class into 2-person teams and then moving individual students as needed.

In each round, only one reply can win, and the voting isn't always fair.

This means that as groups get larger, more and more great replies are left in the alternative entries for each round.

Even in throwaway games, it's worth reviewing the alts to find hidden gems (and figure out who was robbed).

And when you play games as ideation for a separate piece of writing, the alts often contain great material to be incorporated into the later draft.