I’ve Got Problems by Bob Krech

Sticking with the NOvember theme, I started thinking about how “No” relates to problems and how problems are often at the heart of many stories. Here are a few example “NO’s” from stories I know:

No clues

No suspect

No murder weapon

No evidence

No alibi

No parents

No friends

No escape

No one to play with

No money

No confidence

No direction

No love

A fun way to utilize “NO’s” to generate a story is to pick a scenario, for example, a child planning on going out trick or treating on Halloween. Now we use our “NO’s” to create some problems to give our character. For example:

No costume

No one to trick or treat with

No permission to go out

No where to go trick or treating

No time to go out (too much homework, have to take care of a baby sister, etc.)

No good weather

It’s fun to help a character figure out ways to overcome these “NO’s.” In the end, if we are successful, and find interesting ways to effectively defeat these problems, we  remove the “NO’s” and leave our character and the reade, with a big… “YES!” instead.