One-Word Story
A group tells a story together, and each player's turn is exactly one word.
One says "once", the second "upon", the third "a" — and so round the table until a story comes out of it. A turn is exactly .
The difficulty is not in thinking of your own word but in the one already said. Your neighbour may have put down a preposition wanting a particular case, or begun a list that has to be finished somehow. What has to be carried on is not your own thought but somebody else's sentence, and the further it goes the less of anybody's intention is left in it.
The funny parts arrive by themselves: the story keeps turning off the road because everybody understood the previous word their own way.
Rules of One-Word Story
Order
Play goes round the table. The first player says the first word of the story.
A turn
A player adds exactly one word to the story.
The word must carry on what has been said: fit grammatically with the word before it and not contradict what has already happened in the story.
What is not allowed
Saying more than one word in a turn. Staying silent for long. Starting the story afresh with no regard for what has already been said.
The end
Play goes on until the story arrives at an end or until the group has had enough. There is no winner in this game.
Playing for elimination
For a competition, agree to play on mistakes. Out goes whoever said more than one word, hesitated, or carried on so that the sentence stopped being a sentence.
Disputed cases are settled by the group. The last player left wins.
Worth knowing
Where the story ends is usually not agreed: it runs until it palls or until it arrives somewhere by itself. Whether hesitation is a mistake, and whether a player who makes one is out, depends on whether the game is played for fun or for elimination. Whether punctuation may be said aloud — "full stop", "comma" — is settled on the spot too.
Glossary of terms
- One word
- The turn: exactly one word, no more and no less. Punctuation is not a word and does not count.