Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a wild journey into the imagination with this new episode of creative writing ideas, stories and insights. Listeners wax lyrical on “the howling chalice” and “the intrepid ferryman”. Plus enjoy 3 new writing prompts generated by the mysterious word game of Exquisite Corpse. The show also explores deep insights about the writing process and the psychology of discovery writing.

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INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 63 of Brainstoryum.

Before we begin with some new story brainstorms – some led by me and others led by my listeners – I have some news.

I have discovered a storytelling group local to Brighton, where I live, in the South-east of England. I’ve been meaning to go for months, but I am still struggling a bit with the dregs of long covid, so I was ecstatic to finally make it; it’s a small, welcoming group with a mix of professional live storytellers, writers and non-writers, and I found myself in awe of this unique art form, of telling folk tales, to a live audience. But thankfully, the group is very open to anyone getting up and having a go, and they don’t all have to be folk tales. So I was right in there, clutching my copy of Portals and Immortals, and I read out the first 10 mins’ worth of a short story in that collection, called Axolotl, about a freaky, evil popstar who tries to steal the youth from a younger wannabe.

If you’ve read it, you’ll know the story is quite humorous and there’s lots of dialogue from the very start, so I felt it was a good choice for doing voices, and sort of acting out a part.

I’m pleased to say, the audience cackled in all the right places – it was loads of fun to do. But what struck me as really odd, was: near the beginning, there’s a mention of this popstar’s song, called “Hump Me, Dump me”. And honestly, it had never occurred me until that very moment, reading it out to this group, that this sounds like “Humpty Dumpty.” And it hit me right then, as I read it out, and I just knew that’s what people were laughing about. I spoke to them afterwards and they said that was part of why it was funny.

But how strange. To have written something – that was meant to be funny, anyway – but I hadn’t even got the whole joke. My own joke. Anyway!

What’s extra exciting is that, having introduced what I do on this podcast, how I get inspiration for my stories and try to inspire other people to write, the group has agreed in their next get-together (which is once a month), to let me lead them in a game of ExCo and I think I will encourage some story brainstorms in the same session. You can of course play the game without using the resulting sentences as writing prompts, but this is a storytelling group. These are my kind of people, they’re imaginative and they’re ready to hear stories – so maybe I can inspire them to come up with some ideas with me as we play the game.

It's been so long since I’ve played ExCo in person, and I’ve never actually done this with a group of people who will be interested in using them as writing prompts: it’s always been just for some laughs (of which there are always plenty, it is one of the funniest games you can play). This is the beginning of something I really want to try some day: playing it with a live audience and doing collaborative story brainstorming. Kind of like a workshop.

So if you do happen to be in the south-east of the UK on 2nd October 2024, look up Brighton TellTales on Facebook and come and find us.

But what I will do – I will find a way to share some of this wonderful craziness with you: in the show after next (because it’s more than 2 weeks away), I will share some of the ExCos that come up, and also, if they’re really good, or just really funny, I will type them up on a webpage...