Monosyllabic Prose
| No. of Players: | 1+ |
| Type of Game: | written |
| What you need: | pen and paper |
Goal
To write something using just one-syllable words.
How to play
Players challenge themselves or others to write a short paragraph in words with just one syllable. The winning prose will have the most words and/or letters, or be judged the best in the group by the gamemaster. A writing topic can also be selected, and a time limit set.
Instead of prose, players can try writing monosyllabic poems. This can be a group effort, where players take turns writing lines.
Example
Amara tells the players they have 2 minutes to write about a day they had last week. The winner will have the longest story. But if no story is the longest by 20 words or more, she will simply select the one she likes the best. To be as objective as possible, she asks the players not to sign their stories so she does not know who wrote what story.
| Brook: | 'It was five days in the past. The sun was out and it was warm. But with some dark clouds, so it looked like it could rain. I went to the park at ten for a walk. There were dogs there. Kids too. The wind then picked up and sure enough it rained. The rain was very hard and I was soaked by the time I got home.' |
| Cris: | 'I got up at six and went for a jog. Not a smart move. There was lots of fog and I got lost. At one point I ran in the road and a car zipped by so close I could feel it swoosh by my hips. I stopped and sat down to think. How do I get home? Was it east or west from here? Then the fog left and I saw I was near that store where we buy chips. It was...' |
| Dino: | 'Last night capped off a great day. I drove to Bob's house and we fished off his dock for hours. I caught three bass.' |
At the end of 2 minutes, Amara collects the stories. After shuffling them, she reads the stories and notes down the number of words in each. Dino's story is much shorter than the other two, so she sets it aside. But as Brook's and Cris' stories differ by less than 20 words, she needs to make her selection according to which story interests her the most. She explains her decision: "The winner is this one (she holds up Cris' story). Although it doesn't look like it was completely finished in time, it had the most action and was the most unique of the three." Cris thus becomes the next gamemaster to set the rules for the next round.
