#96. Christmas Special! Playing the Word Game of Exquisite Corpse in Person, and a Snowy Fairytale

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​Hello imaginative people. I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 96 of Brainstoryum: the Christmas special!
 
I mentioned in the last show that I would be hosting an in-person game of Exquisite Corpse at my work place with some unsuspecting colleagues: and yes, this happened, about a week and a half ago, now, at our office Christmas do—which was very relaxed. People just brought in food and we stuffed ourselves. There were a lot of smaller games around like Jenga and card games that people migrated to in an open area.
 
Since, with Exquisite Corpse, I needed a quiet space with a decent sized table we could sit around, I booked a meeting room, but of course the risk of this was that people might not realise it’s going on. So I printed out a notice on an A4 sheet of people and left one in the kitchen by the coffee maker, and another one I stuck to the door of the meeting room: announcing a silly and strange word game at 3pm.
 
But as three o’clock approached and I grabbed myself a cup of tea, I have to admit, I was a little bit worried that no-one would turn up. Was anyone going to go back to the coffee maker at this stage in the afternoon, if they’d moved on to wine?
 
I went into the room, more or less hidden from view from the door as I practically climbed into the stationery cupboard to root out a box of pens, and I heard voices, and I saw faces at the window. A group of people were nudging the door open, asking about the game, and what ‘Exquisite Corpse’ meant. I was so relieved and thrilled! They were all so curious and interested.
 
So, in they came, settled around the table, and I began to explain what it was all about.
 
As I described the weird serendipities that can occur when a group of people gathers to play this weird game, it struck me that there were eight of us, and only eight seats available.
 
I could not have planned this. Before I went in, I couldn’t even remember how many people you could fit around that table, because every time I’d tried to nip in and get a glimpse of the meeting room, there was always someone in it!
 
I began by briefly summarising the history of the game. How the French surrealists used randomness to try and get past the controlling influence of the conscious mind, the logic of our critical minds, to reach a deeper reality. Previously unimagined possibilities.
 
Then, to help open up our imaginations and draw the curtains firmly on all work stuff, I asked them to think back to a TV series, film, or book they’ve been enjoying, and to picture a scene that gripped them. What were the characters doing? Was it a tense confrontation? Was the protagonist trying to get something? Run away from something? What was the atmosphere of the scene like? And visualising it, what could they observe about the characters’ surroundings? I didn’t spend long on this: I just wanted to encourage them into a storytelling mode of thinking.
 
We played a round of Exquisite Corpse, using printed off game slips which have examples on them too (which you can find on my website), and at each step I went through the different kinds of words you can try: for describing words, you can have colours, textures, emotion-based adjectives, more abstract adjectives like ‘unbelievable’ or ‘dangerous’ that generally describe a situation; for nouns, you can have animals, creatures, people’s roles, and again, abstract concepts or intangible things like ‘emptiness’ or ‘indecision’; and the ever-tricky action part which I did my best to explain (pretty much the way it’s described on my ‘Play’ page).
 
The results were intriguing and very colourful, the best of which I shall share now.
 
“The vast dragon fled with the gigantic void.” A lot of big things in this exquisite corpse; and it’s strange how the dragon flees with a gigantic void, instead of being sucked into it. To fly alongside a black hole or empty space: this suggests a very powerful dragon in possession of the void. I’ve never thought of a void as something you can take with you somewhere. If it’s a sort of a portal, the dragon is travelling with a means of travel-? This feels very wormhole.
 
Next we have:
“The haunting jumper extinguished the fabulous authority figure.” I like the idea of a haunting jumper. Not just haunted but haunting. It’s a proactive spookiness. Then to extinguish someone: I imagine a political leader, or someone’s boss, receiving a jumper at Christmas. Something about it—they have a bad feeling about it, and why is it such a murky grey? Never mind. They pull it over their heads and—pop. It slumps, empty. They’ve disappeared. Let that be a lesson to us all: you can be in a position of authority, you can even be fabulous, but don’t accept a jumper as a gift at Christmas if there’s something haunting about it—it may just extinguish you.
 
“The catastrophic planet slapped the suspicious EasyJet airbus.” Now there’s actually a bit of serendipity in this one: I’m sure I’ve seen adverts for (not necessarily EasyJet) but adverts for planes and travel agents in general, where you’ll get an image or a cartoon of the Earth with a plane passing around it. So those images go quite well together. But then, what’s catastrophic about Earth (dare I ask), and how can a planet slap an airbus? Could that be using winds, jet streams? If the Earth is irritated by planes whirring past, it might want to slap them away, like a bug on a hot day. What’s suspicious about this aeroplane?
 
We also had “The lamenting Gruffalo started a circus with the ginormous dragon.” Another sizeable dragon. This is a circus I’d like to go and see, although it does sound like the Gruffalo has some regrets around this (the lamenting Gruffalo…) Unless his plans to start a circus were sparked by some terrible loss, or by loneliness. And does the circus work out, if the dragon he’s employed is maybe a bit too big for his marquee? It sounds like the basis for a children’s story.
 
Finally, “The half-eaten spectre was reunited with the flamboyant Pringles can.” This one also has ready-made connections in it, to do with food. If a spectre is half-eaten, then reunited with a can of crisps, does that mean this is the ghost of a crisp, returning to the place where its consciousness first emerged? If you eat only half a crisp, and the rest falls and gets stuck to your Christmas jumper (hopefully not a haunted one, or that might extinguish you), does this mean the spirit of the crisp has unfinished business and will return to the Pringles can to haunt you? Or was the can haunted in the first place? Someone reached in for a Pringle, and they got a ghost instead—half-eaten.
 
So you can see that with only a little time to skim over the results in the midst of an in-person game, you can still pull out story ideas or, at the very least, curious situations that could be the basis for a story if you just poke them a little bit. Dragons and circuses; deadly, haunted jumpers, and the ghosts of crisps.
 
All this from just from one round, and with people who had never played this before.
 
I think with every group you play with, there’s a different sort of mood. When I recited some examples of some of the best Exquisite Corpses to this group, they seemed more intrigued by the rather beautiful (if inexplicable) classic, “The bright-eyed deck of cards flew into a tree to find the gaunt daughter of time” (I love that but I’ve no idea what it means); and they were less taken with the most ridiculous, “The humungous vampire vigorously washed the engorged cheese,” which other groups in the past have really chortled at. I think this group were very much in storytelling mode from the start, imaginations at the ready. They were open to wonder.
 
But if you want to host an in-person game at Christmas, you might not have such a receptive or curious group: to help things along. you could try my method of getting them to imagine a scene in something they’ve watched or read recently; or it might be enough that you’ve already had conversations with them, or played other games with them first. If you’ve just finished Trivial Pursuit or done a quiz, anything word-based, it’s quite likely some of the facts and concepts that have come up in those games might seep into the Exquisite Corpses and influence where everyone’s imaginations go. So you could use this, and be mindful of what else you might play or talk about before you begin Exquisite Corpse.
 
To download free, printable game sheets for an in-person game, just go to my “How (and why)” page at annatizard.com, and scroll to the bottom the page. Print on landscape and cut along the horizontal lines to create long, thin game slips; the different sections for different word entries all have examples, so if anyone gets stuck and can’t think of anything, they can use one of these, either as they are, or as a springboard for other ideas. There’s also a printable guide to playing the game in person on the same page, at annatizard.com/how. And don’t forget to bring plenty of pens or pencils.
**
Now in the last show I invited you to write a short piece on one of the writing prompts that came up: the mealy-mouthed box. That is, a box that is struggling to speak its mind; or it might be a creature inside that box; or any other interpretation you could think of.
 
And there were a range of unique interpretations.
 
Nick Vracar wrote:
 
“The man standing on the soapbox shouted, “The end is surely, probably coming along! Maybe not today but quite soon, if you plan for it you’ll see it, don’t and you’ll miss it! It won’t end Thursday, probably!”
 
Tim thought, “What a loon,” as he wiped the locusts from his sleeves.”
 
Ooh – nice twist there at the end. I always find it so striking and impressive when someone can write an entire story in such a short space like this. Thank you, Nick. You can find Nick’s fiction at nvracar.wordpress.com.
 
Paul McMillan wrote:
 
The Altar and the Box
The mealy-mouthed box sat on the cracked altar like it had been waiting centuries for someone foolish enough to listen. Candlelight lighted its warped grain, and every breath the priest took was filled with the scent of rot and cold wood. When the box shivered, he froze. It did not shake like something alive, more like a throat trying to form a word.
 
The first whisper slid out between its seams and sounded like teeth finding each other in the dark. The priest felt it slip into his ear, feather-soft and hungry as a single, half-born syllable. It had no meaning, yet his bones tightened like it carried a command. The second whisper dragged barbs through his mind. The box sounded desperate, like a dying tongue clawing for words. He tried to summon a prayer, but the box swallowed the sound before it ever left his throat.
 
He stepped closer and some part of him believed he was comforting it, but another believed it had already hollowed him out and left only obedience behind. The third whisper came with a pulse of cold that cracked the altar beneath it. With every garbled word, the box ate something from him: memory, warmth, a scrap of soul. The whispers were forming a language now, thick and wet. The box groaned like a jaw learning to open.
 
The priest leaned in, unable to stop himself. The box finally spoke a full word.
 
His name.”
 
Ooh, this is dark. And vivid, and sort of suffocating. There’s also something about the power of a person’s name: it’s an ancient idea that crops up in folktales sometimes, about how knowing a person’s name gives you power over them, or the ability to get past their defences. And that’s what you’ve tapped into a the end there. Thank you, Paul. You can find Paul McMillan on X as Bookmarksloveandlore.
 
Dorothy Arroyo wrote:
“Despite the yearly effort to crumble into the ocean, the pier’s remaining pylons hid behind rows of annual warning signs. “Do not enter” “Danger” “Slippery When Wet” “No Trespassing” “Closed since 2002”. A warm welcome to the curious teenaged wanderers. The girls and boys cuffed their pants and lined the shore with their socks and shoes. A mealy mouthed box in the middle of a fence had it’s windows boarded up. The girls knew if with enough coaxing, the board would shift out of place and you could slip into the building and exit from the back window onto the pier.

The dusk water nipped at the weather worn wooden pylons. The ocean mist dampened the pier, coating danger into the broken boards.

The forgotten fishing platform watched, holding its breath, as the gaggle laughed and teased and tested the strength of the weary boards. Each of the friends found a serene perch and took rest to watch the sunset. The girls whispered secrets as the boys skipped rocks onto the water. One girl silently wished that everyday could be like this one. She felt a melancholy knowing things may never again be like this after this summer ends.

The sun pulled the light out of the sky and stars began to freckle the darkness. The teenagers crawled back to shore. They walked through the warm water back to their shoes. Escaping into the night before anyone could notice their mischievous presence.”
 
There’s something subtle about this. It’s like watching a painting that’s moving. I think, the way that the teenagers remain unnamed, and we don’t hook on to any one person as the protagonist, we don’t hear anyone’s thoughts; and with the descriptions of the setting, our attention draws to that, so the setting is almost a character of its own. That moment in the middle where the “forgotten fishing platform watched”. I feel like there’s a potential for the setting—the pier—to turn on them. An intriguing piece of writing: thank you Dorothy Arroyo, for sharing your story.
 
Eric Montgomery wrote:

​A story of frustration and bewilderment that builds to this moment—loss of control. I’ve often thought that the worst stresses in life, the scariest things, are the events that render us powerless, grappling for control. And the short sentences in this story create that staccato effect as the narrator second-guesses themselves, wonders what’s going on, and the tension builds. Thank you for your creepy tale, Eric. You can find more of Eric’s tales and poems at madp03t.org.
 
Paul Monteith wrote:
 
The Mealy-Mouthed Box

“Under the Christmas tree came the hush of paper-thin voices, mixed with joyous ribbony harks and the merriment of bows. The gifts were excited about the coming Unwrapping Day. All except for a quiet red box that had arrived early and had been pushed farther under the tree as later gifts arrived. It didn't mind as he had been sworn to secrecy by the sender.

"You're a bit tight-lipped," a Green box said. The red box, wanting to avoid a conversation, shied away. "Not much to say," it replied in a dry, cardboardy voice.

"Your postage mark suggests otherwise."

"My postage mark is insignificant. What about that gift by the wrapped bike, its postage mark is Lincoln."

"Lincoln is a fine departure point, but your location!"

"My departure point was just the striped candy cane North Pole stuck in an icefield." At the mention of the North Pole, all the crinkly chatter among the gifts stopped.

"The North Pole?" said a voice from somewhere among the gift pile. The sound of glossy paper brushing over slick festive wrapping made a whispering sound as the gifts jostled to see the evasive red box.

"Did you see him?" Green asked.

"I saw elves," Red replied.

"But did you see HIM?"

"I saw." Red searched for the words to say something without revealing too much. "I saw someone like the tree ornament over there." Paper rustled as the gifts turned, and they oohed and ahhed as they gazed upon a red figurine ornament.”
 
This is gorgeous! And so Christmassy. I think what I love most is when the gifts rustle or jostle around with a crinkling sound, it makes it come to life and I can really picture the scene in my mind’s eye. I can almost smell the tree. Let’s have another jingle. (Jingles.)
 
You can find Paul Monteith on Bluesky as Quantum Fairy.
 
Right, it is time to reach for new, unique story possibilities which can only be found in the Socks of Destiny.
**
SOCKS OF DESTINY ORGAN JINGLE
 
This part of the show is un-transpose-able! There's much giggling and rustling of paper as I pull words at random from the Socks of Destiny to create three unique sentences according to the rules of Exquisite Corpse, going: “Describing word—noun—action—describing word—noun.” Today’s resulting sentences are:
 
@The quivering nightmare felt abashed because of the multifaceted cameo.
@The liquified mince pie purloiner shared her secrets with the boisterous miner.
@The fierce widow sat on the porch with the stubborn peacock.
 
After some initial brainstorming, I use the "pause button" (at length!) to draft a scene or short story, using one of these as my chosen writing prompt. Here goes (fingers crossed)…
 
**
He wore the nightmare as a cloak, hardly knowing how it flapped at his ankles and dimmed his vision of the glimmering snow.
 
Everywhere he looked, faces snarled, long, wolf-like jaws snapped. Hollowed eyes stared, like holes torn from the night. It was just as the old woman in the tavern had said, as she slipped the vial of blue-green liquid to him under the table.
 
“Drink this in one gulp, on a night when the snow has settled, and you will enter the realm of nightmare. The castle will open itself up to you: parts that do not, strictly speaking, exist. You will see the unseen, under the cloak of the dream.”
 
Those strange words echoed in Prince Tarek’s head as he tramped on through the snow. His teeth chattered so hard he bit his tongue, though not from the cold. The rusty tang of blood in his mouth only reminded him of his weakness, the realness of his flesh, so easily injured. He staggered aside at the glimpse of another ghoulish figure, groping for him soundlessly, before it was absorbed back into the night. Yet still, everywhere he looked, the bluish-green haze of the nightmare draped over his vision like see-through blanket, made the darkness squirm with dreadful shapes.
 
But why shouldn’t he be allowed something his elder brother didn’t have? Wasn’t it enough that Peter would be king, and Tarek forever in his shadow? He remembered, with a pang, that pendant carved in his mother’s likeness, her face magicked to tell the future, that Father dangled so cruelly in front of the boys when they were little: his dead mother’s face, declaring that Tarek would never come to more than a thief. Of all the magic his royal education granted him with, Tarek could still to this day hardly abide the use of objects that had been enchanted to speak. Nor could he walk past his mother’s portrait in the hallway without gulping down his shame.
 
But this, this adventure into the unknown, was a magic his sensible brother would never know. Tarek gathered his long coat around him, keeping his eyes fixed ahead on the glowing white snow ahead. Too long he’d felt a stranger in his own home. A spare part, the ‘dreamer’, he loved to stray beyond the castle grounds and mix with ordinary folk in the local tavern, pretending to be a trader or a farmer. If anyone noticed the smoothness of his hands and the lack of dirt on his clothes (the plainest he could find), then they had the grace to pretend along with him—for a round or two. There was a whole world out there, that princely Peter would never know about.
 
And now there was this: unseen, unknown parts of the castle, spied through the veil of a nightmare.
 
The snow creaking under his boots, Tarek cast about for a wall he didn’t recognise, a doorway, even a dent in the old stones he knew so well.
 
The base of a tower, shorter than the rest. He caught his breath. It hadn’t been there before: wonky, sticking out of the castle like a hitchhiker’s thumb. Flecks of snow flittered around it, whirling aside. Heavens, even the snow wouldn’t settle on it! Tarek reached out, pressed a hand against the stones. Their cold, grimy smoothness beat through his palm, before his fingers slipped through air.
 
“Not—real?” he whispered to himself. A wolf’s maw slid into view beside him, gnashing its spiked teeth.
 
“Real enough,” it snarled.
 
Just the nightmare, Tarek chanted silently, snatching back his hand and striding ahead with a swagger he did not feel. The open doorway was dark, like a mouth swallowing him up.
 
Inside was a circular room, with no furniture that Tarek could see, for every inch glittered. Jewels, everywhere. Gemstones as big as his fists, and bigger. Tarek clenched and unclenched his own fists at his sides. Not a thief, never a thief, he told himself, though the gleam of that red ruby filled him with a feeling like thirst—and think of how many rounds of drinks he could buy with those gold coins, spilling out of that chest like a tongue? While Tarek never wanted for anything, Father was very careful with the pocket money he allowed his sons. Particularly when it came to Tarek, there was no room for secret frivolities. But this…
 
He reached out, ran his fingertips over the coins. They trickled, as smooth as they were bright, as if reflecting a light from above. It was the room itself, the walls and ceiling, the shadow of the beast that snarled from the dark doorway, that were the visions, flickering softly: the treasure was solid. And yet—all of this had been hidden completely by such a vision. A veil of sorts, to protect the castle’s most ancient jewels. Did Father even know about it?
 
If he did, he’d never tell Tarek.
 
Perhaps that old lady in the pub had visited this place herself and taken a few extra coins as payment… Why wouldn’t she?
 
His pressed him lips together at the sight of it all, then his mouth fell open. The cameo! Lying on top of a red velvet cushion. The pendant that went missing so many years ago, of his mother’s face, sculpted from a white shell against an oval, onyx surround.
 
Dumbstruck, he picked it up, turning it this way and that. His mother’s profile carved in relief, so beautiful, gave way to another, protruding ghost-like from her left side, and another on her right side, the faces turning towards him. Tarek jolted, almost dropping the thing. He spread his palm flat so as not to touch or be touched by the three faces that now whispered at him, words overlapping.
 
“A thief! Nothing but a common thief!”
 
“But that was your present tense… This is your past.”
 
“I speak of your future! Listen to me!”
 
“Stop,” said Tarek, and closed his hand over the pendant. He pressed down, and the voices became muffled, silenced.
 
The heaps of gold and jewels melted away. The walls disintegrated, soft as a curtain dropping, to reveal an empty field of snow. Tarek spun, scouring the familiar castle walls for some sign of the tower he’d been standing in just a moment before.
 
Nothing.
 
A woman’s voice next to him made him start. “Thank you for setting me free.”
 
“What? But who are you?” Tarek stared. He recognised the old woman from the tavern.
 
She smiled, though every wrinkle on her face seemed scored with regret and frustration.
 
“I am your past, banished from your life by your father. A piece of me has been hidden in this place since you were a boy. After that pendant didn’t work out so well, the king didn’t want any living reminder of your mother. My own dear daughter.”
 
She placed a hand on Tarek’s shoulder: heavy. Strong. “I was the face of your past, but now I can be in your present—since the spell has been broken.” She teased open his palm, to reveal a simple-looking cameo, with one face. His mother’s, carved in white shell. Still, and unenchanted.
 
“You did become a thief, after all,” said his grandmother, “though I’m glad it was only to steal me back.”
**
 
And that is how “The quivering nightmare felt abashed because of the multifaceted cameo”. And I’m pretty confident that I wouldn’t ever have thought up this concept without having come across this Exquisite Corpse: of a wearable nightmare, a sort of veil that helps you see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. Although, in a way, if you think about it, your state of mind can be like sort of a veil, can’t it? When you’re stressed out about something, it colours your whole perception of what’s going on around you; and equally, when you’re really happy or excited, everything seems brighter, more buoyant, and it’s easier to anticipate other positive things happening.
 
Anyway, that’s a whole labyrinth of thought. But: wearable nightmares that open your vision to unseen possibilities. Not coming to a supermarket near you, anytime soon! But that’s why we have stories, so we can experience in the safety of our imaginations things we probably wouldn’t want to go through in real life.
 
I think, looking over the Exquisite Corpses today, I’d like to hear what you would make of the “quivering nightmare”. What else could that mean? If that doesn’t float your boat, another option might be the “multifaceted cameo”, because cameo can mean different things, like a bit part in a film.
 
You know what to do: go to annatizard.com, hit the contact button on any page footer and write up to 250 words of a story or poem, or you can just describe an idea or a character in a few sentences, you don’t have to actually write a scene if that doesn’t grab you.
 
Well, in the meantime, I wish you a very happy Christmas and new year, although I am back again in two weeks’ time, on the 3rd of January, so I will probably be wishing you a happy new year all over again. Never mind, you can take it twice, a bit of extra positivity.
 
Until next time, go forth and be inspired! (And festive.)