Exercise: The String of Pearls

Andrew leads the class through a collaborative "String of Pearls" exercise. He splits the group: one half creates a "once upon a time," the other creates a "since that day," deliberately unconnected. The beginning: "A young chimp bored of his mundane life in Chimpville." The ending: "Since that day, he lived in regret forever." Then they fill in the middle.

The first attempt produces a nonsensical story, and Andrew begins the collaborative "breaking" process. A student suggests the chimp could steal bananas in the big city. Another suggests a tsunami destroys the village's banana trees, giving the chimp a reason to leave. Gradually a pitch takes shape: the chimp stows away on a banana company's ship, arrives in the city, succeeds, gets wealthy, but when an old friend appears malnourished, he realizes he abandoned his village. The exercise shows the messy reality of story development: you start broken, you iterate, you borrow, and you gradually find the emotional core.