Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

Tongue twisters are fantastic comedy devices when used well. There's a particular episode of the old cartoon Pinky and the Brain that shows the sheer cleverness and joy to be found in finding tongue-twisting ways of saying perfectly ordinary things. It's available on youtube - go watch, I'll wait.

Now that you know what I'm talking about - the writing exercise is to create your own version of this. Take some kind of set up with several components (in the above example, we have the sheet slitters, the sock pluckers and sack pickers, as well as the buggy bumpers and the toy boat) and reinvent names for them that repeat syllables with minor variations, then create your skit.

Humour's a great sell - if you can make people laugh, they'll like you, pay attention, remember what you said and possibly even pass it on. I can't remember the number of times I've used a Terry Pratchett quote to emphasise something, even to people I know have never read him (which is usually a mistake, because nothing kills a joke faster than having to explain it.). Even when I teach - software engineering and programming, perhaps some of the driest subjects around - my students remember what we go through because I act like a nutbar, waving my arms around, throwing my stationary across the room and anthropomorphising an operating system.

It's not for the faint of heart, however.