Create a Headline • Lynne Garner

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to attend a writing weekend with members of the Scattered Authors Society. During the weekend I teamed up with another member and ran a workshop. The workshops aim was to explore ways writers could either generate new ideas or simply have fun and exercise their 'writing muscle.'

I've written about ways to inspire before, both here and on another group blog I'm a member of (The Picture Book Den). If they are of interest then the posts were:


In this post I want to introduce you to something new that I'd shared with the group. It's simple to do and all you need is a pen or pencil, paper and some imagination.

First I asked for three random letters. The letters picked were D, F and Z. I then asked for some headlines that used these three letters (joining words can also be used). As you can see the headlines created were a little off the wall and fun.



I then asked if any of those attending could expand on the headline created. The following were suggested:

  • Dreams Free Zombie - 'sleeping child unleashes carnage'
  • Dracula Feeds on Zebra - 'vomits for a weekend' followed by 'human race is saved'

As the delegates said they enjoyed the process so much (I hope they weren't just being polite) I've decided to set you the same challenge. So, what can you come up with based on the these three letters?

W  S  B


I look forward to your suggestions and hope others can expand on your headlines.

Regards

Lynne 


Blatant plug time - Check out my latest collection of short stories (ebooks just 99p)

Comments

Susan Price said…
Thanks, Lynne! I have some workshops coming up and you've given me some great new ideas.
Umberto Tosi said…
The White School Bus, Washing Sammy's Brain, Wooing Sandra Bullock, What Sweet Bugle? ... I agree. Hedders are great story starters, and focusing tools. I wrote headlines as part of my old job as a newspaper editor and have been in the habit of playing with them ever since, though sometimes I forget to use this tool. Thanks for the reminder, Lynne! :D
Lynne Garner said…
Sue - My pleasure. Hope they work for you.

Umberto - Good hedders! I've written for magazines for 20 years and have given up trying to come up with a clever title for the feature, I leave that to my editors. They just have the knack!
Dennis Hamley said…
I remember the wonderful children's poet and inspirational Primary School Head Wes Magee doing this with a ngroup of 9-11 year-olds (nowadays Years 5 and 6) on one of the 'Lending Our Minds Out' Creative Writing courses I used to run in Hertfordshire in the 80s. He used the whole alphabet consecutively. It was a hilarious half-hour ending up with, of course, just two letters at the end. Y and Z. It took a long time for the children to settle on an agreed - or any - version until one came up with 'Yorkshire zonked.' It's coloured my view of county cricket ever since.

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