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Thinking tools

By Debbie Carter (May 2008 Issue)
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In last month’s ‘Thinking tools’, we took a look at how storytelling can be used as a useful aid to creative thinking, and this month we continue the theme and introduce a couple of exercises to hone your skills.

EXERCISE 1 In this exercise we use clues in a murder to construct a hypothesis on what may have happened. Select two random words to create the scene, setting or story for your murder but you should give no indication of the identity of the murderer. Select three further random words to use as your clues. Use these clues to propose how the murder took place and also, perhaps, who might have committed the crime.

For example, the first two random words are tiger and stain:

A man was found dead outside the tiger cage in a zoo. There was a strange green stain on the front of his shirt.

The clue words are rhinoceros, corn and chicken so your thoughts might be along the following lines:

The victim was on his way to give corn to the chickens when he was charged by an escaped rhinoceros. The green stain came from his green pen which had been crushed in his shirt pocket during the attack.

EXERCISE 2 This exercise centres on creating the general thematic framework for a novel.

Start by selecting four random words; you must use each word as you get it and not wait until all the words are drawn. Use the first word to indicate the general setting or scene of your novel; the second word to suggest the characters; the third word to determine the storyline, and the fourth word to decide the ending of the story.

The first word is serenade, suggesting a romantic situation.

A young man on holiday in Italy falls in love with a beautiful local girl. The second word is rib and is used to suggest more about the characters. The girl is the daughter of the local butcher and is part of a large extended family (many ribs). The storyline is set by the word seat.

The young man frequently sees the girl sitting in a local café. One day she stands up to reveal she is extremely tall. The final word – vase – determines the outcome. The young man uses a vase as an analogy for her physical form, saying that it is not the vase that matters, but the flowers that are arranged in it. It is not her size that matters, but her inner heart and spirit. They of course get married and live happily ever after…

Remember:

The use and practice of creativity is the best way to develop the mental skills and mental habits of creative thinking and, to improve those skills, you need to practise.

Here are some essentials to remember when carrying out the exercises.

  • There is no need for a time limit to the exercises or games, although you may want to set yourself five minutes per exercise and, as you get better, you may want to reduce this to two or three minutes.
  • The storyline must have some substance and not just be a string of ‘and’ followed by ‘and’, and so on.

These exercises are taken from How to have Creative Ideas: 62 exercises to develop the mind, Edward de Bono, Vermilion 2007. For further information on the work of the De Bono Foundation UK visit www.debonofoundation.co.uk

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