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A Likely Story Handout
To illustrate A Likely Story, consider the problem of helping a publisher sell more books.
Here’s one story, written entirely with free association. In this case, the author started by
writing down the lead sentence and then going from there:
It was a day like any other day for Duke Smithers, private investigator. Eleanor
Making wanted him to follow her husband for investigation of possible infidelity.
Sleazy bars and cheap motels were what he knew best in these cases. One lead led
to another like liquid molten lead. First a bartender sees the suspected couple and
then a motel clerk denies ever seeing them. It was as if people knew how to disap-
pear into thin air.
The thought of it made him gasp for air, and then made him parched for a
drink. Yeah. A good stiff drink of cranberry juice was what he needed. He opened
his desk drawer, retrieved the quart bottle of CJ (cranberry juice), and slammed it
down on his desk. He untwisted the lid and thought of what he had learned so
far: Mr. Making was making time with Susie Turnoverton, his former secretary
who now worked as a CPA. Or was she? The more he reflected while sipping his
CJ, the more he thought of how much he liked CJ. And then he passed out, a
stream of red flowing from his mouth. Murdered or just resting? Who can tell?O.K. It’s a pretty stupid story. If it can help generate ideas, however, then it’s a pretty
smart story. To generate ideas for the problem of selling books, you could read over the
story several times and think of ideas stimulated. (Another option would be to list major
themes and write them down.) Here are some sample ideas:- Hire an actor to play a fictional detective to promote a detective novel (from “private
investigator”). - Start a “Frequent Purchasers” club and reward faithful customers with discounts or
free books (from “infidelity”). - Sell popular paperbacks in hotels and motels (from “sleazy motels”).
- Sponsor a contest with an airplane trip as the grand prize (from “disappear into thin air”).
- Add a pine-scented scratch-and-sniff on the cover of a book about trees (from “gasp
for air”). - Advertise health food and recipe books on bottles of fruit juice (from “cranberry
juice”). - Give people a trade-in allowance on old books when buying new ones (from
“Turnoverton”). - Allow people to buy books on the installment plan (from “CPA”).
- Pass out book fliers with coupons in malls (from “passed out”).
- Create capsules that ooze fake blood from inside murder-mystery books (from “red
flowing from his mouth”).
101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving.Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley &
Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. http://www.pfeiffer.com
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