The Guess the Story Game

Guess the Story is a hilarious story-telling game and highly entertaining icebreaker that inspires creativity.

With your whole group bunched together, explain that in a moment one person will volunteer to leave the room, and while they are gone, the group will develop a short story which everyone will remember.

The task for this volunteer is to recreate the story with a beginning, a middle and an end. And this person will create the basic elements of the story by asking the group a series of questions that can only be answered with a “YES” or “NO” response.

To start, ask one person to leave the room to a space where they cannot hear what is being discussed by the rest of the group.
Upon the volunteer’s absence, ask your group to nominate two ‘things’ – one ending with a vowel and the other ending with a consonant, eg kangaroo and train.

This is the story: when the volunteer asks a question if the last word ends with a consonant, the group must answer “YES,” and if it ends with a vowel, the group must answer “NO.”

Invite the volunteer to return to the group and inform them that the story involves the two ‘things’ nominated by the group. The volunteer may only ask questions that can be answered with a “YES” or “NO” response.

The volunteer starts by asking their first question to re-create the story. As facilitator, keep the story moving, and ask the volunteer on occasions to recap the facts as they know it so far.

Allow the storytelling to continue for 10 to 15 minutes. Encourage the volunteer to create a beginning, middle and an end to the story.

At a point when the story appears to have reached a conclusion, lead your group into rapturous applause. Finally, reveal the true story was based on the last letter of each of the storyteller’s questions.

Moment of Reflection

• How did it feel to be the story-teller (volunteer), at different points along the time-line?
• What observations did you, as a group, make of the story-teller?
• Have you, as part of the group, ever felt a guilty pleasure because for each “YES” answer the narrator believed he was guessing the story?
• Do you think this game was a fun trick?
• What do you think was the purpose of the this activity?
• Was the volunteer imagining and creating a fantastic story? Do you think it is difficult to inspire creativity?

The topics of this publication: integration, interactions, disinhibition, distension, creativity, imagination, improvise