Brainstoryum: Short Stories and Writing Prompts

Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a journey into unexpected stories using the surrealist word game of Exquisite Corpse. Listeners’ words are drawn from the legendary Socks of Destiny and mixed into weird writing prompts which end up making more sense than they should! This time, nature spirits are the emerging theme, for three chilling story ideas. Grab a blanket – grab a pen! – and switch your imagination on with these stories and ideas for the ultimate writing prompt challenge. Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 68 of Brainstoryum. Once again, I will be pulling words at random from the socks of destiny to create writing prompts like you’ve never heard before. It’s occurred to me that the best of the three always comes last in the show but that new listeners might not know this as you begin listening. Well, as usual, the fullest story, and perhaps the best one of the bunch, unfolds last, almost as if the tensions and half-glimpsed mysteries of the first two story ideas, with all their brewing potential, gather like a story-force finally breaking through; the early meanderings of the curious imagination, after a little time – a bit of warming up – are ready by writing prompt no. 3 to sharpen their focus and find a clearer beginning, middle and an end. Maybe as writers and storytellers we are all bound to dabble, and daydream about many possibilities, some of which are always going to be left half-explored – until we reach (or come across) an idea that’s really worth grabbing with both hands and turning it into something fuller. So listen on to the end, my friend, for as usual, I leave the best to last.

What does a dragon’s dream look like? Is there a ghost inside your clock? And how could a ceramic urn be venomous? All these ideas and more will be dug into, with the dual power of pen and imagination… Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a journey into unexpected stories using the surrealist word game of Exquisite Corpse. Listeners’ words are drawn from the legendary Socks of Destiny and mixed into weird writing prompts which end up making more sense than they should! Post-Halloween, the spooky themes are still cropping up in these inspired short stories. Grab a blanket – grab a pen! – and switch your imagination on with these stories and ideas for the ultimate writing prompt challenge. Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 67 of Brainstoryum. Now if you're still in the Halloween mood I’ll be sure to have some stories for you, as I’m still in a bit of a spooky mood and, well, the socks of destiny seem to respond to that. The writing prompts might be randomised but there’s often a little extra something that I suspect is going on – serendipity, or possibly just the power of the imagination, although we all know there’s no “just” about that. Before we get started on the new story brainstorms, I’ll share with you my listeners’ ideas on the “crystalline zombie” which was the prompt from the last show, so there’s a ghoulish flavour before we’ve even started – but before that, I have some very exciting news...

Your weekend is not weird enough without Brainstoryum. Wine, poison, monsters, delirium and fights! Listen on to imagine these and more... Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a wild journey into the imagination using the surrealist word game of Exquisite Corpse. Listeners’ words are drawn from the legendary Socks of Destiny and mixed into weird writing prompts which end up making more sense than they should! In this Halloween special show, Anna brainstorms stories from these game results, finding spooky themes emerging, wherever she turns. The last Exquisite Corpse result inspires a complete short story, perfectly ghoulish and in time for Halloween. Grab a blanket and a hot beverage and be prepared for some shivers.   Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com.   INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 66 of Brainstoryum. It is also the Halloween special. Listeners’ words will be drawn from the legendary Socks of Destiny and mixed into weird writing prompts… which will end up making more sense than they have any right to! But being mindful of the spooky season, will I find ghoulish ideas creeping out from every crevice of the socks? Of course I will. Things seem to work out that way – ideas seem to fulfil a need when you play a surrealist word game. (I didn’t invent it, I just follow the surrealists’ lead and see what happens.) And yes, today, there will be another complete short story, perfectly ghoulish and just in time for Halloween. So grab a blanket – grab a pen! – and be prepared for some shivers.

Your weekend is not weird enough without Brainstoryum! Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a journey into the imagination with weird and wild Exquisite Corpse writing prompts resulting from a LIVE GAME SESSION! In this special show, Anna will brainstorm stories from several Exquisite Corpses and finish with a completed short story based on some of these results. It will be creepy and dark, so grab a blanket and a hot beverage and be prepared for some shivers. Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 65 of Brainstoryum. I hope you’re ready for some weird and wild story ideas because today’s show is full of them in this special episode reflecting on a live game session I was lucky enough to be a part of. That's right – I mentioned last time that I was getting really excited about a live storytelling event in Brighton, where I live, where I was building up to hosting a round of Exquisite Corpse with that audience, some of whom are actual, professional storytellers. The logical part of my brain said I should be nervous. I only felt excited – until I got there. And when I walked in, when I stood up there on the little stage area, I knew anything could happen. When you’re mixing other people’s words, you really don’t have any control over what is coming. I had no pause button, no pot of green tea… But it was enormous fun, everyone got into it, and the results were of course, completely bizarre – and got us all thinking about some story ideas. At the end of the session, I announced my challenge: to write a complete short story based on some of the results of that evening. (At this, there were some baffled and slightly disbelieving stares, as you might expect!) So today’s show is going to be a bit different without the socks of destiny, but in fact, there will be more ExCos, more story brainstorms, and, as promised, one completed short story which I’ve written based the results – and it is almost startlingly creepy and very dark. So be warned. As ever, these weird word combinations prompted me to explore characters and situations that I would not otherwise dream up on my own. And I hope it does the same for you.

Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a wild journey into the imagination with this new episode packed with creative writing ideas, stories and insights. Listeners share short story ideas based on “the creepy writing desk”. Plus enjoy 3 new writing prompts generated by the mysterious word game of Exquisite Corpse. Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 64 of Brainstoryum.   Today, as ever, I will be making excellent use of the “pause” button to brainstorm story ideas from the bizarre and always challenging game of ExCo. (I do like a good writing prompt challenge.) Please join in if you fancy giving it a go yourself: grab a pen and reach for your pause button if you feel the stirrings of a story idea you want to try. For writing is the practice of wonder… We never quite know what’s going to happen next, and that’s the real magic of the imagination.   First, I’ll be sharing some story ideas from listeners who did just that: hit the pause button and wrote down what they thought might happen in a story about the “creepy writing desk”. Was it horror, fantasy, thriller writing, or a mix of all three? Stay tuned to find out, then afterwards, I’ll be reaching into the socks of destiny for 3 new journeys into our imagination.

Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a wild journey into the imagination with this new episode of creative writing ideas, stories and insights. Listeners wax lyrical on “the howling chalice” and “the intrepid ferryman”. Plus enjoy 3 new writing prompts generated by the mysterious word game of Exquisite Corpse. The show also explores deep insights about the writing process and the psychology of discovery writing. Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 63 of Brainstoryum. Before we begin with some new story brainstorms – some led by me and others led by my listeners – I have some news. I have discovered a storytelling group local to Brighton, where I live, in the South-east of England. I’ve been meaning to go for months, but I am still struggling a bit with the dregs of long covid, so I was ecstatic to finally make it; it’s a small, welcoming group with a mix of professional live storytellers, writers and non-writers, and I found myself in awe of this unique art form, of telling folk tales, to a live audience. But thankfully, the group is very open to anyone getting up and having a go, and they don’t all have to be folk tales. So I was right in there, clutching my copy of Portals and Immortals, and I read out the first 10 mins’ worth of a short story in that collection, called Axolotl, about a freaky, evil popstar who tries to steal the youth from a younger wannabe. If you’ve read it, you’ll know the story is quite humorous and there’s lots of dialogue from the very start, so I felt it was a good choice for doing voices, and sort of acting out a part. I’m pleased to say, the audience cackled in all the right places – it was loads of fun to do. But what struck me as really odd, was: near the beginning, there’s a mention of this popstar’s song, called “Hump Me, Dump me”. And honestly, it had never occurred me until that very moment, reading it out to this group, that this sounds like “Humpty Dumpty.” And it hit me right then, as I read it out, and I just knew that’s what people were laughing about. I spoke to them afterwards and they said that was part of why it was funny. But how strange. To have written something – that was meant to be funny, anyway – but I hadn’t even got the whole joke. My own joke. Anyway! What’s extra exciting is that, having introduced what I do on this podcast, how I get inspiration for my stories and try to inspire other people to write, the group has agreed in their next get-together (which is once a month), to let me lead them in a game of ExCo and I think I will encourage some story brainstorms in the same session. You can of course play the game without using the resulting sentences as writing prompts, but this is a storytelling group. These are my kind of people, they’re imaginative and they’re ready to hear stories – so maybe I can inspire them to come up with some ideas with me as we play the game. It's been so long since I’ve played ExCo in person, and I’ve never actually done this with a group of people who will be interested in using them as writing prompts: it’s always been just for some laughs (of which there are always plenty, it is one of the funniest games you can play). This is the beginning of something I really want to try some day: playing it with a live audience and doing collaborative story brainstorming. Kind of like a workshop. So if you do happen to be in the south-east of the UK on 2nd October 2024, look up Brighton TellTales on Facebook and come and find us. But what I will do – I will find a way to share some of this wonderful craziness with you: in the show after next (because it’s more than 2 weeks away), I will share some of the ExCos that come up, and also, if they’re really good, or just really funny, I will type them up on a webpage...

Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a wild journey into the imagination with story brainstorms from listeners based on the “the ethereal rune”. Plus 3 new writing prompts generated by the mysterious word game of Exquisite Corpse. The show also explores deep insights about the writing process and the psychology of discovery writing. A creative writing podcast has never been so deep, wildly imaginative and playful all at once. Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 62 of Brainstoryum. I hope you’re ready for some thought-provoking story brainstorms, because today’s Exquisite Corpse games will lead us into various alleyways of thought, particularly: knowing yourself as a writer; acknowledging what it is that sparks off your inspiration (and what doesn’t), so you can bypass potential blocks; and the balance between exploring pre-existing associations you have with words and ideas, and just… letting go and diving in. All that’s to come in the strange inner labyrinth that is story brainstorming with Exquisite Corpse. But first, I have some feedback from listeners to the show on a writing prompt I shared last time, so let’s get into that...

Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a wild journey into the imagination with story brainstorms from listeners based on “the intoxicating box”. Plus 3 new writing prompts generated by the mysterious word game of Exquisite Corpse. The show also explores deep insights about the writing process and borrows some thoughts from 20th century psychologist, Carl Jung. No creative writing podcast has ever been so deep, wildly imaginative and playful all at once. Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 61 of Brainstoryum.   Now, last time, I had so many responses to the writing prompt I invited feedback on, that this became the basis for my pre-word game ponderings on the process and experience of creative writing, and do you know what, it’s happened again. Even more incredible ideas have poured in from my hugely imaginative listeners and each of these presents a whole new journey into a story idea – which again, could develop in countless different interpretations depending on the choices you make; consciously and unconsciously. More on that later as things emerge in the Exquisite Corpse games. So many rabbit holes to jump into – so pick up a pen and let’s go.

Join award-winning fantasy and dreampunk author, Anna Tizard, in a wild journey into the imagination with story brainstorms from listeners based on the “brittle cartographer”. Plus 3 new writing prompts generated by the mysterious word game of Exquisite Corpse. Your creative writing adventure starts here!   Subscribe for free to Anna Tizard’s private email list and get vol 1 in The Book of Exquisite Corpse plus exclusive material not published anywhere else! All at www.annatizard.com. INTRO: Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 60 of Brainstoryum. 60? Really? It’s hard to believe. So many journeys down the rabbit hole… and yet each one is different, unique. Well, I guess that’s the magic of Exquisite Corpse; and there is a certain magic in dedicating a little bit of time to randomness and pure imagination on a regular basis. Long may it continue! In the last few episodes, I’ve been digging deep into the mysterious process of discovery writing, and the workings of the unconscious mind… Well, this time the whimsical meanderings will be down the pathways of ideas – the story ideas of my fantastic, imaginative listeners – because I had so many responses about the writing prompt I shared at the end of episode 59, that this is going to take up the first chunk of the show. And they’re so good, I want to delve into each of them a little bit, and wonder “what’s next”.  So let’s do that, before we turn our attention to even more story ideas...

Just a quick preview of episode 60: hear me collapse in uncontrollable laughter as I try to make sense of a bizarre writing prompt. If I say something you don't understand, about "floating"... Well, you'll just have to listen to the whole episode when it comes out, won't you! :D