Remember Eno and Schimdt's Oblique Strategies? Of course you do. A hundred cards, each with an enigmatic phrase on it, designed to provoke a little lateral thinking when you're looking for inspiration to clear a creative block.
Phrases like:
'Do the words need changing?'
'Use an unacceptable colour.'
'Do nothing for as long as possible.'
'Only one element of each kind.'
They even have an app these days!
They were originally designed for musicians; they can be of help to all creative types, though, particularly when a musically related prompt forces, say, a writer to think in a different way. How on earth does the prompt 'Spectrum Analysis' help me with a screenwriting plot problem? I don't know. Let's brainstorm it.
I've used them enough to find myself recognising almost all of them, now, and find I start to fall into similar patterns of inspiration when I see them.
I'd like a whole new set. Perhaps we can fill this thread with short, enigmatic aphorisms never before seen, a fresh cache of lateral thinking prompts to explore.
Perhaps we can even Hubski up an app?
But first, the prompts.
Go, Hubski, go.
What would you do differently if only your hundred biggest fans saw your work? Your hundred biggest enemies?
"How would the tech companies make it smaller? More efficient?"
"Think of all the ways it can go wrong before you do it right."
"Throw away your pockets" "Scratch a picture" "Listen to silence" I mean, this is basically what we do in improv. Someone gives a suggestion and we play around with that suggestion and create a universe around it. We create characters and scenes and stories that will only happen once. But in those characters and scenes, we're thinking about "What is my relationship to this person, what will pull my character further into the scene" etc. Anyway, this is very much like that so if you like brainstorming weird ideas, I suggest you try it out!
"Should it be Synthetic or Natural?" "How would you explain it to a Five-Year-Old?"
ALLITERATION (pretend I stood on a desk in a big office and yelled that cause that's what I want to do). I'm actually holding back quite a bit because I like seeing (hearing?) other replies. But I love sitting here thinking of ridiculous "vignettes of sentences". I think what I appreciate most about them is that it's mostly something you see/hear/say and then just throw away. There is no pressure to make up something that will make people think you're deep. "Take your apple" "If a fish cries do they know it?" "Was Groucho always wearing a mask?" "Is your car alive?" "Pens Penis" "Last one in is the greatest person alive!" "No president has ever been to space" "Make a lasting impression by beheading your ego" "Cow milk?" "Television rots your brain in a good way" "I recommend 30 shots of kindness, taken intravenously" "My anger gives you power" "Knowledge is worthless, money is all that matters" "Don't look a gift horse in the two bushes" "Hurry up and breathe"
The other day my friend was complaining about salt bagels, asking why they exist, and I said "So deer can lick their wounds." I love making new, barely-sensical idioms - they only appear to make sense if not read too deeply, but most everyone who hears them understands where the phrase is coming from/what it is referencing."Don't look a gift horse in the two bushes"
I have two for you. 1 from tonight: "Sounds like a rock star!" Comes from kind of combining "Sounds good" and "You're a rockstar." Like, "I totally approve of all of these things [that you are doing]!" I mean, rock stars, by definition, sound good, so I feel like this is an easy one. 2 just remembered this one I made up on the spot sucks more balls than a vacuum in a cotton factory