I thought of this today when I was getting tired of writing out Japanese numbers (yeah, I was really bored during study hall). There are two ways to play this game. You take your favorite book and either:
a) type the last complete word from each page, including any punctuation attached to it (if there are quotations on the front or the end, add in the other), and put them all together to make a story
or
b) type the last complete sentence from each page to make a story. Each chapter-ful of sentences is a paragraph. If the sentence is part of dialogue, include opening and ending quotations. If it's the same person speaking, you can combine quotations next to each other.
Here are examples of each from the first chapter of Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey.
- Bathhouse. His was of for for that. Filly's. "You." Withen and limp didn't pain let their side yet book. Roiled it with breakfast. Silence - of name - surface. He tomb.
- Heated privies, part and parcel of the bathhouse. Radevel took the lead, feet slapping on the stone floor as he whistled contentedly - and tunelessly. Radevel kicked open the unlatched door to the practice ground, leaving Vanyel to get it closed before somebody yelled about the draft. Vanyel walked to the center of the practice field with nervous deliberation, waiting until the last minute to get his helm on. Jervis looked angry - and when Jervis was angry, it was generally Vanyel who suffered. "Radevel, get the boys, then bring me Lordling Vanyel's arms and armor," the armsmaster said, in a voice that was deadly calm. Even Radevel could see that. She was pale, and the nostrils of that prominent Ashkevron nose flared like a frightened filly's. "You don't do anything wrong, but somehow things seem to happen to you." And that, of course, left him vulnerable when his father chose to descend on him like the god of thunders. The words he remembered strengthened him still more, and he threw them into his father's face. "You're my heir and you'll do your duty to me and to this holding if I have to see you half dead to get you to do it!" Well, that was a change. It was a decided relief when the Healer arrived again and gently chased her out to give him some peace. "Van?" The cruel, blank stares of the helm-slits gave no clues to the minds within. There was a dull thud as he hit his head on the flinty, unforgiving ground. Bullying bastard. He had his instruments up here - two of which he wasn't even supposed to own, the harp and the gittern - and any time he liked he could slip into the library to purloin a book. They must be mad, to let that sour old man make idiots out of them, day after day - maybe break their skulls, just like he broke my arm! It hadn't escaped his notice that when you added up those lists, the totals were a lot higher than the number of heroes who survived. I suppose that's right. He'll have me as soon as I come down for breakfast. He could see, hear, feel, all of them waiting in impatient anticipation for him to sing - the bright candles, the perfume, the pregnant silence - "You can't do anything because the two of you seem to think to 'make something of him' you have to force him to be something he can never be! Just because he can read and write more than his bare name?" Vanyel couldn't understand why - but if Lissa admired this woman so much, surely there must be more to her than appeared on the surface. She had never wedded; Vanyel was hardly surprised. Then the sound of the door closing - - as leaden and final as the door on a tomb.
Well, there was two of the worst stories in the world! But sometimes the sentences make some sense. Like, when I did this to my own book (Cry of the Moon) I got this dialogue chain: "Who am I?" "So I can call you Miyako-Tsume?" "That will have to wait until you've been accepted."
^^ Try it with your own favorite stories, and post it up here. I'll read them, at least.
Subject: Crazy Story Game 
Wed Feb 18, 2009 5:31 pm
