Universal Grammar of Story®: Game Book of Practical Exercises for Writers is the companion game to Universal Grammar of Story®: An Author’s Guide to Writing for the Soul of the World, and the accompanying workbook.
The Universal Grammar of Story™ Game Book (only) guides writers in storytelling through playful, thought-provoking moves to create a surprising new story, reboot a lagging one, or even resurrect an oldie stuck long ago in writer’s block. Game components are not included with the purchase of the game book alone but can be improvised by the player accordingly.
Players can keep total control of their story with strategic play or leave much to fate with the spin of a wheel. Levels of difficulty range from simple, straightforward play to intense challenge where stories emerge amid exceptional chaos. However, writers can dive in and create stories without having read the other two books.
The object of the game is to learn this revolutionary new mythopoetic writing method while creating a strong, balanced story in 46 moves that can be played with a chess-like strategy or left to chance with the spin of a wheel.
Step by step each move evolves the story by shaping its setting, environment, social order, plot, character chemistry, rhythm of timing, and moral underpinnings as well as many more attributes. Players can use these thought-provoking moves to create a new story, bring life back to a dragging one in process, or rescue one with hundreds abandoned long ago under the crush of writers’ block.
The game can be played at anytime in the writing of a story: before, during, or even after a story is written.
It can be used:
· Before a single word hits the page.
· After some writing has been done but the story seems to stop.
· After hundreds of pages are written but the story just seems to go in circles.
· Returning to a story you gave up on years ago, but which will not give up on you.
· To bust out of any form of writer’s block.
· To analyze what makes a well-loved story particularly strong.
· To find out why a box office flop flopped. Or
· To help another understand why a story is stuck in writer’s block.
Universal Grammar of Story® is comprised of four foundational pillars: The Call to Write, the Nature of Language, The Core Narrative Theories, and the role of mythology and mystical philosophy in story telling. The game addresses the latter two pillars.
This body of wisdom evolves with writers over time becoming ever more multifaceted with maturity and life experience. Younger writers more interested in the nuts-and-bolts structure of writing found in the Cards. Older writers, even those just taking up their first story later in life, tend to be more interested in the fundamental philosophies found in character chemistry and how they play out in the Myth Moves/ Cards.
For novice writers (including those who have yet to set a word to paper) the game introduces fundamentals of how to get those words to stick to the paper and behave themselves. For the advanced career writer, the game reveals why those unwelcomed moments arrive when the story stubbornly goes on strike for no apparent reason.
Game components are not included with the purchase of the game book alone but can be improvised. The complete game box (ISBN 978-1-936262-06-9) includes game components along with the main book and workbook.
Hazel Denhart is a playwright, researcher, and inspirational speaker who developed Universal Grammar of Story® as the foundation of her masters thesis in communication. She has since revised and tested this unique method of storytelling across a wide range of writers in the US, Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. She is a highly trained phenomenological researcher with a doctorate in education, and a rare gift for identifying the essential elements of complex ideas and simplifying them to entertaining effect.Dr. Denhart has won competitions for production of her plays, earned an Army commendation for her journalism, and been recognized by the American Motion Picture Academy for her screenwriting. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership with an emphasis on dyslexia and other non-standard forms of learning. Her scholarly writing is widely cited, having ranked among the most frequently read articles in the leading journal of her field.
