Notice how I mentioned earlier that by making a story creative it can entertain as well as teach? The creative story game - in all it's simplicity - accomplishes both quite well. The easiest version of making a story creative involves anywhere from two to five children. The first child starts off. It can be as simple as "once upon a time" but the child has a set time-limit to tell his story. Maybe it's a minute, maybe its 30 seconds. But the rules state the child must initiate the story and create a scene. The child is challenged to create creative story ideas for the benefit of the group.

When the time limit is up, the next child picks up where the first child left off, but again has a minute or two or however long the time limit is to continue to make the story creative. This goes on for all the children. The story monitor - a teacher or parent - makes sure the tale doesn't ramble and sticks to a basic format.

During the course of making the story creative, all sorts of creative story ideas will be tossed about. A good idea is to have a tape recorder on hand and record the story making in its entirety. This way, when the final time limit is reached everyone can sit back and listen to the finished product. Guaranteed to be funny, sad, happy or hysterical!

The creative story game is a great way to accelerate a child's imagination. The same principles mentioned above work just as well making the story creative via instant messaging or e-mail. Although using e-mail or a message board will slow down the fun of the game considerably. The instant messaging version is also fun because it can link players together who are continents away.

You can also make the story creative by writing instead of speaking. The oral version is certainly more challenging but the written version is equally as creative. The software for making the story creative works along the same lines as software that creates scripts or plays or other multimedia entertainment in that it creates characters, settings, scenes and so on. I happen not to like this because the software is taking over a huge portion of a person's thinking process and what fun is it if all the creative story ideas are being self-generated by a computer?

One of the great benefits of the creative thinking game is that the story moderator can select a specific theme. Let's say the category is "love story". All the children then take turns creating their own love story. One child building on what the other has created. And like it was mentioned earlier, if you tape record the session you get to hear the final product at the end.

Psychologists and sociologists alike feel that by making the story creative in this way, the child (or adult for that matter) is exercising their imagination and coming up with characters and scenarios. It's not as easy as it sounds! With so much of a child's thought process being eliminated by the real-time of a computer or video game or whatever, a children's imagination is at risk of slowing down. It's a fact that reading isn't the "draw" it was 20 or even 10 years ago. Why purchase a book or even a comic book when for the same amount of money a child can get a DVD or Computer game with all its bangs, whistles and special effects?

That what makes the creative story game so fun. The child holds the key to all the excitement and adventure right in his mind. And it doesn't cost a cent.