Not too long ago I kind of complained about something and someone tried to rip me a new one about not contributing and had I ever done anything like that in the past. Well, they don't know me so I blew it off but...
Sooo, I thought I'd give you something I did years ago when I was asked to teach a writing seminar at the Sci-Fi London Film Festival. (no, not London, Ontario) I was quite thrilled at the end of the gig when one of the participants came up to me to tell me he was a creative writing instructor and could he use my idea.
So here's what happened and see if it can work for you if you want to try doing something fun and a little goofy but with decent possibility.
In the seminar we had a good bunch of people and I broke them up into groups, notably groups who didn't know each other. Their instructions were to agree on the tasks I gave them BUT no bullying, they had to be in complete agreement on what was best for the script that they were going to be putting together. This non-bullying thing wasn't for the sake of the feelings of anyone but to give them a feel for working together as most film writing is done that way.
I assigned each group a line from a children's rhyme ... (evidently you can't use a colon here)
Jack and Jill
Went up the Hill
to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
The first group had to come up with characters and their names. Keep in mind, this was a sci-fi festival.
The next group had to say where Jack and Jill went (the answer the group came up with was "into a painting")
Why did they go where they went
Who "fell" down..., that was the tricky one, did he fall down, did he fall up, did he jump, did he fly, what did he really do.
For broke his crown I asked: What change happened... not necessarily an injury but what change happened.
The end wasn't so much Jill tumbling but doing what.
Then I let them loose for about 15-20 minutes.
When they were done we took all their components and... They came up with a pretty good story idea.
And, as the real teacher pointed out, it would take a lot for someone to figure the whole script came from using the child's rhyme Jack and Jill went up the hill.
Write hard, write true.