ANDDDD THEN….? BY IAN HART

A recollection of an old memory, back when I was a wee lad, had me smiling about good old times and somewhat dumfounded. I’ve had the creative tool/strategy of elaboration down since day one.

Pictured above you’ll see myself and my twin sister in an intensely competitive battle for the spotlight and opportunity to make the story we were recounting even more widely spectacular. What started out as an entirely non-fiction account of how the cat, Lily, got out of the house quickly spiraled into the unpredictable. My cousin Chris saw how passionate we were about telling the story that he took it as an opportunity to create a game that allowed both of us to tell our parts of the story—a simple, primitive, and pure form of creative elaboration. Chris would prompt Corky to start the story and after about 30 seconds would abruptly interrupt her with “andddd then…?” and turn to me for the next elaboration of what really happened. The cycle played out for a strong ten minutes and the result was a story about cats shooting lasers from their eyes and water tornados.

The next time you need to elaborate try my infamous “Andddd then…?” method and always, ALWAYS, silence your VOJ.