Implausible Causes and Effects

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Implausible Causes and Effects
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Panning Exercise

• There are 10 possible idea starters
• Choose FIVE
• Each starter must include at least four events
• Example starter
• This time she was grateful her husband hadnt
  noticed that she was wearing a new dress

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Panning Example

• Meg woke up and remembered her dream about the
  new dress. She had seen it last week at the
  mall, but didnt dare to buy it. She rolled over
  to her husband and told him she was going
  shopping. He was asleep, he would never remember
  the conversation

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Example, cont.

• She went to the mall and found the dress. It
  didnt have a price-tag and she couldnt find a
  sales clerk. However, she had purchased clothing
  at this store before. It couldnt be too much,
  could it? She went to check out and found out
  the dress was 499 on sale. Her embarrassment
  kept her from telling the worker nevermind. She
  figured she would return it. She didnt see the
  All Sales are Final sign until it was too late
  and she left the store.

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Example, cont.

• She called her parents for help, but no such
  luck. They acted like she was a child again.
  She asked her boss for an advance. He said no.
  Eventually she decided she would have to sell her
  blood and pawn some of her hubbys baseball cards
  before he found out about the purchase. And she
  would have to destroy the credit card bill.

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Example, cont.

• Give me just a second, Meg, before we leave,
  Mark said to her on the night of their
  anniversary.
• Dont we need to leave now for dinner
  reservations?
• Not just yet. We didnt get the credit card
  statement in the mail. Im looking it up on the
  Internet, he said as he logged in to their
  account.

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Excavating

• Choose an ordinary cause, such as change of
  address, or an ordinary effect, such as learning
  a new skill
• Come up with a series of unusual events that
  could happen about one of these
• Minimum length
• Story 500 words
• Poem 30 lines