A round-robin exercise can use props to generate ideas for what happens at each stage of the story. This can be both inspirational and limiting. For example, participants could pass around a bag of small props, containing items such as light bulbs, plastic swords and toy dolls. Whenever the storyteller adds her installment, she must include in it whatever item she pulls out of the bag. A group could also modify the length of each installment. Participants might add only one word on their turn, all the way up to a whole written chapter, lasting several pages, at a time.
The round-robin technique is an exercise in creative thinking. It encourages participants to use their imagination and to think quickly to react to what others are saying and to keep the round robin moving. Round-robin exercises also ensure that each participant contributes equally and that no one person dominates, because everyone adds an equal amount to the narrative each time. The round robin can serve as an introduction to the structure of a story, because through adding installments participants learn about building tension and how plots proceed.
In a children’s classroom or as part of a writing group, the round-robin technique can be used as an educational activity. In these environments it can serve as an entertaining exercise or warm-up that generates plenty of imaginative ideas quickly, or it can be used to instruct participants in the structure of stories. For example, a teacher organizing a round robin could insist that the first participant creates the story’s introduction and the last in the circle adds the denouement. Round-robin exercises are also suitable for long-distance story writing, Internet chat rooms and email. Because one participant can add his installment and then post it online, the others in the group are then free to contribute at their leisure. Lengthy, complex storytelling is especially suited to this kind of round-robin use.
Round robins, whether proceeding in short or longer installments, work well when the storyteller leaves her part at a moment of excitement or tension. This enables the next participant to continue while the story is still in full flow and likely will suggest ideas to him. Participants should avoid introducing too many characters at once. Many people will get upset if a character they’ve added is suddenly removed.