Has anyone read Stephen King's Misery?
It might by far be the best book I've ever read, but that's not the point. The point is that the main character is a bestseller writer. During the story, he thinks back at his time in kindergarten multiple times. In his kindergarten class they played the game; can you?
"Can you," is described as a game where the kids would sit in a circle with their teacher who would start making up a story. The next kid then had to continue, and the other kids had to vote whether it was believable or not.
Example:
Teacher: Once, there was a man in a jungle. He had to get through the jungle to get to a boat, which could get him away from the island that he was stuck on. But then a tiger came.
Kid number one: He shot the tiger with his rifle. He shot it once, and the tiger got wounded but it didn't die. Now he only had one bullet left. (Is this believable? Yes. It makes sense)
Kid number two: The man then jumped into the lake next to him. Because there was a lake and the tiger couldn't swim. (Believable? No. Because if there was a lake, it would also have been there before and it should have been described earlier)
When I wrote White angel, I played this game with myself all the time, asking myself: Can you? Can you make it believable?
My beta-reader asked me why I didn't just put a car in the scene. Why were there no cars? Because if there were cars, it would be too easy and there would be no excitement in the story. Nothing could go wrong if the character could just drive away.
