Welcome, everyone, participants or not, to this lone planet of Unification, where it is my job to help y'all look beyond tropes and broaden your writing. Looking at the awards participants, you all tend to think outside the box, so this activity will be great for y'all!

To become an exceptional writer, whether it means publication or not, reading and writing different kinds of stories is imperative. I have nothing against writers who only write one genre; I merely want to help y'all become better writers.

Anyway, I learned the following activity in school. I wouldn't have explored different genres and looked beyond tropes without it. It's called The Chinese Food Menu Activity! It sounds stupid, yes, but it's a fantastic training tool for writers, especially new ones.

The Activity/Prompt:

For this activity, you will write a short story based on a Chinese food menu. It can be any genre but try to unleash your creativity. Mine was about Prince Chicken Wing crossing the Fried Rice Sea to rescue Princess Chicken Lo Mein—LOL! You can publish it as a new story on your profile or add it to a short story collection. 

The great thing is that y'all don't have to be Unification participants to participate in this activity. Anyone can join, and I hope to get a few writers to try it. These make for hilarious and very different stories and are a blast to write. Thank my Creative Writing teacher for passing it on to y'all.

Here's a Chinese food menu and picture to get y'all started! The link for the menu will be an in-line comment beside it.

https://www.chinagardenncharleston.com/#menu

Feel free to shout out this activity so I can try to have a few writers for it. I would love to reread some Chinese Food Menu stories!

If you are interested in this activity, let me know here. — >

Once you write your story, let me know here, and tell me where I can find it. — >

Note: One of the Special Awards for Unification is the Most Engaged Writer, so this could be a great first step for y'all or anyone eager to learn and improve. And again, anyone can join, not just Unification participants.

With that said, love you all, and may the Force be with you! Now, let's bring out those Chinese Food Menu stories!

- Victoria/Viktoria