Do you know someone who is given a riddle to solve and there is a prize for solving it and still the person doesn’t try? I do not. Anyway, I’m writing this for people who love creating tracks. Writing tracks can be quite tricky and demanding for the inexperienced. Here I introduce the structure to write scavenger hunt or scavenger hunt clues for any physical object like refrigerator, cupboard.
Goal
We are going to organize a game of treasure hunt in our nearby park for children from 9 to 13 years old. We have selected ‘Grass’ as one of the items to be collected in this clue-based quest. Now we have to write a clue about ‘Grass’.
start from the end
The obvious start to writing a clue is to identify the answer (We select ‘Grass’). Physical objects are easier than abstract ideas to make puzzles. Very specific answers like ‘Mike’s backyard lawn’ can be very difficult to figure out even for Mike himself. Less specific answers like ‘backyard lawn’ or ‘lawn’ are usually not that difficult, however difficult clues can still be made for general answers.
Think, think and think! Anything else!!
Related words
First create a list of words, ideas, thoughts that are related and have some association with ‘Herba’. The important part is simply writing down whatever comes to mind.
– Green, lawn, garden, grassland, lawn mower, plants, crops, weeds, grasses, hay, grass, under your feet, cricket pitch, hockey artificial turf, football pitch, lush, dew gathering, grazing land, pasture, herd, Wimbledon, Golf Putting, farm, food chain, chomp, grasshopper
Opposite words
Also create a list of words, ideas, thoughts that are opposite or inversely correlated with ‘Grass’.
– On top, Hungry cattle, Muddy football in the rain, Dirty, Over your head
Use thesauri and Internet resources
Take advantage of the vast resources of the Internet to capture more information about ‘Grass’. Types, associated history, referenced in movies. A very useful aspect is finding idioms related to ‘Grass’.
– The grass is always greener on the other side, Don’t let the grass grow under your feet, Bring out the grass, Snake in the grass, Roots of the grass
Put yourself in Object’s shoes
Imagine that you are the object and describe the world from its point of view. What do you see, hear, feel and smell? What you like and what you don’t.
– Everyone is taller than me, Don’t step, I need a lot of water, Cut the leg and I’m soft. I make your lawn lush green, my king in Africa is the tallest
use figure of speech
Use figures of speech to write sentences that describe the answer (‘Grass’), using what we have come up with so far.
– Mental picturization: collect dew to wet your shoes
Personalization: I can move the ball, but don’t step on me, Cut the cane and I’m soft Metaphor: Top of the food chain, Wimbledon court
– Substitute word for main word(s): lush green
– Sounds associated with the word: chomp, chomp, chomp to graze
– Simile: So is grass to lawn as hair to head (you guessed it! In fact, I’m bald) or colors to paint.
You did all the hard work… Now write a draft of ‘Hunt Clue’
Both tracks that are too easy and tracks that are too difficult will make players lose interest very quickly. Categorize all the work done so far. (1) Reject sentences that are too direct (2) Choose some cryptic sentences (3) Choose some solvable part of the clue.
I like the ideas related to ‘cut the cane’, the idiomatic expression ‘let the grass grow underfoot’, ‘move the ball’ and ‘the king of Africa is the tallest’ to build the cryptic parts. Let’s see if we can use ‘Golf Putting’, ‘Greener on the Other Side’ and ‘Hungry Cattle’ to guide players to solve the clue.
The lush green and all things grazing seem a bit of a no-brainer. I might pick these up as I write tracks for younger kids, but not here. The top of the food chain can be confused with other plants, so ignore it.
– Cut the rod, I make the ball move, you think putt I’m on the other side green.
In Africa I have the highest king, Lazy I grow under your feet.
aaah! It seems very disjointed and not spicy at all. Let’s try again and use some parallelism and opposites, cut and grow, low and high.
– Cut the rod I move the ball, There is no action I grow on your feet,
Greedy thug make me low, Only high is my African king.
He used ‘greedy thug’ for ‘hungry cow’ to make it a bit dark. I’m still not very satisfied. It doesn’t sound good when I read it out loud. Let’s give it the final touch.
Make it elegant and poetic
Now we need to use the thesaurus a lot. Modify the sentences so that they have almost the same number of characters and end each sentence with words that rhyme. We could use formal writing technicalities like rhetorical effect, alliteration to improve the literary quality of the clues. Visual changes such as punctuation placement, capitalization, and bold to further emphasize clues. I used ‘switch’ to represent ‘other side’.
– No action I grow on your feet, greener if you’re changing.
Greedy thug cut me short, the greatest is an African king.
It looks and sounds better now. I am sure that the kids will have a lot of fun playing the treasure hunt game.