A year or so ago, I was visiting my friend who has toddlers and saw some odd dice with intriguing pictures. When I asked about them, she said they were called story cubes. I played a few rolls with the kids but thought nothing more about them until recently.

When shopping for some Christmas presents, I stumbled across these interesting little cubes again. Since they would be fun tools for writer’s block, I decided to buy the iPhone app so I could carry them anywhere. Then I searched the internet for ways to use the cubes.

I found many different suggestions. Story Cubes’ site suggests connecting the icons as quickly as possible without trying too hard. They also suggest grouping 3 cubes at a time into different sentences. Glen Strathy suggests using the first roll to define your main character then rolling the 9 cubes individually to define steps in your story. Writers.ie talks about the history behind the game and suggests using a roll of the cubes to represent a new chapter in your book.

After that, I decided to roll the dice and write some Damensea snippets. First, I started with 3 dice to describe my main character. Then I used a roll of nine dice to define the plot. I’ll post the results next time.

Overall, story cubes are a diverting way to shake loose ideas free from the morass of writer’s block. They can also be a fun game for children or adults. You should give them a try!