Do you know someone who has been given a puzzle to solve and there is a prize to be solved and still the person does not try? No. Anyway, I’m writing this for people who love creating tracks. Writing tracks can be quite complicated and demanding for the inexperienced. Here I present you the structure to write scavenger hunt or scavenger hunt clues for any physical object like refrigerator, closet.

objective

We are going to organize a scavenger hunt game in our nearby park for 9-13 year olds. 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 do puzzles. Very specific answers like “Mike’s backyard weed” can be very difficult to solve even for Mike himself. Less specific answers like “backyard grass” or “lawn” are generally not that difficult; however, clues can still be given to obtain 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 ‘Grass’. The important part is to write down everything that comes to mind.

– Green, lawn, garden, meadow, lawn mower, plants, crops, weeds, grass, hay, turf, underfoot, cricket pitch, artificial hockey turf, soccer field, lush, collect dew, grasses , pasture, herd, wimbledon, golf, farm, food chain, nibble, grasshopper

Opposite words

Also create a list of words, ideas, thoughts that are opposite or have an inverse correlation with ‘Grass’.

– On top, hungry cattle, football muddy in the rain, dirty, on the head

Use the thesaurus 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 to find idioms related to ‘Grass’.

– The grass is always greener on the other side, Don’t let the grass grow under your feet, Put the grass, Snake in the grass, Root level of the grass

Put yourself in the shoes of Object

Imagine that you are the object and describe the world from its point of view. What do you see, hear, feel and smell? What do you like and what not?

– Everyone is taller than me, don’t step on it, I need a lot of water, cut the cane and I’m soft. I make your lawn lush green, my king in Africa is the tallest

Use figure of speech

Use the figure of speech to write sentences that describe the answer (‘Grass’), using what we have come up with so far.

– Mental image: collect the dew to wet the shoes.

Personalization: I can move the ball, just don’t stomp on me, Cut the rod and I’m smooth Metaphor: Start 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 the grass to the lawn like the hairs on the head (you guessed it! In fact I am bald) or the colors to the paint.

He did all the hard work … Now he’s writing a rough draft of ‘Hunt Clue’

Both too easy and too difficult tracks will cause players to lose interest very quickly. Categorize all the work done so far. (1) Reject sentences that are too simple (2) Pick some cryptic sentences (3) Pick some part of the clue that can be solved.

I like the ideas related to ‘cut the reed’, the idiom ‘let the grass grow underfoot’, ‘move the ball’ and ‘the king in 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 actually solve the course.

The lush green and everything to do with grazing seems a bit obvious. I might pick these while writing clues for younger kids, but not here. The start of the food chain can be confused with other plants, so ignore it.

– Cut the rod, I make the ball move, putt you think I’m green on the other side.

In Africa I have the highest king, Lazy I grow you under your feet.

Aaah! It seems very disjointed and not at all spicy. Let’s try again and use some parallelism and opposites, Cut and Grow, Short and Tall.

– Cut the cane, I move the ball, without action I grow on your feet,

The greedy bully makes me small, only tall is my African king.

He used ‘greedy bully’ for ‘hungry cow’ to make it a bit dark. I’m still not entirely satisfied. It doesn’t sound good when I read it out loud. Let’s put the finishing touch on it.

Make it elegant and poetic

Now we need to use the thesaurus a lot. Modify the sentences so they are 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, capitalization, and bold placement to further emphasize clues. I used ‘change’ to represent ‘other side’.

– No action I grow on your feet, greener if you are changing.

The greedy bully makes me small, the greatest is an African king.

It looks and sounds better now. I’m sure kids will have a lot of fun playing the scavenger hunt game.