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 it? I don’t. Anyway, I’m writing this for people who love creating tracks. Writing tracks can be quite complicated and demanding for the inexperienced. Here I introduce the structure to write scavenger hunt or scavenger hunt clues for any physical object like refrigerator, cabinet.

Aim

We are hosting a scavenger hunt game at our nearby park for kids ages 9-13. We have selected ‘Grass’ as one of the items to be collected in this clue-based quest. Now we have to write a track 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 for even Mike himself to figure out. Less specific answers like ‘backyard lawn’ or ‘lawn’ are usually not as 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 ‘Grass’. The important part is just jotting down whatever comes to mind.

– Green, Lawn, Garden, Grasslands, Lawnmower, Plants, Crops, Weeds, Herbs, Hay, Turf, Under Your Feet, Cricket Field, Hockey Artificial Turf, Football Field, Lush, dew collecting, 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

Using 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 to find idioms related to ‘Grass’.

– The grass is always greener on the other side, Don’t let the grass grow under your feet, Take 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 do you like and what not?

– 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 describing the answer (‘Grass’), using what we have come up with so far.

– Mental picturing: 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 the main word(s): exuberant green

– Sounds associated with the word: chomp, chomp, chomp to graze

– Simile: That’s how grass is to grass as hair is to a head (you guessed it! I’m actually 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 cause players to lose interest very quickly. Categorize all the work done so far. (1) Refuse too direct sentences (2) Choose some cryptic sentences (3) Choose some solvable part of the clue.

I like the ideas related to ‘cut the cane’, the idiom ‘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 seems a bit of a no-brainer. I might choose these while writing tracks for younger kids, but not here. The beginning 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 of the green.

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

Whoa! It seems very disjointed and not spicy at all. Let’s try again and use some parallelism and opposites, cut and grow, short and tall.

– Cut the rod I move the ball, There is no action I grow on your feet,

Greedy bully makes me short, Only tall is my African king.

He used ‘greedy bully’ for ‘hungry cow’ to make it a bit dark. I’m still not very satisfied. It doesn’t sound right 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 rhyming words. We could use formal writing technicalities like rhetorical effect, alliteration to enhance the literary quality of the tracks. Visual changes like punctuation placement, capitalization, and bolding to further emphasize clues. I used ‘switch’ to represent ‘other side’.

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

The greedy bully makes me short, the biggest 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.