Look carefully at all the people you meet during the coming week. If any one of them especially catches your fancy, note his habits, his features, his physical setup, his dress. Take a piece of paper and see if you can make him live for someone who has not seen him. What will you do if you do not meet any person who appeals to you? Take a magazine and go through it until you find the picture of some suitable character. This plan, after all, is more satisfactory, for you can make a book of these descriptions and then number the pictures (putting a key in the back of the book for reference) and let your family guess which picture belongs with each story.

Play Kim's Game on the family and let them try it on you. Do you remember young Kim, whom Kipling created for us? Away off in India in his day, he was taught to be quick and shrewd at noticing things. Just place about twenty small articles on a towel or table top and cover them. Uncover them and let the ones playing feast their eyes upon the articles for a full minute or until they think they have seen enough. Then let them go off a bit and write the names of the articles on a paper given them beforehand for that purpose. To make the game a little harder, ask them to give the colors and details of the objects. You might change some of the things about and ask them to tell you what things were moved. You'll be surprised, and so will they!

Books of games are full of devices like this to test the senses. Blindfold games are best for testing taste or feeling. Objects not seen beforehand add to the fun. Your own house is full of a wealth of material for this purpose. Use things in the medicine chest only for smelling, and have the expert opinion and permission of a reliable person who knows which bottles are perfectly safe. The best advice is to try the perfumes or powders, or the things in the icebox. Jello, fur, salt, oysters, and so forth are quite a sensation to one who cannot see.

Lists of odors that you like, such as roast turkey, roses, burning autumn leaves, and steam from the ironing, and odors that you do not like, such as disinfectants and smoke from the train, can form the basis of interesting experiments. Play the game of writing out the characteristics of each and seeing whether your friends will recognize them from your efforts.

Have you a phonograph handy by any chance? Get it all wound up with a new needle in it. Pull over the bridge table or any small table. Get a pencil and a few sheets of paper ready. Reach into the cabinet where you keep your records and, without looking at the name, put one on the machine and play it. As it plays, jot down what comes into your mind. Is it the drum beats of Congo tribes? the swirl of the skirts of the Oriental dancers? the fury of the storm against the Nova Scotian rocks? the peaceful feeling of the swing in the apple tree? When the piece is finished note its name at the bottom of your sheet and also how near you came to interpreting the music - or how far off you were in mood. Have you chosen something that could have been your theme instead of the musician's? How good a description did you write?

Can you describe in words the sound of the fire siren? of meat frying? of coffee percolating? Footsteps, rain on a roof, the breaking of twigs, bird calls, bells, and animal sounds are all very familiar to you. Can you describe them so that one reading your story will know what you are trying to convey?

Do you like tall stories? No doubt you have already read Paul Bunyan, by James Stevens, or Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolf E. Raspe, or maybe even Tall Stories, by Lowell Thomas. You certainly must have enjoyed them. Why not try one yourself? You read the ads in the local magazines and papers. No doubt some of them have sounded pretty silly. Why not make believe a boy or a girl you know believed everything an ad said? You could write a pretty funny yarn about it, couldn't you? Remember to keep it in such a serious vein that it will sound silly.

Adventure stories are always welcome. The exciting things that happen all around us can well be written down. When your dog brought in that brown parcel the day of the kidnap scare, what did you do? What happened when you were all alone that evening and a knock at the door was heard? Suppose you had disobeyed and opened it and there was no one there? Suppose a vicious person brushed past you and into the house? or a peculiar noise was heard behind you? What then? Think of the mountain of words and all the mystery, horror, humor, fancy, and surprise that is your heritage. Don't you think you had better steam up that train of thought and get going?

For real chills up the back and no end of suspense, try a ghost story. This is the most popular type of all stories. Do you know any real ones? Be sure to tell this kind of story so that your hearers can't help believing it. They must forget that it can't be true until it is all over. Plenty of action will add to this brand of story.

Right here it's a good idea to take five sets of three-by-five-inch cards or papers and write characters on one set, problems on another, obstacles on a third, scene of the action on the fourth, and the time on the fifth. Scramble them up in their own respective packs, then choose one from each set as a basis for your story and get to work. Let the story develop as it will, according to the characters who are attacking the problem. You do not need as many as five piles. Choose whatever suits you.