Background
Story telling is an ancient art dating back to when humans first communicated with words. It has provided most societies with an oral history long before written records were kept. Stories help perpetuate the foundational myths people use to teach succeeding generations about their cultures. For instance, fables, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales have been used to transmit life’s lessons to countless people in a number of different cultures.
Although modern technology has diminished its importance, story telling still has the potential to help solve problems. Stories from the past can help suggest ideas for today’s problems. Create a story and we create stimuli that can trigger new thoughts and concepts. The richer and more elaborate our stories, the richer and more elaborate the stimuli.
One special type of story, with great potential for sparking ideas, is the fairy tale—a story of magical events with a moral. Such stories are excellent sources of idea stimuli for
all sorts of problems. Because they serve as a source of unrelated stimuli, stories do not have to be related to the problem or faithful to the original fairy tale. In fact, it sometimes is beneficial if the story is as different as possible.
Taken From : Pfeiffer 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity
