Writing exercise: Wiki wormhole

I've been running a writing workshop lately with some of the teams at work, and as a warm-up for the workshop's first session, I've been asking folks to do the following exercise:

Look up the wikipedia page of your hometown or one of your favorite places. Follow links from the page until you find something that feels like a story.

I can highly recommend it. First of all, who doesn't like to think that all that mindless wikipedia surfing is worth something? Second, you really never know what you'll find or what ideas it will spark. Small town street races in space. Moravian bishops. Adventure cryptozoologists.

I think it works because of the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction principle. And that's true simply because individual people and communities are way more interesting than the flat, homogenized view of the world we often get. 

Take a look at this story about Hot Tamale Louie, for example.

Is it likely that a Muslim man from somewhere around the Afghanistan/Pakistan border founded a fast food empire in early twentieth century Wyomoing? Not at all. And yet, that's exactly what happened.

What I like about this exercise is how it invites writers to dig beneath the surface-level facts about a place we think we know well and find the surprising, hidden stories within it. You could also do it with the local newspaper, if it's got a decent online archive. 

I think it's in taking the unlikely and convincing us it's not only possible, but it's unfolding on the page before us, is part of the fun of telling stories. Whether they're set in space or in your hometown.