To create the fill-in-the-blank sheet:

• Open Microsoft Excel.
• Click File>Page Setup>Landscape>OK.
• In cell A2, type a prompt for the first word you want the user to enter.

  Prompts can simply indicate a word form (noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, and so on), or be commands ("Write a color word!") or questions ("What is your favorite color?"). For example, in the story skeleton for "A Spooky Adlib Story," the letter "A" indicates a word that's a sound. An appropriate prompt might be, "What is the silliest sound you've ever heard?"

• Hit Enter (or Return).
• Type a prompt for the second missing word in cell A3 and then hit Enter.
• Continue adding prompts in the cells in column A, until you have provided a prompt for each fill-in-the-blank in the story.
• Click in cell B2, and highlight all the cells in column B down to the cell to the right of the last prompt.
• Click Format in the Excel toolbar; click Cells in the drop-down menu that appears; and then click the Border tab.
• Find the box in which the word(s) Text appear. Click the box in the middle, at the top, and at the bottom. Three horizontal lines should appear. (If a line appears in the wrong place, click again to delete it.)
• Click OK.
  
  
  
• You now have underlined blanks to the right of each prompt. Click cell B2, click Format>Cells>Border, and then click the line at the top of the "Text" box to delete it.
• Click OK.

Next: Making it all fit.