Writing Prompt - Photographs

Sometimes, all you need is a little push to overcome writer’s block. One simple push is in your phone: your photographs.

You can create your own writing challenges with a photo and a probing question.

Step 1: Scroll through your photo album until you find a picture you like.

Step 2: Ask a question based on the picture. You’ve got six starters – who, what, when, where, how, why. Pick one and build a question with it. 

Step 3: Now write a story that answers that question.

Step 4: Now that you’ve done the predictable, rewrite the story changing something so that the outcome is unexpected. For instance, if the picture looks like a romantic setting, write about a serial killer who goes there to bury his victims. The unexpected will grab a reader, shock them, engage them.

Here’s some writing prompts I’ve created from my phone album:

What lies around the bend?

Who brings the protagonist here, and why?

Why did the lights go out?

From where does the protagonist know the person they meet on this path? Are they happy to see them? Why or why not?

Share your stories and any pictures/prompts you create!

Writing Prompts

I’ve been thinking lately about how I want my blog to be structured. I’ll be honest. The infrequency of posts sometimes reflects my perfectionistic nature. I’m a writer, so I want every word on my site to be crafted with eloquence and beauty. But that isn’t how writing really comes, is it? Eloquence and beauty come through endless revision. From walking away and coming back. Viewing with fresh eyes and cutting what you love, only to find an even better way to express yourself. But who has time for a process like that with a blog?

So, I’m breaking out of my perfectionistic tendencies. Sometimes, I’ll create a post to get creative juices flowing. It may be an idea all mine, or I may give links to sites I’ve found helpful. So, let’s give it a try, shall we?

Today’s Writing Prompt: Mad Libs!

Remember playing these? My friends and I could come up with some hilarious, albeit completely ridiculous, stories with those books. And, lately, I’ve been loving the idea of using their prompt method to inspire my own little tales. Here’s how it works:

 1)     Have a friend (or many!) give you one of each of the following:

Animal
Song reference from the 1990s
Name of a river
Proper noun
Color
Mixed drink
An inanimate object

2)     Now use all their answers to create your own story.

It’s that simple! Don’t have any friends handy? Google each one. Then roll a set of dice and use that number’s link to fill in a blank.

Here’s a couple more lists, in case you want them:

 1)     A vehicle, a weapon, an exclamation, a day of the week, a famous artist, a favorite retail store, and a steamed food.

2)     A travel destination, a sport, a reason for despair, a body part, a quantity, a favorite song, and the name of a beloved book.

Want a bigger challenge? Grab that set of dice I mentioned and roll. Based on what number you get, craft your story with the following guidelines:

1)     Make it a murder mystery.
2)     Write in second person.
3)     Set the story outside.
4)     Tell the story from the perspective of a child or someone with a mental disability.
5)     Make it into a romance story.
6)     Tell the story from the point of view of an outsider observing the story and tell how it makes them feel.
7)     Write without using adjectives.
8)     Include a theme of broken promises.
9)     Make the narrator’s audience a priest.
10)   Use an accent with one character.
11)   Make the setting at least 200 years ago.
12)   Write the story from one person’s perspective and then again from another’s.

You can make your own Writer Mad Libs, too. Either make a list of what seems like random things or ask friends to give you the prompts. Or, roll the dice and take whatever you find that correlates to that number on your friends’ Facebook pages. Then rise to the challenge. You’ll be amazed with what you create!

Happy writing and share what you create!

Effervescent Pearls

For the last thirty-seven point twenty-six minutes, you’ve been staring at a flashing cursor on your barren page. You’ve been mixing paint because the gesso on your canvas won’t “speak.” You’ve decided that today is a good day to just do scales on the piano. In about ten more minutes, you’ll bang your head on the desktop/easel/bench and question how you could call yourself an ‘artist.’ Ten more, and you’ll debate the wondrous attributes of a 9-5 job. There’s a supernova-sized hole where your inspiration used to live, and even an apropos band (Muse) won’t bring it back.

Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, I say to you: stop lying to yourself.

We creatives have our moments of impotency, and then we scramble for the Viagra of inspiration. Sometimes, it amounts to an intricate dance before the gods of passion. Sometimes, we seek out companionship. Sometimes, we try every trick and still go back to bang our head some more.

Last night, I was smacked in the face with a burning desire to create. If you haven’t heard or seen it yet, check out the underrated flick, Begin Again with Mark Ruffalo, Kiera Knightley, and Adam Levine. You’ll thank me later. In it, Ruffalo plays a worn and wrung out music producer about two drinks shy of the gutter. He stumbles upon Knightley playing, to her chagrin and her friend’s begging, her song at an open mic night. The rest is their journey to make an album in the great outdoors of the city. But the theme that wowed me was the beautiful dialogue of the difference between those that do music for creation’s sake and those who do music for glory. Those who create for creation’s sake can make nothing yet live fulfilled. Those who seek out glory will never be satisfied, no matter the wealth.

It also showed how, when you are focused on the creating, you can find beauty in the mundane. Granted, Ruffalo’s character related it to music. Dan (Ruffalo) and Greta (Knightley) had just walked around NYC with a playlist, a splitter, and two sets of headphones. As they are taking the world in by soundtrack, he says, “One of the most banal scenes is suddenly invested with so much meaning! All these banalities - They're suddenly turned into these... these beautiful, effervescent pearls. From Music.” Gah! I love that. I love it even more when I consider the truth he’s sharing really applies to creating, as a whole.

As artists, that is what we do. We take two people sitting quietly at a table and turn it into art. He’s on his phone, his body turned sideways like he’s already left. She’s leaning forward, arms wrapped protectively around herself, head bowed. One drop hits the table, and she quickly covers it with her arms, the shame of discovery too great.

That’s creativity. We creep into humanity, ask questions, and make the “banalities” of life interesting…because we come to realize there is nothing banal about it at all.

Still not inspired? Why not take a cue from the movie characters? Grab a pair of headphones and a phone loaded with a playlist. Instead of letting the music be your background noise, or (as I often do) instead of singing loudly, explore the world around you to the soundtrack that is your moment. You film creatives, notice how the wind swirls the leaves in front of you, landing at last on the feet of someone homeless. You painters, what movement do you see for the first time? Can you count the shades of green in the tree-lined streets? You fellow writers, what human interaction do you uncover and what does the body language say (sometimes hearing the actual words gets in the way of noticing that)?

There is inspiration all around us because there is humanity and the not-so-banal everywhere. I’ve got one foot out the door already, eager to find my “effervescent pearl.”

Comment to this post and share your pearl!

Cited:
Begin Again. Directed by John Carney, performances by Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, and Adam Levine, Sycamore Pictures, 2014.