Many of my stories were inspired by a photo. The main character in my next book was inspired by a photo I saw at my wife's grandfather's funeral. He was in training during WWII and rolled a tank. The photo was of this young (and by all accounts quite wild) guy standing atop the belly of this upside down tank, grinning like a hunter who'd just killed the biggest bear in the land with a toothbrush.
Some photos beg the imagination to run wild.
One of the things I do if I get stuck is go looking for a photograph to tell a story about. Beyond describing the photo, these tales can be the story of someone else finding it in an unexpected place, or a story of the people just outside of frame. Sometimes it's just a setting, but a photo can anchor a thousand daydreams.
Today I invite you to join me in a writing exercise to shake off the Midwinter Monday doldrums. Take a photo, any photo that fires your imagination, and tell a story about it. It can be your photo or you can use the one below. If you want to insert an element of gambling to exercise, >>click here<< and choose one of the random Flikr photos that appears. Your story has no limits except that it must in some way deal with or spring from the photograph -- it can range from a one-liner to a thousand words or more if the mood strikes you.
I'll post my story here on Wednesday and I encourage you to post yours somewhere along with the photo that inspired it if you can. See you then!
