Mar 09 2009
Creative Ideas From Basic Items
I’m always looking for weird ways of getting my creative juices flowing. Being someone who loves to write short stories, mainly for myself, I try to come up with little tricks that will give me a whole new scenario to work with. One of my tricks consists of picking out items that I look at everyday, but rarely pay much attention to, due to the fact that they’ve become part of the background.
Here’s how this little thing works. Look around your room and pick out 3 items. Doesn’t really matter what they are, just pick three things. I’ll play along to give you an idea. As I look around my desk and the surrounding area, I notice these items:
1.) Coffee Cup
2.) Telephone
3.) Ballpoint Pen
Now, use these objects in a story. For me, I’m thinking of a romantic type of story. I’ll use these items as a way for the 2 main characters to get to know each other. The coffee cup makes me want to set the scene in a coffee shop, the phone makes me want to have one of the characters talking on their cell phone, and the pen makes me want that character writing something down in a notebook.
Ok, now I have my basics, and I can really get started on the story itself. I know that the main scene will take place in a coffee shop. In my mind, I see my main female lead, let’s call her Becca, sitting at a table, alone. She’s on her cell phone, talking to her boss about her next assignment. I see her as being a journalist and she’s hot on the trail of her next story. She’s writing as fast as she’s talking, and suddenly her pen breaks and shoots ink all over her notebook, her hand, and spots her new blouse.
The gentleman sitting at the next table gets hit in the face with a drop of ink, and notices Becca frantically trying to clean up her mess, without making a bigger one. That’s when he reaches into his pocket and hands her a new pen. She looks up, and giggles a little at the spot of ink on his cheek. She takes the pen, finds a clean sheet of paper, and continues on with her writing. So, where will the story go from there? I don’t know yet, but I’m loving what I’ve done so far.
So, when you’re fighting with something to write about, look around at the mundane objects sitting right in front of you. Pick 3 and take it from there. What worlds can you create from the little things you probably take for granted?
Food tray - wheelchair — blue bag — As I sit here at the computer, I watch the elderly lady sitting in her wheelchair by the television. As the orderly sits her food tray on the table in front of her, she reaches over to her blue bag and gracefully removes a bib from its depth. As I sit here idly watching, she sits erect in her chair, and daintily slices her meat. Was she a dancer? A model? Even at her age, and living in a nursing home, there is a mystique about her. I roll overin my own chair to converse with her…
Bravo!!!!! Exactly what I was getting at. And the best part is that this could turn out to be a fictional story, or a non-fiction piece.
Well done, my dear. I love it.
Neat idea.