Imagery for Inspiration

Hey Everyone! 

The good news is, we have been doing A LOT of writing lately!  The bad news is, most of it has been focused on the novel and not so much on the blog.  #BallDrop.  So, to make things up to our blog, we have decided to post one of the exercises we use to help our writing.

A while ago, Quinn went on an adventure and took some awesome pictures.  This sparked the idea of looking at a picture and writing any story that came to mind.  The scenes could be for our novel, or just for fun.  Anything to get the creative juices flowing.  It is also great practice for writing from different perspectives and developing new characters.

The first picture we decided to use is this:  

Using this picture as inspiration, we both set to work writing anything that came to mind.  We didn't go into this exercise with a direct focus.  Instead, we wanted to see where the picture would take us.  We didn't write for a terribly long time, but we both came up with totally different scenarios!  It is pretty cool actually, what you can pull from a picture if you use your imagination, and how different people can see the same image. 

To avoid an incredibly long post, we have pulled the first paragraph (or so) from each story to share with you guys.  Keep in mind, these are totally raw, unedited, and may not lead to anything relevant.  But if you are writing and come to a roadblock, or need some new inspiration, this is a really cool idea to get things started.

The following is the beginning part of Quinn’s story:

      It was an overcast day, ensuring that the night would be even darker. The large mansion loomed upward in the midst of the mountains, but the guests didn’t seem to notice as they rode up the long drive to the entrance. The steep pitch of the different peaks in the roof made it nearly impossible to walk out on them, but if you looked closely, the frame of a person could be seen sitting on the west end. Without moving, the person was barely noticeable, but one of the young girls in tow caught a glimpse of the figure and started to imagine what he (assumed to be a boy) was doing. As it turns out, this assumption wasn’t totally incorrect. There was a boy who sat on the roof, and with his impeccable vision, noticed the young girl in the car and registered that she had indeed spotted him. With the rain seeming to be on the way, and the cars being emptied by the butlers as the guests were welcomed into the home, the young boy slowly moved from his position and slid down to one of the flatter areas near the window he had crawled out of. He would find the girl, as he knew she would be looking for him.

The next excerpt is from Alice:

      She used to make up stories for herself when she was alone or scared. And they always started the same way: Once upon a time, in a place far, far away... Inevitably in the story, the princess would be saved, the hero would defeat the evil, they would find love and live happily ever after together. Now, as she looked out from the balcony of the castle in this land the boys call home, she couldn't believe that this is how the fairy tale was going to play out.

      The view from her room was misleading. You couldn't tell from here that the world, and other worlds she thought, were crashing around them. From here you could only see the castle, standing tall and strong, surrounded by the forest that promised to protect them. The sky was expansive, and even though it was overcast and gray, it gave her a sense of peace. From here, she wouldn't mind being the princess in one of her stories. She probably wouldn't even mind one of the boys being her prince.

      But fairy tales are for children, she thought. We aren't children. Not anymore. All the innocence they could have had in the beginning of this war was taken from them. Now they were warriors, and worse than that, they were believed to be the villains. “It's not our fault,” she said out loud to herself. This was forced on them; they were pawns in a bigger, more destructive game. Maybe if she keeps repeating it, she will start to believe it.

Those are the beginnings of... something.  Or nothing.  Who knows?  We do know we had a lot of fun doing this and it was a great exercise to get us writing.  All of you writers out there should give it a shot, its a great new perspective! 

We will try harder to keep you all updated.  But until next time, keep being awesome.  #WeWill.

~ Alice & Quinn