Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Blastin' through the Block: HUNTING PICTURES EDITION!!!

It's that time again. The time where I give you my many (and I do mean...MANY) ways of combating writer's block. This week's edition?
HUNTING PICTURES

One of the best things that can give you a spurt of inspiration is a picture. They weren't lying when they said a picture's worth a thousand words....or several thousand in our case. Take a look at the pics below. 
 






















































































Source
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Pretty intense right? They don't even look like they're from this world. There are thousands of other pictures on the web, just do a google search. See what inspires you. 

This is my favorite part: You can type in anything your want.

Try common words and uncommon words; use ideas from your story. You can even type in abstract words like hope, love, happiness, or cruelty. Go. To. Town. Have fun. See what you come up with. I'm sure the results will surprise you. 

Now, take the pictures that have really drawn your eye and think about why that is....is it the flow of the image, the bright colors, the lack of color, the idea behind it? What is it that really "speaks" to you. Think about how you can incorporate this into your book. Does it remind you of a character? A chapter? Or even an unwritten plot line? The pictures you've found is complete...now, you just have to make your WiP that way. That's the real challenge.

So, have you hunted for pictures? Plan to hunt for them? What have you found? Let me know in the comments!

5 comments:

Shannon O'Donnell said...

LOVE this idea, Bethany--LOVE it!!! :-)

Stacy Henrie said...

What a fun idea! May have to try it when I get stuck next time. I do collect pictures from magazines of settings or people that remind me of my story. It helps to look at those every once in a while.

Sophia said...

I have a folder on my laptop of 'writing inspiration' photos, some landscape that would make fun settings and some of people that would make good characters or evoke certain scenes. I don't search them out, I just come across them on blogs, like this one and your spring break tour!
- Sophia.

Meredith said...

I love using photos as inspiration! It helps me develop my settings and even my characters sometimes. So cool!

Roberta Walker said...

I absolutely do this! I find things specific to my scene, and look to the picture for descriptive words. Works well!