Do you enjoy writing short stories or other works of fiction? How do you find inspiration for what you write?
In this activity, we invite you to create your own short story inspired by photographs and illustrations from our Picture Prompts series.
Think of this exercise a little bit like cooking with a recipe. We’ll give you options for your main ingredients: You’ll choose a main character, setting and conflict from the images we’ve rounded up below. Then follow the steps to plan, write, revise and share your story.
But, as with cooking, you don’t have to stick to the recipe exactly as it’s written. We encourage you to experiment with, build on and be inspired by our suggestions. We want you to use your own ideas, identity and imagination to come up with an original creative work.
When you’ve finished your story, you can share the opening lines in the comments for other students to read.
1. Choose a main character.
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Slide 1 of 7Credit...Clockwise, from top left: Nhung Le; Tara Walton for The New York Times; Cari Vander Yacht; Loris Lora; Julio Cesar Aguilar, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Brian Rea
The main character, or protagonist, is the one who will guide readers through the story. This figure will be personally affected by the major conflict and will grow or change in some way because of it by the end.
Don’t worry, you can introduce additional characters later, but for now, focus on developing your main character’s appearance, personality, motivations and back story. The character you create doesn’t have to look or act exactly like the one pictured, unless you want it to. Instead, think about the image as a jumping-off point for your imagination.
Once you’ve selected your protagonist, write a short “character sketch” using the prompts below to get to know the person better:
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What is your character’s name, if she or he has one? Where does that person come from?
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What does your protagonist look like? What is the personality? What kind of clothes does she or he wear? What are the character’s likes and dislikes? Strengths and weaknesses?
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What does the protagonist want? What is that person’s main goal in the story?
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Create one fact that can help you define this character. For example, “Their mother is the most important person to them,” or “When my character was 5 years old they lost their home in a fire.” You don’t have to mention the fact in the story, but you should choose something that helps you round out the character’s identity or worldview.
If you like, you can use this graphic organizer to capture your image choice and character description.
2. Choose a setting.
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Slide 1 of 7Credit...Clockwise from top left: Andrew Testa for The New York Times; Digital rendering by Doug Aitken Workshop/Parley for the Oceans/MOCA, Image by Conner MacPhee; Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times; Ashley Pon for The New York Times; Airbnb; Feifei Cui-Paoluzzo/Moment, via Getty Images
While your characters might visit several locations throughout your story, consider this the place where the majority of the action will occur.
Again, think of the image you choose as inspiration. You might expand on it to create a vivid fictional world for your characters, or perhaps something in the photograph will inspire you to write about another real or imagined place and time. Or, if you like, use the setting exactly as pictured.
After you’ve selected a setting, in the same way you sketched out your main character, use these questions to help you further build the backdrop of your story:
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What planet, country, region or town is the story set in? What era, year, season or time of day does it take place? What is the cultural and political climate like at this time in this space?
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What are the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures characters would experience in this setting? What mood or feeling does it evoke?
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What value does this setting have to your character? Is it familiar, new, strange, scary or exciting to that person?
You can add the image and description of your setting to your graphic organizer.
3. Choose a conflict.
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Slide 1 of 7Credit...Clockwise from top left: Javier Jaén; Sam Alden; Christopher Lee for The New York Times; Jonell Joshua; Eleanor Davis; André da Loba
The conflict, or problem, is the engine that will propel your narrative forward. It’s the obstacle that is getting in the way of your main character’s central goal or desire.
You may interpret these images however you like. Perhaps you want to take them literally — for example, your protagonist might be trying to survive a real-life earthquake. Or you might think of them more figuratively — the earthquake could be a metaphor for the rupturing of society or a broken relationship.
After you have selected an image, answer the questions below to develop your conflict in more detail. These will help you map the narrative arc, or plot, of your story (learn more about that in our related mentor text):
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Who or what is the antagonist (nature, technology, society, another person, the protagonist’s own mind, fate)?
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What is the driving conflict? What does the main character want? How is the conflict preventing the character from getting it? How will the character try to solve this problem?
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How was this conflict instigated? How will it finally be resolved?
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How does your main character change or grow in resolving the conflict? What theme or universal message will your readers take away from this story?
Complete your graphic organizer with your conflict image and notes.
4. Map out your story.
Character, setting and conflict are just the building blocks of your story. Now you will take all those ideas you’ve brainstormed and map out your story, scene by scene. In “Finally Write That Short Story,” the best-selling author Curtis Sittenfeld offers this advice:
Create an outline by repeatedly asking yourself what will happen next. Thinking in terms of scenes and structure increases the likelihood that your story will be story-like — that it will be about something happening, something changing, versus being a more static slice of life.
Since you’re writing a short story, your plot should be concise. Often, short fiction revolves around a single incident and involves no more than a few characters. Still, be sure to have a clear beginning, middle and end and that each ingredient you selected above works together seamlessly.
Admittedly, this may be easier said than done. Here’s what Ms. Sittenfeld suggests if you’re not sure how to get started:
If you have a favorite short story or two, it can be illuminating to reverse-engineer them by creating their outlines and thereby better understand how they were made. (Do this with a friend, for the same story, to see if you’re in agreement about what constitutes a scene.)
If you want to try this yourself, read a short story of your choosing or select one from “The Decameron Project,” a recent collection of new fiction inspired by the coronavirus pandemic from The New York Times Magazine. As you read, pay attention to how the author brings the main character, setting and conflict to life, and try to map out the plot scene by scene. Then you can apply some of the “writer’s moves” you admire in this story to your own work.
To create your outline, use our story map worksheet or any other pre-writing strategy you prefer.
5. Write, revise and share.
After creating an outline, you are ready to write. You can choose to write something as short as a piece of flash fiction (we have a lesson plan for that) or as long as a novella.
During your first draft, Ms. Sittenfeld suggests:
Keep writing. And for now, don’t worry about quality and don’t think about potential readers. Your goal is not to write a great story but to finish a story. It’s normal if there’s a huge discrepancy between how good you envisioned your story being and how clumsy your actual sentences seem. In fact, it would be surprising if there were not a huge discrepancy.
Once you’ve written your story, you can go back and read it in its entirety. As you read, ask yourself: Are the characters, setting and conflict fully developed? Does my story have a distinct beginning, middle and end? Is the message I want my readers to take away from this story evident? Is my writing engaging, clear and enjoyable to read?
If you answer “no” to any of those questions — and you probably will — revise. Here are seven tips for editing your own writing.
When you have something you’re proud of, share your work! You can post the opening lines here in the comments section, or send your story to one of these dozens of outlets that publish teenagers’ writing.
Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan. You can find all our Picture Prompts in this column.
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August 06, 2020 at 08:15PM
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Use These 18 Images to Inspire Your Own Short Story - The New York Times
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