The Love of the Challenge

Believe it or not, we are presently living in a significant historic moment. 

Eventually, generations to come (our grandchildren) will be learning about our lives in History class. The teacher will talk about a time period full of a coronavirus that spread like wildfire, borders closed to travellers, businesses closed to shoppers, schools closed to students, protests of police brutality on minority groups, the want and need for diverse literature, leaders struggling to keep their tweets politically correct and kind, people struggling with anxiety and depression… and novelists who could not write.

These are frightening and uncertain times for many of us, so novelists not being able to write is not the end of the world. If you are one of them, just relax. Instead, concentrate on trying to work from home, while teaching your kids new Math skills, while making supper, while doing dishes and laundry, while cancelling all your travel plans, while telling your aging parents you can’t visit just yet. Honestly, you don’t need the added pressure of trying to create a novel.

But, what if you are lost without your writing? You need to write, but can’t?

I discovered a little exercise that helped me get words on the page. It is something small, but so humongous in my creative mind. 

While reading a weekly blog post published by Writescape in May, called “Picturing Inspiration”, Ruth E. Walker described how a photo is “worth a thousand words”. They issued a challenge to all writers, beginners to advanced, published or not published. Attached was a black and white photo of a face. Specifically, a woman smoking a cigarette (see image below). 

The challenge was to spend some time with this photo. See where it took you. Then, create a postcard story (500-word maximum) with what you could see beyond the obvious. They mentioned to search deeper into the image and imagine the past, forecasting the future. Find one detail that interested you and follow that thread until the end.

I was intrigued by this photo. I took a screenshot and showed it at the supper table so we could discuss it as a family. I asked three questions: What is her name? Who is she? What is she about to do? 

It was a simple little game. My husband and son started flinging out scenario after scenario of who the woman was and what she was involved in. I liked all their answers, but the real story I wanted to write was still developing in my head. I thought about her day in and day out for many days, debating on whether I wanted to tackle this challenge or not. The contest was for bragging rights. There would be no fame and no fortune. But, still I felt the magnetic draw to the woman in the photo. I used the time to ask myself questions about the woman. I realized I had a completely different tale to tell about her and I was excited to get the words onto the page as fast as I could. 

It would be about a crime. She needed a suspenseful dilemma. She required an outcome. Good or bad; it didn’t matter.

I showed up at the supper table a week later and mentioned my story was ready. Well, sort of ready. The word count was sitting at 977 words. I needed to cut 477 words, almost 50 percent of the story. They both shook their head and wished me luck. They liked the story as it was. The first 327 words were easy to dismiss. Those words were excess words that were talking about subjects other than my main storyline. I eliminated many of the adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and pronouns. I deleted the nuisance words, such as “that, just, which, though, because, think, feel” and similar words that are filler words and unnecessary.

The last 150 words were unbelievably hard to eliminate without ruining the story! I spent several hours removing one word or phrase at a time, as the clock ticked down to the midnight deadline. I hit SEND with seven minutes to spare. It felt good to write something and to actually submit it, but I was grumpy at my last attempt at cutting words. There was no time to read it over and hindsight tells me that I may have cut at least five words that were pertinent to the story. Oh well, I hit SEND, so that is the important thing here. The photo challenge had inspired me to create a story I never would have otherwise. Also, that character is still tickling my mind. It might just develop into a short story after all. Maybe, even a novel?

So, bottom line, if you are not writing and you want to, try using a photo and a deadline to get yourself to add words to the page. Use it to push the normal boundaries of your writing without worrying about writing a whole novel or a complicated short story. It doesn’t matter whether you are successful at this or not, or whether the piece will ever leave your laptop. The point is you need to write some words and the photo challenge is the perfect way to do it. Write what you see. Write about what you don’t see. Word by word, you will create something that you will fall in love with.

Here are a few links you can use to find free stock photos that might intrigue you:

• www.pexels.com
• www.unsplash.com
• www.pixabay.com
• Google “Free Stock Photos”
• Pull a picture from your family photo album.
• Walk through the town or city you live in and snap an intriguing photo of a person or people gathering.

Many terrific pictures are waiting for you to scoop them up and tell a story about the people in them. Truth, fiction or a little mixture of both. Just do it. Write something.

Another time-sensitive suggestion is to visit Blank Spaces Magazine’s website. They have an image-based writing prompt challenge going on right now (and several each year), that could take you in many different directions (see photo above). The deadline is July 10, 2020. You have a few weeks to write 1000 words. The winner will have their piece published within the beautiful coloured pages of their literary magazine. Second and third place winners will be published on their website. Sounds intriguing, right?

Everyone loves a good challenge! Go write something. I dare you!