Sunday, February 12, 2017

The Curious Creative: Week 19


An Object to Tell a Story

This is the nineteenth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for busy individuals interested in exploring their creativity. For the complete rationale, click here

My Thoughts:

Objects have stories. This week, you will use an everyday object – a wristwatch, a coffee cup, a cologne bottle- as inspiration to create characters, a scene or a story. You will use the details of the object to evoke memories of times gone by- either a real or imagined world of nostalgia.

Your Turn!

  1. Find the oldest object in your home.
  2. Title your blank piece of paper by the name of the item, ie, “A Coffee Cup.”
  3. Write down concrete details about the way it looks, feels, smells.
  4. Look at your object until it is communicating with you. What places has it been uprooted from? Who did it used to belong to? Write down any imagined details of place or character- the way the room looked where it was used, how the person who used it moved and talked, etc.
  5. From your notes, begin a story about your object with “Left behind in a…” 
How did you do? Did the object evoke some interesting concrete details? Were you able to (re)create a world of days gone by? Did an interesting character or premise emerge that you might use as a jumping off point for another piece?

  1. As a longer-term project, you can write a catalog of entries about several objects. In reading through all the catalog entries, a narrative might emerge.

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box to the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing! 


Inspired by Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, Turkey and his “Modest Manifesto for Museums.”

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