Visit this page and, for the moment, simply look at the photograph without reading the text. (Just in case you read this entry sometime months from now and the picture is gone, it’s an old black-and-white photo of young men in suits marching down a road carrying signs that read ‘WE WANT BEER’.)

Now, you have two options.

1. Read the hysterically funny ‘explanation’ stumbleupon user kish-me concocted for the photo. Then go out and find your own photo of who-knows-what and write your own creative tale to go with it. You don’t have to emulate kish’s style; do anything you want!

2. Before reading the explanation for the photo, write your own. When you’re done you can read kish-me’s hilarious creation.

The stories we can come up with when inspired by an innocuous image can be touching, hilarious, moving… anything at all. Let your imagination run wild.

Imagine that one of your fictional characters has pulled an old family photo album from a shelf. He retires to a couch to look through it. What does he find? Describe at least one of the photographs—something that surprises him or catches his attention—in detail.

This could be a photo album that belonged to a previous generation, or one from his own childhood. If you don’t tend to write about modern or futuristic worlds, you can substitute some sort of sketch book for a photo album (perhaps a family member possessed some artistic talent and liked to draw other family members or unusual occasions).

As an alternative exercise, look through photo sites on the internet and pick a photograph to represent the one he finds; write about it and how it fits into his life and family.

wanna be my muse?