Inspiring Objects

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I’m a huge fan of writing prompts (as you probably know) and one of my favourites is using photos (which ive been using a lot recently). But, Ive stumbled across 2 websites that made me think, actually, objects are pretty damn good to inspire stories.

The first one is The Museum of Broken Relationships which I found on Sally Jenkins Blog a while back. Do click on the picture of the axe under exhibits. What a brilliant story! 😉

Then I came across 26 Treasures which was a project run by museums in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. They invited writers to use 26 objects from the museums collections to inspire a piece of writing. Over 100 writers took part and a book was produced.

So here are some inspiring objects I’ve come across recently that I intend to use for prompts:

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Do you ever use “objects” to inspire stories?

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47 thoughts on “Inspiring Objects”

  4. I’ve not used objects to inspire stories but recently, for the first time, I used an object to inspire my blog. A pair of my wife’s boots inspired ‘Kinky Boots’ ( which bears no relationship to the Film/Book). Sometimes it’s quite amazing just what feelings an object can generate.

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  6. At my writers group we have a couple of sessions a year based on writing from objects. One of our members has a collection of fabulous photographs, so we always have one evening with a selection of his photos. Then we have an evening with a theme – holidays/historical items/childhood etc etc and people bring along objects. We write on the evening and share the writing. some of the short pieces eventually become short stories.

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  12. I used photography to inspire my haiku and tanka poems. As far as novel-writing goes, I’ve such an accumulation of images in my brain, that’s a treasure trove in itself. The prompts for my short stories usually come from my dreams.

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  14. we are going on a trip to the Royal Armouries in Leeds tomorrow so lots of new pictures some of which will be taken directly as inspiration towards the novel trilogy weapons but I am sure there will be lots of others that might inspire aswell

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      • We did have posted pics on my fb page bit awkward taking some of pics due to lighting and getting told off for using flash lol but we will be going again soon without the little monster so that the other half can read all the little cards and I can go crazy with the camera as there are some gorgeous barges moored there as well plus some really lovely buildings as well as some hideous modern monstrosities

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  15. Writing prompts are awesome. My kid’s book, Rumble’s First Scare came into being because of a prompt and my novella, The Rython Kingdom grew from several prompts. I even create prompts for my writers group website, every Saturday -www.wfscsherwoodpark.com
    I use photos, sentences and mixed words – all of them are fun.

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  16. I’m like you – I love photos as writing prompts, Thanks for posting Sally’s link. That’s the strangest thing – as I was writing this, a message came up to say you’d just left a comment on my blog – spooky!

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  18. Yes, I love to use objects to start a story – and in the past have that object has become an important part of the story. In my book The Right Wrong Man, I used a Royal Dolton china figurine that had a fun part in one of my earlier chapters, and an old COKE glass paperweight became an object of violence in a later chapter – all written separately at one time as a creative writing prompt!

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  19. Yes! I have a Pinterest page dedicated to “Writing Inspirations” that are I use to jumpstart my imagination.
    The rest of my stores come from significant “life lessons” and innocently overheard conversations 🙂

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  21. I love the Eight Ball! Lots of ideas could come from that. Objects are a great way to inspire stories. If anything, they help lead you from one thought to the next. After all, in most great stories, the symbolic elements are objects!

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