I am beginning to tax on my creative juices. So what do I do? I turn onto the last option I have- doing it myself to find out what it was like. And then talking it out to myself in hopes it works. So, this vlog series will be about me, talking about real life experiences that I can turn into raw material for stories or artwork, and you, can do it too. Or laugh.
Watch the vlog here!
One lesson writers and artists should pick up a habit of doing is noticing small things. I'm beginning to realize this is really helping me get ideas for concrete details.
Thus, today I'll be talking about looking out for handwritten notes in the middle of nowhere. You know how in a lot of popular mystery stories, there's often scraps of papers that have hidden codes written out and villain threat notices? Well, believe it or not, look out for those when you're walking around in public. It's hard to believe how many you can find, even if it's not mystery related.
Last week, whilst in the mall, I suddenly decided to pick up this torn sheet of paper that I noticed I stepped on. It said:
Coincidentally, the next time I decided to actively look out for handwritten pieces of paper, I found a receipt whilst in a different mall that said:
There is no way I can appreciate how cool these anonymous notes can be. Because you don't know who originally wrote them, or who they're referring to, the mystery and the tension it makes is bound to make you curious, and thus, force you to imagine a backstory to it.
The note on the receipt for exg. Starting off from that, I could easily generate an idea of writing why Erika wasn't with her friends/family to look for the tree, or a scene showing her friends looking at the tree.
The 1st scrap of paper that talks about TM, 5 girls, and Sat night is more intriguing. Lemme read it to you again. [read] I'd kinda like to hear what you guys have to say and what you think it means? [pause] Know whats interesting? Just from the fact that we are trying to figure out what the note means is raw material! You can practically copy your footsteps of decoding this note into a couple of scenes, maybe an entire story or novel!
What's great about the first note as well, is that it's clear imagery for a 2-dimensional artwork. Even though it gives you the bare minimum of details, you can still picture "5 girls playing together" and piece it with "Sat Night LA" to paint/sketch an image of, obviously, 5 girls playing on a saturday night in la. or assortment of ideas that branch out from that, from a girls night out to saturday night live to saturday night football to who knows what else!
As writers and artists, we kind of have to notice the small things in order to more realistically fill up a scene or painting. And, if you hunt for small things like random handwritten notes on the floor, you are bound to have a raw item to write from. It's a mystery, its the unknown. And that's what can start a story or artwork. It's so rewarding.
So! I think it'd like to assign my viewers something. Whether you're an artist, writer, or not, go scrounge around for lost handwritten notes. And comment your findings here! It'll be fun and a great bucket of ideas here.
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