I had a birthday a few days ago and received a beautiful card from a friend. The image on the card holds a lot of meaning and different people will see different things or experience different thoughts and feelings.

For me the image represents healing. The woman holding the ball of light is both the healer and the receiver. She holds her own healing in her hands. She is the magic she seeks. I believe this image would be good at sparking creative, personal, and spiritual insights through writing in a personal journal and allowing thoughts, often negative, to run rampant across the page. Once all thoughts are emptied out, the image will take on new meaning and the mind can access a broader range of creativity and/or personal understanding.

As a story prompt, just putting the image into words might open a deeper understanding of a character’s inner journey and how it manifests in her every day life. Try writing a paragraph that describes the image, then write a paragraph that shows what you just described. Engaging the reader (showing) is far more powerful than telling them through descriptive monologue.

I may try doing this myself when time permits. If I do, I’ll add it to this post as an example. If anyone drops by and decides to use this image as a writing prompt, please leave a comment about your experience and/or the paragraph you created.

Since the year is new, I wanted to write a post with something new or different than I normally write about. I have thought of using images to spark creativity in the past but never did take action on that thought. Today seemed like a good time to explore using an image as a writing prompt. Images can say different things to different people and most of us aren’t aware of how an image affects us because we don’t take the time to study how we are affected by visual stimulation, perhaps because we are visually over-stimulated most of the time. But, we do react to visual stimulation. The key in using images to spark creativity is to write about that reaction.

Below is an image I ripped out of a magazine a long time ago to use in an art project. Write your initial thoughts on seeing the image. Do not edit your thoughts, simply write them down without judgment.

Now that your initial thoughts are down, look at the image again. What emotion do you see within the image or what emotion do you feel when viewing the image? Write it down, then under the emotion write how you might describe that emotion to a reader. There can be more than one emotion stimulated within any image. Write each emotion separately with ways you can express that emotion.

If you want to explore different ways or find creative words to express emotions, try doing the clustering technique I wrote about in this post.

Now revisit your initial thoughts on the image and write a single paragraph incorporating your initial thoughts with the emotions the image stimulated. Show rather than tell the reader how to feel. Then develop a story or character outline from that paragraph.