Stories need characters. And when I write stories, I like to start by developing characters. And that's why I chose collecting pictures of people as the first idea. So these people can become characters in your story. Of course, stories need more than just characters. And we'll talk about those ages a little bit later.

So let's start with pictures of people. Take a look at this one. It's interesting, it's black and white. So maybe it's a memory right? It's a picture from the past from from when she was young, maybe she's older now. But let's take a look at the picture itself First, there's the white wall kind of a tile or a brick wall.

And the very basic looking bench. There's a newspaper next to this girl and the girl is looking down. Alright then she's dressed in a in the little summer dress so and she doesn't look cold so it must be summertime. It must be warm and the floor Doesn't look like what's it like a cement floor maybe drops of water on it, and doesn't look that great, that setting is not very attractive. And she doesn't look. She's not looking directly at the camera.

So maybe she's not happy. Or maybe she's focused on her own thoughts, right? So take a minute to take a look at it. And then I'll show you what questions I came up with. So and again, I came up with three questions. Did she get some bad news?

Is that why she's looking kind of sad? Or maybe she's not sad. Maybe she's admiring her new shoes. Or maybe she's one wondering why she wasted so much money on these shoes. They're not as great as she she had expected them to be. Or maybe she's just tired of waiting for someone.

And you can come up with your own questions again. And what you can do is take one of my questions or come up with your own and write again for 10 minutes. See where that takes you? All right, let's take a look at another picture. So cute kids, right? I like this picture.

A lot of the kids are in the foreground and the background looks like mountains or a valley looks like summertime. And then like that the background is out of focus, so we can really see the kids. The boy looks more affectionate than the girl. She looks maybe a little bit surprised. But she doesn't look unhappy, right? She looks pretty content.

So let's think about what kind of a story or what kind of what kind of questions we can ask that could lead to a story. Maybe it's a flashback to the first kiss. And if you write that flashback, then it could be interesting to use two different voices. The voice of an adult remembering that first kiss it intermingled with the voice of a child who's experiencing it. And of course you can write from the boys perspective or from the girls. Why is that picture significant?

Is this the last time they saw each other? Maybe one of them is finding this picture now, and maybe they want to find the other person. And maybe it's since the boy looks more active in this picture, maybe he'll be looking for her in the future. Or maybe the opposite. Maybe she regrets that. She didn't keep up that friendship at that age.

And maybe as an adult, she wants to look for him. So if you like this picture, if you like any of these questions, or if you want to come up with your own, again, take 10 minutes and see where these questions and this picture lead you. Alright, let's take a look at a different one. I am recording this class in the middle of July and it's pretty hot outside right now. So the picture was It's water, cool water in the mountains. And the kayak looks especially inviting.

And I guess if you're listening to the, to this class in the middle of winter, that's probably quite an inviting as well. So big open space, mountain school water, nice weather. So take a look. And let's again think of some questions. So my first question is, is she by herself? Or is she with somebody?

And if she is by herself, why and where is she going? Or maybe, well, obviously, somebody took the picture. So we can assume that this person is in the story, if we want to assume that and you can ask, Is this her first vacation vacation together with the person who took the picture? And who is this person? Will she find something unexpected on the strip? So again, think about these questions or come up with your own And then again, think about 10 minutes.

You can set a timer. You don't need to write for a long time, it's much easier to have a specific limit and see what you can come up with in 10 minutes. Here's another picture. The like, This guy looks very focused doesn't here. And he's writing something in his notebook. You can see some bracelets on his right wrist.

There's a necklace. And I can't tell if it's a crucifix or if it's something else. I has an Adidas baseball cap on dress quite informally. And it looks like he's sitting in a city but the city doesn't look or at least the neighborhood doesn't look too busy. So that's all I can see. And let's think of some questions we can ask.

What is he writing? Is he writing a letter to somebody? Who is he writing to? Or is it his diary? his journal this He just make a life changing decision writing about that. Is he studying for an exam or a job interview?

Why is it important to him? What is he recording? Did he just see something that got his attention? So good. If you like this picture, if any of these questions, spark your creativity, spark imagination, again, Viktor nuts and write on them, or maybe you're seeing something else here, and then go ahead and write about that. All right, let's take a look at one last picture of a person before we go to different category.

So here's this young woman who's taken a picture of something right? And again, it looks like summertime it looks quite Mediterranean with the sea in the background. She's standing in the on the balcony it looks like and she's thinking that picture into the building. Possibly. Right she's dressed in black and white. She looks quite glamorous, and she looks quite pretty.

If Although we don't really see her face. Alright, so let's think of some questions. So the first question I came up with is the issue of professional photographer. Is that a job assignment? Or is she on vacation? And an obvious question is, what are Who is she taking a picture of?

And the third one, I thought about it, because I like mysteries. So I was wondering if she took a picture of something. And then maybe later, she found out that the crime was committed in that space where she was, and she looks at her picture, and she sees something that she took a picture of accidentally, that's related to this crime. And to complicate things even more, maybe she wasn't supposed to be on that spot for some reason. And then she has a moral dilemma, where she wants to admit that she took this picture show this picture, or she wants to hide it because she doesn't want to admit it. She was on that spot.

All right. Again, if you like these questions if you like this picture, go ahead and take 10 minutes and see what you can come up with. And then we'll look at idea number two