9 A View of a Room
mcheney
Search the web for a photograph of a room — a photograph you’ve never seen before of a room you don’t recognize. (You might try searching for “living room” or “study” or “weird room”…) Various image search tools are useful: Google Image, Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, etc.
2. Study the photograph. Look at the details. Let your mind wander. Then think about who it is who uses this room (just one person). Imagine that person. Think about what they do during the day and night.
3. Jot down answers to some questions:
- What object in the room is most important for the person?
- Which object has the person owned for the longest amount of time?
- Which object is a gift from a friend who is now lost?
- What important object is just beyond the visible space of the photograph?
- What is one object that is missing that you expect to see?
4. The person who uses this room is missing. You are an investigator who has been hired to find the person. Write up notes about every possible detail of the room that could be a potential clue for your investigation. (You can note information from senses beyond sight — for instance, scents could be very important.)
5. If you have a writing partner, exchange notes with them, but don’t exchange photographs. Write a narrative from the notes.
6. If you don’t have a writing partner, put the notes away for a few days. Enough time that you forget at least some of the details of the photograph. Then return, read over your notes, and write a narrative from them.
