14 Random Image
mcheney
There are two versions of this exercise: for one person (solo) or a group.
Solo
1. Choose a random photograph from this Flickr page (feel free to reload it until you find something you want).
2. Look at the image for a while. Let your mind free-associate around it. What do you see? What do you not see? What does it remind you of? Pay attention to where your mind goes as you look at the image.
3. Place the image into a document file and then write at least 600 words from it. You can write a story about it, an essay inspired by it, a description of it, whatever you feel like. But let the image be your guide.
4. Submit the document with the image included.
Group
1. Assign each writer a number so you know who will write when.
2. Each person chooses a random photograph from this Flickr page (feel free to reload it until you find something you want).
3. Create a shared Google Doc (or use a similar collaboration tool) and put everyone’s names up top.
4. Writer 1 puts their image into the document and then writes 100-150 words somehow inspired by it. This can be the beginning to a story, an essay, a memory, a description, anything. But it must somehow relate to the picture.
5. Writer 2 now continues writing what Writer 1 wrote. Writer 2 writes 100-150 words. Then Writer 2 puts their image into the document at the end of what they’ve written.
6. Writer 3 (or, if there are only two partners, Writer 1) continues the piece of writing but now incorporates something from Writer 2’s image. Writer 3 writes 100-150 words. The goal is to create a single coherent piece of writing, but one with new inspiration from different images and different writers.
7. Continue this process until every writer has written at least 400 words and added at least 3 photographs.
8. When you all agree that the piece of writing is finished, it’s finished.
