Is there any green quite like spring beech leaves? It’s Fiction Ed Shirley’s Writing Prompt Story Starter this week.
Is there any green as bright and fresh as beech leaves unfurling in a beech hedge in spring? So full of promise. Such a refreshing transformation from the dull brown of winter. They emerge just as we all do at this time, blinking a bit in the sunshine.
I’m curious to see in due course what it makes you think of as a Writing Prompt. I don’t say much – or indeed anything! – here when I see the resulting stories coming in. You’d be forgiven for thinking that no stories result. But that’s not the case. Sometimes writers actually say in their accompanying letters that it was a story starter image that inspired it. And I admit to feeling chuffed when I read that. It’s always satisfying to know you’ve been useful. But I confess that when it gets to a Friday afternoon and I’m writing this, I sometimes just forget.
They do work
But I read a story just today that was written for the photo a while ago of a drum kit in the back of a hatchback in the car park. And another that I think was perhaps inspired by the knitting square. It proves they do work. I’ve seen stories inspired by the very first one, the doll abandoned on a bench, by framed mottoes on the wall, by the birthday party garden lights… So many.
And there will be lots of stories that were inspired by an image but then went off at a tangent, so that an image of, say, a tomato, turned into a story about sunburn on a sunshine break.
I’ve said before, I don’t mind either way. The aim is always and only to inspire a story. Any kind of story. Short, long, middling; romance, family, spooky.
So, tender green beech leaves. What will you make of this one, I wonder?
Shirley Blair Fiction Ed Shirley’s been with the “Friend” since 2007 and calls it her dream job because she gets to read fiction all day every day. Hobbies? Well, that would be reading! She also enjoys writing fiction when she has time, long walks, travel, and watching Scandi thrillers on TV.
