I love to use photos to inspire stories, personal essays and occasionally poems (okay, the poems are pretty bad, but I still enjoy writing them). Today, I want to share some of the ways I use photographs to inspire you. I have a new Instagram page which I regularly update with photos that I find make me want to write. Hopefully when you get to the end of this post, you’re ready to start writing too.

1–The first way I use a photo writing prompt is to let my imagination go with it. We forget in our busy society that the imagination is a muscle that needs to work out. We think that daydreaming is a waste of time. but if we never daydream, we miss the most important part of being alive: the moments when we see new ways of looking at the world. I simply look at the photograph and ask myself what if… that question normally cues my imagination to stretch and then ideas come.

2–I often use photographs to inspire character ideas. When I’m working on a new book, I like to surf through photographs of people who are the same age or gender as the person I have in my mind. A photo prompt of a person can get your mind ready for a character too. The same goes with objects. If the photo prompt is of an object, I try to imagine who might be the owner. This often sparks ideas for new stories or for deepening characters I’m working with in other projects.

3–The most important part of using a photo writing prompt is to let myself go on the page. Sometimes writing becomes very ‘end result‘. What I mean by this is that as writers if we’re thinking about who is going to read the piece, we’re inhibiting ourselves. A prompt normally gets me to think in a new way merely because I’m not trying to write something specific. I’m not thinking about who might read my writing. In fact, I’m free-writing–just letting the words appear and telling myself I’ll edit later. I find this a great practice for whenever I’m working on a new book. Letting the words appear is the way to give myself content to sharpen ready for publication later. But first, I have to write!

4–Some of you will be in writing groups and I love to use photo prompts with writing groups. All of you can sit and use the same photo, then set yourself a time to write. And go. Write for, say, twenty minutes, and then consider sharing what you’ve got. You’ll inspire each other, spark ideas and marvel at how unbelievably different is the work each of you has produced.

5–Sometimes I use photo prompts to try a new form. As I writer, I’ve published YA and picture books, but there are plenty of other ways for me to try writing. I’ll use a photo to try a short story. I might try a poem. Or an essay. I use photo prompts to have fun with my writing. Hopefully you feel like having a little fun with your writing. Head on over to the Instagram page to pick a photo to start working with. And let me know how it goes.

If you enjoyed reading this, share it with your other writer friends. And head here for free tips on being more creative, book recommendations and more writing ideas.

Today we’ve got a guest post from the wonderful Kristina Perez. She’s a terrific writer and her book The Myth of Morgan la Fey is coming out ANY DAY NOW… I’ll hand you over to her.

Villain or Hero?

What Morgan la Fey Can Teach Us About Characterization by Kristina Pérez

Sorceress. Kingmaker. Mother. Lover. Goddess.

Will the real Morgan la Fey please stand up?

Over the past millennium, the character of Morgan la Fey has persisted in Western literature and pop culture, captivating new audiences and inspiring writers from Sir Thomas Malory to John Steinbeck to Marion Zimmer Bradley.

What is it about Morgan that enthralls readers so, and what can we writers learn from her to create compelling characters of our own?

First and foremost, Morgan la Fey is a shape-shifter. Both literally and metaphorically. She can not only magically transform herself into a stone to evade capture by the Round Table, but she uses her intellect to forge strategic alliances by changing the way others perceive her.

Within Arthurian legend, Morgan also performs the function of both Mother and Lover: a duality that is inherently conflicted within the Western cultural imagination.

Morgan raises her baby brother––the Once and Future King Arthur––but then ushers in the destruction of his kingdom. Even so, in Le Morte d’Arthur (1485), Arthur declares that he has loved and trusted her more than anyone in his life, including his wife, Guinevere. (Morgan has carried on many romantic dalliances with Arthur’s knights but it is also clear that his love for his half-sister is not purely platonic.) And yet, it is Morgan who comes for the dying Arthur after the Last Battle to heal the wounds she has helped inflict. Only through her love and power might King Arthur one day be reborn.

Morgan la Fey is, in a word, complex. John Steinbeck called her a “fabulous character and quite a dish,” arguing that “cleverness, even wisdom, is the property of the villain in all myths.” Morgan is a testament to the fact that there is no such thing a single causation and that a good backstory is essential to making even an über-antagonist sympathetic.

Let’s look at Morgan’s childhood. Her mother, Igraine, is married to Duke Gorlois of Cornwall when King Uther Pendragon falls in love with her (or, at least, in lust). With the aid of Merlin, Uther engineers a battle that kills Morgan’s father on the same night he disguises himself to lie with her mother.

Morgan’s world, quite simply, implodes. Not only is her now pregnant mother quickly married to her rapist and her husband’s murderer, but Morgan is expected to help raise the product of Uther’s treachery: Arthur. Which she does, forming a loving relationship with her half-brother until she is shipped off to a nunnery.

Nevertheless, Morgan uses her innate intelligence to acquire the necessary skills (magical or otherwise) in order to combat the suppression of her own political and personal autonomy. In a society where women, like her mother, are simply tokens traded between men, Morgan dares to demand self-possession.

That is some powerful backstory. If all of Morgan’s actions within Arthurian literature are viewed through this prism, it begs the question: Is she a villain or a hero?

The truism that one person’s villain is another person’s hero has made Morgan particularly popular in feminist retellings of the Arthuriad. The most famous of which, of course, is The Mists of Avalon (1982), which is where I first encountered her.

At the time, I was an unhappy, chubby, somewhat bullied 13-year-old girl but when I read Morgan’s story, I found not only a hero but a superhero. She was a woman who refused to be a victim of her own circumstances, even if her logic was sometimes flawed, who refused to be cowed, and still achieved a measure of redemption.

Morgan shape-shifted for me as a reader, allowing me to both identify with her and challenging me to examine myself. The most memorable characters are those with whom we can relate but who also force us to question the way in which we interact with the world.

No one is wholly good or entirely evil, and the most vivid characters are therefore those who embrace their duality. This tension between darkness and light is what makes Morgan such a potent personage. She refuses to be pigeonholed. She refuses to conform to the stereotypes of either femme fatale or doting wife and mother.

She is both, and neither.

As a writer, it would be a daunting task indeed to attempt to create as mythic a figure as Morgan la Fey. She originated as a Celtic Sovereignty Goddess long before Malory got his hands on her, after all. However, she reminds me that I must strive to give all of my characters a complex psychological history that informs their decision making processes, their relationships (both healthy and dysfunctional) and that even after the denouement no character arc is ever completely resolved.

Like Morgan la Fey, all of us are shape-shifters and the most convincing characters are those who continue to evolve in the reader’s imagination after The End.

Hopefully, they will help us evolve, too.

________

Kristina Pérez is the author of The Myth of Morgan la Fey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). She holds a PhD in Medieval Literature from the University of Cambridge and was previously Visiting Assistant Professor at Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre. She is represented by Sara Crowe of Harvey Klinger, Inc. Keep up with Kristina on her website (www.kristinaperez.com) or follow her on Twitter (@babelbabble).

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