

A dark cloud hung over the eyes of the usually cheerful man. He wiped his large hands, thick with bacon grease, on the apron hanging over his round belly. After five years, their morning greetings had become something of a ritual. Norton gave the man behind the meat counter his usual smile. To bring the reader into the scene, make the action happen in front of them: It has little impact and can easily be glossed over as possibly unimportant, because it reads like an afterthought rather than an actual event. This scene is fine, but it’s about as interesting as listening to any story secondhand. Norton headed off to work and was left wondering what was wrong. He does this every day, but the butcher, a rotund man in his late forties, did not seem to carry his usual sunny demeanor. Norton greeted the butcher in the morning. It’s the difference between telling someone a story and having them next to you, watching it happen. Rather than simply lay out events that occurred to your readers, bring the event to the present and make it happen in front of your readers instead. What is an Active Scene?Īn “active scene” can be understood as a form of “ show don't tell” in writing. Appropriate use of active and passive scenes can give your story an extra kick of life and can help with pacing as well. passive can also be applied to scenes within a story. Active sentences such as “three men stood by the gate” are more attractive and interesting than passive sentences such as “there were three men standing by the gate.”īut the concept of active vs. Finally, swap over your pieces of writing, so you can compare your writing styles.We’ve all heard of passive vs. Then swap your photograph with the person next to you, so they can free-write using your photograph.
#Storywriting showing not telling free
Free WritingĮveryone can spend 10 to 15 minutes freewriting about any photograph of their choice. It is always interesting to see how the same image can have so many different meanings to different people. Then compare your ideas with one another. Using the same image prompt, ask everyone to write down a sentence on a paper. Then everyone shouts the first word that comes to mind in turns or they can write it down on a paper and discuss it afterwards. True wordsĪnyone from the group can pick up an image prompt at random. The other person tries to guess the answer in as many little turns as they can. One person with the image prompt describes to the other person where they are, who they are or what they are. You can keep ordering them so the ending or starting changes each time. Pick a selection of photos from your collection and then order them in any order you like to tell a story. You can stick your images onto a board or the wall along with their newsworthy captions and then from these you can write your own newspaper articles. Use an image prompt to come up with a newsworthy headline or slogan. And then they would have to include all the images in their hand into their story. You can make this challenge more difficult by asking each member to pick up an extra image prompt on their turn. If a person can’t think of anything to say, they’re out – Keep doing this until one winner stands. Keep passing the image prompt around the group. Then that person passes the image on to the next person to continue the story. In a group, one person selects a random image prompt and says a sentence to start the story off.

It doesn’t matter if your images don’t make sense together – In fact, the more random they are, the better your story will be! 2. Turn over all your photo or image prompts and then choose 5 randomly to tell a story. Take a look at these 25 image prompts to inspire you or this master list of over 85 picture writing prompts with a free printable. 8 Fun Storytelling Games Using Image Promptsįor these games, you need a collection of photographs or cut-out images of any sort. Each day you will be given a new picture prompt to write about. If you thought the only thing you can do with image prompts is to look at them, then think again! Here are 8 fun storytelling games using image prompts that you really need to try.įor more inspiration take part in our daily picture writing prompt challenge. But did you know that you can play some really fun games using image prompts? Using image prompts not only improves creativity, but if used in a group activity it can help to build communication skills and teamwork. We all know that image prompts are a brilliant way to inspire you when you’re struggling to find ideas.
