Here’s another prompt to help us look at our lives and find inspiration for our writing. I’m a huge advocate of writing about things we have directly experienced. With that in mind, how can a vacation serve as a writing prompt?
I’ve only flown three time in my life, so most of my vacations aren’t too far from the Buckeye State.
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia
- Emerald Isle, North Carolina
- Pensacola, Florida
Because I write mysteries, I look at these places through that lens. My family and I visited Pensacola in winter when there aren’t many tourists. Maybe I could create a mystery about a retired couple, who notice something strange going on in the supposedly empty beach house next door.
In St. Louis, I visited the fantastic St. Louis Art Museum. A break-in to steal a valuable painting on loan would kick off the action nicely. The place is huge, so maybe the security guards would have to play hide-and-seek with the crooks, who have knocked out the surveillance cameras.
For more on writing about vacations, click here. How can you use your vacations as writing prompts?
For me, my vacation experiences all go into that file cabinet in my mind, to be pulled back out when a story needs one of those scenes. I never know when that file cabinet is going to spill open and bring out a memory. Otherwise, I find myself writing snippets — on the plane, looking at the ocean, in a crowded coffee shop, etc. Again, I pull these out later. Good post.
Thank you!