Pictures often are worth a thousand words. It’s even better when they inspire a thousand words. Or ten thousand. I wanted to find a photo that would inspire you to write an outline for short story from this one picture. Since short stories are 1,000 to 10,000 words, you can write a complete story in one setting with one character.
One way to outline a story is sketch the beginning, middle, and end. Here’s what leaped into my head when I found this picture.
- Beginning: 14-year-old Theresa is sitting in her family’s junkyard on a Saturday morning, hurt and mad at the wold. She’s trying to sketch but can’t forget how the girls in her class made fun of her clothes earlier in the week. Then she got a bad grade on an art assignment. She’s embarrassed her mom and grandpa make a living from the junkyard. She’s angry her family can’t afford real art supplies. She might do better in art class if she knew how to use quality products.
- Middle: A regular customer shows up in a truck, pulling a trailer. She’s an artist. She buys junk and says she turns it into art, but Theresa doesn’t believe that’s possible. The artist tells Theres’a mother and grandfather that she’s on her way to an arts and craft festival and stopped by to show them her art because she’d never done that before. In her trailer, she’s transporting tall sculptures made from the junk she bought at the yard.
- Ending: Theresa admires the work, remembering where her family acquired some of the pieces. The artist leaves. Theresa sets aside her sketch book and goes poking around the yard.
Now it’s your turn. What outline for a short story can you write from this picture?
Here are more writing prompts for short stories.
That’s a brilliant idea! I might have to brainstorm for a couple days!
Let me know what you come up with! I know portraits inspire you like they do me.
Okee dokee, here’s my idea:
Beginning: Clarice is complaining to her agent that of all the places she’s arranged to shoot a music video, this is the worst yet. Anna, her agent, assures her that the fans will love it. Clarice disagrees, but since Anna cares about her more than her own parents (who are too busy with their own music careers), she complies and the crew begins filming.
Middle: Clarice is taking a break from the camera (agent’s orders for a megastar minor) when she catches sight of a scraggly, half-starved dog in the junkyard. Anna tells her to keep her distance because scratches on her skin won’t look good on camera. Clarice argues that the fans would love a dog-lover. Anna arches an eyebrow and the makeup crew shakes their heads.
Ending: Clarice is in the middle of recording the best take of the day. Anna and the entire crew have mile-wide smiles and Clarice knows she’s crushing it. Suddenly in her peripheral, she sees a group of boys who look as classy as the junkyard taunting the pathetic dog. When the dog cowers further into the weeds and whines for help, Clarice doesn’t care about agents or camera guys or what the fans want. She charges toward the bullies to do the right thing.
Great outline! I like how you leave the ending to the readers imagination. We only need to know that Clarice is charging in to do the right thing. We don’t have to see the end of this scene. That’s something short stories do better than novels. I think readers expect more resolution in a novel because the story is longer and they’ve spent more time with the characters.