Photos Worth Words

Writing can come with its obstacles and challenges, such as writer’s block, but when writing nonfiction books, especially those of personal testimony, it can be even more difficult to write.

We want our nonfiction stories to be inspirations to people and encourage them to see the light at the end of the tunnel as they go through life.

Sometimes looking at photographs or pictures can trigger the right words to flow from your mind to the page, allowing a story to make its presence known to others.

For this writing prompt, consider looking through old photographs of yourself, your family/friends and/or other acquaintances, and recall the memories that were experienced in the photographs, the etchings of time in the mind.

To help with this prompt, some example photographs have been included to ignite certain thoughts and emotions that might motivate you to create ideas and/or supporting material for your nonfiction book.

Take a look at the first photograph, a young girl on a swing with a big smile on her face. What do you think of when you view this photograph? Does it remind you of memories from your own childhood, whether happy or difficult? Does the child remind you of your child, and your parental sense coming out to bestow helpful advice to her?

What about this photograph, of a picturesque forest with a bridge over a moving current of water? Do your feelings towards this photograph epitomize your feelings towards your relationship with God, your love of nature, or does it fill you with thoughts of seeking to find that place that brings you peace and comfort, and helping others find their places as well?

Write down your initial thoughts/feelings when viewing each photograph and look over your list to see what idea prompted the most emotion from you. Then zero in on these strong ideas and write supporting reasons for why this idea elicited this powerful emotion. From there, you may start to see a direction uncovered on what book might be on your mind to write, or what further supporting material for your current book may have been emerged.

Don’t discredit your ambitions to write because you feel like you don’t have something worth writing about. There is an audience for every book, so use these ideas to write the book that will impact others who need it most.

Remember, Xulon Press exists to help make your book as strong as it can be. Make the decision to write and get started by downloading your FREE Publishing Guide.