Our book identifies these four as sources of imaginative writing. Go to the website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Links to an external site.) and choose one of the pictures listed below. Write four opening lines for a story based on that picture. Each line must capture one of the sources. For example, for Girl with a Pearl Earring (Links to an external site.) by Johannes Vermeer:
Dream: I will wear this on my wedding day.
Risk: Perhaps my mistress will never miss this; she has so much jewelry.
Mystery: No one would ever guess that the key to the whole puzzle lies in this earring.
Play: The last time I wore this, I had an adventure I will never forget!
Here are the pictures (you can search the site by typing in the title of the picture).
The Organ Rehearsal by Henry Lerolle
Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Lucas Cranach the Elder
The Stolen Kiss by Jean Honore Fragonard
The Happy Mother by Jean Honore Fragonard
A Dance in the Country by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
Tea by James Tiss
Journal 3 – Experiment with Genres
Choose one of the opening lines you wrote in the above exercise and write a continuation in three genres: the start of a story, a few lines of a poem, a piece of creative non-fiction. Don’t worry if you don’t complete these. The idea is to experiment with different genres, to help you choose the genre you want to write in for your major creative work during the rest of the course.
