Monday, November 27, 2023

Snow Can Trigger Your Writing


 Writers often lament the fact that they don't know what to write about. Stuck for a new idea. Yet, story ideas are swirling around us all the time just like snowflakes drifting downward from above. Snow is a great topic. We had several inches here on Saturday. Our first snow of the winter.

Watching snow blanketing our world often moves us to write a poem. For some reason, we forget the cold, the wet, the shivers we have, and only the beauty of a snowstorm remains. Think of all the wonderful adjectives there are to describe this little piece of nature. Try writing a poem using snow as the topic.

Snow also brings many memories of childhood experiences. Times when we went sledding, ice skating, or shoveling the family driveway and sidewalks. Times when there were snowball fights and the building of snowmen. Did you run inside and grab a carrot from the fridge for the snowman's nose? Was it a struggle to walk to school in the aftermath of a big snow? Did your mom make you bundle up so much to play in the snow that you could hardly walk? Was there hot chocolate waiting for you after being outside in the freezing temps? Ponder on the many memories of snow when you were a child. Story ideas abound!

 How about writing about problems you had because of snow? Maybe your car slid off the road into a ditch. Or you slipped and fell on a snowy step. Perhaps you had a nicely shoveled walk but ended up in bed with a bad back for a week. Or your car broke down on a snowy night in a deserted area. Snowy times can bring troubled times, as well as delight. Write about it!

Write an article about the facets of snow for a children's magazine. Or a fiction story for kids that is a tale of a snowy day. 

When you think there is nothing to write about, think of a simple topic like snow. Write the word on a piece of paper, then draw lines from it with all the thoughts that come to mind from this simple word. 

Make a list of all the words you can think of that might describe snow or have something to do with that cold, white stuff that piles up in our yard and on the streets. Do a freewrite exercise using the word 'snow' as your starter. Write fast, no stopping, about the word for a full ten minutes and see what results. An idea for something to write about perhaps.

Snow--such a simple word but one that can take you many places in your writing world.


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