Objective: Choose 8 different pictures of any type, and write 8 different (150-200 words) original stories from the pictures. Describe what the subject may have felt in the past, what the subject is feeling at the moment, and what will happen in the future. DO NOT EDIT your stories! Leave them untouched, even the spelling errors!
Motive: By thoroughly reading and analyzing your stories, you will find a common theme among some of them or all of them. That theme is your life's golden thread, that runs through your existence.
Credit: Goes to Professor George Atwood, for which I did this as a paper in Spring of 2007 for the course Personality Psychology.
Here goes.
Story 1: butterfly
Ashley put the finishing touches on her work of art. With a happy sigh, she stepped back and admired the work. She remarked to herself, "I love how they let me use the curtains as part of the art." She ran downstairs to the lobby where she had been told to place her belongings. There she found that they were missing! She asked the man at the lobby what had happened to her stuff and the man had no idea what she was talking about. She thought to herself, "Wow, this is what I get for trying to help out the community." Ashley had signed up with an organization called Art in Apartments to paint murals indoors at apartments to spruce them up and give it a homely touch. On her application she had noted that there would be no pay for this, and that she had to give many hours away assuredly to doing exactly this service. She asked the man at the desk to contact her home phone number if her missing items were found, and then she went home. She was feeling both confused and content at the same time from the work that was just done.
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Liner: confusion, annoyance at when things don’t work out
Story 2: photograph
Jan, the photographer, had told them to say cheese and smile right before he clicked the shutter and captured their faces. They hadn’t smiled. In fact, they had the same look on their faces that they had had for the last 5 months. Something had happened to them; they had lost their happiness. What once was a joyous life with the mother in the family now became misery. What once was a family of seven had now become a lowly three. The future looked bleak for them as they took the group picture and hoped that everyone in it would still be alive the next time there was a picture. The father and his brother in-law were now the primary caretakers of the young daughter, Shana. They had no work, no savings, and no light in their dark tunnel. They remembered their days of the past where Shana would be a bundle of joy and the mother would lavish her love on the entire family. But all those days were past, and all that was left was this black and white photo of what they once had.
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Liner: Remembering what once was good, feeling that the present was horrible, having only memory
Story 3: cat
Charles wonderd with his underdeveloped childlike mind what this was in front of him. He knew he was sitting at the spot where he usually got food, but he didn’t know what this thing was. It was moving slowly across his field of vision and he wanted to touch it, to know what it was. Was this something to eat? Cautiously, Charles moved his hand to pick up the thing and it yelped, right before being stuffed into Charles’s mouth. The drool got over whatever this thing was, and Charles quickly spat it out. It tasted like nothing he had ever had before, and his teeth were not developed enough. Once the thing shook itself suddenly, it leapt away like a streak of red on white carpet. Charles only wanted to sleep now, and wondered when it would come tiem to eat once again. He saw nothing other than what was directly in front of him, and would never find out what that thing was.
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Liner: only seeing things in one way, confusion at what’s happening
Story 4: street
[NOTE: I am writing about the man in the grayish trench-coat with his back facing towards you in the middle of the street]
John wondered why, as he walked across the street, that his shadow was always in the same direction. He gazed upward to look for the sun and saw that it had disappeared momentarily behind a cloud. He waited patiently for it to reappear again and was so enrapt in looking up that he did not notice the taxicab headed straight for him, and that he was standing in the middle of the street. He yelped and leapt for the sidewalk nearby, narrowly missing the taxicab by a hair’s breadth. No one around him seemed to care that he had nearly been run over. He noticed their shadows were in many different directions, he thought to himself that it was quite strange. He could not remember if it had always been like this. Puzzled as to why no one had a reaction, he grabbed a nearby man by the collar of his shirt and demanded if he had seen a taxicab. The man had shrugged him off and shoved him away, remarking how rude people were in these times. John stood on the sidewalk wondering aimlessly where he was going in the first place, more confused than he was before, and quite disoriented.
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Liner: confusion, disorientation, rash actions and quick movements
Story 5: SUV
[NOTE: I am writing about the couple in the distance, not the one in the foreground.]
Marsha and John were walking to the park where they would be having a picnic. John was having a great time and looking down at the ground because he was too shy to look at Marsha’s face. He was thinking of how great a woman Marsha was, and that this was just the first date and already they were connecting so well. Little did he know that Marsha felt the same way about their first date. But she could look into John’s eyes without breaking eye contact and she wondered, a little hurt, why John would not look into her eyes. Instead John had stopped walking and was staring past her intently. Marsha asked John if he was alright, and looked in the same direction, shocked to see a bright red SUV right in front of her face! It was completely still and only on two wheels, which was completely bogus! John let go of Marsha’s hand and promptly stuffed them into his pockets. There was something there, a key! John asked Marsha if she wanted to go for a drive instead, and stuck the key into the car door. Surprisingly, it opened, and he took Marsha on a marvelous drive through the cobblestone streets.
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Liner: can’t show true feelings to her, instead distracts himself to hide his feelings
Story 6: palace
[NOTE: The other children are imagined, not in the picture.]
Daniel did not understand why he had to leave the palace so that he could dig holes in the ground. As he looked back, he saw the haze rise above the palace, with its many pillars, towers, and turrets. He remembered how well he had been treated back at the palace, how someone had hugged him. He longed for that embrace, his mother singing lullabies to him. As he held the shovel in his hand he looked around for someone who might give him that same embrace. There was no one, no one but a few other children who were a couple hundred feet from him. Daniel decided in his mind that he would try and become friends with these other children, because maybe they had lost that embrace and were feeling helpless. He would be strong enough for all of them. Together, they would find a way to get out of this place and back to the palace.
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Liner: confusion at new location, longing for something of the past
Story 7: cafe
Janet and Alan were enjoying a light drink at the café. Suddenly, Alan took Janet’s arm and said something behind the cover of his own hand. He said, “those women with cameras over there are taking pictures of you.” Janet looked around in that direction and didn’t care if they got a picture of her face with his. It wasn’t the scandal of a lifetime, it was just two friends having a chat over a drink. Alan was a slight bit more concerned though, about his public image. He had only recently left his own wife in Mexico and come to England. As for the future, in both of their minds they had no plans to take this friendship to a relationship-level. Janet remarked, “Let them have their pictures, it’s nothing if we are just friends, right?” Alan replied, “Ah, yes.” The two continued to sip drinks and reminisce about the old days of the 1970s.
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Liner: reminiscing again, enjoying time with friend, self conscious
Story 8: cubicle
Bob sat down in his cubicle, holding the donut he had just gotten from the break room. He wondered when the aimlessness would end, and when he’d be able to get that promotion. He took a bite of the donut, and abruptly put it down because he had a feeling someone was behind him. There wasn’t. Instead, he looked up and gazed longingly at a picture on his cubicle walls of a hammock swaying in the breeze on the beach. Bob thought, “If only I could just get that promotion, I’d be on that hammock relaxing with a fully paid vacation.” Ruefully, he turned to the left and logged into his computer. He hammered in some numbers into the cost calculation program, and took a gulp of coffee. He let out an excited yelp because it was very hot! Again he thought to himself, “If only I had that promotion I’d have someone to get the coffee at the right temperature.” He smiled to himself about what that new promotion would be like and all the benefits that he would enjoy. Chuckling softly so no one would hear, he turned back to the computer and resumed the daily grind.
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Liner: longing to get away, fantasizing of a better place, more self conscious thoughts
Well, that's that. Here's the rundown, basically this is an excerpt from my introductory paragraph.
"Four of the stories had some element of longing to get away from the present and reminiscing about the good times of the past. Three of the stories have a form of being confused at what is happening in the setting. Finally, the one story is about not being able to express feelings for a girl."
Of course, I went a lot deeper than this, analyzing in relation to my life, and significant events in my life. That I will not expose.
I recommend people to do this, as it is a very simple project and can reveal much about the self.
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