Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.

The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.

This Wednesday Writing Challenge seems a bit different from the rest. Fortune cookies? What in the world do those have to do with inspiration? Everything. Because inspiration is in everything, everywhere, if we open ourselves up to creative possibility and allow it to take us places. Sparks can be found in conversation, in a piece of music, and, yes, even in a tiny slip of paper, extracted from a cookie.

I tested this challenge out last week with my writing group; each person broke open their cookie and read the words silently before settling in to write for our first half-hour writing exercise. It was amazing to see how something could emerge out of nothing; just from the prompt of a few little words, a transformation in our writing took place. One used her fortune as a metaphor to guide a non-fiction piece; another used the prompt as a starting point before letting it lead her in a completely new direction. Inspiration can be fickle, but inspiration is always there.

Fortune Cookies
Origins of the fortune cookie differ according to varying reports; however, the cookies with which we’re familiar are said to have originated in California, containing pieces of wisdom, prophecy, or insight on a tiny slip of paper (along with Chinese translations and a series of lucky numbers).

What is so appealing about these fortune cookies? Could it be the desire to apply these simple words to our own lives as words of wisdom and guidance? Is it the comfort in having something planned out, being able to have a sneak peek at what’s in store? Is it the anticipation, wondering what that slip of paper will contain as you break open the cookie?

As writers, the conflicting desire to know where we’re headed and the anticipation in finding out the next step is somewhat natural: we want to have the plot mapped out, we want to know our characters and their motivation. We want to know everything that’s going to happen to complete the book, story, poem. We want to have an endgame.

However, writing, can take pleasantly unexpected turns; characters can lead you to new adventures or dead ends. Maybe these little nuggets of wisdom are a guide for when you’re unsure where you’re going with a plot thread or a character; maybe they can serve as inspiration to bring you back on course. Or maybe they just serve as a little bit of fun, as all writing should be.

Next time you see those cookies in that familiar wrapping, instead of discarding them take a look at what they have to say and see if they don’t serve up a little more than dessert.

Challenge: Use the fortune that appears below (or click on the link for more options) and use your fortune as a prompt to start a new story or spark ideas for a latent project:

(Note: Check out the link for more!)