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, from an overheard conversation to a series of picture prints, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.

One of the reasons why I love creative expression is that it’s incredibly individualistic. It evokes inspiration and an appreciation of beauty, it stirs emotions and sparks conversations; however, each song, piece of writing, or work of art affects people in significantly different ways.

I love these challenges because I’m fascinated by what interpretations writers — word-artists — can come up with. What you bring with you when considering a challenge is just as important as the inspiration that it serves, for the moment’s emotions, thoughts, feelings, and your experiences may play a part in that interpretation. A painting may spark an original idea for one person, while another individual will look at the same painting and go in an entirely different direction, making the possibilities seem endless. One single idea branches off into original stories full of characters, plot, and your own original voice.

Visual art has always sparked the imagination in a way that few other mediums can. Every painting, photograph, sculpture is open to interpretation and tells a story of either the artist, the subject, or the viewer.

What story will you find?

Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was a 20th-century painter whose illustrations graced the covers of The Saturday Evening Post for over forty years. These illustrations depicted the life of the modern American, often providing a glimpse into the average, everyday world of family, friends, and lovers and sparking a sense of both sentimentality and familiarity. However, there’s something deeper behind the scenes that Rockwell paints, a story full of depth marked by just one painted moment in time. Who is the girl sitting outside the Principal’s office and what kind of trouble did she get into? What does that little girl see when she looks in the mirror and why is she so eager to grow up? Who is that man standing up, surrounded by people, and what does he have to say?

The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. What words and stories do these illustrations spark for you?

Challenge: Use one or more of the Norman Rockwell paintings, depicted in the images below, to create a new short story or poem: