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?

Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was known as a 20th century American pop artist whose paintings are reminiscent of comic book panels. Full of color and dialogue bubbles that call to the comic book culture, this series of paintings depict a story in and of themselves, asking questions that spark the imagination. Who is Vicki and how does she know the man asking for her? Whose photo is that in the frame to which she says “good morning?” These paintings lay the foundation of the story, a moment frozen in a time. What story will you surround it with?

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 Roy Lichtenstein paintings, depicted in the images below, to create a new short story or poem: