A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Writing Short Stories Inspired by Art
Six weekly sessions on campus, on Tuesdays at 6-8pm, starting from Tuesday 30 September - we are no longer taking enrolments for this course.
Overview
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what might those thousand words be? Could you write a 1,000-word piece of flash fiction inspired by an artwork? This course will provide you with visual prompts to craft short stories. Sometimes there will be no additional context - just a painted scene to bring to life - while other writing exercises might introduce some background information about the artist or artwork, to see if that changes anything about these short fiction ideas.
A given painting might act as a jumping-off point for a story that finds its own legs and goes off in a different direction, or that image might remain integral to the writing it inspires, with those 1-000 words becoming a text-based interpretation. Perhaps a thousand words is worth a picture. Those who enjoy writing constraints may wish to try and get their stories to be exactly 1,000 words long!
The course provides writers, and those who wish to give writing fiction a whirl, with visual prompts to inspire ideas for stories. Experimentation is encouraged and there is no right or wrong approach. Your tutor will guide you in working through ideas and shaping your writing into short stories. You'll develop critiquing skills and hopefully come away with an ability to turn virtually anything into a creative writing prompt.
As well as being ideal for writers who prefer prompts to staring at blank pages, the course may also be suitable if you have an interest in art and are seeking to get more visual inspiration, however no art history knowledge is required. You'll be taking most images at surface level and interpreting them however you please. A willingness to share work, as well as to give and receive feedback with other writers in the group, will enable you to get the most out of the course.
Syllabus
Week 1
Introducing the course and setting some random visual prompts and writing exercises. Looking at an artwork without any context or background information. Then reading about it and seeing what – if anything – changes.
Week 2
'Play of light - a display of darkness and illumination’. Taking inspiration from the nocturnal paintings on display in the Victoria Gallery & Museum (VG&M).
Week 3
'Seeing green'. Taking inspiration from the green themed paintings on display on the balcony wall in the VG&M.
Week 4
'Lightbulb moments'. Taking inspiration from the VG&M’s new museum exhibition which will bring together items from across many collections including archaeology, physics, dentistry, biology, ceramics and fine art.
Week 5
The artwork or exhibition to inspire this week’s short story writing is TBC and will be revealed nearer the time.
Week 6
Finding visual prompts elsewhere – In this final session, we will look at some of the other places we can discover or generate images that can inspire our fiction writing (such as Google Streetview or the Science Museum’s Random Object Generator and Never Been Seen tool).
Course lecturer
Phil Olsen is a short story writer with a Creative Writing MA from the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing. In 2023 he ran a Canning Dock flash fiction competition with Writing on the Wall and National Museums Liverpool, delivering workshops across Merseyside libraries. He has also run workshops for Write Generation in Toxteth, the L20 Hub at Netherton Library, and the Community Lottery-Funded Floral Civilians project in New Brighton.
Winner of the University of Liverpool’s Short Story Competition in 2022, Phil has previously won the Northern Short Story Festival, WoWFest, and Book Week Scotland flash fiction competitions. His short fiction has been published by Ad Hoc Fiction, Cōnfingō, The Liminal Residency, Storgy and Strix. He was commissioned as a writer by the Science Museum and by Manchester’s Victoria Baths. Phil’s editorial roles have included Fiction Editor at Sabotage Reviews and Contributing Editor at Vestal Review.
Course fee
- Standard fee: £95
- Concession fee: £50.