Inspiration Thursday

Looking for story inspiration?

I was walking through the cellar of my school recently when I came across a trolley full of half used containers of hand sanitiser. It occurred to me that this image would have meant something very different three years ago, before Covid 19.

And that got me thinking, what might it have meant three years ago?  Why would someone be throwing away so much hand sanitiser? What would have happened in a school in, say 2012, that meant they had over ordered hand sanitiser?

And that gave me an idea for a story. Maybe the image has inspired you.  Maybe not.

But what if the trolley wasn’t in a school, but a police station? Or a football stadium? Or on board a submarine?  What if the year was 1957, or 2140? What if the containers were empty, or had never been opened?

I have files of half completed stories based on chance encounters like this one. I never know when I’m going to meet the next image or person that will collide with an existing idea and cause it to burst into life.

That’s part of the fun of being a writer.