Use Pinterest to Elevate Your Writing
Ekphrastic writing, evil tooth fairies, and the supremacy of the odd detail
Years ago, Pinterest saved me from a writing slump. Ever since, it’s been an essential tool in my writer’s toolbox. You may not think of Pinterest as a resource “serious” writers use, but I’ve successfully used it to elevate stories that have later found homes in reputable literary magazines like Chestnut Review, Fractured, and F(r)iction.
I use Pinterest as a tool to improve my writing in three, key ways. I’ll explain each below and conclude with a writing prompt so you can try these techniques out for yourself.
Pinterest as Ekphrastic Inspiration
You may have heard of ekphrastic poetry, which sounds complicated, but really just means poems written about works of art. “Ekphrastic” comes from the Greek word ekphrasis which means “description.” While ekphrastic writing may seem like a new trend, the first instance of it dates all the way back to The Iliad, when Homer describes in detail a scene depicted on Achilles’ shield. And if it’s good enough for Homer, it’s good enough for me. (Although it’s more accurate to call my technique “ekphrastic-adjacent,” as I often use images as inspiration, rather than describing the piece in detail as true ekphrastic writing does. )
When I can’t make it to an art museum, I like to use Pinterest as an art museum in my pocket, and search for compelling images that feel rich with storytelling potential. When I got into a major creative rut a few years ago one of my writing friends suggested finding an image on Pinterest and writing a story about it (Thanks Skyler!). I found an image of a girl wading through a field of stars (featured above), and I wrote a sci-fi flash fiction piece about a girl who harvests energy from dying stars. The constraint of writing to a specific image, rather than limiting me, served as a helpful scaffold for my imagination. I enjoyed the exercise so much that I found another image (pictured above) and wrote a story based on it called, “The Tooth Fairy,” which you can read at the end of this article if you’re interested. I actually read this story at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference horror reading and everybody loved it!
Now, I keep a writing inspiration board on Pinterest where I pin interesting images daily. Then whenever I’m in a creative rut and can’t come up with story ideas, I scroll the board, find an image, and start writing.
Image Credits: Image 1, Image 2
Pinterest as Scene Polisher
One of my favorite books on the craft of writing is The Art of Fiction by John Gardner. He writes, “In any piece of fiction, the writer’s first job is to convince the reader that the events [she] recounts really happened, or to persuade the reader that they might have happened (given changes in the laws of the universe)…” He explains that pulling this off “depend[s] heavily on precision of detail.”
I think we’ve all had that experience of reading a book or story and an author includes such an odd, beautiful, specific detail that it makes the whole scene come to life and feel indisputably real. Sometimes these details occur magically to us as writers, like little gifts. Other times I struggle to find the details that will truly enliven a scene. In those cases, I head over to Pinterest. Often searching a scene in Pinterest like “early 2000’s mall” or “Parisian cafe,” can help transport you there. I treat the images like iSpy, trying to identify small details that I can steal for my own scene. I’ve found great descriptive details this way that have helped polish and perfect my scenes. In fact, my story “Girlhood Gothic,” published in Chestnut Review, involved a lot of scrolling through early 2000’s mall images on Pinterest (pictured above).
Image Credits: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3
Pinterest as Vibe Police
Pinterest is all about vision boards—future home, future wedding, etc. We use it to create visual reminders of what we want our year, our outfits, and more, to look and feel like. But I don’t often see people creating vision boards for their stories. I always do this for long-form projects, but I’ve found vision boards to be effective for short stories too. Before I start a story, in addition to sketching a rough outline and making character profiles, I’ll make a vision board for the story. Pictured above is a vision board I created for a young-adult novel I wrote. I wanted the vibes to be roadtrip, Americana, Thelma & Louise, romping adventure, retro, etc. Once I created the board, I often kept it open on my computer as I wrote. At the end of each scene, I would compare what I had written to the “vibe” depicted on the vision board. Often this would lead to me adding details that didn’t fit and replacing them with ones that did. For short stories, I also find myself discovering ideas for setting—and sometimes even plot points—as Pinterest suggests other similar images to add to the board. It’s an extra step, but I find that the visual element helps me keep my writing aligned with my initial vision in a way that sometimes plot outlines don’t.
Writing Prompt
Now, we’ll try using Pinterest as ekphrastic inspiration. Select two of the six images below and use the collision of these two elements to spark a story. What happens when girl (photo 2) happens upon scene (photo 5)? What happens when group (photo 6) happens upon girl (photo 4)? What happens when the unexpected, the vivid, and the strange come together? Write for at least fifteen minutes. Don’t judge. Don’t edit. Just write, and watch the magic unfold. If you do this exercise, I’d love to read your stories, so please share them with me if you’re comfortable!
Image Credits: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5, Image 6
*Bonus* Example Story: The Tooth Fairy
Dorothy lay in bed. The moonlight slid over her closed eyes, illuminating the spider’s web of veins on her lids. But the rapid rise and fall of the bed quilt betrayed her. Her breath came out hot, jagged, and very much awake. How could she sleep tonight? For beneath her baby-soft hair, beneath her pillow, wrapped in a hankie, was her first lost tooth.
Dorothy had resolved to stay awake all night. And when the tooth fairy reached beneath her pillow, she would flutter open her lids a fraction of an inch and catch a glimpse of the magical, marvelous, mythical creature.
Dorothy lay there for hours, digging her nails into her palms to keep awake, leaving crescent moons of red on her skin. When she had almost given up hope, there was a scrabbling at the window, like nails clattering against the sill, then the shushing of wood on wood, and a sharp chill. The window was open. Dorothy held her breath. Footfalls padded across the room towards the bed, accompanied by a sound like a wood-bead curtain chattering in the wind. Dorothy was desperate to open her eyes, but she forced herself to wait until the tooth fairy was right beside her.
“Hello, Dorothy,” said a voice, scratchy and ancient.
Dorothy’s eyes snapped open.
She wet the bed.
The woman laughed. It sounded like tumbling rocks. Dorothy tried to scream, but only hot breath escaped. Teeth dangled everywhere from the woman’s tall, spindly frame. They rattled in her hair, hung from her neck, and swayed in floor-length strands from her belt. Tied around each blood-red fingernail was a loop of filthy floss, teeth dancing from the ends of the minty string like demented marionettes. The woman reached a bony hand towards Dorothy. She pushed back Dorothy’s top lip with her thumb, revealing that chink of exposed, pink gum, gleaming with spit—the place where Dorothy’s tooth had been. The woman’s nails tasted of dirt.
“What’s wrong, Dorothy?” she said. “I thought you wanted to see the tooth fairy?” She smiled, her lips parting to reveal slick, toothless gums. Dorothy whimpered.
The woman leaned forward, sliding a hand beneath Dorothy’s pillow.
The woman drew back, snapping open a chipped compact mirror. Gazing into the mirror, she held the tooth to her gums. “Alas, another for my reject pile,” she said, sliding the tooth into her pocket. “But luckily you have nineteen more…”
Absolutley love this idea to inspire writing! Thank you 🫂
this such an amazing idea! i’ll be sure to try this to get myself out of a rut :)