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Researchers found that watching a tragedy movie caused people to think about their own close relationships, which in turn boosted their life happiness. The result was that what seems like a negative experience — watching a sad story — made people happier by bringing attention to some positive aspects in their own lives.
“Tragic stories often focus on themes of eternal love, and this leads viewers to think about their loved ones and count their blessings,” said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, lead author of the study and associate professor of communication at Ohio State University.
The key is the extent to which viewers thought about their own relationships as a result of watching the movie. The more they thought about their loved ones, the greater the increase in their happiness. Viewers who had self-centered thoughts concerning the movie — such as “My life isn’t as bad as the characters in this movie” — did not see an increase in their happiness. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a scene where your character attends a tragic movie. Include internal dialogue and emotional reaction.
Journaling Prompt: Write about your favorite movie with a tragic ending and how you responded to it.
Art Prompt: Tragedy
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the role that movies play in your life.
Photo Credit: cliff1066TM on Flickr
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When we’re threatened we defend ourselves — and our systems. Before 9/11, for instance, President George W. Bush was sinking in the polls. But as soon as the planes hit the World Trade Center, the president’s approval ratings soared. So did support for Congress and the police. During Hurricane Katrina, America witnessed FEMA’s spectacular failure to rescue the hurricane’s victims. Yet many people blamed those victims for their fate rather than admitting the agency flunked and supporting ideas for fixing it. In times of crisis… we want to believe the system works. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about a character’s reaction to a crisis.
Journaling Prompt: Have you judged the victims of a crisis because you wanted to keep intact your belief that the system works?
Art Prompt: Disaster
Nonfiction / Speech Writing Prompt: Explain to your audience the natural response to crisis and formulate a model for a more constructive method of responding.
Photo Credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr
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“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.”- Daniel Handler, A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning
Writing Prompt: Using the first line above, write a scene or story.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you felt like everything was stacked against you.
Art Prompt: Unfortunate event
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about an experience with unhappy ending and what you learned from it.
Photo Credit: Randy Son Of Robert on Flickr
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Have you ever been put into an extreme situation where you had to make a difficult decision in order to survive?
He was the man who ate his shoes, and had been for twenty-three years, ever since he returned to England in 1822 after his first, failed overland expedition across northern Canada to find the North-West Passage. He remembered the sniggers and jokes upon his return. Franklin had eaten his shoes — and he’d eaten worse on that botched three-year journey, including tripe-de-roche, a disgusting gruel made from lichen scraped from rocks. Two years out and starving, he and his men — Franklin had dazedly divided his troop into three groups and left the other two bands to survive or die on their own — had boiled the uppers on their boots and shoes to survive. Sir John — he was just John then, he was knighted for incompetency after a later overland voyage and botched polar expedition by sea — had spent days in 1821 chewing on nothing more than scraps of untanned leather. His men had eaten their buffalo sleeping robes. Then some of them had moved on to other things. But he had never eaten another man. -Dan Simmons, The Terror: A Novel
Writing Prompt: Write about a character in a life and death situation. What does he or she do to survive?
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever been in a life or death situation? What did you do to survive? If you’ve never been in this kind of situation, write about one that you know about, either about someone you know or something you’ve seen on the news.
Art Prompt: Arctic Survival
Photo Credit: Instant Vantage on Flickr
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My college roommate, now a hot shot attorney, has always advised me that murder is not a good way to solve issues with people. Apparently, it’s too messy and there are legal ramifications. Well, she’s not a creative, or she would know that you can murder people every day without CSI showing up to investigate. You’ve just got to keep it on the page and not in real life.
“Murder is a bit of an extreme way to say ‘It’s over.’” -Joleene Naylor, 101 Tips for Traveling with a Vampire
Writing Prompt: Murder a character in your book. Go ahead. You know you want to.
Journaling Prompt: Who did you fantasize about murdering? You know, back in your younger and less enlightened days? What stopped you?
Art Prompt: Murder
Photo Credit: Mr Magoo ICU on Flickr
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Castor was halfway across the paddy, part of the long line of farm workers, when he stepped on the dead man’s head. -Frederik Pohl, Black Star Rising
Writing Prompt: Use that first line as the start of your story or inspiration for a poem.
Journaling Prompt: Write about your experiences with a dead body.
Art Prompt: Rice paddy
Photo Credit: DMahendra on Flickr
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annus horribilis n. a year of disaster or misfortune. modern Latin, suggested by ANNUS MIRABILIS. annus mirabilis n. a remarkable or auspicious year. modern Latin, ‘wonderful year’.
Writing Prompt: Create a story, poem, or haiku about an annus horribilis.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a bad year that you experienced.
Art Prompt: Annus Horribilis
Photo Credit: jczart on Flickr
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It was the day my grandmother exploded. -Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road
Writing Prompt: Use the first line provided and write a story or a scene.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time one of your relatives got so angry that you were scared.
Art Prompt: Explosion
Photo Credit: Krassy Can Do It on Flickr
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Movies are a fun way to escape our everyday existence with their larger-than-life heroes and thrilling special effects. We can forget that the people who make the movies are not the characters they play, but real people with real problems. We’ve of many actors breaking down from the pressure or ending up in rehab from trying to cope with drugs or alcohol. And we’ve witnessed some go off the deep end in very public fashion.
I have a bust of Abraham Lincoln in my office, and it’s not because of the greatness he did for our country, but it’s because that whenever I look at it I have to remember an actor killed him. —Richard Donner, director of the Lethal Weapon films as quoted in The Rude Warrior by By Peter Biskind
Writing Prompt: Write about a bigger-than-life personality (the Actor archetype) who loses it in a larger-than-life way.
Journaling Prompt: What lessons have you learned from watching someone famous struggle with pressure?
Art Prompt: Celebrity breakdown
Photo Credit: Tony the Misfit on Flickr
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Many people feel that their emotions control them, but in reality, they are making very deliberate choices about how to respond to their emotions. Understanding how people deal with intense negative emotions vs. how they handle less intense feelings can help you develop more realistic characters.
A big part of coping with life is having a flexible reaction to the ups and downs. Now, a study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people choose to respond differently depending on how intense an emotion is. When confronted with high-intensity negative emotions, they tend to choose to turn their attention away, but with something lower-intensity, they tend to think it over and neutralize the feeling that way. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene where your character has to deal with a huge betrayal. Write a second scene where your character must cope with a minor irritation.
Journaling Prompt: Do you sometimes overreact to small things? When does that usually happen?
Art Prompt: Emotions
Photo Credit: andrewrennie on Flickr
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