Use News to Fuel Your Writing

: Image by John McNab via Flickr

Can you believe the Guatemala City sinkhole? In the midst of Agatha’s devastation, it sits like a Hollywood punch line. As described by AP: “A cavernous and almost perfectly round sinkhole swallowed an entire intersection in Guatemala City during a tropical storm, spooking people in the neighborhood but exciting geologists.” Spooking but exciting people with imagination the world over, that is. What will the intrepid crew that explores the core find? Though neighbors suspect that “one or two people might have fallen in”, no deaths have been reported. That fact is nearly as incredible as the sinkhole itself, whose depth is currently unknown. Whoa.

Are you greeting this Wednesday with a deficit of writing ideas? Try mining headlines and news of the weird. Since truth is so often stranger than fiction, why not inspire your writing with true stories?

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” And sinkholes too.