Here we have (l. to r.) Blaine, Jenna, Teddy, Analise (and Sergio off-camera). Everyone just seems to be having a good time (assume the same for Sergio).
Any number of stories, however, could be created from this photo—all launching from what appears to be simply a convivial dinner party.
The following four story lines could develop from the seminal question of any creative writer—What if..?
Story Line 1:
These folks have been held hostage for the past three days, are being fed by their captors, and are just making the best of a terrifying ordeal. Deep down, each one wonders if he or she will see the next sunrise. Teddy is reluctant to drink what he suspects may be poisoned wine. Analise, with fading hopes, tries to convince the others that their ransom will be delivered in time. With forced good cheer, Jenna looks to Blaine, who's alleged Navy SEAL training could maybe extricate them from this mess. Blaine, who's only actual connection to seals is having fed fish to a few off Pier 39 in San Francisco, is scared that he'll soon be swimming with the fishes. But he tries his best to seem manly and jovially confident as he looks off to Sergio in desperation for some way out of this dreadful situation.
Story Line 1
Story Line 2:
The four pictured (as well as Sergio) are holding Another (off-camera) group hostage. The thugs are taking a well-earned dinner break, hostage-holding being a highly intensive, exhausting line of work. Sergio has already eaten, and has an AK-47 pointed threateningly where it needs to be. Blaine, Jenna, and Analise are veteran kidnappers enjoying their brief respite. Teddy, though, is new to all this, and is so white-knuckled anxious about his rebellious foray into crime (In real life, he's a mousy data entry clerk who still lives with his mother) that he's about to upchuck into his wine glass. Analise gazes at Teddy, wistfully fantasizing that she could pry him loose from his mom and abandon outlawry for a diaper-changing, picket fence life, while Jenna and Blaine cavort in fiendish glee as malefactors do.
Story Line 1
Story Line 2
Story line 3:
Blaine and Analise are married. Jenna and Teddy are married. Tonight, the four have planned on a little bed-hopping switcheroo (Sergio just wants to watch). But being church-going right wingers, they each have nagging moral intrusions in their hearts about their imminent trysts. Lord knows, they all could use some spice in their lackluster existences, but this may be going a bit too far. Still, the whole idea is intriguingly naughty. Jenna is so excited that she's just wet her panties slightly in forced overlaugh at one of Blaine's corny jokes. She just hopes that he'll shut up in the sack. Teddy fixates on his wine, having let it slip to Analise that he's been having a little e.d. problem of late. She reaches over to him reassuringly, while only hoping that she'll be woman enough for him.
Story Line 1
Story Line 2
Story line 3
Story Line 4:
Infomercial host wannabe Blaine, flight attendant Jenna, and newly certified sex surrogate Analise have recently had their teeth capped by experimental dentist Sergio, using a state-of-the-art method with applications of liquefied musk ox enamel. Tonight he's invited them to dinner to convince Teddy to also undergo the procedure. Teddy, otherwise a handsome fellow, has choppers worn down to nubbins from having chewed on too many betel nuts while in the Brazilian jungle on a Peace Corps assignment. He's so embarrassed that he hasn't smiled in years. His wealthy politician father is so distressed that he's promised to build Sergio a chain of clinics if he'll repair his son's teeth so that he can be an asset on the campaign trail . Teddy is less than optimistic as he stares at a piece of cork floating in his wine.
So...
So...
Creative writing is work, yes. But who says some fun can't enter the picture? Perseverance is a successful writer's most elemental attribute—even more than talent—but tedium, drudgery can be a writer's worst enemy. Bringing imaginative frivolity to the effort of writing staves off fatigue and fills the creative tank. Occasional whimsy can also add perspective to even a "heavy" story. Maybe a tiny bit of amusement was folded in with seriousness when Kafka came up with man as giant cockroach in "Metamorphosis."