One day in the summer, my daughters and I started generating a story inspired by licence plates as a way to fight the boredom on a long drive. Our only rule was that we had to use a new one in each story bit. How's that for story-building!
Some ways you can use licence plates to inspire your writing:
1. Character names, especially for sci-fi or fantasy. Some recent ones I saw: NINAKS, ANZY, TYTAN, DR SAME. Don't these just make you start thinking about character traits?
2. Psychology of a character. You can also think of these plates a different way, and wonder what the person is like that chose that plate. Why did someone choose 5 EVANS for their plate? What kind of person are they?
3. Names for vehicles, cities, other worlds. I'm thinking about what life would be like on DIGNITY9.
4. Made up swear words. Those random combinations of letters are great for this. BLEB!
Have you ever had any creative inspiration from licence plates?
I haven't, but it's a great idea! My kids are really into writing down people's license plates right now. Maybe I need to riffle through their notes! :) Have a great weekend, Andrea.
ReplyDeleteHow fun! I've never thought of doing this before. I have personalized plates. My old one said PEZMAMA. That seems like that would lend itself to a good story.
ReplyDelete(One time, I was behind a school bus at a light and some kids spotted my plate, pulled out a PEZ dispenser and held it up to the window. I clapped and gave them a thumbs up and they laughed.)
I haven't been inspired by license plates, but after reading this post I can see how others can be. And I have come across some unusual ones.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very fun! I'll have to remember it for our next road trip. I like trying to figure out vanity plates. Some people are really clever!
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