What if one ordinary object could unlock a thousand extraordinary stories?
A battered old shoe. A forgotten photograph. A key that no longer fits any lock. Hardly the most exciting starting points for a story, are they? And yet, put one of these objects in front of a group of students, give them permission to be curious, and you might be surprised by what happens next.
Suddenly, that battered shoe belongs to someone. Someone with a name, a personality, a history, and perhaps a few secrets. The scuffed leather becomes evidence of a life lived, the worn-down heel suggests a particular way of walking, and the fraying laces might hint at someone who has far more important things to worry about than replacing their shoes.
Before long, an ordinary object has become an extraordinary character.
This is something I discovered during my teacher training, when I was introduced to a wonderfully simple creative writing activity involving a collection of borrowed shoes. It quickly became one of my favourite lessons to teach, and one I've returned to year after year. There's something rather brilliant about watching a classroom full of teenagers become completely absorbed in inventing the lives of people they've never met, all because you've handed them a stranger's footwear.
But here's the thing: why stop at shoes?
If a single, everyday object can inspire an entire character, imagine what we could do with an abandoned suitcase, an old family photograph, a mysterious letter, or a child's drawing discovered in the attic. Each object offers clues, raises questions, and invites us to imagine the people, places, and events that might exist beyond what we can see.
And once we've mastered the art of finding stories in ordinary objects, we can start making things a little stranger.
What about a silver hairbrush that makes its owner impossibly beautiful, but only for as long as someone else suffers? A wedding invitation addressed to a woman who died a hundred years ago? A curious collection of artefacts recovered from a kingdom that doesn't appear on any map?
Suddenly, we're no longer simply developing characters. We're exploring mysteries, inventing histories, creating conflicts, and building entire fictional worlds.
That's what I love about object-based creative writing activities. They can be as simple or as ambitious as you want them to be. A single shoe might inspire a short character sketch, while a collection of mysterious documents could become the foundation for an entire novel.
In this post, we're going to start with my original Shoe Lesson, exploring how one ordinary object can transform character development in the classroom. Then we'll look at five more everyday objects that make surprisingly effective creative writing prompts, before venturing into the wonderfully strange world of impossible artefacts, Cabinets of Curiosities, and immersive Storyworld Archives.
Whether you're an English teacher looking for engaging creative writing activities, or an independent writer searching for an unexpected spark of inspiration, the principle remains the same.
Every object has the potential to tell a story. Sometimes, we just need to ask the right questions.
Where the Shoe Lesson Came From
I first came across the idea for the Shoe Lesson during my teacher training, in one of our English tutorials. We had regular subject-specific sessions where we'd discuss exam standards, share teaching ideas, talk through lesson plans, and occasionally admit that we hadn't the faintest idea what we were doing.
During one of these sessions, my lecturer mentioned, almost in passing, that giving students a physical object could be a surprisingly effective way to get them writing. Rather than asking them to invent a character from scratch, why not give them something that belonged to that character and let them work backwards?
A shoe, he suggested, worked particularly well.
It was such a simple idea, but I loved it. A shoe is wonderfully ordinary. Almost everyone owns several pairs, we rarely give them much thought, and yet they can reveal an extraordinary amount about the people who wear them.
So, naturally, I decided to try it for my first observed lesson.
Looking back, there were probably less unusual ways to approach one of my earliest teaching observations than turning up with a collection of borrowed footwear. But where's the fun in that?
I still remember the feedback I received afterwards, word for word:
“I wish you could have seen all their faces as you passed them out. It was gold. You instantly had them hooked.”
And that was exactly it.
Before we'd written a single sentence, the students were curious. They wanted to know why I'd brought shoes into an English lesson, who they belonged to, and what on earth I expected them to do with them.
They were already asking questions, making observations, and beginning to imagine possibilities. They just didn't realise they were doing the groundwork for creative writing.
That experience stayed with me, and I've used the Shoe Lesson at least once a year ever since.
It's become one of those activities I return to whenever I want students to think more carefully about character development, move beyond obvious descriptions, or simply rediscover that creative writing can be enjoyable.
And despite teaching it numerous times, I still love seeing what happens when the shoes come out.
No two classes respond in quite the same way, no two students imagine quite the same character, and no two shoes ever seem to tell the same story.
Which, when you think about it, is rather the point.
Why the Shoe Lesson Works: Character Development Through Observation and Inference
One of the biggest challenges students face when approaching creative writing is knowing where to begin.
Ask a class to invent a character from scratch, and you'll often be met with a mixture of enthusiasm, mild panic, and the inevitable question: “Miss, what am I supposed to write?”
Some students will immediately invent elaborate characters with tragic backstories, extraordinary abilities, and enough personal drama to fill several novels. Others will stare at the blank page, convinced they haven't got an imaginative bone in their bodies.
The Shoe Lesson gives both groups something useful: a starting point that exists outside their own imagination.
Instead of asking students to conjure an entire person out of thin air, we give them something tangible to investigate. They can pick it up, examine it, turn it over, and look for clues about the person who might have worn it.
And the wonderful thing is that they begin developing characters almost without realising it.
From Observation to Inference
At the heart of the Shoe Lesson is a deceptively simple distinction: the difference between what we can observe and what we can infer.
Take an old pair of walking boots, for example.
We might observe that the leather is cracked, the soles are worn, and there's dried mud around the edges. These are details we can actually see.
But what might they suggest?
Perhaps their owner spends every weekend walking through the countryside. Perhaps they work outdoors, whatever the weather. Perhaps the boots belonged to someone who once loved exploring but hasn't ventured beyond their garden in years.
Or perhaps they were bought second-hand yesterday.
The object provides the evidence, but imagination supplies the possibilities.
This is where the real character development begins.
Students learn that physical details can suggest something about a person's habits, experiences, circumstances, and personality. More importantly, they discover that the same evidence can support several entirely different interpretations.
A pair of expensive shoes might belong to someone wealthy, someone desperately trying to appear wealthy, or someone who saved for months to buy themselves one beautiful thing.
A battered trainer might suggest an athlete, a teenager who refuses to throw anything away, or someone who has walked miles because they can't afford the bus.
There isn't necessarily one correct answer. What matters is that students can explain their thinking.
And that distinction is important. We're not teaching students to make definitive judgements about people based on their possessions. We're teaching them to recognise details, explore possibilities, and make deliberate creative choices.
Creating Characters Who Feel Like Real People
One of my favourite things about this activity is that students tend to create surprisingly believable characters.
When we ask them to invent someone without any starting point, it's tempting to reach for the extraordinary. Their character might be a billionaire, a secret agent, a world-famous celebrity, or someone with an impossibly dramatic past.
There's nothing wrong with any of those characters, of course. But sometimes the quieter details are far more interesting.
The Shoe Lesson encourages students to think about the ordinary experiences that make people feel real.
What time does their character wake up? Do they leap out of bed or press snooze six times? Are they always running late? Do they have somewhere they love going, or somewhere they dread returning to?
How do they walk? Do they drag their feet when they're tired? Do they stride confidently into a room, or hesitate at the doorway?
And why have they chosen these particular shoes?
Perhaps they're practical. Perhaps they're sentimental. Perhaps they're the only pair they own. Perhaps they belonged to someone they loved.
These small details begin to suggest a person with routines, preferences, relationships, memories, and contradictions.
Think about characters such as Bilbo Baggins or Arthur Dent. Part of what makes them memorable is their ordinariness. They have habits, comforts, frustrations, and familiar ways of seeing the world long before extraordinary events interrupt their lives.
We don't need to know every detail about a character's history to believe in them. Sometimes, knowing how they take their tea, what they keep in their pockets, or why they refuse to replace an old pair of shoes tells us far more.
Building Confidence Before Students Begin Writing
There's another reason I love using physical objects in creative writing lessons: they make the task feel manageable.
For students who struggle with imaginative writing, the instruction to “write a story” can feel enormous.
Where should it begin? Who should it be about? What happens? What if their idea isn't good enough?
A shoe gives them something smaller to focus on.
They don't have to invent an entire plot immediately. They only need to notice one detail and ask one question.
Why is the heel worn down on one side?
Why are the laces different colours?
Why does someone own a pair of beautiful shoes that look as though they've hardly ever been worn?
One question leads to another. An observation becomes an inference. An inference becomes a possibility. Before long, the student who insisted they couldn't think of anything has a character with a name, a personality, and a rather complicated personal life.
The mind-mapping stage is particularly helpful here because it allows students to explore ideas without worrying about spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, or whether their writing sounds sufficiently impressive.
They can sketch, annotate, make lists, draw arrows, and change their minds.
The aim is to give their imagination somewhere to go before asking them to turn those ideas into polished writing.
Developing Skills Beyond Creative Writing
Although I use the Shoe Lesson primarily for character development, it also supports several skills that students need across English.
Close observation: Students learn to notice small details rather than relying on vague, general descriptions.
Inference and interpretation: They practise moving beyond what is immediately visible and considering what a detail might suggest.
Evidence and justification: When students explain why they've imagined a particular character, they must connect their interpretation to something they've observed.
Discussion and collaboration: Working in pairs or small groups encourages students to share ideas, challenge assumptions, and consider alternative possibilities.
Descriptive writing: Students begin to understand how carefully selected physical details can communicate personality, mood, and experience.
Characterisation: Rather than simply telling readers that a character is nervous, lonely, confident, or exhausted, students can explore how those qualities might appear through movement, behaviour, possessions, and routine.
These skills also transfer naturally into literary analysis.
When students examine how a novelist uses clothing, possessions, gestures, or surroundings to reveal character, they're applying much the same process they've practised with their shoe.
The difference is that they're now investigating the choices made by another writer rather than making those choices themselves.
And because they've experienced the process of creating meaning from a physical detail, they may be better equipped to recognise how authors do the same.
The Most Important Lesson: Curiosity Comes Before Creativity
Ultimately, I think the Shoe Lesson works because it changes what we're asking students to do.
We're not immediately demanding originality, beautiful prose, or an extraordinary imagination.
We're inviting them to be curious.
To notice something.
To ask a question.
To wonder what might have happened.
And once students begin wondering, the stories tend to follow.
It's a principle that extends far beyond a single creative writing lesson, too. Because if we can create a believable character from something as ordinary as a shoe, imagine what we might discover when we start exploring photographs, letters, mysterious possessions, and objects that shouldn't exist at all.
How I Run the Shoe Lesson: A Step-by-Step Creative Writing Activity
One of the best things about the Shoe Lesson is that it requires surprisingly little preparation. You don't need expensive resources, elaborate worksheets, or hours spent creating the perfect PowerPoint.
You just need some shoes, a few large sheets of paper, and a classroom full of students willing to entertain a slightly unusual idea.
Although, admittedly, getting hold of the shoes is an adventure in itself.
Step 1: Send the Strangest Staff Email of the Year
A few days before the lesson, I send out what is almost certainly the most bizarre staff email of the year.
I ask my colleagues if they'd be willing to lend me one shoe.
Not a pair. Just one.
I promise that their shoe will be returned exactly as it was, and usually add that the older, more battered, or more interesting the shoe, the better.
Teachers who've been around a while tend to know exactly what I'm up to. New members of staff, on the other hand, are often completely bemused.
There's usually at least one reply asking for clarification, or a slightly hesitant, "Do you... actually just want one?"
Yes. Yes, I do.
Over the years, I've collected everything from glamorous party heels and battered gym trainers to slippers, flip-flops, walking boots, and well-loved work shoes.
And the variety really does matter.
A pristine pair of expensive heels offers a very different starting point from a muddy walking boot or a trainer that's clearly seen better days. The more varied the collection, the more opportunities students have to explore different personalities, circumstances, and experiences.
Ideally, I try to collect enough shoes for students to work in pairs or small groups. Around 10–15 shoes usually gives a class plenty to work with, although you can easily adapt the activity depending on what you've managed to borrow.
A little practical advice: Make sure the shoes are reasonably clean, ask colleagues not to lend anything particularly valuable or delicate, and keep track of who owns what. You do, after all, want to remain on speaking terms with the rest of the staffroom.
Step 2: Introduce the Mystery
On the day of the lesson, I arrange students into pairs or small groups and give each group a large sheet of paper.
But I don't immediately hand out the shoes.
First, I explain that they're about to receive something belonging to a character they haven't met yet.
I usually say something along the lines of:
"I'm about to give you something that belongs to your character. I want you to use the paper to mind-map, make notes, sketch, draw arrows — whatever helps you get that character onto the page. But I want detail. Think beyond what they look like or who they're friends with. How do they move? What do they sound like? What's the first thing they think about when they wake up in the morning?"
And then I start handing out the shoes.
Honestly, the reactions are half the magic.
There's usually a mixture of confusion, laughter, disbelief, and immediate curiosity.
Students want to know why I've brought a collection of random footwear into an English lesson. They want to know who the shoes belong to. They want to know whether they're actually allowed to touch them.
And within moments, they're investigating.
They turn the shoes over, examine the soles, inspect the stitching, look inside, and start pointing out little details to one another.
Some try them on.
And, without fail, somebody always has a little sniff.
I don't know why. I don't ask why. But every single time I teach this lesson, at least one student decides that the best way to investigate a stranger's shoe is to stick their nose inside it.
It's not necessarily the kind of close observation I had in mind when planning the lesson, but I suppose I can't complain about their enthusiasm.
The wonderful thing is that all this happens before I've asked them to write a single sentence.
They're already curious. They're already talking. They're already noticing things.
And that's exactly where I want them.
Step 3: Investigate the Shoe and Gather Evidence
Once the initial excitement has settled down, I ask students to examine their shoe more carefully.
At this stage, I encourage them to think like detectives rather than writers.
What can they actually see?
Is the shoe old or new? Expensive or inexpensive? Practical or decorative? Is it well maintained, or has it clearly been worn for years?
Are there scuffs, stains, loose threads, worn-down heels, or unusual markings?
I encourage students to record their observations before deciding what those details might mean.
For example, a group might notice that the sole of their shoe is particularly worn around the heel.
That's an observation.
They might then suggest that its owner walks long distances every day, has an unusual gait, or has been wearing the same shoes for years.
Those are inferences.
And from there, we can start asking more interesting questions.
Why do they walk so much? Where are they going? Are they walking towards something, or trying to get away from it?
A small physical detail can lead to an entire imagined life.
I also encourage students to challenge their first assumptions.
An expensive shoe doesn't necessarily belong to a wealthy person. A muddy boot doesn't automatically belong to a farmer. And a pair of bright pink trainers doesn't tell us everything about the personality of the person wearing them.
Sometimes, the most interesting characters emerge when students deliberately move beyond the obvious interpretation.
Step 4: Build a Character Around the Shoe
Once students have gathered their evidence, it's time to develop the person who might own it.
This is where the large sheets of paper come into their own.
Students can mind-map, sketch, annotate, and gradually build a picture of their character. Some groups produce wonderfully elaborate diagrams, with arrows connecting personality traits, relationships, routines, and possible backstories.
Others draw their character wearing the shoes and begin adding details around the illustration.
I encourage them to think beyond the usual character profile questions.
Yes, their character needs a name, an age, and perhaps an occupation. But those details alone don't make someone interesting.
I want to know what they're like to live with.
What annoys them? What makes them laugh? What do they worry about when nobody else is around?
Do they have a favourite place? Are they always late? Do they sing in the shower? Do they avoid answering the telephone?
What do they want from life, and what's stopping them from getting it?
And, of course, why do they own these particular shoes?
Perhaps the shoes were a gift from someone important. Perhaps they're worn every day because their owner can't afford another pair. Perhaps they're kept carefully in a wardrobe because they remind someone of a happier time.
Or perhaps there's absolutely nothing sentimental about them.
That's fine, too.
Not every character needs a tragic backstory or a terrible secret. Sometimes, a person wears a particular pair of shoes simply because they're comfortable.
The important thing is that students begin thinking about their character as a complete person rather than a collection of descriptive adjectives.
Step 5: Write 'A Day in the Life'
Once students have developed their characters, I introduce the main writing task.
A Day in the Life.
Students write about one ordinary day in their character's life, beginning when they wake up and ending with their final thought before going to sleep.
I love this particular task because it encourages students to think about character through action, behaviour, and routine.
Instead of writing a paragraph explaining that their character is impatient, they might show them becoming increasingly irritated while waiting for a bus.
Rather than simply telling us that someone is lonely, they might describe them setting the table for one, leaving the television on for company, or checking their phone even though they know nobody has messaged.
And a character who appears perfectly ordinary might reveal something completely unexpected through the choices they make during the day.
I encourage students to consider questions such as:
What's the first thing their character does when they wake up?
What does their home look and feel like?
Who do they interact with throughout the day?
What small frustrations, pleasures, or worries shape their routine?
How do they behave when they're alone compared with when they're around other people?
What happens during the day that reveals something important about their personality?
What's the final thing they think about before falling asleep?
The day doesn't have to involve a dramatic event.
In fact, I often find that the quieter stories reveal the most about the characters students have created.
A missed bus, an awkward conversation, a difficult shift at work, or an unexpected act of kindness can tell us a great deal about a person.
And because students have already spent time investigating their shoe and building their character, they have a much clearer sense of who they're writing about.
They're no longer starting with a blank page.
They're writing about someone they've already begun to understand.
Step 6: Reveal the Real Owners
This is one of my favourite parts of the entire lesson.
By the time students have finished creating their characters, they're usually desperate to know who the shoes actually belong to.
Sometimes they guess correctly.
More often, they're wildly wrong.
And that's half the fun.
There's something wonderfully entertaining about discovering that the battered trainer you've decided belongs to a rebellious sixteen-year-old actually belongs to the deputy headteacher.
Or that the glamorous party heel you've imagined belongs to a wealthy socialite is, in fact, owned by someone who spends most of their working day teaching Year 7 geography.
But the activity doesn't necessarily end when the students leave the classroom.
One of the loveliest things about the Shoe Lesson is what happens afterwards.
Staff who've lent me their shoes often come looking for me, or for the students who were working with their footwear, because they want to know what kind of character their shoe inspired.
And the students absolutely love telling them.
They explain the character they've invented, point out the details that influenced their decisions, and justify why they imagined certain habits, personalities, or experiences.
Sometimes the real owner is delighted.
Sometimes they're slightly horrified.
Either way, it creates a brilliant opportunity for students to articulate their thinking and explain how they developed their ideas.
And, perhaps more importantly, it reminds them that creative writing isn't simply about inventing something out of nowhere.
It's about noticing, questioning, interpreting, imagining, and making connections.
All from a single shoe.
How Long Does the Shoe Lesson Take?
I usually treat this as a full creative writing lesson, although it can easily be extended across two sessions if you want students to develop more substantial pieces of writing.
For a typical 60-minute lesson, you could use the following structure:
If you have more time, I'd recommend giving students the opportunity to revisit and improve their writing in a second lesson.
They could develop dialogue, explore their character's relationships, rewrite a scene from another perspective, or practise revealing personality through action rather than explanation.
And if you're planning to reveal the real owners, you can save that for the end of the lesson or arrange for students to share their interpretations with participating staff afterwards.
The structure is deliberately flexible. You can use the Shoe Lesson as a short character development exercise, a complete narrative writing lesson, or the starting point for a longer creative writing project.
And once students understand how much they can discover from one ordinary shoe, they're ready to start finding stories in almost anything.
Beyond the Shoe Lesson: 5 Everyday Objects That Can Inspire Extraordinary Stories
Once you've discovered how much creative writing inspiration can come from a single shoe, it's difficult to look at ordinary objects in quite the same way again.
Suddenly, the old key sitting in a kitchen drawer becomes a mystery. A faded photograph becomes a glimpse into somebody's past. Even a crumpled shopping receipt can offer clues about a person we've never met.
And don't even get me started on the things lurking at the bottom of a handbag.
What I particularly love about using everyday objects as creative writing prompts is that they're accessible to almost everyone. You don't need expensive equipment or specially designed resources. You can find inspiration in cupboards, drawers, charity shops, forgotten boxes, and the miscellaneous collection of things you've been meaning to throw away for approximately six years.
The principle is exactly the same as the Shoe Lesson: start with something tangible, examine the evidence, ask questions, and let your imagination do the rest.
But different objects encourage different kinds of storytelling. A key might inspire a mystery, while a photograph could lead to a story about family relationships. A map can take us on a journey, and a collection of seemingly unrelated possessions might reveal an entire character.
Here are five of my favourite everyday objects to use for creative writing activities, along with practical exercises for classrooms and independent writers.
1. Old Keys: Unlocking Secrets, Mysteries and Possibilities
I love old keys.
There's something wonderfully intriguing about finding a key when you have absolutely no idea what it opens.
Perhaps it's a tiny brass key that once belonged to a jewellery box. Perhaps it's an enormous iron key that looks as though it should open the gates of a medieval castle. Or perhaps it's an entirely ordinary front-door key, kept long after its owner moved away.
And that's where the questions begin.
Why was it kept? Does the lock still exist? Who might be looking for it? And what happens when somebody finally discovers what it opens?
Keys are particularly effective creative writing prompts because they introduce a mystery almost immediately. They suggest that something is hidden, protected, forgotten, or waiting to be discovered.
But they can also reveal a great deal about character.
Imagine somebody who has carried the same key on their keyring for thirty years, despite no longer knowing what it opens. Perhaps they can't bear to throw it away because it belonged to their mother. Perhaps they're afraid of what they'll remember if they ever find the lock.
Or perhaps they're lying about not knowing.
Creative Writing Activity: The Key That Shouldn't Exist
Give students an old key, or ask them to choose one from a small collection.
Begin by encouraging them to examine it carefully. Is it heavy? Decorative? Rusted? Modern? Does it look as though it has been used frequently, or has it spent years gathering dust?
Then ask them to invent three different explanations for what it might open:
The ordinary: A cupboard, a garden shed, an old suitcase, or a forgotten desk drawer.
The mysterious: A locked room in an abandoned house, a safe containing somebody's secrets, or a door that nobody is supposed to open.
The extraordinary: A room that doesn't exist on any floor plan, a passage into another world, or a door that only appears at midnight.
Students choose their favourite possibility and write a story opening in which their character discovers the key.
The challenge is to establish why the key matters without immediately revealing everything about it.
Go deeper: Introduce a second character who recognises the key and reacts with fear. Why? What do they know that the protagonist doesn't?
This is an excellent activity for practising suspense, foreshadowing, story openings, and the creation of narrative questions that encourage readers to keep turning the pages.
2. Old Photographs: Exploring Memories, Relationships and Different Perspectives
Photographs are fascinating because they capture a single moment while leaving almost everything surrounding it to our imagination.
And I wouldn't limit this activity to beautiful old Victorian portraits, either.
Yes, those wonderfully serious nineteenth-century family photographs are brilliant for historical fiction. The clothing, expressions, furniture, and formal poses provide plenty of details to investigate.
But so do photographs from the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s.
And there's something particularly glorious about a 1990s family photograph.
The questionable fashion choices. The patterned wallpaper. The enormous spectacles. Somebody's dad proudly sporting a moustache. A child looking deeply unimpressed about being dragged on yet another family holiday.
Absolutely magnificent storytelling material.
The wonderful thing about using photographs from different decades is that they can also introduce discussions about setting, social history, fashion, technology, and how everyday life has changed.
A photograph doesn't need to be particularly dramatic to inspire an interesting story.
Sometimes, the most intriguing image is a completely ordinary family gathering.
Everyone is smiling at the camera. There's a birthday cake on the table. Somebody is holding a baby.
But what happened five minutes before that photograph was taken?
And what happened five minutes afterwards?
Creative Writing Activity: Five Minutes Before, Five Minutes After
Give students a photograph featuring one or more people. Ideally, choose an image they haven't seen before and know nothing about.
Ask them to study the photograph and record everything they can observe.
Who is pictured? Where are they? What are they wearing? What might their expressions or body language suggest? Are there objects in the background that provide clues about the occasion?
Then introduce the writing challenge.
Students must write two short scenes:
Scene One: Five Minutes Before
What was happening immediately before the photograph was taken? Why had everyone gathered? What conversations were taking place? Was somebody reluctant to be photographed?
Scene Two: Five Minutes After
What happened once the camera was put away? Did everybody return to their celebrations? Did an argument begin? Did somebody receive unexpected news? Did someone leave and never return?
Encourage students to create a connection between the two scenes, revealing something about the characters that isn't immediately obvious from the photograph.
Go deeper: Ask students to choose two people from the same photograph and write their memories of the occasion, perhaps twenty years later.
One character might remember it as the happiest day of their childhood. Another might remember it as the day their family began to fall apart.
Neither account necessarily needs to be dishonest. People can experience the same event and remember it in completely different ways.
This makes photographs particularly useful for exploring character relationships, narrative perspective, memory, unreliable narration, and the difference between appearance and reality.
3. Shopping Receipts: Creating Characters from Everyday Choices
Now, this might sound like a slightly ridiculous suggestion.
A shopping receipt?
Really?
But hear me out.
A receipt can tell us a surprising amount about somebody's life, particularly when we start examining the details.
It gives us a location, a date, a time, and a record of what somebody bought. Depending on the receipt, it might even reveal how much they spent, whether they used a discount, or whether they visited a shop at an unusual hour.
Of course, none of those details tells us exactly who the shopper was.
But they give us plenty to speculate about.
Imagine finding a supermarket receipt dated 11:47 p.m. on a Tuesday.
The purchases include a birthday cake, a packet of candles, a bottle of milk, and a bunch of flowers.
Who was shopping so late? Whose birthday was it? Had they forgotten an important occasion? Were they planning a surprise?
Or perhaps the cake and flowers were never intended for a celebration at all.
Then imagine a completely different receipt containing cat food, duct tape, birthday candles, and a single lemon.
I have questions.
Quite a lot of questions, actually.
And that's precisely why shopping receipts make such entertaining creative writing prompts.
They encourage students to think about the ordinary choices people make, while introducing the possibility that those choices might conceal something unexpected.
Creative Writing Activity: The Mystery Shopping Basket
Create several fictional shopping receipts, each containing between six and ten items.
Try to make the combinations interesting without making every purchase obviously mysterious.
For example:
Receipt A — Tuesday, 11:47 p.m.
Birthday cake
Number 60 birthday candles
Milk
Cat food
Fresh flowers
A packet of tissues
Receipt B — Saturday, 7:12 a.m.
Disposable camera
Black bin bags
Birthday balloons
Three lemons
A notebook
Chocolate biscuits
Give each group a receipt and ask them to imagine the person who made the purchases.
Who are they? How old might they be? What were they doing before they entered the shop? Why did they need these particular items?
Then ask students to develop a short character profile using the purchases as evidence.
The next challenge is to write a scene explaining what happened when the shopper returned home.
Every item on the receipt must have a role in the story, even if it's only a small one.
Go deeper: Once students have created their characters, introduce one additional purchase that changes everything.
Perhaps the birthday cake was accompanied by a sympathy card. Perhaps the flowers were bought alongside a train ticket to somewhere hundreds of miles away.
Students must now reconsider their original assumptions and rewrite part of their story to accommodate the new evidence.
This is a particularly effective way to explore characterisation, inference, plot twists, and the importance of revising our first interpretations.
It also teaches a valuable storytelling lesson: ordinary details become interesting when we give them context.
4. Maps: Inspiring Journeys, Settings and Entire Worlds
I've always loved maps, particularly old ones.
There's something irresistible about tracing a route across unfamiliar places, discovering strange place names, or wondering what might exist beyond the edge of the page.
And maps are wonderful creative writing resources because they encourage us to think beyond individual characters and consider the world those characters inhabit.
You can use almost any kind of map for this activity.
An old road atlas. A tourist map from a seaside town. A map of a city you've never visited. A hand-drawn map of a neighbourhood. Even a map of somewhere that no longer exists in quite the same form.
Each offers different possibilities.
A road map might inspire a journey across the country. A city map could become the setting for a mystery. An old railway map might suggest an abandoned station, a forgotten route, or a town that has slowly disappeared.
And then there are the marks people leave behind.
A route highlighted in red. A destination circled three times. A handwritten note in the margin. A place name crossed out so heavily that it can barely be read.
Who marked the map?
Where were they trying to go?
And why?
Creative Writing Activity: Three Places, One Journey
Give students a map and ask them to mark three locations.
The first is where their character begins.
The second is somewhere they must visit along the way.
The third is their intended destination.
Before writing, students must decide why each place matters.
Perhaps their character is travelling to meet somebody they've never seen. Perhaps they're returning to their childhood home. Perhaps they're following instructions left in a letter, searching for a missing relative, or attempting to deliver something important.
Then introduce the complication.
Something must go wrong between the second and third locations.
A road is closed. A bridge has collapsed. Their character loses something essential. Somebody is following them. Or they discover that their destination isn't what they expected.
Students use the map to plan their story, considering how the physical environment might influence the events.
Would the journey be different in winter? What happens if the character has no car? Are there rivers, mountains, forests, or unfamiliar streets that create obstacles?
Go deeper: Ask students to redraw the map from their character's perspective.
Which places would they label as dangerous? Which would feel like home? What important locations might be missing from an official map?
A child, a tourist, a police officer, and somebody who has lived in the same town for sixty years might all draw very different maps of the same place.
This is a brilliant introduction to worldbuilding because it demonstrates that settings aren't simply backgrounds for our stories.
They influence where characters can go, what they know, the choices available to them, and the conflicts they encounter.
And once students begin inventing places beyond the boundaries of real maps, they're already taking their first steps towards creating fictional worlds of their own.
5. The Bottom of a Bag: Building an Entire Character from a Collection of Clues
Finally, we have one of my favourite sources of unexpected inspiration.
The bottom of a bag.
Handbags, school bags, rucksacks, coat pockets — anywhere that seems to accumulate an increasingly mysterious collection of miscellaneous objects.
You know the sort of thing.
Loose change. Hair grips. Old bus tickets. A pen that doesn't work. A shopping list from three weeks ago. A lipstick with no lid. A button that definitely doesn't belong to anything you currently own.
And, inevitably, approximately four thousand crumbs.
I'm not entirely sure how some of these things get there, but they do.
What makes this activity particularly interesting is that, unlike the Shoe Lesson, we're no longer working with a single object.
We're working with a collection.
Each item offers a clue, but it's the relationship between the objects that makes the character interesting.
Imagine finding the following things at the bottom of an old handbag:
A train ticket dated six months ago.
A photograph of two children standing outside a house.
A hotel key card.
A crumpled birthday card signed Love, Mum.
A tiny silver locket.
A handwritten note containing only the words Don't go back.
Individually, each object suggests something different.
Together, they begin to feel like the fragments of a much larger story.
Who owns the bag? Why have they kept these particular things? Which objects are important, and which have simply been forgotten?
And what happened that made somebody write that note?
Creative Writing Activity: What's in My Bag?
Prepare several collections of five or six everyday objects.
You can use real objects, photographs, or printed images. If you're teaching this in a classroom, small envelopes or paper bags work particularly well because students can discover the contents one item at a time.
Try to include a mixture of ordinary and intriguing objects.
For example:
Bag One
A cinema ticket.
A child's drawing.
A broken watch.
A supermarket loyalty card.
A photograph with one person's face folded out of sight.
A receipt for two cups of coffee.
Bag Two
A bus ticket.
A small bottle of perfume.
A library card.
A handwritten address.
A single earring.
A postcard that was never sent.
Ask students to examine their collection and create a character who might own everything inside.
They should consider the character's age, personality, relationships, circumstances, and recent experiences.
But there's one important rule.
Every object must have a reason for being in the bag.
It doesn't have to be a dramatic reason. The library card might simply belong to somebody who loves reading. The broken watch might have stopped working that morning.
But students should be able to explain how the objects fit into their character's life.
Once they've developed their character, ask them to write a scene in which somebody else discovers the bag.
Perhaps it's been left on a bus, found in a park, or handed into a lost property office.
What assumptions does the person who finds it make about its owner? Which objects attract their attention? Do they interpret the clues correctly?
Go deeper: Introduce one final object after students have completed their character profiles.
It should challenge something they believed about the owner.
Perhaps a bag they assumed belonged to a teenager contains a photograph dated fifty years ago. Perhaps the handwritten address belongs to a building that was demolished decades earlier.
Now students must decide whether to change their interpretation or find a creative explanation that makes everything fit.
This exercise is particularly useful for developing complex characters, connecting narrative details, and exploring how writers can reveal information gradually.
It also encourages students to think about the relationship between individual clues and the bigger picture.
From Individual Objects to Collections of Stories
What I love about these five creative writing activities is how easily they can be adapted.
A key might inspire a five-minute writing exercise or become the central mystery of a novel. A photograph could produce a short character sketch, a historical narrative, or an entire family saga. A shopping receipt might lead to a funny classroom activity or a surprisingly poignant story about somebody's ordinary life.
And a map can take us almost anywhere.
But I think the most exciting possibilities begin when we stop looking at objects individually and start putting them together.
Because what happens when the key, the photograph, the receipt, and the map all belong to the same person?
What if they contradict one another?
What if the photograph shows somebody who shouldn't have been there? What if the map marks a place that doesn't exist? What if the key opens something that has been locked for a hundred years?
Suddenly, we're doing more than developing characters.
We're building mysteries, exploring conflicting evidence, inventing histories, and creating connections between seemingly unrelated details.
And if ordinary objects can inspire all of that, imagine what we might discover when we introduce objects that are a little less ordinary.
Objects with strange histories. Impossible properties. Unsettling origins.
The sort of things you might find in a rather peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities.
That's where we're going next.
When Ordinary Objects Become Extraordinary: Writing Stories with Cabinets of Curiosities
So far, we've been finding stories in perfectly ordinary objects.
Shoes, photographs, shopping receipts, keys, maps, and the strange assortment of things that accumulate at the bottom of a handbag.
But what happens when we introduce an object that doesn't behave quite as it should?
A silver hairbrush that makes its owner impossibly beautiful. A pair of slippers with a rather sinister history. A mechanical nightingale that might be capable of remembering things its creator would prefer to forget.
Now things start getting interesting.
Because while ordinary objects invite us to imagine the people who owned them, extraordinary objects encourage us to question the rules of the world itself.
Who created them? How do they work? What do they cost? Who wants them? And what might happen if they fall into the wrong hands?
Suddenly, we're no longer simply developing characters. We're creating mysteries, exploring consequences, inventing folklore, and establishing the foundations of fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction.
And the wonderful thing is that we can approach these impossible objects using exactly the same techniques we used with the shoes.
We observe. We question. We infer. And then we imagine.
What Is a Cabinet of Curiosities?
Historically, cabinets of curiosities were collections of unusual, fascinating, and sometimes rather peculiar objects.
They might contain natural specimens, scientific instruments, archaeological discoveries, works of art, and artefacts brought back from distant places.
Long before modern museums became commonplace, these collections offered their owners opportunities to investigate, display, and make sense of the extraordinary things they encountered.
Of course, not everything in a historical cabinet was quite what its collector claimed it to be.
And that's part of what makes the concept so appealing for creative writing.
Imagine opening a cabinet filled with objects whose origins are uncertain, whose histories have been forgotten, or whose supposed properties seem completely impossible.
A bottle labelled Witches' Tears.
A ribbon embroidered with names nobody recognises.
A beautiful silver hairbrush accompanied by a warning that its owner must never use it after sunset.
Are these objects genuinely supernatural? Are they misunderstood? Are their stories inventions, superstitions, or deliberate lies?
Perhaps the collector believed every word.
Perhaps the collector was responsible for something terrible.
Or perhaps the objects are perfectly ordinary, and it's the people who owned them who are extraordinary.
A fictional Cabinet of Curiosities allows writers to investigate individual artefacts while gradually discovering the larger story connecting them.
And that makes it a particularly useful tool for developing mystery, atmosphere, characterisation, and worldbuilding.
Start with One Impossible Object
Let's begin with a silver hairbrush.
At first glance, there's nothing particularly unusual about it. Perhaps it has an engraved handle, delicate floral decorations, and a few strands of pale hair caught between its bristles.
We could approach it exactly as we approached the shoe.
Who owned it? Was it expensive? Was it a treasured possession? Why has it been preserved?
But now let's introduce something impossible.
The hairbrush makes anyone who uses it extraordinarily beautiful, but somebody else must suffer for every moment of beauty it grants.
Immediately, our questions change.
Who discovered its power? Does the owner understand the consequences? Can they choose who suffers? Would they continue using it if they knew?
And what sort of person would create an object like that in the first place?
This is where an object becomes more than an interesting prop.
It becomes a source of conflict.
Perhaps our protagonist discovers the hairbrush in their grandmother's dressing table. Perhaps they use it without understanding what it does. Perhaps they know exactly what it does and decide that the consequences are worth it.
Each possibility leads to a different story.
And each tells us something about the character making that choice.
Creative Writing Activity: The Object with a Terrible Price
Give students an illustration or description of an unusual object.
It could be an antique mirror, a pocket watch, a silver comb, a music box, a pair of gloves, or something as ordinary as a teacup.
Ask them to imagine that the object possesses one extraordinary ability.
Then introduce the most important part of the exercise:
Every gift must come with a cost.
A mirror might reveal the future, but each glimpse erases a memory.
A pocket watch might allow its owner to stop time, but only while somebody they love grows older.
A music box might bring a lost person back for one evening, but the visitor must take something away when they leave.
Students should consider what the object offers, who would want it, what price must be paid, and whether the owner knows about the consequences before using it.
Then ask them to write a short scene in which their character must decide whether to use the object.
The focus shouldn't simply be on describing its magical properties. It should be on the decision.
What does the character want badly enough to risk the consequences?
Go deeper: Ask students to imagine that the object has passed through several owners. Each person has used it for a different reason, and each has paid a different price.
They could write a series of short accounts, diary entries, or letters documenting the object's history.
This is a particularly effective exercise for exploring temptation, moral dilemmas, cause and effect, and the relationship between character motivation and conflict.
Give the Object a History
One of the easiest ways to make an imaginary artefact feel convincing is to give it a past.
Think about the objects we encounter in museums.
They rarely appear without context. We might be told when they were created, where they were discovered, who owned them, or what they were used for.
Sometimes that information is incomplete.
Sometimes historians disagree.
And sometimes an object raises far more questions than it answers.
We can use the same approach in fiction.
Imagine discovering a small silver mechanical nightingale inside an old wooden box.
Alongside it is a handwritten note:
Recovered from the nursery following the disappearance of Lady Eleanor. The mechanism continues to operate despite the absence of any visible winding key.
Already, we have several questions.
Who was Lady Eleanor? Why did she disappear? What was the nightingale doing in the nursery? Who wrote the note? And why did they think it was important to mention the missing winding key?
Notice that we haven't explained anything.
We've simply provided enough information to suggest that something unusual has happened.
That's often far more effective than revealing the entire mystery immediately.
Creative Writing Activity: The Museum Label That Raises More Questions Than It Answers
Ask students to invent an artefact and write a museum-style description for it.
Their label should include its name, approximate age, material, place of discovery, and a short account of its supposed history.
For example:
The Mourning Bell
Silver and bone. Date unknown.
Recovered from the ruins of an abandoned chapel. Local accounts suggest the bell was rung whenever a member of the village died, although no surviving records explain why the bell continued ringing for thirteen nights after the chapel was destroyed.
Once students have written their labels, ask them to swap with a partner.
Their partner must now write a short story inspired by the artefact, using only the information provided.
It's a wonderful way to demonstrate how carefully selected details can inspire an entire narrative without requiring a lengthy explanation.
Go deeper: Introduce a second document that contradicts the museum label.
Perhaps a witness claims the object was discovered somewhere else. Perhaps the date is impossible. Perhaps an earlier owner insists the artefact was destroyed decades ago.
Now students must decide which account is accurate, which is mistaken, and which might be deliberately misleading.
This introduces the idea that fictional documents can be unreliable, incomplete, or shaped by the beliefs and intentions of the people who created them.
When Several Objects Begin Telling the Same Story
Remember our activity involving the contents of an abandoned bag?
We gave students several seemingly unrelated objects and asked them to imagine a character who might own them all.
A Cabinet of Curiosities develops that idea further.
Instead of a handful of everyday possessions, we have an entire collection of mysterious artefacts.
Some might belong to the same person. Others might come from different generations, families, or places.
One object might explain something about another. A handwritten note might contradict a collector's description. A photograph might reveal that an artefact existed long before its supposed creation.
And sometimes, the absence of an object might be just as important as the objects themselves.
Imagine a collection containing a beautiful silver hairbrush, a pair of mysterious slippers, an unfinished letter, and a mechanical nightingale.
Perhaps each object belongs to a different fairytale.
Or perhaps all four are connected to the disappearance of a single woman.
What if the letter mentions the slippers? What if the nightingale repeats a name written on the back of the photograph? What if the hairbrush belonged to somebody who supposedly died long before the other objects were created?
Suddenly, the writer isn't just inventing individual stories.
They're discovering connections between them.
And those connections can become the foundation for a much larger narrative.
Explore a Ready-Made Cabinet of Curiosities
This is one of the ideas behind the Cabinets of Curiosities I've created for Ink & Insights.
Rather than giving writers a single prompt and asking them to invent everything from scratch, these collections provide illustrated fictional artefacts with intriguing histories, unusual properties, and plenty of unanswered questions.
For example, The Cabinet of Unnatural Curiosities, a companion to the Briar & Bone Library, explores strange objects associated with the dark fairytale kingdom of Rosenwald.
Among its curiosities are a silver hairbrush, a mechanical nightingale, mysterious slippers, and other peculiar treasures that seem to have escaped from the pages of a rather unsettling fairytale.
But the intention isn't to tell writers exactly what happened.
Quite the opposite.
The objects are starting points.
One writer might see a tragic love story in an unusual possession. Another might imagine a curse, a family secret, or a bargain that went horribly wrong.
A student might choose one artefact and develop a short story around it. A group could investigate several objects and construct a shared mystery. An independent writer might connect the entire collection into a much larger fictional history.
And because the artefacts are presented as objects from an imaginary world, they also encourage writers to consider the beliefs, traditions, and people who might have created them.
You can explore the available collections here, including Cabinets of Curiosities inspired by dark fairytales, Gothic mysteries, folklore, and speculative fiction.
They're designed to offer the same sense of discovery that makes the Shoe Lesson so enjoyable: the pleasure of examining something unfamiliar and wondering what story might be hiding inside it.
Creative Writing Activity: The Collector's Missing Artefact
Here's one final activity that works particularly well with a collection of mysterious objects.
Imagine that a collector has spent years gathering unusual artefacts.
Each object has been carefully labelled, catalogued, and stored.
But one morning, the collector discovers that something is missing.
The problem?
Nobody can agree on what the missing object actually was.
Ask students to invent a Cabinet of Curiosities containing five unusual artefacts. They should write a short description of each, including its appearance, history, and supposed properties.
Then ask them to create an inventory entry for a sixth object.
This is the missing artefact.
Students must decide why it disappeared, who might have taken it, and what consequences its absence might have for the remaining collection.
Perhaps the objects were never supposed to be separated.
Perhaps the missing artefact was keeping something imprisoned.
Or perhaps the collector has removed it deliberately, hoping nobody will notice.
Go deeper: Ask students to write three documents about the disappearance: the collector's official report, a witness statement, and a private letter.
Each document should reveal something different, and at least one should contradict the others.
This is a brilliant introduction to storytelling through artefacts and documents, where readers must piece together events rather than being told everything by a single narrator.
From Mysterious Artefacts to Imaginary Worlds
There's something wonderfully satisfying about creating a story from a single strange object.
But the more questions we ask, the larger the story can become.
Who made the artefact? What did its original owner believe? Where did it come from? What traditions surrounded it? Who wanted to destroy it, and who wanted to preserve it?
Before long, we need to imagine more than a character or a mysterious possession.
We need a place for that character to live.
A history that explains the object's existence.
Perhaps a society with its own customs, laws, superstitions, and conflicts.
And that's where object-based creative writing begins to develop into something even more ambitious.
Because if a single shoe can inspire a character, and a Cabinet of Curiosities can inspire a mystery, what could an entire fictional kingdom inspire?
Let's find out.
Final Thoughts
The Shoe Lesson has stayed with me because it’s a reminder of how powerful simple creative writing ideas can be in the classroom.
There’s no elaborate setup, no complicated instructions, and no pressure for students to be “original” on the spot. Just a single, ordinary object — and the space for students to engage in close observation, character development, and thoughtful creative writing.
It’s the kind of lesson that shows creativity doesn’t have to be loud or flashy to be effective. Sometimes, all students need is something tangible to begin.
And sometimes, that something is just a shoe.
