Google Zeitgeist as a Writing Prompt

So the folks over at Google Blogoscoped had a great idea. Use Google trends as a writing prompt.

For instance, if the top queries are …

1. subaru impreza
2. priyanka chopra
3. build a bear
… and so on …

… then your narrative may go like this, to quote from Simon’s try:

I went out and bought a brand new Subaru Impreza last week, which was very scary as I have only just passed my test. I took Priyanka Chopra, the Indian film star, with me to keep an eye on me and exert a calming influence as I was pretty nervous because the Impreza is wild beast of car.

“Let’s go build a bear”, I shrieked as we weaved through traffic, “an actual live bear that will do our bidding”.

“Good idea,” agreed Priyanka, “This bear could drive us around too, anything would (and so on) …

Morphs pretty well into a fun writing prompt that uses subjects that are, by definition, things people are interested in.
Ways to take it to the next level-

• write the zeitgeist as a character or historical figure
• use the words to take the pass the sentence game to the next level
• see who can make the longest sensible sentence with the fewest additional words (not listed in the trends list)
• constrain it further with a theme- a fairy tale, a haiku, a reality tv show
• you could compare different dates and research why the keywords differ

Stuff like that. I’d probably check the date out before hand just to make sure it’s decent and to make sure there are no “surprises.”

Photo credit John Bauer