Want to find an unlikely source of inspiration? Try reading obituaries. That’s right, obituaries.

Not the odes to famous people, but ordinary folks. The obits that families submit to the paper. The ones that show up on sites like Legacy. The ones that remind us that every life, no matter how “ordinary,” has a narrative arc or character worth understanding.

Why? If not for the humbling remembrance of your own mortality (memento mori is the Latin phrase), then as a creativity boost.

Obituaries as creative sparks

An article in the MIT Press Reader described reading obituaries as “The Creativity Hack No One Told You About.”

I enjoy a well crafted obituary as much as the next person, but as part of my creative process?

Yep. Here’s why.

Creativity involves making mental connections between disparate ideas and thrives with a wide range of ingredients. Obituaries are like small capsules of ideas that we can put to work. Through them, we encounter people and situations outside our usual realm.

The world is filled with a wondrous variety of people we’ll never meet. We can read about a few of them in the obituaries, taking a quick dip into a variety of lives told in abbreviated forms.

The Obituary Experiment

Read a few non-celebrity obituaries and take notes about what strikes you: life events, industries, accomplishments, intriguing details, or personality traits.

What you do with these notes is up to you.

• If you write nonfiction, perhaps you’ll discover something that sparks your interest—an unusual job or accomplishment. This might lead you to casting a wide research net. (See the Wide, Deep, Wide exercise.)
• If you write fiction, you might find fodder for a character, whether in a detail about a job or life situation.
• Pay attention to what is not said. Speculate about the relationship between the obituary writer and the person being memorialized (for creativity purposes, of course).
• If you write memoir, notice the themes that show up in the obit, and consider how they might play out in your own life.

Look for the small details as well as the broad strokes.

For example, in this NY Times obituary of Norma Yaeger, a barrier-breaking female stock broker in the 1960s, I noticed this bit about what she bought to wear when she set out in that career:

Before going to work at Hornblower’s Midtown Manhattan office, she borrowed money to buy snazzier clothing, an alligator-skin purse and three pillbox hats.

The alligator-skin purse and pillbox hats say a great deal about the time and the person. Noticing other writers’ telling details might inspire you to think of your own. What two items of clothing would represent you, or a character you’re drawing?

Try it yourself. Open up the obits and go meet the people, and lives, you never knew. Perhaps their spark will carry through in your writing.

More Like This

Read the obituary-and-creativity article here.

Watch the video on YouTube