Remember when emojis were a new tool for communicating? Maybe you don’t, but I was around when the dinosaurs died off and cell phones were the new toys. When we were given the ability to express ourselves with pictographs, I had this brilliant idea of writing an originally styled story.
I never did anything about this idea, but I had it, so five points for me.
Digging through an old pile of story ideas, I found this unhatched egg. We all know that if you don’t act on an idea, your muse will offer it up to someone else. So I wondered, had anyone else written a short story made up of emojis? I decided to poke around the web, and, yes, they have.
Since this type of story already exists, I can no longer suggest emojis as an original storytelling style. Nor would I recommend pursuing this approach. Reading some of these pictographies, I struggled to understand a single word (or rather, logogram) of them. Perhaps it’s because I was raised with dinosaurs, however, the mental gymnastics required to follow the story was more exhausting than entertaining. Even so, what if emojis could still be a useful tool in our stories?
Here’s my idea. As a writing exercise try telling the story you’re working on with pictorial symbols. Pictograms exist for so many genres (expressions, clothing, food, tools, etc) that you will likely find the images you need to build your outline. Keep in mind, that as you search through your options, you will also come across many weird alternatives. And chances are that one of those really weird alternatives will trigger that light bulb moment, and you will be inspired to add new depth, a love interest, or even a red herring to areas where you were once stuck.
It’s just an idea. Hopefully one that is better than the idea to write an entire story in ambiguous symbols.
Annie Harmon 
I am a word person and the idea of entirely or heavily employing symbols or images of any sort doesn’t turn on the writer in me. But remember the short script I wrote with pics and voice over that I suggest we make – that’s the closest I came to working images so prominently in my story.
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I remember! And you’re right, the wrong idea in the wrong mind, could be dangerous! Stay away from those emojis!!
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