I have to write a narrative writing piece from an object's perspective and I'm so confused

[Doliner]

My creative writing professor just assigned the weirdest prompt: write a narrative writing piece from the perspective of an inanimate object. We have to choose something—a house, a pair of shoes, a tree—and tell a story from that object's point of view. I chose an old oak tree in a park, and now I'm stuck. How does a tree have a plot? Trees just... stand there.

Things happen around them, but they don't really DO anything. I've read examples where authors use inanimate objects as characters successfully, giving them depth and even a kind of personality . But I don't know how to make that work. Does the tree have feelings? Does it want things? Can it observe human drama and care about it? Has anyone done an assignment like this? How do you create a story when your main character can't move or talk?

 

[HudsonWild]

Trees are NOT just passive observers—they're active participants in their ecosystems!

Your oak tree could have:

• A mycorrhizal network connecting it to other trees (tree internet!)
• Squirrels that live in its branches and depend on its acorns
• Birds that nest in its canopy and sing at dawn
• A relationship with the sun, the rain, the soil

The tree's "plot" could be about its own life cycle. Maybe this is the year it produces a record number of acorns. Maybe a disease threatens it. Maybe a storm breaks one of its major branches and it has to heal.

Or focus on the humans: the old man who's been sitting under it every day for 40 years, and one day he doesn't come. The tree notices. The tree waits. The tree remembers.

Trees have memory. They respond to their environment. They communicate. They have preferences (they grow toward light). That's personality enough.

Read "The Overstory" by Richard Powers for inspiration—it's entirely about trees as characters with agency and depth.