I was working with a group of writers yesterday and we had two stories that got me thinking about starts. They were, in their own ways, object lessons in how to start a short story, but which took very different approaches.
However you start your story, you need to grab the reader from those first lines and both writers realised that there are no beginnings in stories because every tale begins in the middle of something.
One of the stories had us arriving in the middle of an event with the writer effectively saying: ‘Welcome to my story, stand here, next to me, you’ll pick it up.’
The second story hooked the reader through sheer force of writing, through a sense of place so strong you could so easily be there. Both worked beautifully.
The April Global Short Story Competition is a really quiet one. You can have ago at the £100 first prize at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
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