One of the entries which has just come into September’s Global Short Story Competition (which can be entered at www.inscribemedia.co.uk) illustrated beautifully one of the most important aspects of starting a story - remember that it’s not the start.
Sounds a daft bit of advice but all stories begin in the middle of someone’s life when much has already gone before, when people‘s lives are already well under way.
The trick for the good writer is to give that sense from the very beginning of the story and this one started with a line that did just that.
It gave us the idea that much had gone before, that it was set in a community with its own idiosyncrasies and histories.
That is good story writing. It immediately draws us into the world in which the story is about to unfold.
Talking of unfolding, there is still a week or so to enter the latest competition.
John Dean
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