QWC Blog Post – Starting your story: if the door won’t open use a window

qwcIn  the lead-up to my short story clinic at QWC, I’ve written an article for the Queensland Writers Centre blog about how to start your short stories.

The thing to remember is that the short story starts in medias res – in the middle of things. You don’t have the luxury of telling your reader the history of everything and everyone who appears in your tale. You need to go in at the point of conflict, or very close to it … either before or after. For me a short story is about crisis, choice, and/or consequence. The closer you start to these events, the tighter the tale will be.

So: doors and windows. Sometimes your story just isn’t working. It’s too slow, your character isn’t right, you can’t get the narrative drive into gear – you’re boring yourself and if you, the writer, are bored, then your readers are most assuredly going to be bored.

So, what’s the remedy?

The rest is here.

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