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My old writing teacher called me out on 14 years of starting stories at the wrong spot, and she was right
Ran into Mrs. Delgado at a coffee shop in Riverside last month, she taught my creative writing class back in 2008, and she asked what I was working on. I pulled up a draft on my phone, a little story about my dad's garage, and she read the first two paragraphs right there at the table. She handed the phone back and said, "You're writing the weather report. Where's the fight?" I laughed it off at first but she meant it, because I had opened with three lines about the sky and the driveway and a dog barking down the street, none of which mattered. After 14 years of writing prompts and drafts I still do this, I warm up the engine instead of driving, and I never noticed the habit. I went home and cut the first 300 words from that story and it finally started where it should, with my dad dropping a wrench and cussing. Now I'm going through old pieces and doing the same thing, and it's a little painful how much filler I was hiding behind. Do you all start prompts cold or do you write a throwaway paragraph first like I do?
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williamt7723d ago
Cut the throat clearing trick. Cold open, always.
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