Story Starters can be a fun sort of exercise to play with. The idea is this: someone gives you a phrase or sentence, and you start a story (or other piece of writing) with it, free-writing and free-associating to go to your own unique place from there. You don’t have to necessarily use the phrase or sentence verbatim, nor do you have to use it as a literal start to your piece of writing. You could introduce it part-way through. The story starter also might be an object, a piece of description, a bit of scenery or dialogue, or some other random fraction of prompt that you build a story around.
Think of it like having a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It might indeed be an edge or corner piece, or it might turn out to be a random piece from the middle of the puzzle, and you build the puzzle out around it.
Today, here are three random starters to choose from:
- “Please, close the door. I don’t want to let them out.”
- “That book, over there. That’s the dangerous one.”
- “She sat down on the couch carefully, as though trying not to disturb anything.”
If you want a challenge, try to work all three into the same piece of writing!
Leave a Reply