A Flashback on Story Starters

In Today’s Journal

* My Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* TNDJ Contests Reminder
* A Flashback on Story Starters
* The Numbers

My Quote of the Day

“That your writing will ‘more than likely’ need ‘changes and midcourse corrections’ is some nonsense that you (like all of us) were taught by non-writers and by other writers who have listened to other non-writers.

“Actually, once you learn to trust your subconscious — once you learn to trust your characters to tell the story that they, not you, are living (and I’ll keep saying it until you get it) — your original voice will come through and you’ll begin to find your readership.” Me, to a mentorship student in May, 2019

A New Short Story

“The Storm”, one of my stronger SF short stories, went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.

The story’s also a good example of how to take your time while writing character description, and even how to seamlessly switch POV characters from one to the other and back in mid-scene.

If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else. Gracias.

TNDJ Contests Reminder

Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get info about your various TNDJ Challenges in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.

Of course, there is no cost and you can jump into any challenge at any time. The only requirement is that you intend to keep going. You can find the “rules,” including prizes, here.

Having a place to report really does help with your writing.

I’ll report the week’s results from the Bradbury Challenge first, then the Stephen King Challenge, then the Run With Harvey Challenge.

All three challenges are on-going. Feel free to jump into any of them, or into Bradbury and either of the others.

Back in early May 2019 I posted a “roundup of story starters.” That consisted of a few links to articles that were chock full of story ideas. (See below.)

First, a story starter is not what many beginning writers think of as a fully-formed story idea. It doesn’t have a beginning, middle, and end. It is simply a beginning: Character + Problem + Setting.

A story starter is a catalyst to drive you to the laptop or legal pad where you will type or write “Just after dawn (or at noon or at 3 p.m.), Character Name stepped out onto his porch, and….”

Or “Character Name crouched to tie his shoelace, and….”

Or “Character Name frowned at the door. That shouldn’t be locked. He….”

Or “Character Name scowled at Another Character Name. ‘What’s going on?'”

Or whatever else.

A story starter is a character with a problem in a setting. Period. And the problem in the opening doesn’t have to be ‘the’ big conflict of the story. If it isn’t, that will come later.

But in every case, the story starter has achieved its purpose. Its caused you to start writing the story.

Now you only have to write whatever happens next, whether its an action or a line of dialogue. Then keep writing. Write the next sentence and the next—lather, rinse, repeat—until the characters lead you through to the end of the story.

How will you know when you’ve reached the end? That’s a mystery, and I suspect it’s a little different for everybody. But if you only trust and follow the characters, writing down whatever happens and what they say and do in response, you’ll know when you’ve reached the end.

Okay, so in that original post back in May of 2019, I wrote

“The idea is to read any articles that interest you. If your creative voice leaps at some of what you read, write an opening. If it runs, run with it.

“Note: Not all of the story starters are limited to what the title says. Use your imagination. Happy writing!”

In the TNDJ post on the following day, I wrote

“I labeled one of the items in yesterday’s post ‘A roundup of story starters.’

“I shouldn’t have done that. I forgot how tightly most writers limit themselves.

“In my mind, ‘story’ is all-encompassing. It means ‘short story, novella, novel’ etc.

“But chances are, if you DON’T write ‘short’ stories, you probably didn’t click the links and discover the possible story starters.

“If you didn’t, I encourage you to do so. There are some great, creative-flow-invoking tidbits in those articles that will almost certainly pique your interest.

“And to address another often self-imposed limit, despite the fact all the articles are from CrimeReads, the ideas they spawn won’t all go to a particular genre.

“If you write fantasy, the ideas will move you in that direction. If you write romance or westerns or SF or whatever, they’ll speak to you in that way.

“The ideas are going into YOUR mind, so they’ll shape-shift themselves to suit what YOU need them to be for your chosen genre.”

Here’s the list of articles. I was amazed to find they’re all still available:

Talk with you again soon.

The Numbers

The Journal………………….. 870
Mentorship Words……………… 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 870

Writing of “Texas Ranger Wes Crowley and the Bank Robber”

Day 1…… 3686 words. To date…… 3686 (done)

Fiction for October………………… 58988
Fiction for 2025…………………… 637526
Nonfiction for October.…………… 20010
Nonfiction for 2025……………….. 230120
2025 consumable words………… 860077

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 16
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 120
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 306
Short story collections……………………. 29