Chalk Scribblers Workshop: The First 200 Words

Start your story with action, they say.

Start with a hook, they say.

Grab the reader’s attention from the beginning, they say.

Whoever they are, they’re a lot less likely to say how to do any of that so let’s discuss how to start a story in medias res: in the middle of things.
When someone skims the first few paragraphs of a story to decide whether it’s worth reading any further, those first few paragraphs have a lot of work to do which is likely to include at least some of the following:

• Introduce at least one character who the reader will want to get to know better.
• Raise questions so interesting that the reader feels compelled to read on to the answers.
• Introduce the setting in which the story is taking place.
• Set the tone for the type of story it’s going to be.
• Show that the story is written with enough skill to make it worth committing more time to.

Getting all that into a few paragraphs means that every sentence in those paragraphs has to perform double or triple duty, which requires a careful selection of the starting point. There are various ways to do that but as we’re exploring in medias res, we’ll be discussing how to do it through the medium of plot action.

Unfortunately, plot action is often misunderstood to be the sort of adrenaline-pumping kinetic action that typically opens Hollywood films but rarely works on the page. The written word offers a much broader range of approaches which include:

• Two characters meet for the first time and find themselves at cross-purposes.
• A character discovers something that requires further investigation.
• A character is embroiled in an event that reveals a key element of that character and/or a major theme of the story.

There are many other examples which we can explore.

As none of us are remotely qualified to teach creative writing, this will be a structured discussion rather than a taught session and that structure will begin before and end after the scheduled session. While none of the following is obligatory, the general rule of workshops is that what you get out of them is defined by what you put in. The structure is:

• Identify an opening passage of 200-250 words that makes good use of the in medias res technique. It may be from a novel, a short story or a narrative non-fiction piece but should not be written by anyone likely to be at the workshop.
• Send the passage to the event hosts by Sunday 15th June. It may take the form of a PDF attachment or a link to an online publication such as an Amazon preview.
• The passages will be sent to everyone signed up by Monday 16th June to read in advance of the workshop.
• At the workshop, each person will discuss how they thought the passage made good use of the in medias res technique.
• We’ll then go into a general discussion of the passages and of the technique in general.
• We’ll discuss how each of us can apply the techniques we’ve discussed, either by editing a work in progress or by writing a new flash fiction as an exercise.

See you there.