Current Events > I am trying to start a short story. How is this for a start?

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The medieval church, nestled in the arms of the Austrian mountain range, intrigued tourists from every continent. The large stone cathedral perplexed modern historians as to how such an intricately crafted structure could have been fabricated with the limited tools and science available to 14th century engineers and artisans.
Benefiting from the yearly influx of tourists, a small town thrived below the world famous landmark offering a sleuth of restaurants with daily specials chalked in various colors on black boards which almost entirely halted the foot traffic on the already petite sidewalks common to this section of Europe. Hotels, ranging from single owner/employee inns stood alongside three story meticulously kept rentable living quarters with vistas granting spectacular photo opportunities with the unique architecture serving as the back drop.

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There once was a man from Nantucket...

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Where are the whores?

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Maybe instead of telling us about it, begin the story with a tourist coming from another continent to view this structure. He can muse to some random stranger about how he is so excited to see this perplexing structure according to him. As he begins on his way, the smell of the local food is overpowering causing him to want to stop and eat at a shop. As he goes into a bistro deli a loud sound resonates in the distance. Looking at his hands, he sees blood...

It's definitely good depth for a setting but where's the story?

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Sounds less like the beginning of a short story and more like a travel brochure.
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spanky1 posted...

Sounds less like the beginning of a short story and more like a travel brochure.

This.

I also got wikipedia vibes from it.

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Its too descriptive imo. I feel like this is information you could diffuse over the course of a few pages, particularly through the character(s) actually doing things in this setting. It gets pretty hard to read by 2/3 through


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Bananana posted...

Its too descriptive imo. I feel like this is information you could diffuse over the course of a few pages, particularly through the character(s) actually doing things in this setting. It gets pretty hard to read by 2/3 through

I am setting it up so a pair of tourists get stuck in this old church house with a haunted nun. It would be behind the church. Local legends speak of how the nun once killed a student with her discipline and the village below murdered her. One of the tourists, a mentally handicapped one, would lead the other tourist after visiting hours to a storage shack which transforms into the school with the nun.

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I kinda felt the opposite and wanted more details about the church...


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YourLovelyTina posted...

There once was a man from Nantucket...

I actually heard something on a tv show that started with that line, and then the next line wasn't anything profane or sexual.
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coolcono posted...

I am setting it up so a pair of tourists get stuck in this old church house with a haunted nun. It would be behind the church. Local legends speak of how the nun once killed a student with her discipline and the village below murdered her. One of the tourists, a mentally handicapped one, would lead the other tourist after visiting hours to a storage shack which transforms into the school with the nun.

start it there

2 major rules to story writing:

1. in medias res - start in the middle of a narrative, not a preamble
2. show don't tell - action rather than exposition

specialkid8 posted...

It's definitely good depth for a setting but where's the story?

This. There isn't anything here to give an opinion on. Try writing a chapter first then post that.

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WingsOfGood posted...

show don't tell - action rather than exposition

Both showing and telling have their uses, never cared for this advice.

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He met Mary at the local favorite; a tiny little bistro shadowed by an ancient medieval church. She often loved to come here to admire the artisans of the time long gone and imbue herself in the otherworldy gothic air. "Do you think it is real?" Tom said. "Ghosts? Ha! A girl can only dream." Though it was long her fantasy to meet spirits, Tom couldn't help but feel sick to his stomach.

Something like this eh?

Start the story where the story starts, rather than cramming in a lot of background information before we even know what it's the background to.

Also, be very selective with your background details/world building - and don't dump it in all at once - if a detail is relevant to the story then there will come a natural time to introduce it, and if it isn't relevant then question why you are adding it in the first place - a few bits of background trivia or anecdotal pieces are good for fleshing out the world, but the key to a good short story is economy of prose - you have less wriggle room than with a novel, so don't include paragraphs of superfluous information if you only have a few dozen pages to play with - try to include just enough: we need to believe the world exists beyond the story, but we don't need to know everything about it.

Here, for example, you have two paragraphs explaining that lots of tourists visit the church. Instead, why not start with the tourists that the story is actually about - they can be at one of the cafs in the town discussing their planned trip to the church, and you can casually mention that those chalk specials boards are in more than one language - this shows that people from all over visit without you having to say it.

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The idea for the characters was a pair of siblings. One would be mentally handicapped and the other would go off on a once a year vacation with the former. The handicapped sibling would be intrigued by something in the back of the original church, enter it without heeding the calls and warning of the latter.

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