Whatever Happened to Fast Starts?

I read a lot of student-written short stories, and these days I’m left to wonder whether opening amid significant action, and with just a touch of mystery, has fallen out of favor. “I was in bed when I heard the gate.” So begins Raymond Carver’s story, “I Could See the Smallest Things.” Tobias Wolff’s “Next…

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And Then It Happened: A Story Prompt

You know how it goes. You’re going through an ordinary day—maybe it’s a Sunday, and you’re just taking it easy—and then just like that something happens to change everything. Maybe a visitor arrives, or a phone call comes, or someone says something they’ve been repressing, or they do something they never thought they’d do. The…

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