I finally stopped staring at a blank page by using a weird trick from a 1990s writing book.

My problem was I could never start a story, just sat there for hours. I found an old book at a yard sale in Austin called 'The 90-Minute Novel' and it said to write the last line first. I tried it for a sci-fi prompt about a sentient city, scribbled 'The lights of Metroplex dimmed, finally dreaming of birds,' and the whole plot just fell into place from there. Has anyone else used a backwards method like that to kickstart a story?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaret3041d ago

My best scenes start with a single weird image.

juliag1010d ago

Oh that's a legit method, lol. I do something similar but with dialogue. I'll just write the weirdest, most out of context line two characters might say to each other, and then have to figure out how they got there. It's like building the whole story just to explain that one weird moment. For your last line thing, it makes total sense because you already know the feeling you're aiming for at the end. That last line about the city dreaming is such a cool mood to work backwards from.

simon71710d ago

I once started a whole novel because I had a line about a man trying to return a toaster to a library. Spent months building the world just to make that single interaction feel normal. Your dialogue trick is the same kind of productive madness.