How to Start A Story

This is the basics of the basics. Step one of a story.

There’s a trick to start a story that I can share with you and I got it from Ernest Hemingway.

How to Start a Story like Hemingway

Hemingway! But Hemingway was a genius! This is what Hemingway said he did:

Sometimes when I was started on a new story and I could not get going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

How to Start a Story with One True Sentence

The idea that to start writing you first need to write One True Sentence.What they’re talking about it is:

What you are trying to say.

We want to change their mind.

That’s the question, you see: what do you passionately believe? What makes you want to grab people by the shoulders and shake them until they agree with you? That’s One True Sentence.

 

Don’t worry about characters yet, don’t worry about setting, don’t even worry about plot. Think about something that you think is true. Write it down. Make it the truest thing in the world

 

 See also--> Choosing the Right Name for Your Story