Once upon a time.
The fingers hovered over the keyboard. That was all very well, but how to begin? Yet the story had already started to evolve, the oldest of conventional openings had been used, one so deeply ingrained in the human narrative that four words were enough to let anyone know a tale had commenced.
The author exhaled. If 90% of life was showing up, then he’d made the grade. Of course it was never enough to begin, you had to see it through. Substance is expected. The meat of the story is in the plot, but to kick start the action, you needed someone winding up to hit the ball.
Once upon a time, there was a young woman who dreamed a very big dream.
The author smiled to himself. A promising opening. There was a bit of mystery. Only he knew where it was headed now, He had no intention of revealing that particular dream, not yet at any rate.
There must be an air of the familiar. He might make the girl a blue-skinned Martian stranded in another dimension, but he must not let her become entirely alien. She must be relatable. She must suffer the inner turmoil, the highs and lows of the human existence. She would face conflict, which sometimes she would conquer, but often would not. No one likes a “little miss perfect.” He would make the woman likable, true enough. Even so there would be times her actions and petty thoughts might make tempt him to pen her to an early grave. She would fall from grace, but she would rise again.
This time his fingers flew over the keyboard. It unrolled before him. Drama must be balanced with humor, action with sentimentality. It was a fine line he strode, keys passing beneath his hands like water under the bridge. Add a dash of romance, because no one wants to be alone.
It could be called escapism. A story is designed to free its recipient from the restraints of reality, or perception, or thought. It should bring the reader out of himself. The story embodies a person’s fantasies and fears. The audience wants reassurance, even as they taste of the forbidden fruit. In a story there is escape. Belief is suspended and transfixed the audience falls into the words.
He had been writing for quite some time now, but at last the flow of letters and punctuation slowed. A climax was needed. Everything he built would either come crashing down now or soar majestically on to yet unlimited heights. This was the moment everything hinged upon. Would she say, “Yes?” or “No?” would the world he had designed end as nothing more than a ravaged ruin?
He hesitated. Two roads stretched before the author. Which one would he pick? How would his readers respond? Which was right? There must be a resolution, but it all began, and ended, here. There is a grain of narrative truth in all stories.
He wrote––