Page 121 - WritingMadlyV3

Nicholas Boothman
ally sufficient. You start the story on one bank, step
onto the different stones on the way across the
stream, and begin your close when you step onto
the opposite bank.
At the start, standing at the river’s edge, you set
up the story by declaring your hook and stating
your point. It’s here that you introduce the charac-
ter/s (the who), the location (the where), and the
time (the when).
Say you’re writing a book titled Romance Rehab and
you’re writing a chapter called “Reliving your Hip-
pie Years.” One of your headings is “travel agents,”
and you’re making the point that in today’s world
it’s best to use an agent for complex trips.
Instead of writing yet another first-hand story
about your own experiences, you decide to move
your adventures into the third person to make it
more interesting. You begin with the who, the
where, the when, the point and the problem.
So, instead of starting with, “Last summer I...”
you write:
Last summer, my neighbor Sammy decided he’d
use the money he stood to save by installing his
brand-new kitchen himself to take his wife for an
exotic holiday to South America. Little did Sammy
know that online booking was not the way to go.
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