56 I WRITER’S DIGEST I October 2019
WRITER’S WORKBOOK
white shark,” the fi lm Blue Water, White Death and Peter
Matthiessen’s book Blue Meridian. Th e confl uence of a
childhood fascination with sharks, his continuing casual
research into the subject, and three stories in three dif-
ferent mediums—newspaper, fi lm, and book—all led
Benchley to the big idea that became Jaws.
Start With the Scene That Foreshadows the Story Idea
If you truly believe that it is not possible to start your
story by introducing the story idea, then you can do the
next best thing: Start with a scene that foreshadows the
story idea. For our purposes here, a foreshadowing is an
opening scene that prefi gures your story idea.
Th e most famous example of this is the opening of
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which the three witches appear
as a bad omen, especially for Macbeth:
An open place. Thunder and lightning.
Enter three Witches.
FIRST WITCH: When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH: When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
THIRD WITCH: That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH: Where the place?
SECOND WITCH: Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH: There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH: I come, Graymalkin!
SECOND WITCH: Paddock calls
THIRD WITCH: Anon!
ALL: Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and fi lthy air.
[Witches vanish.]
Many fairy tales begin this way as well. In Charles
Perrault’s Th e Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, a king and
queen who waited years for a child celebrate their new
baby’s christening. Th ey invite the seven fairies of the
kingdom to the feast. But an eighth fairy shows up, one
long thought dead, and she curses the baby:
The old fairy’s turn coming next, with a head shaking
more with spite than age, she said that the princess
should have her hand pierced with a spindle and die of
the wound. This terrible gift made the whole company
tremble, and everybody fell a-crying.
At this very instant the young fairy came out from
behind the hangings, and spake these words aloud:
“Be reassured, O King and Queen; your daughter shall
not die of this disaster: it is true, I have no power to
undo entirely what my elder has done. The Princess shall
indeed pierce her hand with a spindle; but instead of
dying, she shall only fall into a profound sleep, which
shall last a hundred years....”
Th is is the scene that foreshadows the day when, 15 years
later, the princess does indeed prick her fi nger and fall
into a long sleep ... and, well, you know the rest.
To use a more contemporary example, consider Th e
Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. In the open-
ing scene, 31-year-old book saleswoman Amelia Loman is
stepping off the ferry to Alice Island, on her way to her fi rst
meeting with A.J. Fikry, owner of Island Books. She takes
a call from Boyd, her latest “online dating failure,” deter-
mined to let him down gently; only he’s insulting, apolo-
getic, and fi nally, weepy. Finally, she tells him that it would
never work out because he’s “not much of a reader.” She
hangs up and remembers her mother’s warning that “nov-
els have ruined Amelia for real men.” And as she nearly
walks right past the purple Victorian cottage that is Island
Books, Amelia worries that her mother might be right.
In this scene, the foreshadowing is subtle but clear:
Amelia needs a man who reads, and she’s about to meet
one who may seem unsuitable in nearly every other way
save that one ... but still, the possibility for romance is
there. NOTE: Th is moving novel is a book lover’s delight—
if you haven’t read it, you should because it’s not only a
great read but also a crash course in the business of book
publishing. Not to mention that Fikry’s hilariously genu-
ine rant on books he will and won’t sell in his indepen-
dent bookshop is worth the price of the book alone.
Start With the Scene That Sets Up the Story Idea
We’ve seen this one a million times. Th ink of the opening
scene of Star Wars, in which Princess Leia hides the plans