First Line: Formula 500

First Line: Formula 500

Published 11 months ago

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We started with the short story, and now we’re moving onto the micro-story. The Shortbread Formula 500 is a competition where anything up to 500 words is your limit, so you have to ‘make every frame a Rembrandt’, as was the saying of film cameramen of old when describing the shooting of television adverts. This is a style of writing you can do anywhere, anytime – during your lunch break, in a bus or a train, or even stuck in one of those endless traffic jams. Choose your subject, choose your title, choose your plot – a beginning, middle, and end.

Shortbread wants to encourage everyone to have a go – writers and readers of all ages  - so now is the time to tune up your creative engine, psyche yourself up and hit that blank page at speed.

Last week I asked our Shortbreaders to send in some cracking "First Lines" and that's exactly what you all did! We received so many brilliant first lines, that we're going to do a number of these competitions in the future. To start us off we have a great first sentence from Thomas MacKay King:

A flash of phosphorus white flew low across the clear night sky followed by a dull thud, she felt the vibration come up through the ground and her legs quivered, the dogs began to bark louder than she could recall... then suddenly they were silent.

To enter this fortnight's competition, simply start your story with the above sentence and use it for inspiration while writing the rest. Keep to the 500 word limit and submit it us before Friday 13th of July. Good luck!

As this competition will judged by the community be sure to vote for your favourite before the 18th of July.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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