My niece asked why my stories always start with 'once upon a time'

I was helping my 10 year old niece with a school project last weekend. She had to write a short story, and I gave her my usual advice about starting with a classic opening line. She looked at me and said, 'But that's for fairy tales. My story is about a robot that finds a cat in a city.' It made me stop. I've been writing for years, and I realized I was stuck in a pattern I learned in a college class back in 2010. I always default to that safe, familiar structure. Her simple comment made me see how many new, weird story starters I've been ignoring by sticking to the old rules. I've been trying to write three new prompts a day since then, and they're all much stranger. Has anyone else had a simple question from a kid totally shift how you approach your writing prompts?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_adam14d ago

Kids really do cut through all the noise... makes you rethink everything.

masonm7014d ago

Totally true. My nephew asked why we work so much if it makes us tired and sad. Hard to argue with that kind of logic.

oliver_morgan1d ago

Read about the "laziness lie" lately?