Write a story that starts with a traumatic event. The opening lines could be the catastrophe itself or its immediate aftermath. The event could be the death of a friend, a Dear John letter, an overflowing septic tank, or a fall into a ravine. A story could begin: “I’m sorry but I really have to ask you not to call anymore,” Yvonne said, and hung up. She had sounded as if she were talking to a misbehaving child in her class. Wardle couldn’t make his hand unclench the receiver.

If you start with a traumatic moment, readers are intrigued. As in Last Lap, you have the chance to embed background information. Wardle could recall his last date, at the skating rink, when he pompously lectured Yvonne on the permissiveness of public education. His thoughts could go back to when he was seven years old, and his mother would call him “my little lawyer” and say that “the girls had better watch out,” and he always wondered what that meant.

At the same time, move the story forward. Characters reveal themselves by how they react when they’re upset. Does Wardle head to a bar to order tequila shooters? Does he go to the Museum of Modern Art to meditate on the Lachaise nude in the sculpture garden? Does he memorize Latin phrases from Black’s Law Dictionary?

Move on and keep interweaving the past. The pitfall of this shape is in making it too retrospective. After the opening jolt, can you just have the story sit there while someone mulls over the past? Generally, no. There are stories that start with a corpse (literally or metaphorically) and the rest of the story is how it happened. There are stories in which the character wakes up in a hospital bed in multiple traction. But the success of the story lies in immediacy. If the story seems to be happening right there, it will work. If it seems to be a remote reminiscence, it won’t. It will feel static, and readers will itch for the character to “do something.”

The events of the past work best as specific anecdotes, as flashbacks in the mind of the character. Readers should be able to hear Wardle’s mother saying, “‘A,’ of course you got an ‘A.’ What else should my boy get?”

A character in an upset state can be a powerful observer. Wardle now notices how his voice sounds whiny and demanding. Long-forgotten memories return—a little girl in ninth grade calling him a “total craphead.” Derailed by his trauma, he’ll do things that he ordinarily would not: Wardle walks into the Starlite Cocktail Lounge.

You don’t have to bring your character to a decision or a resolution or even to arrive at some major insight. A trauma generates its own energy. Readers want to know how it happened and what happened next, and that can create a story.

See Character, Exposition, Flashback, Intrigant, Premise.