Let's start again short story competition

"Yes."

"What's that?"

"It's the opening word of my short story. I'm writing it for the 'Let's start again' competition. It's a strong opening don't you think? It's positive, short, catchy, but also intriguing. Who is saying yes to what and do they know what they're letting themselves in for? Do they really mean it?"

"I see."

"You don't sound impressed."

"It's fine, it's just that you'll never win the competition with that opening."

"How do you know, slagging off my magnum opus after just one word. I think it will be a fantastic story, once I've written it."

"It might be. It could be the greatest story ever. I'm just saying it won't win."

"That makes no sense. If it's the greatest story ever it's sure to win."

"Not so, I've seen how they mark these competitions, it's all a tick-box exercise. There's 50 marks available altogether and ten of these are for the opening paragraph."

"Ten out of fifty. That seems rather a lot."

"Exactly, so if your opening paragraph is just yes, then you'll drop at least nine marks straight off. Even if everything else about your story is perfect the most you can score is 41 out of 50, and that won't be enough to win."

"Oh, I didn't know that. The maybe I should start again and change the opening."

"I think you should."
.
"It's tricky, I was so set on that opening. What if... Maybe if... I know, what do you think of this for an opening: 'No,'"

"No? Thats no good."

"Too negative?"

"No, it's just one word, same problm as 'yes'. My point is that the first paragraph has to be long enough to stand a chance of getting the ten marks up for grabs."

"How do you think I should start it then?"

"Try this for size:"

'It was a dark night. The moon was clouded over and the sole illumination was the distant diamon-sparkle of starlight. Somewhere an owl hooted. Jack and Daphne, however, were oblivious to the starlight and the clouded sky, they didn't even notice the owl. All they saw, heard, smelt, felt and tasted was each other. Their eyes met, embraced in a deep, wondrous communication between their souls, sharing more in one extended gaze than mere words could say in a lifetime. At last Daphne spoke, "Yes," she said, a word so simple, pure and honest that neither of them could predict the shocking consequences of her affirmation.'

"Wow."

"You like it, yes?"

"Well, it's a bit long isn't it? I mean, for an opening paragraph. You want it to be short and snappy, to catch the reader's attention."

"Ah, but it's not for a reader is it? It's a competition, it's the judge you've got to think about. You know what competition judges are like, 90% of the stories they stop reading after the first paragraph, so you've got to put everything in it to show what you can do. That paragraph is 20% of the overall mark, after all. I reckon that you'd get at least nine out of ten for that.

"Nine out of ten? For that? You really think it's that good?"

"It's not good, but like I said, it's a tick-box exercise. You get marks for using dialogue (doesn't matter how good or bad it is as long as you use it. And they love giving marks for using more than one sensory description, it's supposed to demonstrate the writer's command of describing a scene."

"What, so saying 'somewhere an owl hooted' get's you extra marks. You should lose marks for that."

"It's better than 'yes' thoughisn't it. Anyone can write 'yes'.

"But yes is just the start, the first word. It wasn't gonna be the whole story."

"Might as well have been. You've lost the competition with that one word."

"Okay, I'll try again. 'Yes', she said, as the owl hooted in the dark background, 'yes I will marry you'.

"No, no, no, no, no. That's far too much detail. You don't want to explain the whole setup, it's just the first paragraph, keep the reader intrigued, let them guess what she's saying yes to. Make them turn the page."

"That's what I did do and you said it was too short, not enough in it."

"It was. Now there's too much in it."

"This is too hard. What's the deadline for this competition?"

"7th July."

"Two months. I'll never finish this by then at this rate. I've been working on the opening paragraph for a week."

"I've got an idea. Let's start again, a completely new approach."

"I'm listening."

"Instead of entering the competition and innevitably losing the £5.00 entry fee, because let's face it you're not good enough."

"Thanks."

"Just being kind, you need constructive advice. Anyway, instead of that 'yes' story thing you'll never finish, why not write a short story about not entering the competitioon."

"But then I won't win the prize."

"No, but you might get a cherry, for the novelty value, and you never know, Tony might make you his twitter pick of the day."

"That seems unlikely."

"It doesn't matter if it isn't any good, you see, he'll do it as a sneakyy plug for the competition Hundreds of people will read your story, think I can do better than that, and enter the competition."

"You're right, they will won't they. Hey, I bet they're reading this now. Good luck in the competition everyone."

"Yes, good luck everyone, and whatever you do don't start with 'Yes',"

"I still think 'yes' was a perfectly good opening. Have they gone yet?"

"No, you have to stop typing. Put the laptop dow