New Shoes

My creative writing students often want to give fiction-writing a whirl, but wonder how to begin.

One way is to picture yourself literally in someone else's shoes. My story "This Heady Thing Called Love" started just that way. In this short piece, which was just published by Brilliant Flash Fiction (https://brilliantflashfictionmag.wordpress.com/), I imagined a 19-year-old narrator who's getting all gussied up in a short dress and a pair of heels to impress a cad who cheated on her. In real life, at 19 I was sneaker-wearing student who was already in a long-term relationship, but in crafting this story I had the fun of trying on a metaphorical new pair of shoes, with the added benefit of gaining some understanding of an experience that was so different from my own.

If you've been tempted to try your hand at fiction, you might want to do something similar. Take a scenario that you've observed, and try putting yourself in that situation. How would you feel? How would you act? What shoes would you wear?