Each of these leads tries to arouse a sense of curiosity in the reader. Most of them are strictly statements that suggest an event that takes place, an event that is relatively uncommon.

One is more descriptive, and I have always shied away from using too much description. I suspect that readers like a snappy, clean look. I'm not always sure that opinion is right, and I am aware that it may be a personal bias.

So, how do you get young writers to write interesting leads?

One way is to have them look at a photograph of a person or a scene or an event, and ask the student to tell you what he or she sees. Most students are quite good at reporting and will describe all the interesting details that the photo includes. The catch is to then ask the student to tell you what they don't see.

That is the essence of shifting the conscious mind into a state of uncertainty, and I think from that uncertainty comes the seed of a great story.

For example, if we look at the painting by Dali:

What we see is a picture of a woman standing at a window and looking out of a river. That much is clear. The colours are subdued and earthy tones seem to predominate the scene. But what don't we see?

We don't see what she is specifically looking at.

We don't see who else is in the room -- a man? children?

We don't see what she is thinking.

We don't see how she got to this place.

All these are the stuff of great stories because they entail an interaction between the character we see, and the life she lives outside this room.

Often the way into a story is through a side door. If the woman in the painting is the focus of the story, then perhaps the way into her life is through another character, a narrator who is as much a part of the story as she is.

What Next?

I have found that even the best beginning is no guarantee that a story will be a success.

A good story holds our attention from beginning to end, and by the end, we should feel satisfied, bemused, shocked, surprised, saddened -- some form of "release" for good or bad should occur. I use the word, "release," with a special denotation. The reader is virtually captured in the moment of the story, and when he or she is finished reading, the reader must feel able to go about his or her daily life again. That is not to say that the story shouldn't leave an impact on the reader. Some stories have stayed with me for days and months. However, the impact was a result of the fact that I felt a connection with some aspect of the story, as opposed to feeling confused or betrayed by something in the story that didn't add up.

There is a wealth of information on the structure of a story. For me, it has always come down to fulfilling the 5C rule. By this, I mean there are five essential components to a story, each beginning with the letter C:

• Character
  
• Conflict
  
• Consequences
  
• Climax
  
• Conclusion

In any story, we almost necessarily have a Character, who falls into some form of Conflict, that has Consequences in his or her life, consequences which must be resolved somehow in a Climax, or explained, if necessary, in a Conclusion.

The progress of a story is simply from getting into trouble to getting out of trouble.

This theory hopefully does not fly in the face of tragic stories, most of which have an "unhappy ending" wherein the main character dies or is banished or ultimately faces some such terrible result. In tragedy, the so-called "unhappy ending" still offers some form of resolution to a conflict. If someone has to die to solve the problem, so be it. I find the end of Romeo and Juliet almost numbing, but I also understand why Juliet plunges a knife into her heart. What other options did she have? It's unlikely that she would ever again know the transcendental romance that she shared with Romeo. Should she return to Verona and open a used bookstore? No, what she does flows logically from the events of the story and from Shakespeare's depiction of her character. It's an honest result, no matter how sad. It solves a problem, both on a personal level for her and on a social level regarding the somewhat idiotic dispute between the Montagues and the Capulets.

Developing Character

I have always maintained that character development is the key ingredient to a good story.

Generally speaking, I don't believe a good character is anything but an everyday person. I do, however, believe that the best characters are a bit quirky or at least are forced to resolve a quirky problem in life. That is, a good character is someone who does something or encounters something, no matter how mundane, in an unusual way.

This is not to say that every good character should be outrageous. Far from it. A character may simply face an outrageous set of circumstances in his or her life. For example, I don't think that Juliet is an outrageous character, but she definitely lives in an outrageous world.

And, for the most part, the world is just that: outrageous. If it weren't, there might not be any stories to tell.

Developing a character is simple. Just be honest. Try to encourage students to show by a character's words or actions and reactions what that character is all about. Suggest that they avoid simply describing a character's personality. There's a big difference between saying, "Meryl was the kind of person who was always late," and saying, "Meryl was late. Again." The first example allows the narrator to intrude into the story. The second is less intrusive, and while making the same point, it allows a more consistent flow to the story.

Young writers tend to see the world without much experience. They tend to idealize. They like larger-than-life characters. As a result, they will often descend into caricature. Real people become super heroes or super villains. It's somewhat like watching them take the harmless Dr David Banner and transform him into the Hulk. Young writers like the kind of empowerment that writing fiction affords them. As masters of their own universes, they tend to enjoy the thrill of control, and so they over dramatize. Ensure that students stay fairly grounded in their approach to writing. Flights of fancy are wonderful experiences, but like Keats, it's important for them to remember that they have "feet of clay," or their characters will lose all credibility.

So what makes a character interesting?

To me, George and Lennie in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men are not especially interesting until . . .

There, you see. It's not so much about the people as it is about the predicament into which these people fall or which they create for themselves.

When George shoots his best friend at the end of Steinbeck's novel, many readers think it's an outrageous act. It is. However, the two men were plunged into an outrageous world, and the solution, albeit a bit harsh by most people's standards, makes perfect sense. It is the release that must follow from the events that precede it.

The true test of a character's worth is in how he or she is shaped by the conflict that he or she faces.

Developing Conflict

If you are still teaching students that the definition of conflict involves something to do with man vs man, man vs nature, man vs himself, man vs the unknown, STOP!

Not only is that concept gender-biased, it also creates the notion that conflict has a singular polarity, which, I'm afraid, just isn't true.

In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willie Loman is in serious conflict with everything. I once had a student teacher who wanted to chart these conflicts based on the categories I mentioned above. I interceded in the nick of time, and suggested that the appropriate graphic illustration might be a circle rather than a chart. Fortunately, the student teacher was quick enough to get my drift. The conflicts that Willie Loman faces are not singular in nature. They are complex combinations of many forces. The paradigm is not a simple, straight arrow pointing at Willie's head; it's more like a beam of multiple particles bearing down on him. The cover illustrator for one of the text's editions got it right.

It's not as simple as this:

It's more like a diffuse force, something like this:

Willie's burden is the result of so many things that I'm not sure one could catalogue them all. Well, of course you could, but why bother. Too many would be overlapping.

If you must categorize conflict, then I suggest that you use but two categories:

• Internal Conflict -- the demons in your head, and
• External Conflict -- the demons you see outside your head who are trying their damndest to get inside your head.

When writing a story, we need conflict. It's what makes the character squirm, and that, in turn, makes the story interesting.

The conflict need not be a major catastrophe. I always use the Hans Christian Andersen story of the "Princess and the Pea" as an example. In the story, a princess must prove her worth by sleeping on a bed made up of twenty mattresses under which a somewhat cynical queen has placed a pea. When she is asked the next morning how she slept, she replies that she couldn't sleep and was all black and blue from something hard in the bed (the pea). Her sensitivity to the pea is assurance that she is a real princess.

It's a pea. It's a simple pea, and that is what drives the story and makes it fine reading.

Too often, students want to engage too many conflicts in one story. I've read student stories where someone was kidnapped by terrorists while working as an operative for the CIA in Afghanistan at a time when her family faced financial ruin and, just yesterday, her sister's dog died. Oh yeah, and she was pregnant with a love child and didn't know who the father was but was already booked on the Maury Povich Show to find out.

Good grief. Too much stuff.

Students must be encouraged to work with one conflict which may, by the very nature of conflict, be multifaceted. However, the focus must never waiver from the central issue. If Billy stole a bike, then we have conflict. There's no need trying to delve into why Billy stole a bike. Move them on to the consequences of Billy's action, and let's see what happens.

Consequences

The consequences of a conflict form the bulk of a story's plot line.

Oh, oh, some of you are already thinking plot graph, aren't you? Oh no.

Just as you honestly can't graph a conflict, so too is it somewhat futile to try and graph a plot. After my second year of teaching, I stopped drawing this on the blackboard:

I was teaching a story called "The Prize of Peril," and in the middle of the story there was a flashback, and I suddenly realised that plot never really moves forward or upward in a consistent way that we can map. Most plot lines are pretty squiggly and sometimes even do the loop de loop..

So I abandoned the notion for the idea that one conflict can lead to various consequences. It's a little like the cause and effect model where one cause can create many effects.

Billy steals a bike. Obviously, this conflict could create various effects. Maybe he will feel guilty and run (or ride) away from home. Maybe his theft will be discovered, and Billy will do hard time in Kingston. Maybe, Billy will find a job and make enough money to pay off his debt voluntarily.

Who knows? Whatever transpires out of the original conflict will make up the bulk of the story. This is the story's plot. What happens? What happens? What happens? I just have to know.

Still, the consequences or effects of the conflict must be consistent with one another. If Billy steals a bike and then decides to work a paper route to pay off his debt, then the effects are that:

• Billy realises his mistake
  
• Billy feels some form of remorse
  
• Billy makes enough money to pay for the bike
  
• Billy actually does pay for the bike
  
• Billy's conscience is relieved and he never steals again

Simple? Yes, and it has to be as simple as that for young writers. Oh, I know they'll want to put in there that Billy uses the bike to pull off a jewellery heist, but that's not allowed. That would be inconsistent with the direction the story is taking.

The Climax

The climax of a story is what ends the conflict.

When Billy pays for the bike, we're happy for him. He feels good. We feel good. Climax.

Somehow, the tension of the story is relieved, and everyone can go back to their daily lives. We're released from the prison of suspense and uncertainty. This is true even if the story ends with a death. "Bummer," we say to one another, but behind it all, we're still free from enduring the tension of the story any longer. Some of us would add, "Better him than me."  It's the same result. You get to leave. Go back to who you are, back to your own conflicts and sources of stress.

Some of your brighter students will ask if a story can't end with uncertainty. Of course it can. Who really knows what's happening at the end of Death of a Salesman or The Great Gatsby? I haven't a clue -- simply because I can't predict the future, can you? Regardless, such a question about