【明報專訊】Winnie begins her story right in the middle of the action using the past continuous tense: "Estella was sobbing when she left the interview room." It is a short, powerful first sentence and it makes us eager to read on. Use the past continuous to set the scene when beginning to write (or tell) a story. She also uses a clever technique whereby Estella, the main character, doesn't actually have any dialogue herself. We only know her feelings through the narrative (敘述), like we're reading her thoughts. Use your narration to tell the reader about thoughts and feelings, not just actions.
Finally, in fiction, especially very short stories, don't be afraid to go to extremes! Make your baddies really bad (like Winnie's terrible chairman), make your unfair situations really unfair (like the cruel bullying of Estella's colleagues) and make your tragedies really tragic. In short fiction you don't have time to explore big topics like bullying and suicide with subtlety-you have to make people feel a lot in a short time!
