Turn on the radio and take note of the first thing that is mentioned. Use it as the basis for a story of no more than 500 words. Imagine a character, someone who is central to what the story is about. Try to use clear, vivid language so that your reader can see the character. Use some of the characterisation techniques we have talked about so far:

physical descriptionthoughts and inner lifepersonalitywhere the character is locatedthe character’s back storyhow the character acts in the world.

You might not wish to include all of these various aspects in your story but you might like to know something about them nonetheless.

And if you wish, to help to get you started, use some of the starting tactics suggested in Finding a voice and More starting ploys (‘Emma said’, ‘I remember’ – or any other similar starting phrase.)