With any skill, we first learn by copying other people.
So if we want to write a story that begins with a shocking event, we could find someone else's story that begins with a shocking event and copy them.
For example, here's the opening of Gone:
One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone.
There. Gone.
No “poof.” No flash of light. No explosion.
Alright, so that's a shocking event. But how do we use it for our own story?
Like, there's no point copying it word for word, so... what?
Hold that thought; we'll come back to it.
Let's talk about patterns.
