They gather in the field, each one of them finding something they hadn’t thought would be there.
Standing in the sun, the crisp air moving through the pasture, the scent of lilacs flows through.
The lilacs, like the people are window dressing for the start of a story, they are something to use, something to give the reader a taste of the future of the story.
Will the scent of lilacs be used later in the story? Will it ever come up again, who knows.
The story we tell, and the window dressing we use to invite readers into our story is what makes us writers. There are our tools.
The window dressing is only a peak, just as the field, whomever is in the field, the crisp air and the scent of lilacs is dressing.
Each of us use different things for window dressing, but it’s all window dressing.
Standing in the middle of the street, he waves his arm while another taxi flies past him.
The ledge he stands on suctions him to curb, the drop is hundreds of feet, but he still tries to get a taxi, even as another ignores him and flies by in a gust of air.
Depending on how you read the above, or whether you understand that the story is possibly science fiction, you see the story differently.
Each story is different because each writer is different.
Something you write may not be published when another writer’s work is, that’s just how it is, and genre doesn’t matter.
Our writing is ours; it belongs to no one else. We write because we’re writers.
What are you using for window dressing to pull readers in?