Story Starter: Frankfurt Colonnade


An interesting colonnade adjacent to Frankfurt's St Bartholomew Cathedral.

I’m going all arty for the Story Starter this week! I spotted this amazing colonnade in Frankfurt last week, near the Dom – St Bartholomew’s Cathedral, also known as the Kaiser Dom, or Emperor’s Cathedral.

Actually, I’ve just told a fib. It was my husband who spotted it. While everyone else was looking right and craning their necks to take in the magnificent Dom and its spire – which you can climb up; only 324 steps – his attention strayed left and was caught by this.

Isn’t it amazing? I don’t know the technical or scientific term, and I don’t know what the building is, but I’d call it an infinity tunnel – just extending on and on towards a vanishing point. (Which, yes, I realise, means it’s not infinity….) We both took photographs just because it was so eye-catching and interesting, but today it occurred to me it might generate an unusual story or two. Who knows what it might make you think of?

Just one small word of warning: if what it makes you think of is sci-fi, that’s not really our thing. And, more importantly, it’s not our readers’ thing. And we did ask them. Remember all that research we did last year? We included a sci-fi story in some test pages, and although one or two readers enjoyed it, and one or two didn’t mind it, overall the response was negative.

But that’s OK. There’s lots of other genres and styles we are happy to give them! To remind you, they’re young romance, mature romance (and I’ll leave you to decide when young transitions into mature!), period romance, family, junior (that’s a story told from the junior point of view rather than a story for children), humour, twist in the tale, and ghost. Oh, and general, which covers everything else.

So there it is: Frankfurt Colonnade. As usual, here’s a wee reminder of how the Story Starter works. Now it’s over to you. Still ideally 2000 or 3000 words, please.

 

 

Shirley Blair

Fiction Ed Shirley’s been with the “Friend” since 2007 and calls it her dream job because she gets to read fiction all day every day. Hobbies? Well, that would be reading! She also enjoys writing fiction when she has time, long walks, travel, and watching Scandi thrillers on TV.