Story starters are a great way to get creative juices flowing. They are often used in writing classes and workshops to help writers come up with ideas for stories. The term story starter can be broken down into three parts: ONCE (4 letters), ESS (3 letters), and DATELINE (8 letters). ONCE is an adverb that means at one time or formerly. ESS is a suffix that means essential or basic. DATELINE is a noun that refers to the place and date of a news story. Together, these three words form the phrase 'ONCE essential dateline, ' which can be used as a prompt to start a story.