Beginning a Story
A beginning promises more to come. It should hook our attention, allow us entrance into the world of the story. Beginnings need to be full of potential for the characters (and the reader). Some simple ways writers do this is the following (taken from The Fiction Writer's Workshop by Josip Novakovich)
- Setting: setting sets the stage and raises our expectations, introduces us to location, time, and supports character, tone, mood and POV.
On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half-way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people.
- Ideas: While this can sometimes be dry or essay-like, it can also characterize a speaker, a place, an important motif or tone of a story.
“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them…”
- Imagistic or Strong Sensations: Imagery invites your reader to experience your narrative, giving you a good start. It also helps establish setting, usually.
1956. The air-conditioned darkness of the Avenue Theater smells of flowery pomade, sugary chocolates, cigarette smoke, and sweat.
- A Need or Motive: Need is essential for all major characters. It is usually what drives the conflict and characterization, also the plot in a story. Starting off with a motive or need is the fastest way to learn what characters want.
On his way to the station William remembered with a fresh pang of disappointment that he was taking nothing down to the kiddies. Their first words always were as they ran to greet him, “What have you got for me, daddy?” and he had nothing.
- Action: Action catches our attention.
The pass was high and wide and he jumped for it, feeling it slap flatly against his hands, as he shook his hips to throw off the halfback who was diving at him.
- Scene: Usually in one sentence, combines action, setting, and character.
Card-playing was going on in the quarters of Narumov, an officer in the Guards.
- Symbolic Object: Describe an object that has significance to your story, characters, plot. Usually a reader will recognize the importance of an object if mentioned in the first paragraph of a story.
An antique sleigh stood in the yard, snow after snow banked up against its eroded runners.
- Sex: Sex sells. It also gets our attention.
After I became a prostitute, I had to deal with penises of every imaginable shape and size.
- Character portrait: Introduces a reader to your protagonist or an important character.
The girl’s scalp looked as though it had been singed by fire—strands of thatchy red hair snaked away from her face, then settled against her skin, pasted there by sweat and sunscreen and the blown grit and dust of travel.
- Character’s Thoughts: Like a portrait, this one’s internal.
If I am out of my mind, it’s all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.
- Question: A direct way to motivate the reader, who often wants to know the answer to a posed question.
“Well, Peter, any sign of them yet?”
- Prediction: Creating an ominous tone, a prediction foreshadows or hints at the ultimate ending of a story.
Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents’ divorce.
- Anecdote: an anecdote (a short story) can introduce an important idea or theme, create a symbol, or set a particular tone.
The village of Ukleyevo lay in the ravine, so that only the belfry and the chimneys of the cotton mills could be seen from the highway and the railroad station. When passers-by would ask what village it was, they were told: “that’s the one where the sexton ate up all the caviar at the funeral.”
Helpful Writing Activities to Get a Good Opening or Hook:
1. In your journal write a variety of "opening lines."
2. Using your best opening line, begin a short story.
3. Hold a contest with a friend as to who can write the best opening line of a story. Practice coming up with ideas. When you come up with a great opening, write it down in your journal.
After the Beginning: now what? Working through the middle
You began typing the moment you had an idea. You started off strong. Now three sentences in, or three paragraphs, or even three pages, you've reached your first stumbling block: what happens next?
With prompts and experience, most writers can get started. What's difficult is continuing through a murky middle. Here are some tips to slog through the worst part of your writing experience:
1. Most of the time we get stuck when we don't know what our characters want. Give your character a motive (a desire, or goal, etc.) to keep him/her moving forward.
2. Forward march: Move the plot forward by adding conflict and action. Involve your characters in a specific action or direct conflict with another character. This is particularly helpful if you are bored.
3. Put yourself in your protagonist's shoes: go inside a character's head. This is a common error that young writers constantly forget to do. Get your character's perspective. What would you think in a similar situation? What would you see if you were in this scene? What would you notice? What would you say? What would you do?
4. Skip forward in time. No one said this story has to be chronological. Advance the time period and move forward with the plot. Skip a line to indicate you've changed time (either forward or backward).
5. Skip to another setting/location. Move your character to a new setting. What happens there? Describe the setting/location, and the actions of minor characters. Skip a line to indicate change of setting.
6. Skip to a scene happening at the same time, but in a different location. Skip a line to indicate a change of setting.
7. Skip to a different protagonist or the perspective of a new character. Skip a line to indicate a change of POV.
8. Press forward: If you need more time to research details and don't want to stop to look up a fact or information, indicate what you need to look up by BOLDING or CAPITALIZING a note to yourself. You can also insert NOTES using your word processor feature under the insert menu.
9. Skip to the next major plot point. If you know where the story is going, but don't know yet how to get there, skip a line and write the next scene.
10. Go back to brainstorming. Use your journal to try out some new things. If you don't know (or are stuck on):
- Your characters: write a character sketch, draw a picture of your character, or develop your character's background history
- Your setting: draw your setting, find a picture of an appropriate setting on the internet, describe your setting using imagery--what sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and sights would one experience in the setting
- Your plot: list possible challenges or problems that a character might face in a similar situation or setting. Decisions characters make (or don't make) often create conflict. Create a mind map or use a graphic organizer to focus on plot elements.
- Your theme: create a premise for your story. What do you want to communicate about the human condition? What lesson or experience are you trying to relate?
Endings
Ending a story can be difficult. Sometimes, if we are working on a deadline, our endings may be abrupt or sudden. If we do not know how to complete the narrative journey of our protagonist, we might end up ruining a story with a weak ending. Here are a few different types of endings we can use in our narrative stories:
Circular: The beginning and the end reflect upon one another, often using the same situation, setting, characterization, or even repeating the same line or idea presented in the opening. This provides a sense of parallelism in your story structure. It is best used when suggesting that the past and future of a character/story is similar.
Matching vs. Nonmatching: similar to a circular ending, the first image is transformed, and is repeated at the end. This is most like the pattern in music: theme and variation. The first image of the story foreshadows or suggests the last image. Sometimes this is obvious, othertimes the image is subtle.
Surprise ending: Often an ironic ending, or an ending that surprises the reader. The American writer O.Henry was a master of this kind of ending. It is often found in horror/suspense or mystery fiction. The "surprise" needs to be planned by the writer, who should include details that prepare the reader for the surprise, instead of "shocking" the reader, who usually resents this strategy.
Summary ending: A summary of the outcome of the story – this kind of story wraps the plot up very tightly, suggesting the future for the characters. No loose ends. This sort of ending has fallen out of favor lately, so use it at your own peril.
Open ending: used largely in contemporary fiction, the story doesn’t end nice and neatly (like the summary ending). Instead, it leaves an important question posed to the reader, so that the reader must interpret the ending. Caution: this can sometimes confuse a reader. It is best used for subtle effect.
Ending with an image/idea: ending a story with an important detailed image or idea that reflects the theme of the story can "stain" the idea or image in the mind of the reader.
Dealing with Writer's Block
Here are a few techniques to try when you've lost your muse:
1. Freewriting: Focus on a topic or theme and write everything you can think of or remember about your subject. Don't worry about grammar or punctuation. Just write what you can recall or remember. When stuck, go back and fill in details. Write "I don't remember" until you do. Keep your pen or fingers moving. Also called automatic writing.
2. Brainstorming: similar to freewriting, but less structured. Brainstorming is like throwing up on a page and seeing what you've been eating. While gross, this pretty much explains brainstorming. How to do it: Write as much as you can, ignoring all rules of grammar, literary style, and so on. You don't even need a topic or theme. Just write. See where it leads you. Write anything that comes to your mind: don't discard anything! This technique is a good one to bypass your inner critic, allowing you permission to make mistakes or illogical connections.
3. Trance Writing: similar to automatic writing & brainstorming, trance writing (popularized by Jack Keroac and other authors interested in "stream of consciousness") write about a chosen subject, but pay attention to grammar and plot as you write. Do not edit at this time or criticize your writing. Just write. Write with some idea where you might want to go, but allow yourself to listen to your instincts. Most of us do this while we are writing anyway. Sometimes this type of writing is called "brainstorming" or "freewriting" as well. Most students use this technique during a first draft.
4. Listing: Choose a subject and list or bullet each detail you can think of that goes along with that idea. Afterward, use the list to create a story.
5. Clustering: put a subject or word on your page and draw connections to related and unrelated ideas. This is also called "mind mapping".
6. Cave drawing: Draw a short doodle about your ideas or subject. Use the graphics to spark an idea for a story.
7. Allusion or borrowing: Use a word or phrase or line or sentence from another story and write until you cannot continue. Select another line or phrase or word and continue until you get stuck again. Then repeat the process. Be careful not to plagiarize!
8. Cut and paste: write a page of text or as long as you can go without stopping, then stop and literally cut up paragraphs, words, sentences, etc. and rearrange them in a new order.
9. Mix and match. Use any of these techniques to write a story. Mix and match the techniques that work for you.
