Beginnings, Middles & Ends

1. Bridge the Gap: Craft Transforms Vision into Readable Story

The truth is that there's always a gap between the story as you imagined it—compelling, insightful, rich with subtle nuance—and what actually ends up in the manuscript.

Vision vs. Craft. The story in your head is a perfect, multi-sensory flash of inspiration, but words are linear symbols that build meaning slowly in the reader's mind. This inherent difference creates a gap between your internal vision and the story on the page. Vision (talent) is not teachable, but craft is.

Craft is teachable. Craft provides the navigation tools to bridge this gap. It involves making hundreds of decisions about what information to present, in what order, and how to phrase it. Learning craft helps you narrow the distance between your imagined story and the one readers experience.

Practice is essential. Reading about craft is necessary but not sufficient; you must apply what you learn through practice. Consistent writing and revision are the only ways to improve your ability to translate your vision into compelling fiction that engages readers.

2. Beginnings: Hook Readers with Promise, Character, Conflict, Specificity, and Credibility

The truth is, you have about three paragraphs in a short story, three pages in a novel, to capture that editor's attention enough for her to finish your story.

Make a promise. Every story makes an implicit promise to the reader, both emotional (entertain, thrill, sadden) and intellectual (new perspective, confirmation, different world). Your opening must signal this promise clearly. A satisfying story develops and delivers on this initial promise.

Four key elements. To capture attention quickly, your opening scene needs:

• Character: Give the reader a person to focus on, an individual, not just a type.
• Conflict: Hint that something is not going as expected, even subtly.
• Specificity: Use concrete, fresh details to anchor the story and show a meticulous eye.
• Credibility: Write prose that shows control over language (diction, economy, sentence structure/variety, parts of speech, tone).

First impressions matter. Editors and readers make quick judgments. Polishing your opening paragraphs to incorporate these elements is crucial for making a good first impression and convincing someone to keep reading your story.

3. Structuring Early Scenes: Choose Entry Point and Control Conflict

What do you want that first scene to accomplish in terms of your story?

First scene's job. The opening scene must introduce the initial situation and ideally show a change or potential change by its end. It should be dramatized, not summarized. The last sentence of the first scene is a power position that should evoke emotion or hint at future developments.

Options for scene two. After the opening, you can:

• Backfill: Provide expository background (use the "Swimming Pool Theory" - a strong opening allows for more glide).
• Flashback: Show a relevant past event (must follow a strong present scene, relate clearly, and have clear transitions).
• Continue story time: Show what happens next chronologically.

Control conflict level. When continuing in story time, vary the intensity of conflict from scene one. Avoid monotony by not having every scene be a crisis. A quieter second scene can provide contrast and allow characters (and readers) to react and plan.

4. Middles: Stay on Track by Defining Story, Viewpoint, and Throughline

The middle, then, is an enormously important part of your story, even if the term is more amorphous than "beginning" or "end."

Function of the middle. The middle develops the implicit promise by dramatizing incidents that increase conflict, reveal character, and position forces for the climax. It's a bridge from the beginning to the end, where characters and conflicts evolve.

Three vital decisions:

• Whose story is this? Identify the protagonist whose fate defines the book's plot and meaning.
• Who is the point-of-view character? Choose whose eyes the reader sees through (can be different from the protagonist, especially in novels). Commit to this choice after the first few experimental scenes.
• What is the throughline? Define the main plotline, the primary sequence of events happening to the protagonist, often condensed to one or two sentences.

Think in scenes. Structure the middle by deciding which events are important and interesting enough to dramatize in full scenes, which need only summary (exposition), and which can be cut. Focus on scenes that advance the throughline and develop character.

5. Character Development: Show Motivation and Capacity for Change Through Patterns

To make character changes convincing, four things must happen...

Understand motivation. Readers need to understand why characters behave as they do. Easily understandable motives require little explanation. Counter-expectation motives require a pattern of incidents throughout the middle to make them credible.

Show capacity for change. If a character changes significantly, show them being capable of change earlier in the story, perhaps in a different context or crisis. Foreshadow their major change by showing smaller changes or values they hold that make the shift plausible.

Pattern of experiences. Significant character changes in fiction are usually the result of repeated, convincing experiences, not a single, isolated event (unless it's highly traumatic). The events of the plot should form a pattern that makes the eventual change seem inevitable for that specific character.

6. Getting Unstuck: Diagnose and Address the Root Cause of Writer's Block

For me, as for many other writers I know, middles represent a genuine psychological problem: We get stuck.

Identify the cause. Getting stuck often stems from specific issues, not just a general lack of inspiration. Common reasons include:

• Fear of failure: Standards are too high (write a "simulation").
• Fear of success: Anxiety about finishing (set artificial deadlines, start a new project).
• Literary fogginess: Not knowing what happens next (plan, rethink characters/plot).
• Wrong direction: The story isn't working (abandon the outline, follow characters, or cut back to where it felt right).

Techniques to keep writing. Various methods can help break blocks:

• Restrict other word consumption (Gene Wolfe).
• Set daily page count or time goals.
• Use triggers (reading, music).
• Work on a second project.
• Engage in physical activity.
• Welcome blocks as a sign your unconscious needs time.
• Use rewards.

Focus inward. Changing external circumstances (quitting job, moving) rarely cures writer's block, as the problem is usually internal. Address the psychological or structural issue directly.

7. Endings: Deliver on the Implicit Promise Set by the Beginning and Middle

This is the clearest explanation of why some story endings work and others do not.

Fulfill the promise. A satisfying ending must deliver on the emotional and intellectual promise made at the beginning and developed in the middle. It must use the same characters, conflicts, and forces established earlier.

Bring forces to collision. The middle of the story arranges forces in opposition. The ending must show these forces colliding in some way—quietly or dramatically, depending on the story's tone. Evading this promised collision feels like a broken promise.

Match beginning and middle. Carefully consider what your beginning promised and what forces your middle developed. Your ending must plausibly resolve or culminate these specific elements. If they don't match, either the beginning, middle, or end needs significant revision.

8. The Climax: The Inevitable Collision of Forces Developed in the Middle

The climax is the point where something has to give—and does.

Culmination of throughline. The climax is the major event the story has been building toward, where the protagonist's change is demonstrated, the problem is solved, or the decisive confrontation occurs. It's the payoff scene.

Climax requirements:

• Satisfy view of life: Align with the story's implied perspective.
• Deliver emotion: Evoke feelings in the reader.
• Appropriate level of emotion: Match the story's overall dramatic intensity.
• Logical and inevitable: Grow naturally from preceding actions and character personalities (avoid deus ex machina or coincidence).

Character litmus test. A good ending grows out of who your protagonist is. If the story's outcome would be the same regardless of the protagonist's specific personality, the ending may not feel convincing.

9. The Denouement: Provide Closure Without Undermining the Climax

Everything after the climax is called the denouement, whose function is to wrap up the story.

Wrap up consequences. The denouement shows the consequences of the climax and the fate of any characters not accounted for. It provides closure, letting readers know what happens next without detailing the rest of the characters' lives.

Denouement characteristics:

• Closure: Give enough information so readers don't feel left hanging. Avoid the "let-readers-decide" stance.
• Brevity: Keep it short so it doesn't feel anticlimactic or drain emotion from the climax. The more subtle the climax, the briefer the denouement.
• Dramatization: Show, don't just tell, what happens, but keep the action relatively mild compared to the climax.

Epilogue option. Labeling the wrap-up an "Epilogue" is effective if it differs significantly from the main narrative in time, place, or style. It signals a shift and can offer a more contemplative view of the climax's meaning.

10. The Very End: The Last Paragraph and Sentence Carry Significant Weight

Often—not infallibly, but often—the last sentence or paragraph evokes the theme of the entire story.

Power position. In short stories, especially shorter ones, the last few paragraphs and the final sentence are particularly crucial. They are the last impression left with the reader.

Resolution vs. Resonance.

• Traditional plotted stories: End with clear resolution of plot complications and character fates, often embodied in a final action that evokes emotion.
• Contemporary literary stories: May not resolve plot but aim to resonate by examining a situation. Meaning is often carried through symbol and nuance, with the final action being slight but symbolic.

Thematic implication. Effective final paragraphs use action, symbol, or character thoughts to comment on the story's meaning while closing the plot. They often echo symbols or motifs introduced at the beginning, creating a sense of circularity or evolution.

11. Revision: The Essential Process for Transforming a First Draft

Yet revision is the single most important thing you can do for your work.

First draft is just the beginning. Finishing a first draft is an accomplishment, but it's not the end. Revision allows you to use the knowledge gained during writing to strengthen the story.

Organized approach:

1. Become the reader: Gain distance, read objectively, note strengths/weaknesses (use a "Sensitive Reader" if possible).
2. Tracing the promise: Check if the beginning's promise is developed in the middle and delivered at the end. Identify mismatches.
3. Scene analysis: List scenes, evaluate their function (plot/character), cut or combine weak ones, adjust pace.
4. Major rewrite: Revise in order (beginning, middle, end), incorporating notes and analysis.
5. Image patterns: Check for recurring images/symbols and their evolution.
6. Polishing the prose: Refine word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, and tone at the line level.

Commit to rewriting. Revision is where good stories become great. It requires effort and sometimes discarding significant work, but it's essential for creating a strong, publishable manuscript.

Last updated: May 19, 2025