Post #190 October 28 2019

“Story Basics: Beginnings, Middles and Endings”

There’s an old saying about beginning at the beginning.  Often in my writing, I don’t do that.  I’ll begin right in the middle of the action.  But don’t forget the beginning.  If you drop a reader in the midst of some critical, page-turning action, you will have to bring the reader up to speed at some point. 

The website storysci.com says this: the beginning sets up the story.  The middle carries the story as our hero tries to achieve something important to him or prevent something bad from happening.  The ending pits the hero against his main adversary in one final contest and the hero either vanquishes his foe or fails magnificently. 

Recently I began writing a new science fiction short story called “Second Sun.’  Here’s my beginning paragraph…

Not everyone was happy about having a second Sun.  That’s why the Guardians sent me to Bernini in the first place.  Kisan Malakel, engineering inspector 1^st class for the Concordance.  I had an official job to do and that was to make sure everything aboard station Bernini was up to spec…the gas pulses streaming off Saturn’s atmosphere were coming in on schedule…the deflector controls were receiving and diverting the pulses properly into Jupiter’s atmosphere…the King of Planets was bulking up on schedule so the thing could be ignited on time…that all aspects of the Second Sun project were proceeding according to calculations.  Oh, I had a job all right.  But my real job was to sabotage the whole works, sabotage the deflector system, and get away before station Bernini was likely destroyed by an incoming pulse.

In my beginning, the ‘hero’ is a man named Malakel.  He’s come to do a job.  He briefly describes that job, then tells you that this is not his real job, that it’s a cover.  His real job is to destroy the very thing he’s come to inspect.

Right away, the reader is (I hope) intrigued. It’s not what you’d expect.  Moreover, the beginning paragraph drops you right into the middle of a potential conflict, for there are surely people who don’t want Malakel to destroy their station and will work to prevent it.  The beginning sets up the premise, hints at the conflict and leaves you wondering how it will all work out…all in the very first paragraph.  Plus, it’s just different enough to pique your interest.

It should go without saying that beginnings are critical to capturing a reader.  Just as in public speaking or teaching, both of which I do a lot of, the first few minutes are vital to setting the stage, establishing rapport with the audience and giving them some reason to keep listening.  You should do the same thing for your readers.

In the military, there’s an old axiom about training and how to make it work: (1) tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em; (2) then tell ‘em; (3) then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.  A lot of this applies to storytelling as well, although point (3) applies to the repetition so essential to learning, but not so much in storytelling.  Point (3) is really the climax and resolution of a story, where the hero meets and defeats his adversary.  Storysci.com calls this “the promise of the premise.”

Human beings as readers and listeners of stories expect a story to have certain characteristics.  We just wired that way and it goes back thousands of years.  You deviate from the formula at your peril. 

In the same way, understanding why the scaffolding is constructed this way will give you a much stronger frame to hang your story on.  It’ll keep you on course to produce the best story you can and allow you to focus on the other elements of a good story, the next of which is Point #2 of Story Basics: Show, Don’t Tell.

We’ll look at this one in the next post to The Word Shed, which comes on November 4, 2019.

See you then.

Phil B.