Beginnings, Middles and Ends — Wrapping Up StoryADay September 2013

This week’s prompts took a structural approach to story. Each day we focused on element of story: the beginning of the middle, the real middle, the climax, the end and then we went back to look at the beginnings again.

This week, you should feel free to attempt a story a day, or work on the same story all week. You can even rewrite old stories paying particular attention to the structural element of the day.

Story Road(map)

Prompt 1 – Mess With Their Heads

Having worked on character (the real starting point of any story) last week, this prompt encouraged us to move quickly onto messing with them — creating the real beginning of the story.

Prompt 2 – Make It Even Worse

Ever got lost in the middle of a story? It happens all the time. One way to avoid the soggy midsection is to remember what your character wants and work on frustrating the more and more (and more).

Prompt 3 – The Bit Before The End

Now that it looks like all hope is lost, you can let your character fight back. Everything you’ve set up pays off now: it’s climax-time!

Prompt 4 – Writing A Strong Ending

It’s the end of September and time to look at the ends of your stories. We look at three different types of endings: when to use them and how not to screw them up.

Prompt 5 – Back To The Beginning

When you reach the end of any story, that’s the perfect time to go back and rewrite your first line…

Thanks for playing along during StoryADay September’s prompt-fest.
Don’t forget to sign up for news about the next proper StoryADay May challenge (which really is a Story A Day!).
If you need more writing prompts, bookmark this category. Come back as often as you need. You can also sign up for prompts by email every Wednesday and I’d love it if you’d play along by posting your short story here at the site each week and providing feedback for other people.
If you’re interested in investing in your writing development, get your Short Story Framework here. I don’t mail to this list very often, but when I do it is with news about courses (mine and other people’s) and books, tools, workshops etc. that I think are worth your time and money as a developing writer. Find out more about the StoryADay I, WRITER Course, here

Keep writing,

 
Julie
 

[Writing Prompt] Back To The Beginning

Now that we’ve concentrated on the middle, the climax and the end, it seem only logical to go back to the beginning.

The Prompt

Rewrite The Beginning

Tips

  • Go back through any stories you have written this month (or ever) and rewrite your first line. Strong beginnings are important and it is almost impossible to write a good first line before you’ve finished the story.
  • The ideal first line contains everything in your story: you character’s needs, desires, and where they will go on their journey through this story; setting, atmosphere, tone…
  • Spend a good amount of time on this. Try four or five different openings for each story you look at.

Go!

Thanks for playing along during StoryADay September’s prompt-fest.
Don’t forget to sign up for news about the next proper StoryADay May challenge (which really is a Story A Day!).
If you need more writing prompts, bookmark this category. Come back as often as you need. You can also sign up for prompts by email every Wednesday and I’d love it if you’d play along by posting your short story here at the site each week and providing feedback for other people.
If you’re interested in investing in your writing development, sign up for the StoryADay Creativity Lab mailing list. I don’t mail to this list very often, but when I do it is with news about courses (mine and other people’s) and books, tools, workshops etc. that I think are worth your time and money as a developing writer. I’ll be posting details in this list first about the next Warm Up You Writing Live Sessions — a three-week workshop hosted by yours truly, with writing exercises, audio classes, online forums and one-to-one coaching. Don’t miss out!

[Writing Prompt] Ending With An Ending

This week we’ve practiced starting with a character, progressing through the middle, approaching the climax, writing the climax. Now that September is drawing to its end, don’t you think it’s time to work on our endings?

The Prompt

Write A Short Short Story, Concentrating On Writing A Strong Ending

The End

Tips

  • Short stories have to end. You can’t just stop writing because you get tired and tell yourself you’re being ‘literary’. Even ambiguous endings have structure and purpose, when they’re well done.
  • You can tie everything up in a bow if you want. Answer all the questions, tell us who ends up with whom, whether or not the changes the character underwent in the story are permanent. Serve your reader their dessert, clear the table, stack the dishwasher, wipe the surfaces. The risk with this ending is that your reader will be insulted and left on the sidelines. Use a light hand. Give us the detail we need but don’t belabor it and remember to involve our emotions.
  • You can leave the ending ambiguous. Let the character act to answer a central question, but don’t tell us what choice they made. Let the reader decide. This is particularly effective if you have set up a big moral question for your character, or a life-changing choice. Let your character walk out of a door, or pick up a pen, or turn the ignition…You risk leaving your reader unsatisfied, but as long as all the other questions in the story are answered, you may be able to get away with having your character ride off into the sunset, leaving your reader to decide (based on what they have come to know of him during the story) what he’s riding off to do.
  • Give us a twist. As long as the twist is logical and not too much of a cliche, go ahead and surprise us. Twists can be sad or funny or sweet, but to be satisfying, they must not introduce any new information — no sudden new characters or magical fairies swooping in to save the day. Just something you have withheld or hidden. Think: O. Henry, Twilight Zone, The Sixth Sense. Your reader should be able to go back over the story and see all the elements that made the twist ending possible.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] The Bit Before The End

Remember when your teachers told you every story had a beginning, a middle and an end? Well, they missed a bit.

The Prompt

Write a Flash Fiction Story With Emphasis On The Climax
20130929-090052.jpg
I love disaster movies — even the really cheesy ones — so my story today will be a mini disaster movie.

I don’t have time, in flash fiction, to build up all the characters a disaster movie would visit at the beginning (the screw-up anti-hero, his ex-wife, the wise elder who’s doomed to die, the young person who hates the anti-hero but will eventually become reconciled with him, the comic relief, the unrequited love interest, the bull-headed person in authority who hampers the anti-hero’s efforts to save the world and, of course, the villain who causes it all through action or arrogant inaction…see? I REALLY love my disaster movies!).

nstead, I’m going to have to concentrate on quickly establishing my flawed character, what he thinks he wants, what he actually needs, his wise-cracking character and his long-suffering assistant/love interest. Then I’m going to wreck his life — quickly — which is fine, cos his life was a wreck anyway. Then I’m going to threaten the last people he cares about, just like we practiced earlier this week.

Finally, I’m going to really concentrate on the climax. I only have up to 1000 words, so I’m not going to be able to go the full Bruce-Willis/Sharknado here, but I’m going to put everything on the line and do my best to pull at the reader’s heartstrings.
FInally, I’m going to spend 100 words or fewer wrapping up.

Tips

  • Before you even start writing, imagine a killer climax
  • This mean you’re going to have to know your character and his/her problem before you start writing.
  • You’re also going to have to think of a few complications you might throw at your character.
  • How can you show the reader why this matters? (Disaster movies usually do this by having the main character’s best friend tell point it out in a conversation, wherein the anti-hero shrugs and makes a witty, self-deprecating joke.)
  • Don’t be afraid of the cheese factor. This is an exercise, not your last shot at literary immortality (and even if it was, someone got paid to write Sharknado, after all!)
  • Concentrate on your climax. Everything is at stake, but you don’t have to be writing a disaster movie to make this dramatic. How will your hero change to get out of this problem? If he’s a ranging drunk, can he put down the bottle? If she never talks back to anyone, does she finally stand up for herself? If she’s living under an oppressive regime, can she put three fingers to her lips in a gesture of defiance and have that gesture returned by the crowd (no, wait, that’s been done. But see how totally silent, non-violent act, can be electrifyingly dramatic?)

 

You have a maximum of 1000 words.

 

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Make It Even Worse

Yesterday we took your character’s dreams and dashed them in the middle of the story.

Today I want you to take your character, and their desire and cripple them not once, but twice. Of course you get to reward them with a little win in the middle.

The Prompt

Give your character a goal, frustrate them, let them make some progress but let it come at a  cost.

Darth Vader vs Obi-Wan Kenobi

Tips

  • Think about Star Wars, the great story-outliner’s tool: Luke wants to get off this boring little planet but his aim is frustrated by obligations and lack of opportunity. When his family is murdered he finally acts. His next aim is to find and rescue the sexy princess (spoiler alert: Ew!). Problem: she’s on the most heavily defended, most technologically advanced ship in the fleet of the all-powerful empire. Somehow he succeeds. Yay! BUT, oh no, they sacrifice Obi-Wan, his mentor, at the same time. Now Luke has a new mission: overthrow the empire. Fail, Strive, Succeed but at a cost, pursue next part of his ‘want’. [Check out this Narrative Map of the Hero’s Journey]
  • Put your character in an impossible situation. Let him dig his way out only to fall into a new pit. Only this time he knows a bit more about himself and what it’ll take to climb out. (Friends? A rope? Strong hands?) Let the character use what they learned in the first part of the middle, to achieve what they need to do next.
  • It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom or drama. If you’re writing humor you can still do this. Frustration is funny. Even throwing in a moment of tragedy is acceptable in comic writing. In fact, if you’re making your reader laugh until 2/3 of the way through the story, they won’t even notice the knife in your hand until you’re sliding it between their ribs. Bam! Will that pack an emotional punch?! (Sitcoms do this from time to time. Aren’t you surprised to find yourself suddenly sobbing during your favorite 30 minute comedy?)

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Mess With Their Heads

Last week we concentrated on character desires. Giving your character a ‘need’ gives them something to fight for and your reader something to root for.

This week we’re going to explore ways to continue those stories and finish them off.

The Prompt

Create A Really Big Problem For Your Character
CLIFFHANGER

Take a character or situation you have written about before and write the story again. This time, bearing in mind your character’s need, do everything you can to derail that character’s progress. Make it big. Make it bad. Do things to your characters that make your reader gasp “How in the world is she ever going to get out of that?!”

Tips

  • Try not to worry too much about how you’re going to get your character out of trouble.
  • Do have an end in mind (i.e. know whether or not she’s going to get the guy and whether or not that is good news, given her character need).
  • Just for this story, don’t fret if you can’t transition neatly from ‘oh hell, it just all fell apart from her’ to ‘aha, and here’s how she reacts at the end’. Allow yourself to be sketchy. Don’t try to write deathless prose. Just hash out the events, concentrate on the emotions and worry about clean up later.

Go!