When it comes to writing short stories, books, or novels, there are three main parts: the beginning, the middle, and the ending. Together these parts create the gist of every story. Most of us writers are familiar with them, but let's dive deeper into these parts, identify the tasks of each section, and examine how these all play out in a written book.
Let's say you're waiting for the signal light to change at an intersection. The light changes to green and you're given the right of way. Okay, now, let's say you turn onto another corner and run into a traffic jam where the light is red and cars are terribly congested in a long line. You're stuck waiting for quite a while until it finally changes to another green light, but the line slowly moves through the intersection. Finally, you turn onto another street, but you just pass through a yellow light before driving into a parking lot at your destination.
Ladies and gentlemen, as the above analogy example, this is the pacing of the average story. The beginning is where the story flows the fastest and everything is smooth sailing, the middle (sometimes called "the saggy middle") is typically the longest part of a story and where problems arise from conflict, and the ending is where the story comes to a place of reversal and a slow and calm finish. All right, it's time we buckle up, take the steering wheel, and maneuver our way through the details about what we can expect and should have within these three main parts of a story. Hold on tight, we're going for a long, wild ride.
On your mark, get set, let's go...đ
đŠPart 1: THE BEGINNING
At the start of every story, there are many things that take place. It's the introduction that leads to everything else in a story, and depending on the book sometimes may have a prologue before the first chapter. Prologues are "story openers" that consist of events that happen before the main event or events of the story. They aren't necessarily needed, but they can be a good device to use to foreshadow future events that will come later within a story. I used a prologue myself within my Christian and women's fiction debut novel, Eva's Promise about my lead character Eva and her wedding day before her husband gets in a car accident and suffers a severe brain injury. Other details at the beginning of practically every story are introducing characters, building settings, identifying characters' stasis, stating characters' goals , and acknowledging story problems.
đą1. Introducing Characters
One of the best and most fun things about writing a story is introducing your characters to your readers. It's my favorite thing whenever I start a new story or novel. As mentioned in my previous blog post about the six essential story elements, characters are the "beating hearts" that ultimately make stories come alive. Although your book, novel, or short story will probably have a whole crew of characters that includes major roles, supporting roles, and minor roles, it's especially important to ensure you always introduce your main character or protagonist early on in the story. He or she is the focal point that gets the limelight shined on them first and usually more than the other characters. Names, physical attributes, character flaws, character wants or needs... all these informative details of the protagonist and other characters should typically be mentioned ahead of time within the story before the middle, but especially for your main character.
đą2. Building Settings, (Main Setting)
Another thing that's early in your story is building your settings, especially your main setting. Perhaps your story takes place in a particular town, city, or country. Maybe you're a fantasy author and your characters live in some kind of exotic world. Whatever your main setting is, set it up where your characters are there at the start of the story. Afterward, branch out and consider stating the names of the main locales, streets, avenues, islands, or other places within this main setting. Describe these and other sub-locations within them in detail the more you set your characters in action scenes and dive within the storyline.
You can think of it as applying paint strokes to a canvas, adding a little bit at a time. For example, I state my debut novel takes place in a fictional town called Garden Ridge, North Carolina in the first few chapters of my book and gradually describe streets, avenues, and some of the locations within the town the more I develop the story. Establishing your settings this way and spreading them out across the story allows you to give portions at a time rather than shoving too much setting description down your readers' throats all at once. After all, you'll still have a whole 75% left of your story to describe your story's settings in your book.
đą3. Identifying Your Characters' Stasis
Within every short story, novel, or book, the protagonist or main character always has some kind of stasis or equilibrium at the start of the story before colliding with obstacles and other conflict. The picture above is a character arc diagram I created for myself and my characters. (đNote: I'll explain each of the five phases of my diagram in a future post.)
Yeah, I know. It kind of looks like a car gas meter, doesn't it? But it still shows the process of a character arc in simple terms. Although not for all characters, every protagonist usually has a character arc. Character arcs show the overall transformation or inner journey of characters over the course of a story. They begin in a state of condition and reach a new stasis by the end of the book. When coming up with your characters' stasis, consider answering the four questions below and making an info list based on your responses for each character:
What are your characters' beginning states in the story?
How do your characters feel about themselves?
What are your characters' flaws, fears, wounds, and weaknesses?
What are your characters' goals, needs, wants, and desires?
Once, you answer all these questions, consider also evaluating why things are the way they are for your protagonist and other characters' starting points to add extra details to the stasis of their character arcs. Identifying the stasis of all your characters is important because it lets readers know the heart of their issues, what internal struggles they have, what they need and desire, and what they have to strive to overcome.
đĄTip #1: CHARACTER ARCS ARE IMPORTANT FOR SERIES BOOK CHARACTERS. These literary devices help show the character development of story characters over time and how they change in each installment of your series. We'll discuss more later, as well as four helpful and simple categories I thought of to build character arcs for book characters of an overarching series.
đą4. Stating Characters' Goals
Once you've introduced your characters, established your main setting, and set a scene, the next thing that needs to be done is for you to state your characters' goals as soon as possible. In other words, what he or she wants to accomplish in the story. This applies to both your protagonists and your antagonists, as they'll have goals just like your lead characters. Hence, two opposing forces will be battling it out in a match like two teams in a soccer game.
đą5. Acknowledging Story Problems
Finally, the last thing to include in the beginning is your story problems. Make note of what issues your characters are faced with from other characters, animals, their environments, restricted laws in the government or society, or themselves. Think about and create problems that could arise as a result of the formula of your characters' goals, fears, weaknesses, wounds, wants, and needs. Decide on what needs to be solved within the story and why. For example, let's say there's a little sixth-grader kid who hasn't been eating his lunch and his mom threatens to ground him for the weekend. He's short and scrawny, wants to keep his lunch, and needs to stand up for himself. However, he's afraid of getting beaten up by a group of mean eighth graders.
Obviously, the problem is the kid's getting bullied. To note your characters' formula details, it may be helpful to make a chart similar to the one below. The following table below shows the details of the character example above by category.
âGOALS | âWANTS | âNEEDS | âWEAKNESS | FEARS | âWOUNDS |
âTo not get embarrassed or grounded. | âTo keep his lunch to avoid getting into trouble with his Mom | âTo stand up for himself | âPhysically weak, short and scrawny | âGetting beaten up | âAbandoned by his father before he was born |
Remember this equation:
GOALS + WANTS + NEEDS + WEAKNESS - WOUNDS + FEARS = STORY PROBLEMS
You might be wondering why I said minus wounds. Well, most characters typically have a past history or backstory before the story begins which are past wounds that have taken place in the characters' lives. You'll likely open the story in the present, but these emotional wounds are contributing factors to how your characters will function in the present story. However, most if not all characters will try to avoid facing these wounds due to their fears. Hence, minus wounds plus fears. These two components will develop internal conflict and make it harder for characters to reach their goals, wants, or needs. In other words, by using the goals and other details of your characters, it helps you add up your story problems.
đŠPart 2: THE MIDDLE
Dum...dum...DUM! (*horrific scream* đ±) ...The dreaded middle. Well, not that it's extremely terrible, but it's a fact that among writers it's almost always the hardest part of a story for them to write, and without the middle written there's a chance their manuscript may become an old file on their flash drive, or an artifact collecting dust in their closet and never get done. It's a sad truth many writers can relate to (including myself). Nonetheless, it doesn't have to be this way. There are particular tasks within the middle that can help writers avoid getting stuck and bring their stories to completion. These include setting off a trigger, increasing obstacles and complications, and identifying the climax.
đŽ 1. Setting off a Trigger
In order for the middle to unfold in the story, there needs to be a trigger or inciting incident. These could range from a number of things. For example, a phone call of terrible news from the police, which is what happened to my lead female character in my debut novel, Eva's Promise. While impatiently waiting for her husband to arrive for dinner at their favorite restaurant the Redfish Grill, she receives a phone call from an officer who she mistakes for her husband, only to discover from him that her husband has suffered a car accident from a deer-collision. Hence, the reason behind his prolonged lateness. Of course, you can "get the ball rolling" in several ways and with different levels of severity. Other examples could be someone waking up late for an important conference meeting at their job, a kid going to a new school, someone getting a devastating diagnosis from their doctor, or a family losing their beloved home to a house fire.
đĄTip #2: PLACE THE TRIGGER OR INCITING INCIDENT IN THE BEGINNING. The trigger or inciting incident should be at the start of the beginning or the end of the beginning, but it's also responsible for causing the following conflict afterward. Hence, why I've placed it under the part 2 middle section.
đŽ 2. Increasing Obstacles and Complications
Once you set off a trigger, the next thing is to increase the obstacles and complications that your protagonist and other characters get tumbled by within your story. As I stated in my previous blog post about the six essential elements of story writing, stories aren't complete without having conflict in them. Therefore, bring it on within the middle of your book. Like a domino effect, allow one situation to lead to another to raise the stakes and force characters to make difficult decisions. Make things challenging for them to keep readers invested in your story by considering and answering the below five questions:
What internal conflict do your characters have within themselves?
What external conflict are your characters faced with from the outside world?
Who or what things are at risk for your characters?
What happens if your characters don't overcome certain obstacles or complications?
What decisions must your characters make for a resolved conclusion?
If you answer these five questions, it will help you know how your characters' goals align with your story's conflict, what your characters need to do next to recover from these obstacles, and answer if they overcome them at all.
đŽ 3. Identifying the Climax
Finding the climax within the middle is probably the main reason writers sometimes get stuck on the middle part of their stories. But what is the climax anyway? Let's refresh our memory. Many writers refer to it as the highest peak of the plot where characters reach a breaking point after all the obstacles and complications thrown in their pathways. Others think of it as the most dramatic scene when the protagonist or main character confronts whatever conflict he or she is faced with in the story. Both of these are legitimate definitions, but sometimes beginner writers can confuse this event as being the end of the book.
But as Nigel watts states in his reference book Write a Novel And Get It Published
đšïž:
"The climax is not the fulfillment of the narrative journey..."
In other words, there's still more ahead before the story's over. Overall, the climax is the result of all the conflict the characters are challenged with, forcing characters into what Watts called, "the decision made manifest." Answering the two questions below can help you Identify the climaxes are in your stories:
What revelations have your characters come to terms with from your story's conflict?
How did your characters come to these realizations?
Once you know what your characters discover within themselves and their world during their narrative journey, you can then move on to wrapping up the story's ending.
đŠPart 3: THE ENDING
(Yippy! đWe're almost through...) The ending is probably the easiest part of a story for most of us writers. In fact, sometimes we know the ending of our stories before the beginning. I know that's happened to me with some of my stories during my writing journey. There are incidences where this can happen; but nonetheless, this part of the story is where we wrap things up into a nice little bow. Every story is different, but there are three specific things writers should include in their ending which are creating your characters' new stasis, shifting the story to a reversal, and concluding with the resolution.
đĄ 1. Creating Your Characters' New Stasis
(đŠžđ»ââïžđ¶Wonder Woman! Get us out from under. Wonder Woman! đ¶ *women singing*). Growing up in the 1970s, the original Wonder Woman played by Lynda Carter was one of my mom's favorite shows when she was a young girl, and being someone who watches a lot of classic, old shows, one of mine too. (But no disrespect to Gal Gadot...).
As mentioned above, the majority of characters have character arcs or go through a transformation, especially your main character. These arcs can be positive, negative, or flat or static ("non-changeable") depending on the type of story being told, but the important thing to keep in mind is characters should be different in some way by the story's end. Once characters come to their revelations as a result of the story conflict, this is where you create the new stasis of your characters.
By this, the characters have a renewed perspective and outlook on their life and situations, causing them to discover different things about themselves, such as their inner strengths, new abilities, repressed secrets, or hard truths that they had struggled to come to terms with. These details will then give characters an understanding of why certain obstacles came in their paths along their journey and motivate them to make a change of direction in the story.
đĄ 2. Shifting the Story to a Reversal
Ah, the reversal.... the gears of the story have shifted in another direction. Some writers aren't familiar with this term in story writing, but those of us who use the eight-point-arc method (as I do) are probably used to this turnabout word. In the book Write a Novel and Get It Published, Watts particularly states the reversal as the following:
"A change from one state of affairs to its opposite... which should develop out of the very structure of the plot, so that they are the inevitable or probable consequence of what has gone before..."
Basically, it's the consequence or outcome of everything that has happened previously in the story. It's also important that the reversal is logical and not just a "spectacle" as Watts said, or action that happens just for the sake of it. The reversal connects with the climax and all the other forms of conflict; which in turn, leads up to this pivotal reversal. Using the reference of the sixth-grader, some examples of a reversal could be the positive outcome of the kid finally defending himself and keeping his lunch or a negative outcome of the kid getting suspended and grounded by his mom for fighting his older schoolmates.
đĄTip #3: YOUR CHARACTERS' NEW STASIS CAN HAPPEN BEFORE OR AFTER THE REVERSAL. As long as your characters transform within the story, you could have their new stasis take place during the resolution or conclusion of your book.
đĄ 3. Concluding with the Resolution
Concluding with the resolution is pretty self-explanatory; and in some cases, is the last scene in a book. This is where the least amount of tension is, and where the characters close out the story. The story's pacing has slowed down and has regained a smooth equilibrium, kind of like putting a car into cruise mode. Usually, the characters also come to accept something they hadn't been able to before. Again, this shows the new stasis of their character arcs. All in all, whether a tragedy or a happily ever after, as a result of the reversal, here is where the story comes to a complete end.
đŁCLOSING REMARKS:
Well, writers, we've reached the finish line.... đ
The beginning, the middle, and the ending put together are what make our stories whole and complete. Without all three of these main parts, it would simply be impossible to show the overall inner journey of our characters for readers and the story arcs of our books. So, whenever you're writing a play, a short story, or a novel, be sure to include all three of these parts in your story. (And if you feel up to it, perhaps consider pulling out that old manuscript from your closet or desk drawer and finishing that book too...lol. đAlso, give this post a like (heart â€ïžïž) and feel free to share your thoughts and comments below. đŹ)
Happy Writing! đâđœđ»
đ€Which part is hardest for you to write?
The Beginning
The Middle
The Ending
Affiliate links are embedded in this post.
Comments