Posts Tagged ‘Writer’s Angst’

Endings are hard.

I’ve been plugging through my current WIP and to get a feel for where I’m going I looked over the beginning for a few more clues about the ending.

This led me to the conclusion that beginnings are hard as well.

I think it’s much easier to write a story where the main character wants some concrete object. A bank robber works, because really, money is an easy object to want. However, when your main character wants something weird like the understanding of loyalty; well you have a whole bunch of weird loops to jump through.

First, how do you express this as a want without just coming right out and saying, hey, I want to understand loyalty. I think I screwed it up really bad in the past, but I can prove to you that I can be loyal now.

The only way to do it effectively is indirectly. However, people usually don’t get indirect in the first scene. Hopefully, I’ve left enough clues that something bigger is coming, that the reader will see beyond this bit of hand waving and continue to the second scene, which is where the real inciting incident takes place.

Normally, I would be very much of the opinion that the inciting incident needs to take place in the first scene of a short story, but it’s absolutely imperative that this first scene be there.

Clarity is often so difficult to achieve.