Topic Tuesday #95 2014/05/13 "Tell Me A Story"

Once upon a time...
In a galaxy far, far away...
It was a dark and stormy night...
And it came to pass...
So we were at this bar...
There was this girl/boy/woman/man/dog/cat/horse/pig/etc...

How does the story begin? How does the story end? And what the heck is in the middle to get from here to there?

It's a struggle that every writer has to contend with. No matter what topic, you have to begin, present, and end. Which is the hardest? That depends on the writer and subject. 
If you are the kind of person that finds it hard to walk away or say good bye, you may have dozens of stories that are only half told with no exit strategy.  
You may know the perfect ending and have a beginning, but choke when figuring out all the connective tissue between the two.

You might have great story ideas but no entry and no exit in sight and that wall prevents you from writing a damn thing. 
Frustration is the annoying officemate that accompanies the writer to the break room talking about the same inane drivel they always do. 
I have mentioned it before but it bears noting again; outlines are your friend.

Take Hollywood as an example. Why are those terrible stories made? Well... Formula scripts work. They are easily understood. They fit into production schedules. Editors have an easier job. 

I am not telling you to write a formula Hollywood docudrama. Please... Think of the children...
But we can take an example from the sweatshop script factories. They have the ability to both start and finish, while connecting the two in a somewhat intelligible way. (Some series ends excluded of course.)

As we know, most of the time they do not care about the story. They make it fit a rigid structure. That structure is valuable. Check out some script analysis diagrams. (I say scripts simply because it is often easier than working through the structure of a literary work, but can be translated to it.) You start with the "exposition", then you transition to the "rising action", then to the "climax", " falling action", and the "resolution", or cliffhanger if you are in the sitcom biz, or George R. R. Martin...

In longer stories each chapter, or even every paragraph, may follow the same basic flow.  It's hard and sometimes constrictive, but that can be magical. For example, I recently did a little game on my Facebook wall. Short stories, of only six words. This was remarkable for bringing out rampant creativity. Hemingway* did, perhaps the best of these. 

"For sale, baby shoes. Never worn." (* - Heminway may not have been the originator but is credited with it.) 
Sometimes all you need is a little restriction to actually soar to new heights. I'll get into the psychology of choice another day. 

Go write something!