"Beginnings, Middles and Ends" by Nancy Kress

A manual on how to write fiction, both short stories and novels, which is structured by focusing on the three sections of the story, as the title implies.

For me there were several key take-aways:

• Every story makes two promises to its readers: an emotional promise which says, “Read this and you'll be entertained, or thrilled, or scared, or titillated, or saddened, or nostalgic, or uplifted - but always absorbed.” (Ch 1); and an intellectual promise, that you will see this world from a new perspective or be transported to another world etc. These promises must be established in the beginning, developed through the middle, and fulfilled in the end.
• Stories are planned in events and then written in dramatic scenes, full of dramatic detail, in which characters are in conflict and in which something changes. (Ch 1)
• By the end of the second scene the reader should know the genre, the main characters, the tone, and what sort of conflict you are promising. (Ch 2)
• The middle is like a bridge which the characters cross, forming and reforming alliances as they do; some of the characters change during this journey. (Ch 4)
• In the middle, the author can keep on track by remembering (a) the motivations of the protagonist, (b) the narrator (which may change from scene to scene, and (c) the 'throughline' which is the single-sentence elevator pitch which describes what happens to the protagonist. Never do more than two scenes without returning to the throughline. (Ch 4)
• In the centre of the book, the protagonist must undergo a change. To make this change realistic there must have been dramatised scenes, showing the protagonist with conflicting motivations (the old one and the new one) which will lead up to the change that foreshadow it. (Ch 5)
• The end must be a climax. It must be justified. No deus ex machina or cavalry coming over the hill. (Ch 7)
• After finishing the story, you revise it by (a)  becoming the reader and annotating  to show where it drags or it is unclear; (b) by tracing the promise; (c) by analysing each scene to ensure it both advances the plot and develops the characters. (Ch 9)

I found this a clearly written and (potentially) very helpful book.

September 2026; 143 pages

Published by f-w publications in 1993

This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God