Category: Advice

Beginnings pt. 3 – Beginning at the End

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This beginning seems the opposite of what is expected – the first paragraph of the story begins where the story ends. The rest of the story is then leading up to this point.

For the author the advantages include knowing exactly where the story will end up and so carrying that clarity through the rest of the story.

It is often said that an effective beginning cannot exist without knowledge of what the end will be. In this situation the writer creates both in the same paragraph.

For the reader it can build an intriguing atmosphere which causes them to want to read on (if done well).

However if you deliver too much with the beginning there will be little cause to read on. An insufficiently fascinating end/beginning may cause the story to hit the bin.

This is further to my earlier blog posts on beginnings:

https://magic-phil.co.uk/2018/01/02/beginnings/

and

https://magic-phil.co.uk/2018/01/09/beginnings-pt2/

I have been relaying some of the items I learned from writing courses about the options available for beginnings of stories.

All of these are story beginnings which I have created for different writing courses so they are not examples of perfection.

When creating these beginnings I focused on one character “Dave the Effective Detective” and I got quite fond of him.

However if there is a story for him I do not appear to be the man to bring it forth. So this is all we are likely to know about him.

Beginning at the End

A fly buzzes around the lamp.  The lamp still lit in the middle of the day but no one will switch it off.  On the bed, the long cool body darkens in the heat and the missing space that once held an accountant’s brain is now sprayed upon the wall.

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Do It

What You Waiting For.

I was reflecting today that older people keep trying to tell younger people things are a certain way and younger people don’t listen.

This seems to have been an issue for many generations.

I remember that there was a saying when I was a child “he has to learn the hard way”.

In which the hard way was to insist on learning by experience when someone had already told you what the outcome would be.

When you have twenty years or so left to exist it comes to mind that learning the hard way is too time-consuming and painful.

It is clear that spending a lot of life relearning lessons that others already know, which they have learned already and are trying to show you is a waste.

It took until my fifth decade before I began to get a picture of what other people were trying to tell me. In many respects when it is too late.

One of these is nicely documented in the song Time by Pink Floyd “No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”.

I found that I waited and then kept on waiting for someone to tell me when was the proper time to begin.

For example since I can remember I have wanted to write a book, there seems no reason that makes sense.

Perhaps once it was an escape from a 9-5 job or something that seemed better than dealing with members of the public or whatever was right for the time.

But as boring jobs ended, and life improved the ambition remained.

It is now plain that I gave myself excuses: no punctuation or grammar background; gradual loss of imagination; daunted by the task and so on.

But mainly I was waiting, waiting for a time to start.

If there was ever a way of passing a message to someone four decades younger. Then it would be: do not wait, do what you want to do – now.

There may not be a tomorrow for you to try to do it in…