Lesson 3: The Writing Process
Scenes: Beginning, Middle, and Ending
In this section you will develop your outlines and learn how to start your short story. The information I present in this section will also help you prepare your outlines for writing a novel.
Suggested Reading Assignments
(1) Detective Fiction Stories--Shocker Endings by Janet Blaylock. Go to the following link: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/3056...
(2) You Can Write A Mystery by Gillian Roberts Chapter Eleven: Structuring Your Mystery
Suggested Writing Assignments
(1) In your notebook, you are to write a scene that you might want to include in your short story.
One way you can write an outline is to write down the main points you want to include in these different sections: Beginning, Middle, and Ending. This will also help you organize your thoughts and help you to include the most important information.
(2) Write down the following on separate pages: Beginning, Middle, and Ending. On each page, you will write some major points that you want to include in the story you will be writing.
Outlining Your Scenes Beginning: Catching the Reader's Attention.
Lawrence Block states in his book that "the first chapter does indeed sell the book. If it is to do so successfully, the reader must be caught up in the story as quickly as possible. Things must be going on in which he can become immediately involved. If you can open with action, physical or otherwise, so much the better." (111-112) If you start with a scene that will entice readers, then you have captured them, and they will keep turning those pages until the end. If the beginning of the story or book has a boring scene, readers will put the book down and forget it. Readers want excitement.
Gillian Roberts makes the statement that "[scenes] have in miniature everything your novel has--conflicts, characters, a crisis and a change." (65) Each scene needs to have these elements and to move the story forward. If your story isn't moving forward, then you're in trouble.
Make sure when you outline your scenes that you include the elements listed in the passage above.
Middle: Holding the Reader's Attention.
If you have a great beginning that will entice readers, then you don't want to let them down by writing a boring middle section. This section is where writers will continue to build the suspense and reveal clues. Also, you need to include in your outline the four elements that you listed in the beginning part: Conflicts, characters, a crisis, and a change. However, the situations the characters are experiencing will be different. Your clues will also be different. You will also reveal suspects and their different motives.
Ending: The Suspense Heightens
Now, you have reached the ending of your story. You will be heightening the suspense as the detective starts to close in on the villain. More clues are revealed, and more action. Finally, you will have a climax where the detective comes face to face with the villain. The battle has begun, and then the ending where the investigation is resolved and the villain is brought to justice.
However, you might be one of those writers who enjoys using shocker endings. If so, you hsould consider rereading Detective Fiction Stories--Shocker Endings to get a solid feel for them. (see the link above)
Structuring Your Scenes
Gillian Roberts mentions how "scenes are essential to fiction. Scenes have in miniature everything your novel has--conflict, characters, a crisis and a change. The situation is not exactly the same at the end as it was at the beginning." (66)
Writers also need to "vary the length of scenes and the number of characters in them. It's awfully easy to fall into the trap of having your sleuth slog from person to person, asking questions, getting answers and moving on." (66) When you have scenes that have different characters and different lengths, then readers will enjoy the story more. It won't be the same way throughout the book. This becomes boring to the readers. The plot needs to move along.
She also discusses transitions. A transition is what comes between two scenes. It moves the story ahead. When you are in one scene and you need to move to another scene, then you need to double space after the first scene, write a transition, and then continue with the next scene. This helps readers to know that the scenes have changed.
I have seen this a lot in books. Mary Higgins Clark uses a double space between the scenes, and she switches completely to a different character. Sometimes this gets confusing to readers, but it sure keeps up the suspense in her books. I keep wanting to read the book to find out what happened to the previous characters.
In Writing Mysteries edited by Sue Grafton, Robert Campbell wrote an article titled Outlining. In his writing, he develops a scene, he makes "a similar note locating it in a word map of the building, city, or countryside. For instance, in my book about Chicago I like to know what parish, political ward, and police district the build, house, or street corner, is in, even if I intend to fictionalize the locality for some reason or other." (108) It helps to write down the information you need for the particular buildings you want to use in your stories. When it comes time to write your story, the information will be handy and ready to use.
