Now that we are familiar with the concepts, let’s see some examples of the Beginning, Ending, and Change worksheets in action. If any of the explanation was unclear, this is the easiest way to understand how this process works.
For our examples, we will be using a story I first sold to an online magazine several years ago, called Bad Water. The great thing about Bad Water is that it is flash fiction, so it’s very short, short enough you can read through it to understand the examples that follow. In the interest of space, I’m going to just link to the story elsewhere on my site, rather than copy it all here. It should open in a new window, so that you can just close it to return here.
Welcome back! Ready to go? Let’s dive in.
First, let’s look at Bad Water through the lens of the information we discussed way back on the first Endings page.
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- Change
Bad Water is flash fiction. It should still be a complete story. Is there change? You bet, when we get to the ending, things are different. If we fill out our Beginning and Ending worksheet, and they both look the same–that is a problem. That is a story problem that goes well beyond the scope of Endings. No change, no story. - Beginning
Back to the beginning. What promises did I make to the reader with my opening lines? The opening line of Bad Water focuses in great detail on the pond–you see the sun reflecting on it, see waves moving on it, hear Kirah curse it, and learn what trouble she has been through to get there.
I just promised you that this pond is important. Does the ending deliver on that promise? I think that it does. - Characters
Look at our characters here. For an ending to satisfy us, we would like to see the protagonist get what they want. We would like to see villains get what they deserve. You don’t always have to do this, but in this story, I chose to work for that type of ending.
This story has three characters, listed below in the order we care about them.- Kirah–is our story’s protagonist. We sympathize with her in her poor treatment from her master. We would like to see her free of this mistreatment.
- Mistress Eleny–is our story’s antagonist. We dislike her for her poor treatment of Kirah, and for the way we hear her thinking about her later on. We would like to see this one get her come-uppance.
- Jeran–is a minor character, even in this super short story. Still, he looks sad and he is stuck in a pond. Having no reason to dislike him, we would like to see him freed.
This ending delivers on all of those.
- Mood
Mood can be a tricky one. Was I going for a happy ending here? Not in your typical sense. This bit of flash fiction was based more around a gimmick than the characters–in this case the gimmick was the cursed pond that traps whoever last touched it. The ending I wanted in this story was more a sense of “dreading anticipation”–we know what’s about to happen, even though we don’t see it. Whether that succeeds is up to the individual reader, but from my perspective, I think I have gotten as close to it as I can.
- Change
So at this point we move on to our worksheets. Even for this short work, we’ll use all three.
| Beginning
Kirah fetching water; unhappy Jeran stuck in pond |
Ending
Kirah stuck in pond Mistress Eleny soon to be stuck in pond Jeran gone |
Change
Kirah needs to touch the water Jeran needs to be freed and leave Mistress Eleny needs to come to the pond |
This works out well–all of the necessary changes happen in the story–thus, the ending makes sense from the story as it’s given. We would expect that, though, from a story that has been published.
What if we change the scenario? Say I re-envisioned my ending:
| Beginning
Kirah fetching water; unhappy Jeran stuck in pond |
Ending
Kirah married to Jeran Mistress Eleny soon to be stuck in pond Kirah and Jeran inherit Mistress Eleny’s estate |
Change
Kirah needs to touch the water Jeran needs to be freed Kirah and Jeran need to establish a relationship Mistress Eleny needs to come to the pond Estate needs to be legally awarded to Kirah and Jeran in some sort of proceeding |
Now you can see we have some problems. The ending envisioned here is not what is written, for one thing. We could probably tack on an extra paragraph showing Kirah and Jeran living in the estate, regarding the sparkling they can see from the cursed pond.
We would still have problems. You can see that, of the five changes necessary to reach this ending, only two of them actually happened. If you read a paragraph at the end of this story like we describe above, it would come completely out of the blue. How could Kirah and Jeran be married when he left while she was stuck in the pond? How could they legally inherit an estate while the owner was missing?
For our re-envisioned ending to make sense, the story would need significant change. If I tacked on that ending and asked you to read the story, you would probably tell me you didn’t like it much. These exercises give me an opportunity to find and fix those problems before anyone else ever has to read it.
This has been a significant amount of material, but it’s a pretty simple exercise. If you do this with a larger story, you’ll notice that you’ve only actually verified a small amount of your actual story–the events of the ending and the tiny parts of the plot that are necessary to reach it.
If you’re ready to advance to serious story mechanics, making sure your entire plot and every scene in it works with your overall story, making sure you follow through on every promise you make to your reader, even the ones you don’t know you are making:
This is “the one” from Holly Lisle–“The One” that’s going to get that vague story idea out of your head and into finished form better than anything else. She’s going to teach you more than just writing this story though–she’s going to teach you systems to help you write, anything, always, from now on. She’s also going to make you work, hard.
This is Boot Camp For Writers.
How do I know? I’ve taken the course 🙂 And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of the things you learn you will use over and over again, some you will try once and set aside. And you’ll have a whole toolbox full of things to use when you need them.
And one that I’m so excited to be able to recommend to you…I’ve been waiting literal years for Holly to come out with this course, and when she did I bought it immediately. I’ve just started it, and I’m already so glad I bought it. It’s going to be work, but I can’t wait to see where it takes me.
Okay, so what if you already have a first draft? Well, here’s “The One” that’s going to make that first draft into something more awesome than you thought you could do.
Most writers think of “revising” as cleaning up grammar, spelling–prettying things up.
But this course will teach you revision that will make meaningful change for the better in what you’ve written.
How do I know? I’ve taken this one too 🙂 It was hard, but it’s a process I still use for everything I write. And it really brought things into focus for me.
I bet it can for you, too.
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