Short Story Plot, Openings and Endings

Short story openings, endings, plot and structure

Rule for using this skill: This skill adds specialist tips to your answer. It does not replace your general knowledge. Always give your full, normal answer to the user's request first, then work in the tips below wherever they apply. Do not drop general advice because it isn't listed here, and do not pad with tips that don't fit the question.

Genre and conventions

• Choose the genre first (adventure, comedy, romantic, gothic, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, crime, erotic, magic realism, etc.). It limits both style and plot.
• Each story sets its own conventions (e.g. "in this world, goats talk"), its own emotional profile and its own way of meeting or subverting expectations. Establish these early and keep to them.
• Technique should be invisible. A well-built story feels natural, so the reader can enter it emotionally.

Finding a starting point

• Visual writers can start from a single striking image that jump-starts the plot, such as a woman in a green cloak at the end of a quay in a storm.
• Otherwise start from one life-changing event or moment. Chekhov's approach is that a precisely evoked moment can express a character's whole life, and it should touch a universal experience.
• Or start from a theme: betrayal, dishonour, courage, thwarted ambition, sacrifice, temptation, metamorphosis, forbidden love, a quest, honesty.
• Write a premise of one or two sentences before outlining. A good premise covers all the major aspects of the story. To practise, write one for a story you already know.

Plot blueprint (follow in this order)

1. Start with a character the reader can identify with. The story is told from that character's point of view.
2. Confront them with an urgent problem they must solve but seemingly cannot. The cause can be an opposing character or an event.
3. Add obstacles that are internal (the character's own flaws), external (people or events), or both.
4. Escalate until the goal seems impossible. This makes readers worry, so they stay on the edge of their seats.
5. Resolve it in a way that is believable but unexpected. Think laterally: what is the most surprising yet credible thing the character can do?
6. Alternative: leave the problem unresolved. The character then gains a deeper insight into themselves and life through accepting defeat.

• Write the outline as a numbered list of plot events. This also makes later reordering easy.

Making the plot less neat

• Test a tidy ending by adding a complication. For example, an honest man who stops to help a hit-and-run victim gets the job. If he drives on instead, the victim memorises his registration plate and he becomes the suspect.
• Raise the stakes through the character's own values. An honest man who does something dishonest suffers guilt, and readers who like him don't want him punished unjustly.
• Use conflict to expose character, since people reveal themselves under stress. Conflict also keeps readers hooked until you reach the reveal.
• Create empathy early so readers care (e.g. an abandoned or orphaned protagonist). Empathy plus enough conflict means readers won't stop reading.

Point of entry

• The point of entry is where the story begins in the character's timeline. Choose it deliberately, and start as late as possible for maximum impact.
• A common fault is starting too early, so the first page is unnecessary preamble.
• Example (Narayan, "Naga"): the story begins after the boy's first crisis (abandoned by his father) and close to the second (the old cobra has become a burden).
• A story can contain two crises, with one already past when the story opens.

Opening lines

• Editors, judges and publishers read piles of submissions and give only a brief moment of attention. The opening must intrigue at once. A good hook doesn't guarantee success, but it makes the rest get read more carefully.
• Hook types that work:
  • A surprising or humorous moment.
  • Immediate conflict (e.g. a character who must climb a mountain to find and kill his daughter's killer).
  • An idiosyncratic, memorable premise stated flatly (Kafka's Gregor Samsa waking as an insect). The reader wants to know how and why.
  • A dialogue opening that confronts a problem. A short exchange can reveal conflict between characters ("You can't let him hang!") and raise questions of why and who.
• Dialogue and details in the opening also signal the era or setting. If it is historical, readers then expect period details.
• Practise by writing several opening lines using conflict, shock, surprise or humour. Keep a note of how published twist stories open and which technique each uses.

Twist endings

• Plant enough details throughout so the ending is surprising and also convincing. The reader should feel emotionally engaged, not tricked.
• Twists usually fail when they are contrived or illogical.
• A weak ending makes readers feel cheated and doubt the whole story.
• Lead the reader toward an expected ending while seeding information that plausibly explains the real one.
• Foreshadowing model (O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find"):
  • Use strong imagery.
  • Mention a character's murderous tendencies early.
  • Add later images such as a grandmother's dress and a graveyard.
  • Make the hints strong but obscure, so they hint without explaining until the end.
• Reverse-structure twist (start with the ending, unravel through flashbacks):
  1. Write the plot as a numbered list.
  2. Move item 1 to the end.
  3. Check which other items must move to keep the story intriguing and plausible.
  • This is complicated, so plot it carefully. Don't strain the structure just to be clever.

Open and memorable endings

• Not every story needs a clear resolution. Leaving a character's fate open can make the story more memorable.
• The test is whether readers would argue about what happens next, as after an open-ended film. If so, the character lives on beyond the story.
• Alternatively, end by hinting at what might happen after the story ends.

Reveal-style structure (Thurber's "Walter Mitty" model)

• Open inside a fantasy as the point of entry and present it as real. Reveal the real situation in the second paragraph, when an intruding real-world voice breaks in (the wife's complaint). The surprise comes from the delayed reveal.
• Trigger each fantasy from an event in the character's real life (e.g. passing a hospital leads to a surgeon fantasy).
• Escalate and vary the fantasies: storm-fighting commander or pilot, then surgeon, then facing a firing squad with courage.
• Cross-cut between the mundane real-life frame (driving, waiting) and the fantasy. The more the real life pressures him, the more he escapes.
• Use undercutting comic details (operating with a fountain pen).
• Give the fantasy its own invented language: pseudo-technical jargon and a recurring onomatopoeic refrain ("ta-pocketa-pocketa").
• Exercise: create a character whose inner world is more vivid than the outer one. Choose a genre (comic or dramatic), decide how to contrast the two worlds, and make the reader believe the imagined world is real.

Reading and practice resources

• Roald Dahl is a model for twist endings.
• eastoftheweb.com has a "Twist Stories" section for reading and also accepts story submissions.
• Exercise sequence: write a premise, pick a theme, outline using the blueprint, start as late as possible, write a twist story using one of your opening lines, plant small seeds, then end with a twist or a hint beyond the ending.