I write a lot of blogs about the importance of strong beginnings to stories and was going to write another one when a terrific first line featured in one of the stories in the October Global Short Story Competition.
Then I read to the end and the final line was great as well. Which got me thinking about endings.
There is no single method of ending a story. Many writers don’t know how their story will end as they write the story so the ending emerges as the story is revealed on the page.
Other writers know how the story will end before they begin so they can focus on the resolution as they write.
There is no right or wrong approach. Short stories or novels can end in many ways. Here are a few common ways in which writers conclude their fictional stories:
Twist Ending: Sometimes the writer concludes the story with a twist ending. Readers are lead to believe that a story will end in a particular way then it ends in a different way.
Resolving Action: Sometimes the story ends with some final action that brings an end to the conflict, complete finality. All the loose ends are tied up.
Ambiguous ending: The story ends but the reader is left wondering what will happen next.
Above all, when writing endings, avoid the tendency to summarize. Don’t tell the reader what to think about the story. Let them discover it themselves.
Plenty of time to enter the October competition at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
John Dean
Monday, 7 October 2013
Friday, 4 October 2013
Reaching the world
From the UK to the US, India to New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates to Australia,
Norway to Ukraine, France to China, writers from all over the world are reading our blog here at www.inscribemedia.co.uk. We welcome you all.
Norway to Ukraine, France to China, writers from all over the world are reading our blog here at www.inscribemedia.co.uk. We welcome you all.
Honours go to Norway and New Zealand in competition
Judge Fiona Cooper has selected her winners for the August Global Short Story Competition and writers from Norway and New Zealand have taken the honours.
The £100 first place prize goes to Seth Townley, of Bergen, Norway. Fiona says of Contemplating Breakfast: “I love it when a writer presents a bizarre scenario as completely normal and sustains this throughout the work, as this writer has done. The surreal lifestyle and totally grungy surroundings are presented with wry humour - this is what happens when life just knocks you down to the underbelly and you're just clinging on and shuffling through. Richard Farina wrote a book in the sixties called 'Been down so long it looks like up to me' and this story could very easily turn into linked scenes and anecdotes which would evolve into a very satisfying novel. Excellent.”
Sally Franicevich, of Auckland, New Zealand, is our £25 highly commended writer with her story Carole Anne. Fiona says: “This writer uses beautifully sparse and evocative language which creates a strong atmosphere from the first sentence. There is that uneasy edge which tells you that something has to go wrong somewhere, but for all that, there is enough surprise to keep the reader emotionally connected and involved. Engaging the five senses brings a story to life and evokes real emotional response and this story is well crafted and satisfying.”
The writers on the shortlist are:
Jonathan Elsom (for Blind Date)
Jonathan Elsom (for Many a Slip)
Philip Corwin, London, England
James Alexander Allen, Redhill, Surrey, England
Winning stories will be posted on www.inscribemedia.co.uk where you can enter October’s competition.
Well done to our successful writers.
John Dean
The £100 first place prize goes to Seth Townley, of Bergen, Norway. Fiona says of Contemplating Breakfast: “I love it when a writer presents a bizarre scenario as completely normal and sustains this throughout the work, as this writer has done. The surreal lifestyle and totally grungy surroundings are presented with wry humour - this is what happens when life just knocks you down to the underbelly and you're just clinging on and shuffling through. Richard Farina wrote a book in the sixties called 'Been down so long it looks like up to me' and this story could very easily turn into linked scenes and anecdotes which would evolve into a very satisfying novel. Excellent.”
Sally Franicevich, of Auckland, New Zealand, is our £25 highly commended writer with her story Carole Anne. Fiona says: “This writer uses beautifully sparse and evocative language which creates a strong atmosphere from the first sentence. There is that uneasy edge which tells you that something has to go wrong somewhere, but for all that, there is enough surprise to keep the reader emotionally connected and involved. Engaging the five senses brings a story to life and evokes real emotional response and this story is well crafted and satisfying.”
The writers on the shortlist are:
Jonathan Elsom (for Blind Date)
Jonathan Elsom (for Many a Slip)
Philip Corwin, London, England
James Alexander Allen, Redhill, Surrey, England
Winning stories will be posted on www.inscribemedia.co.uk where you can enter October’s competition.
Well done to our successful writers.
John Dean
Thursday, 3 October 2013
Winners to be announcd
We’ll announce the winners of the August Global Short Story Competition here tomorrow (Friday October 4).
The view from the author
Writers must make a major decision before they start writing: which viewpoint?
Most authors go for the conventional third person approach in the past tense. It is my natural instinct, too. I like it because it means I am standing above the action in the role of nebulous narrator.
I can look down and draw attention to events happening in various places, creating tension and variety. It works beautifully for novels: it can be very effective if my detective thinks someone is innocent and the reader knows the opposite.
However, many of the entries into the monthly Global Short Story Competition tell the story from one character’s viewpoint and there is a very strong argument that such an approach is the best one for short stories, that you simply do not have the space to develop different viewpoints.
But is that necessarily the case? As a novelist I use several viewpoints but can it work for short stories when space is so tight? I think so. I often use the example of an aspiring writer which whom I once worked. He told a story of a fishing vessel in wartime. It was moored in a bay when round the corner came a U-Boat. There followed a scene of drama as the attack was told from the crew’s viewpoint. Very nicely written it was, too.
But how much better, I contended, if the scene had been written rather like a film, flicking from viewpoint to viewpoint: a scene with the crew mooring up, a scene with U-boat appearing on the horizon, out of their view but seen to us as readers, then flicking between the scenes, contrasting the crew’s happy banter with the U-Boat crew’s deadly intent, until they came together for the climax of the story?
Other of our entries go for first person, still telling their stories in the past tense. Telling stories that way does give a certain intimacy to the writing, and encourages a more personal way of storytelling in many ways. Trouble is, unless you provide other first persons you are rather restricted to what ‘I’ experiences.
Then there are stories that make use of either first person or third person but tell their tales in the current tense. Don’t be put off by the fact that this is footballers’ favourite technique, along with plenty of cliches - ‘Billy slings the ball over to me and I leaps like a salmon and nods it, wallop, into the old onion bag” - this also can be very effective, giving the reader the strong impression that events are happening here and now.
And which one is right? Anyone who has been reading my blogs, or talked to an author, or attended a creative writing class will know that there is no right, no wrong. If it works as a technique for you, use it.
John Dean
Most authors go for the conventional third person approach in the past tense. It is my natural instinct, too. I like it because it means I am standing above the action in the role of nebulous narrator.
I can look down and draw attention to events happening in various places, creating tension and variety. It works beautifully for novels: it can be very effective if my detective thinks someone is innocent and the reader knows the opposite.
However, many of the entries into the monthly Global Short Story Competition tell the story from one character’s viewpoint and there is a very strong argument that such an approach is the best one for short stories, that you simply do not have the space to develop different viewpoints.
But is that necessarily the case? As a novelist I use several viewpoints but can it work for short stories when space is so tight? I think so. I often use the example of an aspiring writer which whom I once worked. He told a story of a fishing vessel in wartime. It was moored in a bay when round the corner came a U-Boat. There followed a scene of drama as the attack was told from the crew’s viewpoint. Very nicely written it was, too.
But how much better, I contended, if the scene had been written rather like a film, flicking from viewpoint to viewpoint: a scene with the crew mooring up, a scene with U-boat appearing on the horizon, out of their view but seen to us as readers, then flicking between the scenes, contrasting the crew’s happy banter with the U-Boat crew’s deadly intent, until they came together for the climax of the story?
Other of our entries go for first person, still telling their stories in the past tense. Telling stories that way does give a certain intimacy to the writing, and encourages a more personal way of storytelling in many ways. Trouble is, unless you provide other first persons you are rather restricted to what ‘I’ experiences.
Then there are stories that make use of either first person or third person but tell their tales in the current tense. Don’t be put off by the fact that this is footballers’ favourite technique, along with plenty of cliches - ‘Billy slings the ball over to me and I leaps like a salmon and nods it, wallop, into the old onion bag” - this also can be very effective, giving the reader the strong impression that events are happening here and now.
And which one is right? Anyone who has been reading my blogs, or talked to an author, or attended a creative writing class will know that there is no right, no wrong. If it works as a technique for you, use it.
John Dean
Getting the structure right
One thing that is interesting me at the moment is structure and it is fascinating to see how the writers sending in stories to the Global Short Story Competition the address the problem.
Many of you go for the traditional idea of a beginning, middle and an end told in simple narrative form but a significant number opt for flashback.
Both are effective although flashback does carry the gamble with it that you know what happens at the end of the story. Nevertheless, flashback can work very well. Just look at the Colombo television detective show to see how knowing the end does not ruin the enjoyment of the rest of the story.
A number of you opt for diary entries, taking the story day by day. I think this is a terrific way to do it because it gives your story a natural structure right from the off.
Diaries were hugely popular as a fictional tool in the 19th and 20th Centuries and had started to die off a little before Bridget Jones returned the genre to mass appeal in the Nineties.
I think that another reason why diaries are so popular is the Net and the way writers are increasingly using the structure and language of blogs and emails to tell their stories.
Of course, one drawback with diaries is you can only tell the story from one viewpoint so cannot switch to other scenes, other people etc. But in the short story, the single viewpoint approach can work brilliantly.
* You can enter the October competition at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
John Dean.
Many of you go for the traditional idea of a beginning, middle and an end told in simple narrative form but a significant number opt for flashback.
Both are effective although flashback does carry the gamble with it that you know what happens at the end of the story. Nevertheless, flashback can work very well. Just look at the Colombo television detective show to see how knowing the end does not ruin the enjoyment of the rest of the story.
A number of you opt for diary entries, taking the story day by day. I think this is a terrific way to do it because it gives your story a natural structure right from the off.
Diaries were hugely popular as a fictional tool in the 19th and 20th Centuries and had started to die off a little before Bridget Jones returned the genre to mass appeal in the Nineties.
I think that another reason why diaries are so popular is the Net and the way writers are increasingly using the structure and language of blogs and emails to tell their stories.
Of course, one drawback with diaries is you can only tell the story from one viewpoint so cannot switch to other scenes, other people etc. But in the short story, the single viewpoint approach can work brilliantly.
* You can enter the October competition at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
John Dean.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
New short story competition opens for entries
The October Global Short Story Competition has opened for entries.
Launched more than five years ago, the competition runs every month with a £100 first prize and a £25 prize for highly commended writers.
The competition, which has topped £10,000 in prize money handed out, has had
entries from more than 50 countries over the years.
Each month’s competition is judged by Fiona Cooper, an author in North-East England, where the competition’s organisers Inscribe Media are also based. The competition can be entered at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
* Inscribe Media is also running a free poetry competition at its Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538 or accessed through www.inscribemedia.co.uk The deadline is October 18.
Launched more than five years ago, the competition runs every month with a £100 first prize and a £25 prize for highly commended writers.
The competition, which has topped £10,000 in prize money handed out, has had
entries from more than 50 countries over the years.
Each month’s competition is judged by Fiona Cooper, an author in North-East England, where the competition’s organisers Inscribe Media are also based. The competition can be entered at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
* Inscribe Media is also running a free poetry competition at its Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538 or accessed through www.inscribemedia.co.uk The deadline is October 18.
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