Elements of Writing Fiction - Beginnings, Middles & Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing)

There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of writing, and it's impossible to cover them all. But Kress does a pretty good job of covering a lot of the territory.

Of particular interest to me was that she spoke about writing short stories as well as writing novels, and (in the "endings" part) about the differences between traditional plotted short stories and contemporary literary short stories. The short story form is completely neglected in most of books on fiction writing, but not here.

I found it interesting that Kress essentially classifies the beginning as "the first two scenes". She never refers to the Inciting Incident or First Plot Point or whatever you want to call it. Once you're into the third scene, she figures that you're in the "middle" of the work.

If you're writing short stories, this book should go on your "must have" list. If you're writing long form, I still recommend it but I'm not writing long form so what do I know?

This is part of the Writer's Digest "Elements of Fiction" series (presumably the previous incarnation of their current "Write Great Fiction" series). This book is thus a kind of counterpart to James Scott Bell's Plot and Structure. Whereas Bell approaches the subject as a college tutor might, analyzing classic plot structures and using diagrams to illustrate the rhythm of a story, Kress's approach is more down-to-earth. It's also a shorter book. (I see the two approaches as complementary.) As the title implies, she looks at these three parts of a novel or story and offers clear advice about what each needs to accomplish and how to go about it.

A key idea running through this book is that the beginning makes a promise to the reader: not about exactly how the story will turn out, but about what kind of reading experience it will deliver. An interesting middle builds on that, and a satisfying ending delivers on the promise.

When I read this book, I got a solid picture of what Kress as a writer thinks about as she works on a story and (to a degree) how she works. There's interesting discussion about whether or not to revise the beginning and perfect it before moving on, and always an eye toward the reader (or editor) and what they will need to see at each point in the piece to make it work for them. For this reason, Kress puts a spotlight on the very beginning (opening lines or paragraphs) and very ending, since these are places that will sink and entire work if they're not effective. When talking about middles, she addresses the common experience of feeling stuck or overwhelmed by a writing project.

A refreshing feature of this book is that Kress frequently gives advice tailored to the short story form, not focusing exclusively on novels as many writing books do. This is important because in many genres, short stories are how beginning writers learn their craft and begin to market their work.

Because the focus of this book is not narrowly on plot per se, but about "beginnings, middles, and ends" as an organizing frame for teaching how to write well, it can serve passably well as a one-stop book on fiction writing. There's information here on dialog, incorporating detail and exposition, establish setting and tone, etc.

This book has the feel of talking with a working writer about what works and what doesn't; she uses only the abstractions and concepts she needs to make the point. Someone looking for a clear, readable orientation to the craft of fiction writing will be well served by this book.

I am an aspiring writer and have two novels under my belt. I am currently working on my third. I have many How-To books in my collection, some good and others lousy. I rank Nancy's book to be among the best of the best. She is helping me gain structure and power in my writing.

Sorry there is not a 10 ranking... because that is what this book of hers deserves.

This book lays out the basics of story in it's most important and fundamental fashion - the beginning, middle and end. And it gets right down to it to deliver great insights from a working professional story writer who's thought deeply into what does and doesn't work and why.

A lot of other books concentrate on other aspects of story, all of which are important. But this is the best one I've read for directly addressing the structure and purpose of the main elements of story. I have a shelf full of books on writing, and this has been the most helpful one.

I have always been told I'm a "good writer" and I have always wanted to "write" (specifically, make up stories and put them on paper. And despite starting with Aristotle's Poetics in high school, I guess I just didn't get it. Even so, I have spent most of my adult life in jobs that were dependent on writing and reasoning skills but, despite the number of stories in my head, never knew what to do with them.

So thank you, Nancy Kress for telling me how to go about writing a story. It could be that I'm just dense, but the reading I've been doing lately (like Noah Lukeman's "The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile" and "Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction--and Get It Published" by by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato, both excellent, five-stars from me, at least) has been positively enlightening. And "Beginnings, Middles, and Endings" is one of the best. Frankly, it's hard to rave too much about this book, because there's no much to rave about. It's clear, crisp, orderly, incredibly organized (especially when you consider that she's dealing with what is essentially how to tell a story, no small task in itself). But even more, is enormous fun to read and leads inevitably to that great AH-HA! moment, somewhere in pages 84 - 87.

In general, the two series "Elements of Fiction Writing" and the Writer's Digest books on writing fiction are excellent and, in addition to being downright enlightening, are just pure, huge fun. For the first time in my life, I feel as if I know what I'm doing. Too bad it took so long, but there I was one morning, standing in front of the mirror lost in the thousand yard stare when all of a sudden my writing focus burst out at me like a super-nova. And ever since then, my life has simply made sense. Now THAT'S a mid-life crisis.