How to Write a Story

A Stodghill Says So blog:
I've been doing a lot of reading about how to write a story the past few months. That can be a dangerous mistake. It's like the conversation while I was drying the dishes after lunch. I said something and Jackie said, "That's a man's outlook," so I said, "What other kind is there?"
Obviously that was a mistake. One bordering on the dangerous.
Danger also lurks in reading about writing. Most of that has been on a great online site, www.criminalbrief.com Seven leading writers of short mysteries each has a day to post whatever he or she chooses. Last week it was about writing titles and this week about beginning a story. Just about everyone agreed you should not begin at the beginning. Today there were a couple of quotes from an old friend, Lawrence Block, a leader in the field. At one time or another he said, "A story must have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." He also said, "Begin when the first brick is thrown."
Makes sense so I agree. Trouble is, it doesn't work for me. I blame that on all the years spent as a reporter for evening newspapers. Worst of all were the years spent covering the criminal courts. As the 12:15 p.m. deadline approached I would tell myself there was time to hear one more witness testify. Then maybe one more after that. Eventually it was necessary to rush out of the courtroom and double-time back to the newsroom. Along the way I would compose the lead in my head, at the same time trying to avoid being hit by cars or knocking other pedestrians to the ground.
When I reached my desk, having already noticed that city editor Jack Richman glanced at me and then the big clock on the wall, I banged out the lead on my typewriter, both fingers flying over the keys. From there on it was done by rote with the help of the reporter's guardian angel. In other words I had no idea what I was writing. When a copy boy dropped a paper still warm from the press on my desk, only then would I find out what I had written. It nearly always was satisfactory.
So I'm stuck with beginning a story at the beginning. Too many leads were composed on the dead run for me to do it any other way. Unfortunately, that reporter's guardian angel no longer comes around to help out with the rest of the story.
Now that I know I've been doing it wrong all these years, should I try to start doing it right? No, it's true that old dogs shy away from new tricks. I'm just going to muddle along as I've been doing and one of these days one or two of those great leads - called "hooks" in fiction - stored on my computer may actually end up as a complete story.
Even before discovering criminalbrief.com I learned a few things from people I worked with. There was Evan Owens, a pixie-like man who for years had the desk next to mine. Evan covered city court and wrote a column twice a week that as often as not was on a specific subject for one or two graphs and then would go off on a tangent and stay there. By the time you drew near the end of the column you had forgotten the original topic, then he would tie the two together in great fashion at the very last moment. I learned to do that by reading Evan's columns when I wasn't busy with one of the Horatio Alger books he kept on his desk and insisted I read.
There were others I learned from, of course. Not because any of them tried to teach me something. They did it in the best manner of all, by writing in a unique way. Bob Barnet, for example. He was sports editor of the rival paper in town from 1929 until well into the 1980s. He wrote beautifully on any subject and he had no peers in describing a basketball game. Reading his story, you could see the action unfold before your eyes. You even know the color of the uniforms the teams were wearing because Bob would slip in something about the purple-clad team or the team in red and blue. Many a night we sat side by side at a press table covering a game and I'd soak up every word he said. He had offers of a job from many papers in larger cities but he preferred to stay in the old hometown. One day in Florida he called me over to the table where he was having lunch with a slim, quiet man and introduced us, enabling me to meet my favorite national columnist, Jim Murray, writer of some of the funniest lines ever put on paper.
There were other teachers, among them another sports editor, Jim Schlemmer. He told me, "If it isn't your own name and it happened more than an hour ago, look it up." How often those words have saved me from trouble.
So I guess I'd better get busy. There's the beginning of a story stirring around in my head. Maybe I can put it in the middle or somewhere near the end.

Sometimes I think I should put all my chapter titles on index cards, shuffle them, toss them all in a pile on the floor, pick one, and make that the first chapter.

There are two sides, one is the pragmatic one, getting the story down in order. The other is the creative side, writing the unexpected, in a different way.

I have read so much about writing over the years. I've written and listened to others.

Carol

I remember actually learning something once at a workshop for writing teachers: Have your students wait until after they have finished the first draft, and then let them write the introduction. So many student writers will sit and stare at a blank page because they can't think of how to begin. I find it still works more often than not with the kids I tutor. Start with the body of the paper, and when you have that down and in order, write the conclusion, and let that conclusion show you the best way to introduce the material.

Of course, most of these "papers" are some form of expository writing rather than fiction, so it isn't quite the same as "telling a story," but much of it could still apply.

Ann

I wrote the prologue of Banshee Angel of Judgement last, moved some chapters about and removed one totally. Though with A Winter Journey I began at the start working all the way to the end as I am with my present project. I won't know how the new one will develop as I go forward with it. Yet I am willing to experiment with it as I go if it will impove the over all story in some way. After all writing is a great revealing adventure that we as author, dare I call myself that, take with each new creation.

I dont know what the rules are concerning timelines, nor do I care a whit about them. Im a rebel, so I just have a good time with it. I like to use a forward or a preface( or both) set many years in the past, and then let the openeing of the modern day stuff seem unrelated. I then wind the plot around until it catches up to the past.
Othertimes, I set the preface actually ahead of the opening chapter, and let the storyline catch back to the future. In one of my books, I had the preface open in 1918, and then opened chapter one with the Titanic in 1912. In my last book, I set the preface in 1948 and the forward in the pre-flood days( BC 4000), and opened the chapter one with King Arthur(500s AD). I did a few chapters with that, did a chapter with King Alfred (800s) AD, and then opened the main storyline in modern times.
I never give a concrete date for the modern times, I just say something like "current year" . I want to keep the modern stuff from becoming dated. I like to change around the formats because I hate the idea of writing predictable, cookie- cutter pattern books. But then, I am just a nut.