Parts of a story

Fall in love with cliff hangers.

At its simplest, a story has three elements. A beginning, an end, and all the stuff in between.

I like to add a few elements, which are borrowed from various sources and curated by me into the following:

— begin somewhere other than the beginning

There is nothing so boring as “once upon a time,” which is often phrased differently. “I picked up the gun and aimed for the space between his eyes” is a good beginning. So is “His ankles tightened against the mattress as he ejaculated” or “When my father died I couldn’t cry.”

— don’t end at the end

There is nothing so boring as “they lived happily ever after,” no matter how you phrase it. Always — always — end on a cliff hanger. Even if your story ends with the death of the main character, make it end elsewhere. In the afterlife or in whatever happens to their dog or their kids or the neighbour.

— make people laugh

At least once every couple of pages. Humour makes everything go down easily. And once your readers know they can count on you for some smiles and a few hearty bouts of laughter, they’ll keep reading. Humans are addicted to laughing.

— make people hot

They’re also keen on sex, eroticism and arousal. Or at least sensuality. Not all stories are mature enough for lust, but every single story can help readers feel their senses in a heightened manner. Don’t describe a sunshine. Make readers feel the warmth on their face. Yes, it’s hard.

— make people love

Love is what keeps people alive, what makes them want to keep going. There has to be some in every single story. If you’re stuck and can’t think of a good way to add love, bring in a dog. But have love shine through every story, even you show it through its absence when it’s missing from the characters’ lives.

— there has got to be a moral challenge

No story is worth reading if it doesn’t have character development. And characters won’t develop if they’re not faced with difficult choices. Characters don’t have to pass those moral tests. Character development can lead to better characters, or worse ones. As long as the storyline is plausible, it works.

— there has to be something about the meaning of life

In every story there has to be something that speaks to the human condition. Don’t make it too obvious though. Nobody wants to be walked through Big Issues. Or have it explained to them. Just have your characters experience something that relates to their human condition. An example? Gladly.

In Islands in the Stream, Hemingway has a scene that goes on for roughly ever about Thomas Hudson’s son David trying to catch that fish and the kid has bloody hands and feet and the stupid fish isn’t giving up (spoiler alert, the fish gets away) and at some point someone asks Thomas Hudson whether maybe it’s time to step in and save David the pain of the ordeal and Thomas Hudson says, “But please know that I would have stopped this a long time ago except that I know that if David catches this fish he’ll have something inside him for all is life and it will make everything else easier.”