TRY DIFFERENT ROUTES

So far we have worked with beginnings and endings in their fully crafted form. We can work in similar ways with opening and closing themes:

Opening themes

• The hero/heroine sets out to find true love/seek fame and fortune/right a terrible wrong.
• Somebody is kidnapped/murdered.
• An injustice or grave misunderstanding occurs.
• The person in authority dies or leaves and someone must take charge.
• A new arrival upsets the status quo.
• There is an accident.
• Something of great importance is found to be missing.
• It is the only daughter’s wedding day.

Closing themes

• Honour is satisfied.
• Honour is not satisfied.
• The conflict is resolved.
• Life is unfair.
• Characters get the happiness they deserve.
• Characters get their revenge.
• Revenge is not necessarily sweet.
• A ‘quiet type’ surprises everyone.

Brainstorm your own opening and closing themes and keep them for use when needed. Work with them as you have worked with the crafted beginnings in this chapter – make them the subject of timed writing, use them in random pairs, start with a closing theme and work towards the beginning and so on. Other ways of using beginnings and endings will be explored in some of the chapters which follow.

Other starting points

Use the following as beginnings, then discard them – or not, as appropriate. Or you could use them as the inspiration which starts you off, without reproducing them on the page.

• An overheard remark.
• A notice or headline.
• A small ad in the local paper.
• A proverb, or tongue-in-cheek version of a proverb.
• A sentence picked from a book opened at random.
• The first sentence you hear on turning on the TV or radio.
• A line from a song.

Which is your usual starting point – a beginning, an ending, or a general idea? Maybe it’s a setting or a character – or something else entirely (like Karen’s chance hearing in the supermarket queue). It is important to be aware of your preferred ways of working so that you can build on them. It is also important to be aware of alternative approaches so that you can try them out if you find yourself struggling or stuck.

Checklist

• Is your beginning truly compelling? Does it draw the reader in?
• What kind of ending are you aiming for? Have you achieved it?
• Are you working to improve your skills by studying the way beginnings and endings are handled in various media?
• Have you tried using existing beginnings and endings for inspiration and later discarding them?
• Have you remembered to use ‘dummy dialogue’ in early drafts, so that the flow of ideas will not be interrupted?
• Have you tried working with themes?
• If you are not satisfied with any aspect of your writing, have you considered any other approaches?