How to begin and end your stories

Let’s go into more detail so that you can better understand what goes into paragraphs 1, 2 and final paragraph (beginning, lead-up and ending).

Paragraph 1

Whatever you choose in should:

• Set the scene for the story as it progresses
• Be maintained consistently throughout e.g. first-person recount.

Style

Once you have worked out what your story is going to be about, think about how best to tell it. There are two a few things to consider here:

1. Who is telling the story?
2. When did the story happen?
3. What is a suitable language style?

Who

When you write a story, you can write it from different perspectives:

• Narrator - You are the external narrator: you know everything that happens and are not limited by the perspective of one of the characters. This viewpoint allows you to include as much detail as you want, and doesn't restrict what you can say.
• Character - You are writing from inside the perspective of one of the characters: you know only what this character can see or know, but you also have very direct access to their thoughts and feelings. This is a good way to write, about your own experiences and memories, or stories where you identify strongly with the main character.

When

When did the story happen? Many years ago? Last month? Is it happening now? It's important that you know, and you give the reader an understanding, of when your story is set. It will also help you work out other details of the story while you are writing.

Language

What kind of language would the characters use? Where are they from? It's important to match the style of the writing to the characters, time and place: for example, a baby or toddler cannot say complicated things, a man from the nineteenth century will not use modern slang, and so on.

Paragraph 2

The lead-up should be what happens just before the ‘main event’. One of the ways you can avoid large jumps in time is to work backwards and ask yourself – what comes before this.

For example, in a 4-paragraph piece:

• End: Fence broken
• Main event: I crash the motorbike into the fence.
• What happened right before this: I lost control (this is your lead up)
• What happened before this? I tried riding for the first time.

For example, in a 5-paragraph piece:

• End: Fence broken
• Main event: I crash the motorbike into the fence.
• What happened right before this: I lost control (this is your lead up)
• What happened before this: I was on the motorbike and it was going well.
• What happened before this? I tried riding for the first time.

Final Paragraph

One of the key mistakes with a final paragraph is:

• when something new is introduced
• the main event is pushed into the final paragraph
• there are multiple events
• people automatically assume they have to end it with a ‘hard ending’ i.e. going home and having dinner and going to bed, the culprit being captured and going through the court system and final jailed.
• there is no end e.g. cliff-hangers (try to avoid)

The key thing to remember is that your final paragraph must resolve the main event. It’s not there to be an event on its own but to ‘close’ the story.

See in the previous example that the ending was just “fence broken”. That closes the story because it says what eventuated. It’s nothing unique (but you could make it unique in the way the story is expressed) but it ends the story.

Examples

Watch video to see worked example/s for the following image prompts:

Key Rules to remember

Paragraph 1

• Sets the scene for the story as it progresses
• Should be maintained consistently throughout e.g. first-person recount e.g. don't change mid-way.

Paragraph 2

• Builds on the introduction and is the very first action that leads towards the main event.

Final paragraph

• Should only ‘close’ the main event.

Practice time!

Now, it's your turn to practice.

The questions in this checkpoint are provided to help you develop your writing skills.

To do your practice questions, click on the below to download your question paper. You can print it out or work from the electronic version. We do recommend that you write your answers by hand in a notebook or on paper.

NW-CP11-Questions.pdf

Once you have completed your questions, review the suggested solutions. You can download (and print if you wish) the PDF suggested solutions and/or watch the suggested solutions video (all below).

Once you're done with reviewing the practice question suggested solutions, move on to the next checkpoint.

NW-CP11-Answers.pdf

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