(The Beginning) Draw Them In: When you start a story, you want an instant attention grabber. If you do not grasp the reader's attention, they will get bored imediately. Ok, lets say you are writing a vampire story (more people have been writing about vampires, I am not one of those people though.). If any of you have read Twilight series or what ever, think about the first sentences you read. Did twilight start out like: "I never though about dying, until this vampire came into my life."? No, It had more meaning to it, but did not entirely give away the whole book. When you grab their attention at the beginning of a story, novel, novella, ect., it makes them want to continue on and to keep reading other stories in the series or have also been written by you.
(The Ending) Leave Them Satisfied: The ending, ah yes, the part that people hate when it comes to a good book. They do not want the book to end! I have done that before, and I bet most of you have too. The end can be where some authors miss the point. The end is supposed to give emotion and some meaning. Like in some stories I have read, the characters learned a lesson and it explained it in the end. But in other stories the end is not well written. In the book The Giver, the book was pretty good. There was one major flaw though. At the end, it ended with so much mystery that no one knew what exactly happened or what became of the characters. Some people like that, but it bugs some people (like myself) that they have no idea what happened. So at the end, you should leave the reader with some kind of conclusion. If you want to leave the reader with some kind of mystery and give them a reason to think, leave that for an epiloge if you are to continue.
Thank you for reading. This is my first column, so please give me your opinion. Tell me if you think I should add more examples or something, then please mail me. I used the examples of "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer and "The Giver" by Lois Lowry and I tried not to use them in a negative way. They were both good books.
The ending and the beginning of a story, oh what some people over-look. The ending and the beginning of stories happen to be some of the most important parts of any story. Use these tips and you will see some improvement.
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Good column. Makes alot of sense BUT I have to point out something in your column and comments. The Giver is the first book in a trilogy. To understand ANYTHING to the ending of that book, you have to read Gathering Blue(2) and Messenger(3). Jonah is in and the third book and two new characters, along with two new communities, are introduced. Sorry to devote a whole comment to The Giver series, I just thought the point need to be made.
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It is true that it is a trilogy NOW. But when first written she had no concept for the other books. Readers questions prompted her to write the others. I love the books and reccomend them often. But it was an unsatisfying end. And the other two do not really tie in completely with the first. The Giver can still be a stand alone and one can belive it to be a dream or something but it is neccessary to conclude it on your own. A chancy thing to do.
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I think the beginning and ending of a story are more important than the actual body itself. You have to draw the reader in, because if you don't, it doesn't matter how good the body of the story is. They don't read past the first paragraph. The end has to be good because it leaves the reader with something to think about after the body. This is why we have desert after the meal. We want a nice taste in our mouth to remember the entire meal by. If you leave the reader with an unsatisfying ending that makes everyone mad, they will hate the entire book for it.
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As you know, I was quite satisfied by the Giver's ending. But in many many ways, having an ending without a total conclusion is far better. It keeps the reader thinking. For instance the video game Shadow of the Colossus has been consistently popular for 4 years, yet has the most confusing endings of anything I've ever seen. In addition, having everything plainly laid out for you reduces the capacity to imagine.
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well...
You do have a point but I know you far to well. You are not into simple things, you like things that confuse people (including me).
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the giver
ah! i hate how the giver ends!! i love the book, but the ending is stupid!! -
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yep
I do agree. But in my honors english class, we got to rewrite the last chapter and make a new ending. It was fun.
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Getting people's attention at the very beginning, and at the end is important. Sometimes people tend to forget that. Thanks for the reminder
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