Let's take a break from grammar to look at the bigger picture. Believe it or not, there is an underlying structure to every tale we tell, every statement we make, everything we write. What follows applies to everything from single sentence copy right up to novels. It matters for non-fiction as much as it does fiction. The principles of story go to the heart of effective communications everywhere. We are hungry story machines. Feed us good story and we are satisfied.
In the simplest case, there is the subject-predicate structure of English, in which we start with the thing we're talking about, the subject (for instance, "
The woman..."), and then move on to the thing about the subject, in other words, the story about the woman:
The woman flexed her muscles.
In a broader sense, we tell stories. And stories must have structure to satisfy our primal instincts. Humans have been telling stories to each other for so long that it is basically in our DNA. We know when stories work instinctively, but we often cannot articulate
how they work.
A story must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Or, to put it more usefully, they must have a
beginning hook, a
middle build and an
ending payoff.
Beginning
The
beginning hook is probably the most important. It grabs the readers' attention and makes them want to read on to find out more. It is the
why question. If this element is weak, you lose the audience immediately, at which point you have failed completely.
Often the beginning hook plants a question in the readers' mind. For instance, in a murder mystery, a dead body is found and the question is
will the master detective bring the killer to justice? That can be enough to read on for hundreds of pages.
In advertising copy, the beginning hook might be a relatable question or statement, "Are you sick of tying your shoelaces every morning?"
Middle
The
middle build is the part where everything is explained and everything gets complicated. It is the meat of the story, and sets you up to really care what happens. You're thrown into the world of the characters and get to see what roles they play. Without it, nothing is satisfactory and the big stuff at the end would seem out of place. The middle build tells us
how events take place and leads us to the big decisions and actions that must be taken.
In the murder mystery, this is the search for clues and the false trips down garden paths in search of red herrings (love a mixed metaphor). In advertising copy, this is where I tell you about an amazing shoe that stays on your foot
without laces!
End
The
ending payoff wraps up the story and pays off the beginning hook. It answers that big
what happens question. A story would be very unsatisfying indeed if we never got the ending.
The detective chases the killer down the alley, arrests him and the city is once again safe. The advertisement tells you to buy these newfangled velcro shoes from my store, call now to order.
Structures within structures
To further complicate things, in complete stories, each of the beginning, middle and end have their own internal structure and the entire story overall has it too (and, actually, every scene within these must have a similar structure. Just like Russian dolls, stories are made of stories. It's triangles all the way down.)
Without going into laborious detail, you're looking for an inciting incident (which causes the action to begin), progressive complications (thwarting the efforts of the action), a crisis (kind of like a major decision point), a climax (the result of the crisis decision), and a resolution (the net result).
The beginning hook mentioned earlier usually contains the overall inciting incident. The middle build contains the overall progressive complications and leads to the crisis, while the ending payoff holds the climax and the resolution.
The moral of the story/the last word
While all that sounds complicated, it is actually hard-wired into you. You expect this stuff from a good story. Stories (books, movies, great advertisements, good non-fiction) that lack one or more of these elements tend to just "feel off".
So, if you want whatever you're writing to really resonate with an audience, it's worth keeping the general principles of story in mind. It's not a stretch to say that this is how our minds work, so it's good to tap into the inner workings of the mind when you write. It will play out better that way and is more likely to be memorable.
And finally, if you're thinking that this doesn't apply to a short piece of writing, then I'll leave you with a 6-word story by Ernest Hemingway. He bet some fellow drinkers at a bar one time that he could make them cry in 6 words. Apparently they weren't made of such stern, solid stuff back then (ha ha!)
He wrote:
For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.
