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Beginnings, Middles & Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing) Paperback – March 21, 2011

by Nancy Kress (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 236 ratings
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Get Your Readers' Attention—And Keep It—From the First World to the Final Page

Translating that initial flash of inspiration into a complete story requires careful crafting. So how do you keep your story from beginning slowly, floundering midway, and trailing off at the end? Nancy Kress shows you effective solutions for potential problems at each stage of your story—essential lessons for strong start-to-finish storytelling.

   • Hook readers, agents, and editors in the first three paragraphs.
   • Make and keep your story's implicit promise to the reader.
   • Build drama and credibility by controlling your prose.
   • Consider the price a writer pays for flashbacks.
   • Reveal character effectively throughout your story.
Get the tools you need to get your story off to an engaging start, keep the middle tight and compelling, and make your conclusion high impact. You'll also find dozens of exercises to help strengthen your short story or novel. Let this resource be your guide to successful stories—from the first word to the last.
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Previous page
  1. Part of series
    Elements of Fiction Writing
  2. Print length
    167 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    March 21, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.44 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1599632195
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1599632193
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Although she began by writing fantasy, Nancy Kress currently writes science fiction, most usually about genetic engineering. She teaches regularly at summer conferences such as Clarion, and during the year at the Bethesda Writing Center in Bethesda, Maryland. In addition, she is the "Fiction" columnist for Writer's Digest magazine. She has won two Nebulas and a Hugo, and lost over a dozen more of these awards. Her work has been translated into Swedish, French, Italian, German, and Spanish, among others.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Publishing Group; 2nd edition (March 21, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 167 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1599632195
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1599632193
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.44 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 236 ratings

About the author

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Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress

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Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-four books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. She writes frequently about genetic engineering; including the acclaimed science-fiction novel Beggars in Spain. Kress’s fiction has been translated into Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Croatian, Chinese, Lithuanian, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, and Klingon, none of which she can read. In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad, including a visiting lectureship at the University of Leipzig, a 2017 writing class in Beijing, and the annual intensive workshop TaosToolbox. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Pippin, the world’s most spoiled Chihuahua.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
236 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

J.R.
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Writers Guide/Resource Book
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2012
Verified Purchase
I purchased this book after reading many positive reviews about the Elements of Fiction Writing series in hopes to help me with my writing. It surpassed my expectations and became a very enjoyable read. It was written in a very personal way, making me feel like the author, Nancy Kress, was speaking directly to me, not just explaining things on the page and giving me advice or suggestions. This author can write and very well. (I actually had moments where I was smiling and laughing it felt so interactive.)

One of the things I liked the most is Kress gave both bad and good examples. Sometimes it's a challenge to determine what's bad when only good examples. She talked a little about sentences but the main focus was the three story act: beginning, middles and endings. She has ways to help writers who get stuck in the process of coming up with a good beginning, an intriguing middle and a satisfying ending.

It was very clean, well explained, easy to understand, good examples given and a list of exercise questions at the end of each chapter. And the questions were well explained and felt more alive then a simplistic "yes" or "no" answer. It really gets you to think of your ideas, shows you alternate ways they can go and how differently they can effect every element of your writing like the characters, setting, dialogue, description...

At the very end of the book Kress talks a bit more about revisions and that there are some writers, like Isaac Asimov who did little revisions because...and I quote "they have the entire story plotted in their heads before they even begin, so that midcourse direction changes don't require massive alterations to earlier scenes...they are experienced writers, sure of both their subject matter and their story structure...If you are give [a story], and it truly seems to arrive so completely that you can't think of anything you should change, rejoice. But don't count on it. These stories are exceptions."

I found the passage above very pleasing and amusing as I consider myself one of these types of writers. Storylines and plots have always come easy and fluid to me. I don't have much revisions, mostly it's grammar and sentence structure reviews, maybe an extra scene here or there to add or expanded the already written/thought out content. I'll take this as a compliment from Nancy Kress!

All in all, great book for any kind of writing, beginning or professional, lots of good tips and advice that can be used or thought over. I'd highly recommend buying this book!
5 people found this helpful
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Tom L. Waters
4.0 out of 5 stars good practical advice on fiction writing from a pro
Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2009
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This is part of the Writer's Digest "Elements of Fiction" series (presumably the previous incarnation of their current "Write Great Fiction" series). This book is thus a kind of counterpart to James Scott Bell's Plot and Structure. Whereas Bell approaches the subject as a college tutor might, analyzing classic plot structures and using diagrams to illustrate the rhythm of a story, Kress's approach is more down-to-earth. It's also a shorter book. (I see the two approaches as complementary.) As the title implies, she looks at these three parts of a novel or story and offers clear advice about what each needs to accomplish and how to go about it.

A key idea running through this book is that the beginning makes a promise to the reader: not about exactly how the story will turn out, but about what kind of reading experience it will deliver. An interesting middle builds on that, and a satisfying ending delivers on the promise.

When I read this book, I got a solid picture of what Kress as a writer thinks about as she works on a story and (to a degree) how she works. There's interesting discussion about whether or not to revise the beginning and perfect it before moving on, and always an eye toward the reader (or editor) and what they will need to see at each point in the piece to make it work for them. For this reason, Kress puts a spotlight on the very beginning (opening lines or paragraphs) and very ending, since these are places that will sink and entire work if they're not effective. When talking about middles, she addresses the common experience of feeling stuck or overwhelmed by a writing project.

A refreshing feature of this book is that Kress frequently gives advice tailored to the short story form, not focusing exclusively on novels as many writing books do. This is important because in many genres, short stories are how beginning writers learn their craft and begin to market their work.

Because the focus of this book is not narrowly on plot per se, but about "beginnings, middles, and ends" as an organizing frame for teaching how to write well, it can serve passably well as a one-stop book on fiction writing. There's information here on dialog, incorporating detail and exposition, establish setting and tone, etc.

This book has the feel of talking with a working writer about what works and what doesn't; she uses only the abstractions and concepts she needs to make the point. Someone looking for a clear, readable orientation to the craft of fiction writing will be well served by this book.
14 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Kindle-Kunde
5.0 out of 5 stars interesting approach
Reviewed in Germany on October 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
tired of always the same plotpoints approach and plotting approach?
This author starts with explain7ming the function of beginning, middles and ends and leads you through the writing of each based on that explanation.
I liked that approach and the book is written in a style one likes to read.
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anurag
3.0 out of 5 stars Second hand product!!
Reviewed in India on December 7, 2022
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anurag
3.0 out of 5 stars Second hand product!!
Reviewed in India on December 7, 2022
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent resource.
Reviewed in Canada on March 4, 2017
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Read this years ago (Picked it up from the library, which no longer carries 'older' books). I'm enjoying the updated version. An excellent resource.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and defined
Reviewed in Australia on August 13, 2019
Verified Purchase
Very impressed with the ease of reading through this book, and the subject matter is specific and clearly defined. Definitely worth the time and effort if a writer wants to understand and improve their work.
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Mrs. Giulia Clifford
5.0 out of 5 stars A great reference book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2004
Verified Purchase
I have bought this book for the reason I suppose anybody else did, and for the reason *you* who read this review are staring at this page. I'm a writer and I would like to have a book published. Mostly, I bought this book because I wanted suggestions to improve. I wasn't disappointed.
The Author gives good samples of how to make an opening attractive for a possible publisher, how to make a middle compelling, how not to ruin your story with a bad ending. The Author says everything you need to know to structure in the best way your story and explain also how you must deal with first and second draft and so on.
I think that this is a great refernce for anybody who wants to become a better writer. Definitely, I suggest this book as a first How-to book to read. Of course it must be integrated with other reads, such as the great "Characters and Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card. This book doesn't want to be complete, but it makes the job it promises pretty well, giving to you good tips on how to structure your book or short story.
55 people found this helpful
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