Post History
When I was in school, my English teacher told me that a short story's beginning should mirror its ending, or at least the conclusion should in some way parallel the starting point of the story; but...
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:45:45Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/12876 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Strategy Thinker
·
2019-12-08T03:45:45Z (about 5 years ago)
When I was in school, my English teacher told me that a short story's beginning should mirror its ending, or at least the conclusion should in some way parallel the starting point of the story; but I was never told why. Is this a well accepted rule of thumb or is this just one type of writing style? If it is generally advisable, then please tell me why. * * * More information: At the time I automatically rejected it as her style, but now I am older I willing to find out if she had a point. Sadly I cannot just go ask her, thus I came to ask here. Here is a very short example. It is only to give an example of the concept, please do not critique, I know it is very rough. > 'Babies cry' I groaned at my wife 'go back to _sleep_'. > > 'But,' she yawned 'I just thought our neighbour was childless'. > > I gasped, we dashed out the house to peek over his fence. > > 'It is only a cat singing a midnight song,' I gritted my teeth 'what waste of an hour'. > > But when we returned to our house, guess who needed a lullaby.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2014-09-13T22:25:32Z (over 10 years ago)
Original score: 0