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Q&A Should the opening of a short story mirror the ending?

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...

2 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by Strategy Thinker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:45:45Z (almost 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 user avatar Strategy Thinker‭ · 2019-12-08T03:45:45Z (almost 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 user avatar System‭ · 2014-09-13T22:25:32Z (about 10 years ago)
Original score: 0