Swain-6-1

Dwight V. Swain
Author
Techniques of the Selling Writer Introduction
Chapter 6 – Beginning, Middle, End
   Swain says that all stories are “about” the same thing: desire versus danger. And a story concerns a focal character’s attempt to attain or retain something in the face of trouble. To translate this general principle into a specific piece of fiction, the writer needs to grasp five broad subjects:

I. How to line-up story elements.
II. How to get a story started.
III. How to develop middle segments.
IV. How to build a climax.
V. How to resolve story issues.

   As one might assume, the rest of this chapter focuses on each of these five facets of story writing. To get started, there must be a certain amount of organization. Lack of some organization can send one off into a trackless maze of false starts and blind alleys. To avoid this literary wandering, one should lay out his material in a starting line up.

Next – How to line up story elements
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