UNDERSTANDING THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF STORY STRUCTURE

Inspired by our course, Writing for Children and Teens, we discuss:

• A story beginning establishes a main character and a basic situation.
• The middle develops a problem or difficulty and builds to a climax, which is then resolved.
• The ending concludes the story’s events.
• This structure applies equally to a two-page tale for small children and to a 400-page adult novel.
• The story problem may not take the form of an urgent conflict or challenge.
• Setting up a pre-existing problem.
• Conflict as the element that connects a story’s beginning, middle, and ending.
• What’s wrong with an identical twin or the old, “It was all a dream . . . or was it?” scenario.

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