Should You Start At the Beginning or Ending of a Story?
Where to start when writing a fictional story
“Let’s start at the very beginning, what a very good place to start…” Julie Andrews sings this famous line to her charges right before she gives us the famous line, “do, a dear, a female dear…” in her classic movie, The Sound of Music.
But when you’re writing a story, a scene, a character sketch, or any piece of creative writing, you certainly do not have to start at the beginning.
Sometimes beginning writers make the mistake of their creative process being the same format as the finished pieces they read. A story most certainly has a beginning, middle, and end. At the end of a book, you know a well-written character’s backstory and what motivated them to make that really bad choice, or brave choice.
But the process of writing those stories and those characters does not have to follow the same formula as a finished piece.
When you sit down to begin a story idea, or work on your novel, start anywhere. Write the ending first. Write the last line in the middle of your draft. Write your character’s canon event of adolescence that helped shape what kind of parent they are before you even know what the climax of their adult conflict in your book will be.
As writers, we have the flexibility of beginning anywhere, telling a story backward, writing things out of order, and using the magic of multiple drafts in our creative process.
You do not need to know the ending of your story if you only have a beginning. And you do not need to know how your story starts if you already know how it will end.
The point of creative writing is to write. Let the arc of the story appear in your process. Do not get hung up on starting at the beginning, writing the middle, and then the ending.
If inspiration strikes on your day to write, and it happens to be a backstory of a secondary character, chase that stream and write.
The process of editing, rewriting drafts, and revisions can have a more structured approach than how that draft comes together. And of course, if Julie Andrews’ line resonates with you as a creative writer, starting at the very beginning because you believe that’s a very good place to start, then by all means, you do you.
Whatever your method, just keep writing.