THE ICE PICK

Beginnings, Middles and Ends, by Nancy Kress. Cincinnati, Ohio, Writer’s Digest Books.

Science fiction and fantasy stories suffer from having to establish a whole world right up front. Having your hero flit his Nova-charged Wombat up a main street on Noramax 3 isn’t like having him drive his Chevy Nova down Main Street, USA. And too often we try to pile all the necessary information into the first three pages.

Nancy Kress understands, because she writes our kind of stories. So when she talks about beginnings that work or don’t, we can relate to that. I bought her book for help on beginnings, and really found it helpful. I wound up staying for the middles and the ends.

Unlike some how-to-write books, Nancy gives us practical advice we can really use. And she includes exercises for those who didn’t get enough homework in school.

How often have you started a story with a great idea and wonderful characters only to have it fizzle out in the middle somewhere? Nancy’s section on Middles offers help for those short stories and for sagging novels that seem to bog down right about chapter nine or ten.

She attacks the problems on all levels: plot, character, structure, etc., so that you are better able to find one or more solutions to your particular situation.

The section on Endings is filled with advice on how to write and revise your story’s end for maximum punch. And what to do if you’re the kind who polishes endlessly and never finishes anything. She covers the climactic scene, whether or not to add an epilogue, and how to handle series books’ endings, plus the analysis you should do on your last page, paragraph, and sentence.

And the book has a good index to help find those things you vaguely remember reading and want to look at again.

I have found this book extremely helpful. It’s the kind of reference you can read or skim through and always learn something new from.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, July 1997. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, June 1998.}