Breaking the Story into three parts. Beginning, Middle and End.

Ok, what we're going to do now is very important. We are now going to break the story into three parts. The beginning, the middle and the end.

For this minute, we're going to do something really corny. We are going to think about a television show that everyone has had the misfortune of seeing at least one episode,,,,,,,"Batman."

Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, "Batman."

Think about it. In every episode, here's what happens;

Problem (issue) presented:

Part I, The Beginning.

Bruce Wayne answers the phone. It's the commissioner. He tells bruce that the Joker is in town. Bruce Wayne goes down the Bat pole, rounds up Robin, and they go after the Joker. Then, something gets in the way of them getting the Joker.

Lets say, they almost catch the Joker, but then, the Batmobile breaks down. We're in the first 8 minutes of the show (it only last for 22 minutes) and then we go to commercial break, end of Act I, the beginning.

Part II, The Middle

Notice that the obstacle isn't terrible, just enough to stop the story a little bit. Now we go to Act II, The Middle.

They get the Batmobile fixed, find the Joker, and they get in a big fight. Right when it looks like they have the Joker all caught up, some how the Joker escapes using some secret weapon. We go to commercial break again.

Part III, The End.

"The End." We come back, this time the Joker catches Batman and Robin, ties them up, and ties them to a bomb. It's going to go off in two minutes. Tick, Tick, Tick,,,,,,it looks like dooms day for the dynamic duo when all of a sudden, Batman remembers this weird devise that Alfred just put in his shoe that afternoon. Batman uses it to escape, they find the Joker, arrest him and send him to jail. "The End."

Ok, Ok, my Batman story wasn't that good, but let's review what happens. At the end of each part, something bad happens. An obstacle gets in the way of what our main character wants. At first it's a little something. Then it's a little something worse. Then, something really bad happens, and then everything is ok (if you want it to be, you're the writers).

You have a list of goals and obstacles (problems) for each character of your story from the last exercise. Look at the issue that you are writing about, look at your four sentence story summary, then look at the goals and problems of your characters and start plugging in obstacles to the goals into your story.

What you want to do is write three,,, four sentence summaries. One for each act. Make sure that for each act (beginning, middle and end) you have a definite ending for that part of the story, showing in the last sentence of your summaries.

Brainstorm. Come up with as many summaries as you can. Write them down. Once you have lots of summaries, change them and move obstacles around as you see fit. Once this is done, you're on your way to writing a good story.

Remember, in writing, everything is subject to change. That's the bad part. You may want to change some of the characteristics of some of the characters to better fit your summary. I say that this is the bad part because you might change something that makes you rewrite your whole story. That's writing. Writing, Writing and Rewriting.