4.1: Classroom Lecture and Activity

Uncovering More About Fiction

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Conflict and Endings

Now that you have thought about a character, it time to write the story. One of the best ways to practice conciseness or getting to the heart of the matter is to practice writing a short story. Here are a few things you need to know to help you in your writing journey.

First and foremost, short stories aren’t short novels. If you have read mostly novels up to this point, you’ll notice that short stories feel different. What you may be noticing is that most times you are dropped straight into the rising action of the story. The character has already done or experienced somethings, and you are taken into the scene where they have begun to figure something out, acceptance or denial is right around the corner, the antagonist may have already made their first move, if indeed it is story with a human versus human type of conflict. This move is meant to draw the reader in, but it is also meant to to help shape the pacing of the story right from the beginning. The short story captures a complete full experience of the character.

Conflict:

When you sit down to write your short story always keep the conflict front and center. It is important the characters in the story be doing something. Conflict doesn’t have to be an argument. It simply means there is a tension, an indecision, or an element that might prevent the main character from their goal. This is a very broad explanation, but that is because there are so many different types of stories. A good way to write conflict is by being able to identify it in the stories you read. Every time you identify the different ways in which conflict can appear in a story, you are adding information to your writer’s toolbox.

While conflict is essential to any story, but may look different in some short stories. Short stories that take on a more of a pondering nature may seem like there is no conflict at all, but usually, this is the character trying to figure something out. It could be how they feel about themselves, someone else, the state of society or even lunch. A good example of this is Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “The Boundary: published in the January 28th 2018 issue of the New Yorker. in this story the main character questions how the her family lives compared to the visitors that come. On the surface, it may seem like the story is not about anything, but that absolutely not the case.

Endings:

Depending on the conflict and structure of your story, the ending of the story may present itself differently. There are many ways to end a story. As you dive deeper into fiction writing, you will learn all of these ways. For now, here are just a few ways that a story might end:

Feeling: Many endings are defined by the emotions they evoke in the characters and even the readers. For example, you might have heard of happy endings, sad endings or gut-wrenching endings. Obviously, there are a lot of emotions to attach to the end of the story. However, when crafting story, the writer needs to think about more than just the emotion. They need to think about what causes that emotion. This connects back to the conflict. Has it been resolved or unresolved by the end of the story?

Resolved: If the conflict has been resolved, this could leave the main character satisfied. However, there are plenty of endings that get resolved but it doesn’t mean there was a ‘happy’ ending. In some stories it just means that main character doesn’t die, or the main character gets some closure, or it could even mean some type of begrudgingly reconciliation.

Unresolved: Under this category, there could be a cliffhanger, which for short stories could be pretty upsetting, but for novels would indicate a second book. An unresolved ending leaves the main character dissatisfied. One way to think of this type of ending is where the main character ‘doesn’t win’. For instance, the main character’s goal through out the whole story is to reunite with a long lost sister, but at the end, the main character finds out the sister absolutely refuses to reconnect. These stories can feel like the character went on a journey for no reason, but sometimes a story leaves the reader thinking, and that is what makes it successful albeit frustrating.

The best way to get a grasp on the short story is to read as many of them by different authors. Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you read these stories from a writer’s perspective:

• Do I know enough about the main character to care about what happens to them?
• What is the conflict? Is the conflict strong enough in the story? If not, does the story still work? How did it achieve being published?
• What is resolved? Does the ending feel incomplete, and is this on purpose?
• What do you think the story was trying to achieve?

Activity By Ukaisha Al-Amin \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Using the questions above, choose a short story from the list and read it. Then answer using the preceding questions. In groups, based on the stories you chose, discuss your answers to the questions.

Short Stories:

“Pita Delicious” By ZZ Packer (Log into City Colleges of Chicago database. Choose the Ebscohost ebook Community College Collection database. Choose All About Skin:Short Fiction by Women of Color by Jina ortiz and Michelle Spencer. Find the story in the table of contents)

“Sirens” by Joshunda Sanders (Log into City Colleges of Chicago database. Choose the Ebscohost ebook Community College Collection database. Choose All About Skin:Short Fiction by Women of Color by Jina ortiz and Michelle Spencer. Find the story in the table of contents)

“Bartleby” By Herman Melville (Log into City Colleges of Chicago database. Choose the Ebscohost ebook Community College Collection database. Choose Bartleby, the Scrivener and Other Piazza Tales by Herman Melville Find the story in the table of contents)

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