Contracts and Fingerposts

We're told right from the beginning that our stories need a beginning, a middle and an end. Our tales need 'fingerposts', too, so that our readers can hook into what our tale is telling them and how.

Orson Scott Card (1988:54):

"Whenever you tell a story, you make an implicit contract with the reader. Within the first few paragraphs or pages you tell the reader implicitly what kind of story this is going to be; the reader then knows what to expect, and holds the thread of that structure throughout the tale"

Orson Scott Card (1988:55):

"The rule of thumb is this: Readers will expect a story to end when the first major source of structural tension is resolved. If the story begins as an idea story, the reader expects it to end when the idea is discovered, the plan unfolded. If the story begins as a milieu story, readers will gladly follow any number of story lines of every type, letting them be resolved here and there as needed, continuing to read in porder to discover more of the milieu. A story that begins with a character in an intollerable situation will not feel finished until the character is fully content or finally resigned. A story that begins with an unbalanced world will not end until the world is balanced, purified, reordered, healed--or utterly destroyed beyond hope or restoration."

See also: MICE: Milieu, Idea, Character and Event

Bibliography

Card, O.S., (1988), 'Characters and Viewpoint', Ohio: Writer's Digest Books