22. Have a Beginning, Middle and End

“People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.” –Steven Spielberg

This is the logical extension of the idea that your stories should have definitive endings. We’ll eventually get to the three-act play and how that structure can improve your storytelling, but for now it’s enough to look at this quote from Steven Spielberg.

Unfortunately the video I want to show you has had its embedding disabled (that’s the third time this story) but you can and should watch it here. What I did manage to find was this clip from the video game Donkey Kong, as you can see it’s driven by the classic storytelling structure:

1.Identify problem and introduce hero (beginning).
2.Send hero out into the world, allow tension to rise (middle).
3.Resolve tension and draw a conclusion (ending).

Who would have thought that crazy ape had so many lessons to teach.

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