Kurt Connegut says that your should 'start [a story] as close to the end as possible'. How do you interpret this? What constitutes the end and the beginning?
Kurt Connegut says that your should 'start [a story] as close to the end as possible'. How do you interpret this? What constitutes the end and the beginning?
The protagonists journey and growth manifests from the first chapter.
What does the protagonist want? What drives him/her?
The outcome/ending will reveal whether the protagonist was successful, partially successful, or failed to achieve his/her ambition.
For example,
1) Beginning - the protagonists enemy defeats him.The protagonist swears to defeat his enemy.
2) Storyline and Plot - How the protagonists intends to get revenge. What twists prevent the protagonist from gaining revenge. How the protagonist succeeds against adversity and gets to confront his enemy.
3) End - Protagonist defeats his enemy.
What happens in the beginning of a novel is vital to the outcome.
Tess is raped by Alec D'urberville in the beginning of Hardy's classic tragedy. At the end Tess kills Alec D'urberville.
Jane Eyre meets Edward Rochester early in the novel, and falls in love with him.
She leaves his employment because he is already married.
Jane returns at the end to care for him after Rochester's wife died in a fire, and he was badly burned trying to save her life.
I think you should take Frank Sinatra's advice when he sang "I did it my way" you should write the way it comes to you, I have never started writing a story knowing the end and they have all worked. but again that's me, that's why I think you should do it your way.
Regards Paul.