Structuring the Commercial Short Story:
Seven Elements
Beginning
1. identify the protagonist
2. clarify the setting
3. define the protagonist's problem
Middle
4. the protagonist's first attempt to solve the problem; it fails
5. the second attempt; it fails
6. the third attempt; this attempt either succeeds or results in death
End
7. verification
Commercial fiction: a story that people buy and hence makes money for author and publisher. This definition says nothing about quality. Charles Dickens, George Elliott, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Louis L'Amour, and Ian Fleming all wrote commercial fiction. Most commercial fiction is escape reading, something many readers dismiss as junk. A small percent of commercial fiction is interpretative, and some commercial fiction rises to art.
It is possible to write interpretative fiction and even literary art using the above seven-point structure for a story. Most writers who use the structure, however, write escape fiction. The structure is not a magic formula. Even for escape fiction, the structure often does not work. An experienced writer will discard the structure when it restricts and limits writing a good story.
For a piece of literary art that uses this 7-element structure, read Faulkner's "An Odor of Verbena."
To see an example of a story written to fit these seven elements, read
"Paper Boats" then examine the outline below:
Beginning
1. protagonist: Cheryl Glass
2. setting: Austin, Texas, esp the area around Town Lake
3. problem: now that she has the technical power to do so, should she bring her father (who abused her when she was a child) back from death?
Middle
4. first attempt to solve the problem:
deciding to have his bio-recording reinstalled (failure: her realization that he will come back with greater potential for being abusive)
5. second attempt: deciding to have his bio-recording edited during installation (failure: his personality would be changed until he isn't recognizable as her father)
6. third attempt: she destroys the recording and "kills" her father (she accepts his death; she expresses her love and anger)
End
7. verification--any one of the following would suffice: (1) Cole says heat and water will destroy the recording; (2) Cheryl watches the suitcase sink, hears it sizzle as it goes down and hence knows her father is finally gone; (3) she sees the smoke arise from the paper boat, and the reader connects this with the smoke from the Japanese prayers going to the gods, or being effective.
